In all his dealings and adventures, whether as a merchant or guerrilla robber, it could never be discovered that he wronged in the least degree any subjects either of the Austrian empire or of the Venetian republic.
Meantime, two of his brothers married, and Adrian, the youngest, joined the Aiducos, a band of Morlachians, who had leagued themselves together for the express but hazardous purpose of preventing the Turks from crossing what they considered the frontier of their own country; in short to defend the wooded passes of the Black Mountains. Brave, rash, cunning, treacherous, and cruel, these Morlachians are a mixture of Hungarian, Greek, and Venetian blood, and their religion is a mere mass of superstition, partly Christian and partly Oriental.
The youth became the comrade of a Morlachian of the Greek church, and chose him for his probatim. This choice of friendship was always consecrated by a solemn ceremony at the altar of the nearest church, before which they knelt, each holding a lighted taper, whilst the priest sprinkled them with holy water and blessed the compact.
United thus, the probatims are bound for life to assist each other in war or peace, in danger or adversity, against all men whatsoever. The young mountaineer, however, made an unfortunate choice of a friend, for the probatim lured him to his own house, gave him drugged wine, and for a sum of money delivered him over, bound hand and foot, to the Pacha of Traunick, which is one of the six military pachalics into which Bosnia is divided.
After exposing the poor youth, who was a model of manly beauty, stripped and nude before the people, the pacha put him to death, amid the most exquisite tortures that the Oriental mind can suggest.
On hearing of this atrocity Socivisca was filled with rage and grief; but dissembling, he armed himself fully, and travelled without stopping until he reached the residence of the false probatim, whose father, a subtle old Morlachian, received him with an air of such grief and commiseration that he succeeded completely in making our mountaineer believe that the son was innocent of the crime laid to his charge by common rumour. The probatim next appeared, and acted his part so well, and shed so many tears, that Socivisca, confounded and convinced, gave him his hand, and consented to dine with the family. Then the young Morlachian said that, "in honour of such a guest, he would kill the best lamb in his flock;" and he went forth, but instead of going to his pastures, he rode on the spur twelve miles to have a conference with the mir-alai who commanded a body of Turkish horse on the bank of the Danube, and to inform him of where Socivisca was to be found, receiving from the officer a handsome sum for his second act of treachery.
The day wore on, and evening came without either the lamb or the probatim appearing. The wily host, who knew what was on the tapis, left nothing unsaid to satisfy the doubts of Socivisca, who, after night-fall, retired to his bedchamber, but not to repose; for strange and unbidden forebodings of coming evil tormented him. He dared not sleep, and he seemed to hear the voices of his wife and children mingling with the wind that shook the woods, and with the tread of coming enemies. His dogs, also—two of that Molossian breed which is unsurpassed for strength and ferocity—warned him by their snorts and restlessness of approaching danger,—for dogs at times are said to have strange instincts. At last, unable to endure the suspicions of peril and treachery, he sprang from bed, dressed himself in the dark, and sought for his arms, but they had been removed!
Musket, pistols, yataghan, and all were gone. He called on his host repeatedly, but without receiving an answer. Then, inspired by rage and the conviction that, like his brother, he had been snared to his doom, with a flint and tinder-box, he lighted a lamp, went forth to search the house, and soon appeared by the bedside of his host.
"Wretch!" he exclaimed as he seized him by the beard, "my arms—where are they? Speak ere it be too late for us both!"
Every moment expecting to hear his son return with a party of Turks, the Morlachian attempted to expostulate and to temporize; but Socivisca's eye fell on a small hatchet that lay near, and snatching it up, with a terrible malediction, he cleft the old traitor's skull to the chin.