[70] Scholar, student.
"Ah, indeed!" cried Hanzli, starting; "from Turkey?"
Hanzli had studied about two years, and knew something of geography. He could speak a little Hungarian, too, and Moravian, and German—just enough of each to prevent him being sold in any of them (had there been anybody to buy him), and he jumbled all these languages together so strangely, that it would have been difficult to say which one he meant to speak.
"Indeed, I cannot tell that; I do not know where they come from," replied the guest. "But this much is certain, that they all carry their heads under their arms, have eyes in their shoulders, and when they get hold of a man they snap his head off—kakk it goes!"
Hanzli raised his hands to his neck: he thought they had got him already.
"Just so," continued the guest, wiping his bearded chin with the sleeve of his coat. "Then all their generals eat two pounds of iron, every morning, and wash it down with a pint of vitriol."
"By all the saints!" exclaimed Hanzli, opening his mouth and eyes; "have you seen them yet, Andras-gazda?"
"I was at a place where they were talking about them: my godfather's niece has a bridegroom whose brother is serving with the green csako hussars—they have just quartered a troop in the district, and it was he who related it."
At the word 'hussar,' Vendel's attention began to be excited; it was the only word he understood in Hungarian, and it brought to his recollection so much poultry which had been carried off by the kites, and so many barrels of wine which the great bell[71] had paid, and still pays for to the present day.
[71] In Hungary, there is a proverb that unpaid debts will be collected by the great bell.