First of all the Patrol-officer took the road to Abrudbánya. Formerly, while he still had a servant, Clement used to leave all the pioneering to him; but now he was forced to find his way from village to village himself, with the occasional assistance of the country magistrates.
He had just quitted the narrow mountain path, and was ambling slowly over a dilapidated bridge, which spanned a brawling stream, when he perceived in the thicket a group of dirty-looking men crouching over a large fire. At first he took them for gipsies, but, approaching nearer, was horrified to discover that they were Tartars, who had dismounted from their horses, and were sitting round an ox which they had roasted whole.
To turn back was scarcely advisable; but the road he was following went straight past the diners. Clement was in a fix; but he determined at last to put a bold face on the matter, so he trotted by the gaping group with affected nonchalance, pretending to be intent all the while on calculating the exact number of acorns on the wayside oaks, and merely raised his hat to the Tartars with a brief "Salem aleikum!" when he came close up to them, as if he only then perceived them for the first time, passing quickly on without looking once behind him.
So far all was well, but at that very moment two of the Tartars sprang up from the fire and called to the rider to stop. Clement, perceiving that they were both unarmed, argued therefrom that they had no murderous designs upon him, and therefore halted and awaited them.
No sooner had the two dog-headed figures come up to him, one on each side, than they caught hold of his legs and displayed no less an intention than to rob him of his beautiful boots.
"Would you? ye sons of Belial!" cried Clement, beside himself with rage, and grasping the hilt of his sword he tried to pull it from its leather sheath, in order to cut off the ears of his assailants forthwith. But the good blade, which had not quitted its sheath for ten years, had grown so rusty that Clement, despite all his endeavours, could not pluck it forth, and in the meantime the two Tartars pulled the wriggling rider hither and thither by the legs, naturally without succeeding in loosening the tight-fitting boots in the least. The Tartars reviled Clement, and Clement reviled the Tartars: their language was perfectly horrible.
The noise brought the Aga to the spot—an ourang-outang-like object whose mahogany features were framed by a white beard—and he asked in a hoarse whisper what was the matter.
Clement the Clerk at once drew his credentials from the pocket of his mente, and shook it in the Aga's face—he was too wrathful to speak—while the Tartars, pointing with frantic gestures at the boots, jabbered something to the Aga.
"Who art thou, O bow-legged unbeliever!" asked the Aga, "that thou dost presume to wear on thy lowest extremities, on thy mud-wading feet, forsooth! the sacred colour of the Prophet, that radiant green which the faithful may only behold on the arches of their mosques and on the turban of the Padishah? Thou shalt be burned alive, thou godless Giaour!"