"As for thee," said the Aga to Clement, who was anxious to be off at any price, "take off thy boots as soon as thou gettest home, and if ever I meet thee with them on again, thou shalt receive from me five hundred strokes on the soles of thy feet, which thou wilt have cause to recollect even on thy wedding-day."
Clement the Clerk said "Yes" to everything, rejoiced that he had got off at last, and trotted off towards Abrudbánya. His Tartar escort rode faithfully by his side.
From time to time the Patrol-officer cast a sidelong glance at his companion, only quickly to avert his eyes again, for as the Tartar squinted horribly, Clement could never exactly make out which way he was looking. Clement was thinking all the while how easily he would give the Tartar the slip, smiled to himself at the thought, winked with both eyes, and nodded his head with a self-satisfied air.
"Mr. Patrol-officer, don't fancy you will circumvent me as you go your rounds!" exclaimed the Tartar suddenly, in the purest Hungarian, as if he could read Clement's thought from his face.
Clement was so aghast that he almost fell from his horse. How the deuce could the fellow snap up his very thoughts, and speak Hungarian despite his Tartardom?
"Don't bother your head about me any more," continued the Turk calmly. "I am an Hungarian renegade who was once in the service of Emerich Balassa. I had a hand in the capture and poisoning of Corsar Beg, and when the Hungarians began to persecute me on that account, I turned Turk. If the Prophet befriend me, I may yet rise to be Kapudan Pasha. Pray don't imagine you can bamboozle a wily old fox like me."
Clement, completely disconcerted, could only scratch his head, proceeded with his escort from village to village, and after accomplishing his regular official business, proclaimed the fresh imposition of a farthing per head, which the people everywhere received most favourably, in many cases even paying it down at once to his Tartar comrade.
But no one knew anything about the panther. Indeed, but for the respect inspired by his gallooned green boots, the Patrol-officer would have been laughed out of countenance.
Only one little Wallachian village up in the mountains, called Marisel, was yet to be visited, and beyond that place began the domains of Baron Banfi, where the jurisdiction of the Patrol-officer terminated.
Thither also the renegade followed him.