On his arrival he found Feriz Beg with the Pasha, and at once told his story, exaggerating the details to the uttermost.
"What did I tell thee?" said Feriz to the Pasha; "didn't I say they would send back the message that they had never quitted the town. I am sorry for your honour's hundred ducats."
At these words Ajas Pasha kicked over his chibouk and his saucer of sherbet, and in a hoarse, scarce intelligible voice, said to the aga:
"Be off this instant to Stambul as fast as thou canst. Tell the Grand Vizier what has happened, and say to him that if he does not give me the amplest satisfaction, I myself will go against these unbelieving devourers of unruminating beasts who have dared to send me such a message, and will destroy them, together with their strongholds; or else I will cast my sword to the ground, and tie a girdle round my loins, and go away and join the brotherhood of Iskender! Say that, and forget it not!"
Very soon one firman after another reached the Prince from Stambul, each one of which, with steadily rising wrath, demanded the extradition of the assassins of the Spahis. The Prince made inquiries and searched for them everywhere, but nobody could be found to take upon his shoulders this uncommitted deed of heroism.
The messages from the Porte assumed a more and more furious tone every day. In itself the death of four-and-twenty Spahis was no very serious stumbling-block, but what more than anything lashed the Turkish generals into a fury was the persistent refusal of the Prince to acknowledge the offence. Yet with the best will in the world he was unable to do anything else, for not a single person on whom suspicion might fall could he find throughout the Principality.
In those days the dungeons of Klausenburg were well filled with condemned robbers; in the past year alone no fewer than thirty incendiaries had been discovered who had resolved to fire all Transylvania.
One day the noble Martin Pók, the provost-marshal of the place, appeared before the robbers, and attracted the attention of the most evil-disposed of these cut-throats and incendiaries by shouting at them: