"You worthless gallows-dogs, which of you would like to be set free at any price?"
"I would! I would!" cried a whole lot of them.
"Bread is going to be dear, so we cannot waste it on the like of you, so Master Ladislaus Székely has determined that whoever of you would like to become Turks are to be handed over to our gracious master, Ajas Pasha, who will make some of you Janissaries, and send the rest to the isle of Samos; so whoever will be a Turk, let him speak."
Everyone of them wanted to be a Turk.
"Very well, you rascals, just attend to me! I must tell you what to say when you stand before the Pasha, for if you answer foolishly you will be bastinadoed. First of all he will ask you: 'Are you Master Ladislaus Székely's men?' You will answer: 'Yes, we are!' Then he will ask you: 'Were you at Élesd on a certain day?' And you must admit that you were. Finally, he will ask you if you met Feriz Beg there? You will admit everything, and then he will instantly release you from servitude. Do you understand?"
"Yes, yes!" roared the incendiaries; and dancing in their fetters they followed the provost-marshal upstairs, who turned his extraordinary small head back from time to time to smile at them, at the same time twisting the ends of his poor thin moustache with an air of crafty self-satisfaction.
One day two letters reached Grosswardein from Stambul. One of these letters was from Kucsuk Pasha to his son, the other was from the Sultan to Ajas Pasha.
The letter to Feriz Beg was as follows:
"My Son,—Let thy heart rejoice: Kiuprile and Maurocordato have not been wasting their time. The Grand Vizier is very wrath with the Prince and his Court. The death of the four-and-twenty Spahis is an affair of even greater importance in Stambul just now than the capture of Candia. I fancy we shall very soon get what we want."