"I know, I know, Master Kökényesdi, but there will be booty here too, and lots of it."
"What is booty to me? If I choose to do so, I could bathe in gold and sleep on pearls."
"Have you really as much treasure as all that?" inquired Raining with some curiosity.
"Ah," said Kökényesdi, "you ought to see the storehouse in the Szilicza cavern, where gold and silver are filled up as high as haystacks. There, too, are the treasures dug up from the sands of the sea, nothing but precious stones, diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, and real pearls. I, myself, do not know how many sackfuls."
"And cannot you be robbed of them?"
"Impossible; the entrance is so well concealed that no man living can find it. I myself can never tell whether I am near it; the shifting sand has so well covered it. Only one living animal can find it when it is wanted, and that is my horse. And he will never betray it, for if anyone but myself mounts him, not a step farther will he go."
"And how did you come into possession of these enormous treasures?" asked Raining with astonishment.
"God gave them to me," said the horse-dealer, raising his voice and his eyebrows at the same time.
"Very edifying, no doubt, my friend," said Topay; "but tell me now, briefly, for how much will you join us against the Turks of Grosswardein?—not counting the booty, which of course will be pretty considerable."
"Well—that is not so easily said. Of course I shall have to collect together my twelve companies, and it will cost something to hold them together and give them what they want and pay them."