"They will never tell you where the shoe pinches," he said, "whatever bait you offer; they know too well what the end for them would be. You would listen to their grievance and then retail it to the Emperor. He would send to the town council to know why his subjects' wrongs were not redressed? Thereupon the complainants would be arrested, get twenty strokes with the lash, and the Kaiser would be told the grievances of his subjects were amended. Oh, our people know better than to complain! At no price would they confess why their houses are yet unfinished, or how much of the compensation is still owing."
"Surely their wrongs cry aloud to Heaven," said Ráby indignantly. "I only wish I could get documentary evidence of it!"
"Well, they won't give it to you, but if you really wish it, I could get you many such testimonies by to-morrow, and bring them to your house."
"And are you not afraid of the authorities being angry with you?"
"I? What does their anger matter to me, I don't need them, but they can't do without me. I've got them too much in my power. Listen, for you are an honest man, to no other would I venture to say it. One day they summoned me to bring my masons' tools to the Town Hall. No sooner had I arrived, than they bid me go to the secret passage with the notary, which only he and I know of; the aperture was made during the Turkish rule, and except the notary and the Rascian 'pope,' no one knows the whereabouts. I had to wall up the opening."
"So you know the entrance to the room which contains the secret treasure?"
"Yes, indeed, I know it; I have so managed it that no one save the notary shall ever be able to find it again."
"And would you be willing to take me to it?" Ráby ventured to ask.
"No, for they have bound me by a terrible oath never, except at the bidding of the notary, to break open the walled-up passage. What I have sworn, I hold sacred, but this much will I say, that you can still manage to get there."
"Through the 'pope' who knows the other entrance, eh?"