The band claimed no country as fatherland. Every wilderness, every savage ravine, from the Matra mountains to the Volga, offered them a secure retreat. They knew no laws save the commands of their leader, which were obeyed to the letter. None kept for himself his stealings; all booty was delivered into the hands of the leader, who divided it equally among the members of the band.
To him who, through special valor, deserved special reward, was given the prettiest woman rescued from the stake, the dungeon, the rack.
Where the haidemaken set up their camp, the Roman king, the prince of Transylvania, the Wallachian woiwode, the king of Poland, the hetman of the Cossacks, ruled only in name. The leader of the robbers alone was the law-giver; he alone levied taxes, exacted duties.
The trading caravans passing from Turkey to Warsaw, if they were wise, paid without a murmur the duty levied by the haidemaken, who would then give the traders safe conduct through all the dangerous forests, over suspicious mountain passes, so that not a hair of their heads would be hurt or a coin in their purses touched.
If, on the other hand, the caravan leaders were unwise, they would employ a military escort. Then, woe to them! The robbers would lure them into ambush, scatter the soldiers and plunder the caravan. He who resisted would be put to death.
There was constant war between certain nobles and the robbers. If the band, however, could be brought to seal a compact of peace with an individual or a community, it was kept sacred, inviolable, as we shall see later.
The haidemaken never entered a church unless they desired to secure the treasures it contained. Yet, they numbered several priests among their ranks. They were such as had been excommunicated for some transgression.
The band never set out on a predatory expedition without first celebrating mass, and receiving a blessing from one of these renegados. If the expedition proved to be successful, the priest would share the spoils, and dance with the robbers to celebrate the victory.
When one of the band took unto himself a wife, a renegado would perform the marriage ceremony. The haidemaken were as great sticklers for form as are the members of good society. To abduct a maid, or a woman, was not considered a crime; but for one member to run away with the wife of another was strictly prohibited.
They did not erect strongholds, for they knew where to hide in mountain caverns and in morasses, from which no human power could drive them.