Told by the death's head

by Mór Jókai

I laughed heartily at his amusing description of the gun's behavior; whereupon he said soberly:

"Oh, you may laugh, but it was no laughing matter I can tell you! I made a second attempt. I tied a rope around the rascal's neck to prevent him from kicking again, and fastened the ends securely to two stout pegs driven into the ground. 'There, sir,' I said, 'now kick if you want to!' I lighted the fuse—the demon didn't kick this time; instead he rushed backward dragging both pegs with him; broke the right leg of one of the men, the left of another, and both legs of the third; and the ball bored itself into the corner over there. Now let us see if you can do any better."

"Oh, you stupid bear!" I exclaimed, unable to restrain my mirth, "you may thank your stars that the rusty old gun didn't burst into flinders and kill every one of you!—as you deserved! The first thing to be done with the culverin is to clean and polish it until it shines like a mirror. Then—who ever heard of laying a cannon on the ground to fire it off?—it must have a sort of platform on wheels so it can be moved about."

The leader immediately gave orders to the smith and the wagon-maker of the band to obey my instructions and complete as quickly as possible the sort of gun-carriage I should describe to them, and I set about at once to clean and scour the old culverin which, with the accumulated rust of years, was no light task.

There was no time to lose, for the Tartars, with their Hungarian captives, having vacated Poland, the Polish magnates returned to their castles, and prepared to carry out the plans for punishing the insolent haidemaken, which had been interrupted by the war. Those members of the band who were sent on various errands into the regions adjacent to the Prsjaka Gorge, brought back, instead of booty, bloody heads, and the startling news that the roads leading to the Gorge were filled with armed troopers.

The two despoiled magnates had combined their forces, and were prepared for a regular siege of the plundering haidemaken.

The latter, however, merely laughed at the warlike preparations. They were not afraid of a siege! Nyedzviedz, on learning of the approach of the beleaguerers, instead of curtailing our rations, doubled them, mystifying all of us by the seemingly illimitable supplies in the provision chamber. We received, every day, double rations of fresh goats' meat and mutton, and yet there was not in any of the caves even the sign of a living animal.

Meanwhile the beleaguerers advanced steadily.

There was a stratagem the robbers had frequently resorted to in order to vanquish a beleaguering foe. They opened an underground sluice through which the water of the salt lake in the bottom of the abyss would rush into the defile and drown the enemy. But Prince Siniarsky's troopers had become familiar with this trick; and one morning, when we awoke, we found that a stone wall had been built across the gorge while we slept. An arched opening in the center of the base would give egress to all the water we might choose to let out of the lake.

This was bad enough, but worse came later.