Malchus smiled slyly: "That is very true, my lord, and there is not in all Poland a magnate who can boast of more valuable documents than those in the bag attached to your lordship's leather-belt. When your lordship left them with me and charged me to care for them as for the apple of my eye, I knew they must be of great importance. So I have kept them safely concealed all these years. I don't know what the papers contain as I can read only what I write with my own hand. I don't understand Latin, or Greek; and I don't know how to read from left to right; consequently your lordship may believe me when I say I have not read the papers. Your lordship will find everything in the bag just as when it was placed in my hands for safe keeping."
I opened the bag, and, on examining the documents, found to my surprise and delight that they were just what I wanted. There was a patent of nobility, with a Turk's head in the crest—(concerning the Turk's head I might justly have appropriated it for my own escutcheon, only I had not come into possession of it on the battlefield!) There was also an academic certificate, from the Rector of Sarbonne, with the baccalaureate degree; also certificates of baptism and confirmation, signed by the bishop of Cracow; a testimonial of valor from the imperial commander-in-chief, Montecucculi; and a pardon from the patriarch of Jerusalem—such as are bestowed on pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre—all of which were the property of Zdenko Kochanovszki—who I was!
Malchus continued to smile slyly while I was examining the documents, and when I had read the last one he said:
"Doesn't your lordship think these handsome clothes are worth one hundred ducats?"
I gave him a hearty slap on the back; then counted out a "round hundred ducats." The clothes were not worth one-tenth that sum, but I was quite satisfied with my purchase.
I was now fully equipped for my entrance to the ducal palace; as Zdenko Kochanovszki I might without hesitation seek admittance anywhere.
He to whom the name rightly belonged had disappeared eight years before, and had most likely lost his life in the Holy Land, or in the battle with the infidels in Hungary. Whoever still remembered the beardless youth, would not wonder at the great change eight years of hardship and danger had made in him; and would expect to find the man a different looking person from the boy. As for my looks—I doubt if my own mother would have recognized me.
The duke was an old man, of a girth so enormous that he was obliged to wear a broad surcingle as support to his rotund paunch. His hair and beard were gray on the right side, but black on the left, which gave him a very peculiar appearance.
When I presented myself before him, he seized both my hands, and exclaimed:
"What! Zdenko Kochanovszki back again? The devil! What a man you are grown! Do you remember what we did at parting?"