The Slaves of the Padishah Part 8

The robber chief reflected.

"Well, as it is your honours' own business I hope your honours won't say that I tax you too highly. Let us look at the job in this way: suppose I came to the attack with seventeen companies, and I charge one thousand thalers for each company. Let us say each company consists of one thousand men, that will be a thaler per head--and what is that, 'twill barely pay for their keep. Thus the whole round sum will come to seventeen thousand thalers."

"That won't do at all, Master Kokenyesdi. 'Twere a shame to fatigue so many gallant fellows for nothing, but suppose you bring with you only a hundred men and the rest remain comfortably at home? In that case you shall receive from us seventeen hundred florins in hard cash."

"Pooh!" snapped the robber, "what does your honour take me for, eh? Do you suppose you are dealing with a gipsy chief or a Wallachian bandit, who are paid in pence? Why, I wouldn't saddle my horse for such a trifle, I had rather sleep the whole time away."

"But you have so much treasure besides," observed Raining navely.

"But we may not break into it," rejoined the robber angrily.

"Why not?"

"Because we have agreed not to make use of till it has mounted up to a million florins."

"And what will you do with it then?"

"We shall then buy a vacant kingdom from the Tartar king, where the pasturage is good, and thither we will go with our men and set up an empire of our own. We will buy enough pretty women from the Turks for us all, and be our own masters."

Topay smiled.

"Well," said he, "this seventeen hundred florins of ours will at any rate purchase one of the counties in this kingdom of yours." He was greatly amused that Raining should take the robber's yarn so seriously, and he pushed the German gentleman aside. "Mr. Kokenyesdi," said he, "you have nothing to do with this worthy man; he is come with us only to see the fun, but it is we who pay the money, and I think we understand each other pretty well."

"Why didn't you tell me so sooner?" said the robber sulkily, "then I shouldn't have wasted so many words. With which of you am I to bargain?"

"With this young gentleman here," said Topay. "Ladislaus Rakoczy. I suppose you know him by report?"

"Know him? I should think I did. Haven't I carried him in my arms when he was little? If it hadn't been so dark I should have recognised him at once. Well, as it is he, I don't mind doing him a good turn. I certainly wouldn't have taken a florin less from anyone else. I'll take from _him_ the offer of seventeen hundred thalers."

"Seventeen hundred florins, _I_ said."

"I tell your honour, you said thalers--thalers was what _I_ heard, and I won't undertake the job for less; may my hand and leg wither if I move a step for less."

"Oh, I'll give him his thalers," said Rakoczy, interrupting the dispute; whereupon the robber seized the youth's hand and shook it joyfully.

"Didn't I know that your honour was the finest fellow of the three?"

said the robber. "If, therefore, you will send these few trumpery thalers a week hence to the house of the worthy man who guided you hither, I will be at Grosswardein a week later with my seventeen hundred fellows."

"But, suppose we pay you in advance, and you don't turn up?" said Raining anxiously.

The robber looked at the quartermaster proudly.

"Do you take me for a common swindler?" said he. Then he turned with a movement of confiding expansion to the other gentlemen.

"We understand each other better," he remarked. "Your honours may depend upon me. G.o.d be with you."

With that he turned his horse and galloped off into the darkness. The three gentlemen were conducted back to Ladany.

"Marvellous fellow, this Kokenyesdi," said Raining, who had scarce recovered yet from his astonishment.

"You mustn't believe all the yarns he chooses to tell you," said Topay.

"What!" inquired Raining. "Had he then no communications with the French and English Courts?"

"No more than his grandmother."

"Then how about those treasures of which he spoke?"

"He himself has never seen them, and he only talked about them to give you a higher opinion of him."

"And his castle in the puszta, and his seventeen companies of freebooters?"

"He invented them entirely for your honour's edification. The freebooter is no fool, he lives in no castle in the puszta, but in a simple village as modest Mr. Kokenyesdi, and his seventeen companies scarcely amount to more than seventeen hundred men."

"Then why did he consent so easily to take only seventeen hundred thalers?"

"Because he does not mean to give his lads a single farthing of it."

Raining shook his head, and grumbled to himself all the way home.

In a week's time they sent to Kokenyesdi the stipulated money. Raining, moreover, fearing lest the fellow might forget the fixed time, did not hesitate to go personally to Vasarhely, to seek him at his own door.

There stood Master Kokenyesdi in his thres.h.i.+ng-floor, picking his teeth with a straw.

"Good-day," said the quartermaster.

"If it's good, eat it," murmured Kokenyesdi to himself.

"Don't you know me?"

"Blast me if I do."

"Then don't you remember what you promised at the Baratfa inn?"

"I don't know where the Baratfa inn is."

"Then haven't you received the seventeen hundred thalers?"

"What should I receive seventeen hundred thalers for?"

"Don't joke, the appointed time has come."

"What appointed time?"

"What appointed time? And you who have to be at Grosswardein with seventeen hundred men!"

"Seventeen oxen and seventeen herdsmen on their backs, I suppose you mean."