The Wallachian was visibly affected by this speech, but he sought to hide his concern, and cried out, in a harsh tone: "If you are trifling with me, Adorjan, you'll find you have trifled with your own life. If you have told me a lie, God in heaven shall not save you."
"But as I have not told you a lie, God in heaven will save me, and I beg you to tell me where I may lie down and sleep, for I am very tired."
"Shut him up in the bell-tower," commanded the Wallachian.
"Good!" cried Manasseh, with a laugh. "At least I shall be able to ring you up early in the morning."
"Inasmuch as you have offered us a supply of brandy and eighteen oxen," were the leader's parting words, "we will have another interview in the morning."
"Sixteen was the number," Manasseh corrected him.
A bed of hay under the bell was furnished the captive, and he was locked up for the night, after which the company he had left held a council of war.
Complying with his brother's instructions, Aaron broke up his quarters at Balyika Cave early the next morning, and, descending with Blanka to the bed of the stream, led her up the valley to Porlik Grotto, one of nature's wonders known to few and seldom visited. From the top of its high-arched entrance hung cornel-bushes with brown leaves and red berries, while luxuriant wild grape-vines, with pendant clusters of ripe fruit, climbed upward from below to meet them, the whole thus forming an almost perfect screen before the opening. Through the screen, however, an observant eye caught the gleam of the stalactites within; the sun's rays, piercing the foliage, lighted them up like so many sparkling chandeliers. But our two travellers' thoughts were not on the beauties of the place.
"If Manasseh should only come out now to meet us!" they both exclaimed at once.
"There!" cried Aaron, "we both wished the same thing, and we have a sort of superstition here that a wish so uttered by two at the same time is bound to be fulfilled."
"Look there," said Aaron, with forced cheerfulness, pointing out the wonders of the grotto; "see how the limestone pillars grow together from above and below, till they meet and make one solid column." And all the while he was thinking: "What if Manasseh should come back, not alone, but with our two brothers! Yet is it right to ask so much of fate? Will not Heaven be angry with me for cherishing such a wish? Ah, let Manasseh himself come, even if he must come alone and with evil tidings!"