clumsier. He believed that, because of Abidaga, he would one day lose not only his job and his position, but also his head. Therefore he lived in a state of permanent agitation and passed from dull discouragement to a feverish and cruel zeal. When now, pale and stiff, he stood before Abidaga, the latter spoke to him in a voice hoarse with anger.
'Listen, blockhead, you are clever with these sons of sows, you know their language and all their monkey-tricks. Yet for all that you are incapable of finding out what scab it is who has dared to spoil the Vezira work. That is because you are a scab yourself, the same as they are, and the only worse scab is whoever made you leader and a chief and has found nobody to reward you as you deserve. So I will do so, since there is no other. Know that I will put you under the earth so that you will not throw as much shadow as even the tiniest blade of grass. If all damage to the works does not cease within three days, if you do not catch whoever is doing this and do not put an end to all these silly stories about vilas and about stopping the work, then I will put you living on a stake on the highest part of the staging, that all may see you and take fright and get some sense into their heads. I swear this by my life and my faith, which I do not swear by lightly. Today is Thursday. You have till Sunday. Now go to the devil who sent you to me. Go! March!'
Even without this oath the man from Plevlje would have believed Abidaga's threat, for even in his dreams he used to shudder at his words and at his glance. Now he went out in one of his fits of panic-stricken terror and at once set desperately to work. He summoned his own men and, passing suddenly from dull torpor to mad rage, he began to curse them. 'Blind good-for-nothings!' raged the man from Plevlje, as if he were already placed alive upon the stake and yelling in the face of each of the guards. 'Is it thus that you keep watch and look after the Sultan's interests? You are quick and lively enough when you go to the cooking pots, but when you are on duty your legs are leaden and your wits are dull. My face burns because of you. But you will do no more slacking in my employ. I will massacre all of you; not a single one of you will keep his head on his shoulders if in two days this business does not end and if you do not seize and kill these bastards. You have still two days to live. I swear it by my faith and the Koran!'
He went on shouting in this way for a long time. Then, not knowing what else to say to them or with what more to threaten them, he spat at them one by one. But when he had played himself out and freed himself from the pressure of his fear (which had taken the form of rage) he set to work at once with desperate energy. He spent the night cruising up and down the banks with his men. At one time during the night it seemed to them that something was knocking at that part of the staging which was farthest out in the river and they rushed thither. They heard a plank crack and a stone fall into the river, but when they got to the spot they indeed found some broken scaffolding and a part of the masonry torn away but no trace of the miscreants. Faced with that ghostly emptiness the guards shivered from superstitious fright and from the darkness and moisture of the night. They called to one another, peered into the blackness, waved lighted torches, but all in vain. The damage had been done again, and they who had done it had not been caught and killed, as though in very truth they were invisible.
The next night the man from Plevlje arranged his ambush better. He sent some of his men over to the farther bank also and when night fell he hid guards in the scaffolding right out to the end and he himself with two others sat in a boat which he had drawn unnoticed in the darkness to the left bank. Thence in a few strokes they could be at one of the two piers on which construction had begun. In this way he could fall on the miscreants
'Listen, blockhead, you are clever with these sons of sows, you know their language and all their monkey-tricks. Yet for all that you are incapable of finding out what scab it is who has dared to spoil the Vezira work. That is because you are a scab yourself, the same as they are, and the only worse scab is whoever made you leader and a chief and has found nobody to reward you as you deserve. So I will do so, since there is no other. Know that I will put you under the earth so that you will not throw as much shadow as even the tiniest blade of grass. If all damage to the works does not cease within three days, if you do not catch whoever is doing this and do not put an end to all these silly stories about vilas and about stopping the work, then I will put you living on a stake on the highest part of the staging, that all may see you and take fright and get some sense into their heads. I swear this by my life and my faith, which I do not swear by lightly. Today is Thursday. You have till Sunday. Now go to the devil who sent you to me. Go! March!'
Even without this oath the man from Plevlje would have believed Abidaga's threat, for even in his dreams he used to shudder at his words and at his glance. Now he went out in one of his fits of panic-stricken terror and at once set desperately to work. He summoned his own men and, passing suddenly from dull torpor to mad rage, he began to curse them. 'Blind good-for-nothings!' raged the man from Plevlje, as if he were already placed alive upon the stake and yelling in the face of each of the guards. 'Is it thus that you keep watch and look after the Sultan's interests? You are quick and lively enough when you go to the cooking pots, but when you are on duty your legs are leaden and your wits are dull. My face burns because of you. But you will do no more slacking in my employ. I will massacre all of you; not a single one of you will keep his head on his shoulders if in two days this business does not end and if you do not seize and kill these bastards. You have still two days to live. I swear it by my faith and the Koran!'
He went on shouting in this way for a long time. Then, not knowing what else to say to them or with what more to threaten them, he spat at them one by one. But when he had played himself out and freed himself from the pressure of his fear (which had taken the form of rage) he set to work at once with desperate energy. He spent the night cruising up and down the banks with his men. At one time during the night it seemed to them that something was knocking at that part of the staging which was farthest out in the river and they rushed thither. They heard a plank crack and a stone fall into the river, but when they got to the spot they indeed found some broken scaffolding and a part of the masonry torn away but no trace of the miscreants. Faced with that ghostly emptiness the guards shivered from superstitious fright and from the darkness and moisture of the night. They called to one another, peered into the blackness, waved lighted torches, but all in vain. The damage had been done again, and they who had done it had not been caught and killed, as though in very truth they were invisible.
The next night the man from Plevlje arranged his ambush better. He sent some of his men over to the farther bank also and when night fell he hid guards in the scaffolding right out to the end and he himself with two others sat in a boat which he had drawn unnoticed in the darkness to the left bank. Thence in a few strokes they could be at one of the two piers on which construction had begun. In this way he could fall on the miscreants
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