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What do you say?" But this proposition was anything but satisfactory to Simplex; not at any price would he hear of having his leg broken. "Come, come, lad!" cried Hafran, soothingly. "Don't be scared at such a trifle! A small fracture is an everyday occurrence.
"If Hafran were to catch you here, he and his merry men would play at bowls with your heads also," cried Simplex, without however either spoiling their good-humor or putting Michal in a better humor. In the evening twilight they came to the kopanitscha, where it was advisable to stay the night.
"What shall we do to prevent this fellow from betraying us?" cried he, and with that he took him by the collar and dragged him into the midst of them. "Strike him dead!" cried Bajus. Poor Simplex was greatly terrified; he began to piteously implore them not to do him any harm. "Silence, fellow!" cried Hafran; "a stout-hearted lad must not blubber.
But honor constrained him to cope personally with the second robber. Hafran was a frantic devil. He howled curses at the vihodar and overwhelmed him with insults. He told him to his face that he was a clumsy bungler. Then the old vihodar took his biretta from his head, doffed his coat, and set about accomplishing his masterpiece. The spectators had reason to be satisfied with both performers.
But this time Simplex did not take the matter as a joke, but sprang down from the barrel and fled to his protector, Janko, who, laughing with hideous glee, warded off with his sword the strokes which Hafran aimed at poor Simplex, all the while opening wide his yellow-stained jaws, which with their yellow fangs looked like the jaws of a lion.
Hafran, with the remainder, escaped by the skin of his teeth among the rocks, contriving to carry the whole of the spoil along with him, including the baggage of the young married people, who now had nothing left but what they were actually wearing.
He must stand firm even when the skin is being flayed from his body. Whine, and you are a dead man! We'll have no cowards here! Tremble if you dare!" "Strike him dead!" repeated Bajus, who was quite sober. "That'll never do," said Hafran. "We promised Janko that we would not kill the trumpeter. Besides, the fellow has played well and entertained us finely.
"Here in the mountains lurk Janko, Hafran, and Bajus, all three of them!" Michal asked who these three worthies were. The hostess told her they were three robber chiefs, each more terrible than the other. Hafran was cruel, Bajus a crafty rogue, but Janko a true hero who knew not fear. How the eyes of the woman sparkled when she mentioned Janko!
At this the wrath of Hafran against Simplex subsided, but he insisted on his leaping over his bare palash, and little as Simplex felt inclined to jump into the air just then, he had to do it; and the jest so took the fancy of the robbers that they one and all made the trumpeter jump over their swords likewise, till at last he became so tired that he threw himself prone on the ground and allowed himself to be beaten with the flats of their swords rather than jump over them any more.
They fell to cursing, and curses fell as thick as hailstones; but Janko left them no peace till Hafran had clipped him off five ells of green Turkish cloth for his hose, and Bajus had contributed just as much blue English cloth for his mantle. "But now he must give back the twelve dollars," remarked Bajus; "if his leg is not to be broken, he won't require money for mending it."
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