left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ringleaders to be seized,
and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my
hands, which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forward
with the butt ends of their pikes into my reach. I took them all in my
right hand, put five of them into my coat pocket, and as to the sixth, I
made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled
terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially
when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put them out of fear,
for looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound
with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the
rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my pocket, and I
observed both the soldiers and people were highly delighted at this mark
of my clemency, which was represented very much to my advantage at
court.

Toward night I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on
the ground, and continued to do so about a fortnight, during which time
the emperor gave orders to have a bed prepared for me. Six hundred beds
of the common measure were brought in carriages, and worked up in my
house; an hundred and fifty of their beds sewn together made up the
breadth and length, and these were four double, which, however, kept me
but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor, that was of
smooth stone. By the same computation they provided me with sheets,
blankets, and coverlets, tolerable enough for one who had been so long
inured to hardships as I.

In the meantime the emperor held frequent councils, to debate what
course should be taken with me; and I was afterward assured by a
particular friend, a person of great quality, who was looked upon to be
as much in the secret as any, that the court was under many difficulties