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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 126

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to this under the capitulation, nor had he officers whom he could leave behind whom Mustafa would accept as hostages. Mustafa pointed to Qnirini, and added that he must remain in the camp. The person of this yonth declared his courage and noble birth. This, and the fact that he was the son of Niccolo Qnirini, who had been in charge of the fortifications of Nicosia, and had given his family name to one of its bastions, made him conspicuous among his companions, and better known to Mustafa. Bragadino firmly refused of his own free will to give him up. The Pasha could no longer control his passion, and burst into a torrent of abuse, fiercely accusing our men of having put to death certain Musahuans, prisoners in their hands, contrary to the usages of war, and the dictates of humanity. His talk added fuel to his rage, and he ordered them all to be bound. They were led out of the pavilion: he set free the hostages who were still in his camp, and caused Baglione, Martinengo, Qnirini and the rest to be hacked in pieces by his soldiers—a pitiful spectacle, and a fate all un-worthy of those brave men, who might have hoped to receive from soldiers, enemies though they were, rewards, not punishment, for valour shown in war. Bragadino was reserved for greater torments. He was obliged to witness this cruelty, and many times to endure the pains of death before he was released from life. For they made him stretch out his neck, but, unwilling to kill him on the spot, merely cut off his ears. Those who were first to embark fared no better than the rest. They were chained, and condemned to suffer in the harshest servitude long and severe hardships. To some fortune was more kind. These from sundry chances were the last to remain iu the city, and, becoming the prizes of individual soldiers, were quickly anr\ e*sYiy leieaseu iWir ca*|Aiyîs for a small ransom, which the Tnrks feared to lose, for Sfhistafa had strictly forbidden the holding of private prisoners, as he wished to glorify his triumphant return to Constantinople by the greatest possible number of slaves. Among the#ie Tiepolo only was of too exalted a position to win his safety. He was made a prisoner, ai id condemned by the Pasha to the disgrace of death by hanging at the yardarm of a galleyj But it is a tearful story we have to tell of Bragadiuoj, what manifold forms of martyrdom these cruellest, vilest of men caused him to suffer. Afjter insults and wild mockery he was Ieri into the square of Famagusta, and there bound to the stones of the pillory and flayed alive, while Mustafa stood to the end on a terrace of tin ì palace to feast his eyes and bestial heart on the weird aud crnel sight. Incredible was the courage which this bravest of heroes showed in all his terrible torments: a courage whic li ought to preserve and grace his memory throughout the ages. But the fury of Mustafsi's anger was not yet exhausted, and he ordered that the skin should be filled with straw, a id set on a cow. In bitter mockery the red umbrella under which the living Bragadino had ridden to the camp was held over it, it was earned through the city, and finally, on his di parture, it was hung on the yard of a galley, that he might parade his infamous trophy before the inhabitants of the coast-towns which he passed. The reason which moved Mustafa ko this fiendish cruelty is not clear. Some said that as the soldiers had missed the booty premised to them from the sack of the city, he wished by the punishment of a few to avenge ^the deaths of the many men he had lost in the siege, and give some kind of satisfaction to his army. Others again, that irritated by the length and obstinacy of the defence, and by thè loss of certain friends very dear to him, he had already sworn to take some terrible vengeance. But there were yet some who believed that the spirit of Mustafa, a man so given to anger that, once moved, he was wont to grow furious and actnally mad, was excited to frenzy and scorn on seeing Bragadino and his companions come to his pavilion with so large au armed escort, and so richly clothed, as though they were rather victors than vanquished. 1%is seems but a trifling excuse for so nit EXCERPTA CYPRIA.

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