That siege being raised, after some interval of suspended hostilities, the Christian forces, in their turn, besieged Stowle Wessenburg, which soon fell into their hands. Mahomet the Third, hearing of this disaster, dispatched a formidable army to retrieve or avenge it; and in the bloody battle that ensued on the plains of Girke, Smith had a horse shot under him, and was badly wounded. At the siege of Regal he encountered and slew, in a tournament, three several Turkish champions, Turbashaw, Grualgo, and Bonny Mulgro. For these exploits he was honored with a triumphal procession, in which the three Turks' heads were borne on lances. A horse richly caparisoned was presented to him, with a cimeter and belt worth three hundred ducats; and he was promoted to the rank of major. In the bloody battle of Rottenton, he was wounded and made prisoner. With such of the prisoners as escaped massacre, he was sold into slavery at Axiopolis, and fell into the hands of the Bashaw Bogall, who sent him, by way of Adrianople, to Constantinople, a present to his youthful mistress, Charatza Tragabigzanda. Captivated with her prisoner, she treated him tenderly; and to prevent his being sold again, sent him to remain for a time with her brother, the Tymour Bashaw of Nalbritz, in Tartary, who occupied a stone castle near the Sea of Azof. Immediately on Smith's arrival, his head was shaved, an iron collar riveted on his neck, and he was clothed in hair-cloth. Here long he suffered cruel bondage; at length one day, while threshing in a barn, the Bashaw having beaten and reviled him, he turned and slew him on the spot, with the threshing bat; then put on his clothes, hid his body in the straw, filled a sack with corn, closed the doors, mounted the Bashaw's horse, and rode off. After wandering for some days, he fell in with a highway, and observing that the roads leading toward Russia were indicated by a cross, he followed that sign, and in sixteen days reached Ecopolis, a Russian frontier post on the Don. The governor there took off his irons, and he was kindly treated by him and his wife, the lady Callamata. Traversing Russia and Poland, he returned to Transylvania in December, 1603, where he met many friends, and enjoyed so much happiness that nothing less than his desire to revisit his native country could have torn him away. Proceeding through Hungary, Moravia, and Bohemia, he went to Leipsic, where he found Prince Sigismund, who gave him fifteen hundred golden ducats to repair his losses. Travelling through Germany, France, and Spain, from Gibraltar he sailed for Tangier, in Africa, and to the City of Morocco. Taking passage in a French man-of-war, he was present in a terrible sea-fight with two Spanish ships; and after touching at Santa Cruz, Cape Goa, and Mogadore, he finally returned to England in 1604.[34:A] FOOTNOTES: