320 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
his great services in this time of danger he should be forgiven ; he was thereupon readmitted to all his privileges. It was this same man who now offered to risk his life for his city once more. On their departure he and his companions bade farewell to their friends as though they were going to certain death.
   Caboga and Bucchia reached Constantinople on August 8, 1667. The former showed so much diplomatic skill in the negotiations that Kara Mustafa had him and his colleague cast into prison on December 13, in a building that served as a lazaret for plague patients. But even then they refused to advise the Republic to consent to the Turkish demands. When asked if he would advise the Senate to agree to annexation by the Porte, Caboga replied that “ he was sent to serve, not to betray his country ” ; and he succeeded in sending a message to the Senate encouraging them to hold out to the last regardless of his own fate, and only showing anxiety that his children should receive a sound religious education. The ambassadors were transferred from one dungeon to another, and threatened with all manner of punishments, but in vain.
   Worse befell the envoys to Bosnia. When the Pasha heard that they had not brought the money demanded he threw them into an unhealthy dungeon, and after a few months transferred them to Silistria at the mouth of the Danube, where the Sultan Mohammed IV. was residing, and here they were kept in still severer detention. But they too held firm, and advised the Senate not to give way. In 1678 Bona fell ill, and, being utterly untended, died.