your ransom is paid."

I received twenty strokes on my feet. At the third I began to bleed. At
the fourth I began to howl. At the tenth I was insensible to pain. When
I came to I was in such an agony that I would have given my soul to kill
Hadgi Stavros. I tried to, but failed. But I would hurt him, though I
knew I should die for it. So, with a torrent of invectives, I explained
how I tricked him over the ransom of Mrs. Simons and her daughter.

"She's a partner in Barley's Bank, you fool, you ass!" I shrieked. "She
will get back all the L4,000 on your receipt."

Hadgi Stavros turned pale and trembled.

"No," he said, very slowly; "I will not kill you. You have not suffered
enough. Four thousand pounds! It is a fortune. You have stolen my
daughter's fortune. What can I do to you? Find me, you brutes," he
cried, turning to his men, "a torture of L4,000."

Then he left me in their hands.

"Treat him gently," he said. "I don't want him to get so exhausted that
he dies before I begin to play with him."

As a beginning, they stripped me to the waist, and their cook put me
close to a great fierce fire, where some lambs were being fried. The red
cinders fell about me, and the heat was unsupportable. I dragged myself
away on my hands--I could not use my feet--but the ruffian kicked me
back. Then he left me for a moment to get some salt and pepper. I
remembered that I had put the arsenic in my trousers pocket. With a
supreme effort I rose up and scattered the powder over the meat.

"What are you doing?" said the cook. "Trying to cast a spell on our
food?"

He had only seen, from a distance, the motion of my hand. I was avenged!

Suddenly I heard a cry: "The king! Where is the king?" And Dimitri, the
son of Christodulos, came running up.

"Good God!" he said when he saw me. "The poor girl!"

The cook was so astonished that he forgot me for a minute; and I managed
to crawl away and lay on the cold grass. Then Hadgi Stavros appeared.
With a cry of anguish he took me gently in his arms, and carried me to
the cave among the rocks.

"Poor boy!" he said. "How you have suffered! But you will soon be well.
I once had sixty strokes of the bastinado, and two days afterwards I was
dancing the Romaika. It was this ointment that cured me."

"But what has happened?" I murmured.

"Read that!" he cried, throwing me a letter. "What a pirate! What an
assassin! If I only had you and your friend, one in each hand! Oh, he
won't do