ut meantime Charatza's mother, learning that her daughter had been
talking to a slave, was not at all pleased and threatened, since he was
no nobleman and would not be ransomed, to sell him in the market.
Charatza was used to having her way sooner or later, and managed to have
him sent instead to her brother, a pacha or provincial governor in
Tartary. She sent also a letter asking the pacha to be kind to the young
English slave and give him a chance of learning Turkish and the
principles of the Koran.

This was far from agreeable to a brother who had already heard of his
sister's liking for the penniless stranger,--especially as he found that
the Englishman had no intention of turning Moslem. The slave-master was
told to treat him with the utmost severity, which meant that his life
was made almost unbearable. A ring of iron, with a curved iron handle,
was locked around his neck, his only garment was a tunic of hair-cloth
belted with undressed hide, he was herded with other Christian slaves
and a hundred or more Turks and Moors who were condemned criminals, and,
as the last comer, had to take the kicks and cuffs of all the others.
The food was coarse and unclean, and only extreme hunger made it
possible to eat it.

John Smith was not the man to sit down hopelessly under misfortune, and
he talked with the other Christians whenever chance offered, about
possible plans of escape. None of them saw any hope of getting away,
even by joining their efforts. It may be that some of this talk was
overheard; at any rate Smith was sent after a while to thresh wheat by
himself in a barn two or three miles from the stone castle where the
governor lived. The pacha rode up while he was at work and began to
abuse him, taunting him with being a Christian outcast who had tried to
set himself above his betters by winning the favor of a Turkish lady.
The Englishman flew at him like a wildcat, dragged him off his horse and
broke his skull with the club which was used instead of a flail for
threshing. Then he dressed himself in the Turk's garments, hid the body
under a heap of grain, filled a bag with wheat for all his provision,
mounted the horse of his late master, and rode away northward. He knew
that Muscovy was in this general direction, and coming to a road marked
by a cross, rode that way for sixteen days, hiding whenever he heard any
sound of travelers for fear the iron slave-ring should betray him. At
last he came to a Russian garriso