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 it!  Will he?”

The letter was from John Harris.  It ran: 

“Hadgi Stavros,—­Photini is now on my ship, the Fancy, which carries four guns.  She remains a hostage as long as Hermann Schultz remains a prisoner.  As you treat my friend, so I will treat your daughter.  She shall pay hair for hair, tooth for tooth, head for head.  Answer at once, or I will come and see you.—­JOHN HARRIS.”

“I know Photini,” I said to the king, “and I swear that she will not be harmed.  But I must return to Athens at once.  Get four of your men to carry me down the mountains in a litter.”

The king rose up, and then groaned and staggered.  I remembered the arsenic.  He must have eaten some of the meat.  I tickled the inside of his throat, and he brought up most of the poison.  Soon afterwards the other brigands came up to the enclosure, screaming with pain, and wanted to murder me.  I had cast a spell over their meat, and it was torturing them, they cried.  I must be killed at once, and then the spell would be removed.  The king commanded them to withdraw.  They resisted.  He drew his saber, and cut down two of the ringleaders.  The rest seized their guns and began to shoot.  There were about sixty of them, all suffering, more or less, from the effects of arsenic poisoning.  We were only twelve in number, but our men had the steadier aim; and the king fought like a hero, though his hands and feet were swelling painfully.