"Milord," he said to me, "we are both very weak, but the odds are that I shall get well sooner than you do. It appears that they are already talking of my successor. How unjust men are! My place is up for competition. Oh, well! I wish to compete and to put myself in the race. You will bear witness in my favor and your groans will testify that Sophocles is not yet dead. You shall be bound, and I take upon myself the pleasure of tormenting you with one hand, as spiritedly as the strongest of the band."
In order to please the unfortunate fellow they bound me. He turned over towards me and began to pull out hairs, one by one, with the patience and the regularity of a professional hair remover. When I saw what this new punishment was to be, I believed that the wounded man, touched by my misery, and sympathizing with me because of his own sufferings, wished to shield me from his comrades, and give me an hour's respite. The extraction of one hair is not so painful, by a good deal, as the prick of a pin. The first twenty came out, one after the other, without any discomfiture. But soon I changed my tune. The scalp, irritated by a multitude of imperceptible lesions, became inflamed. A dull itching began on my head; it became a little livelier; and at last it was intolerable. I would like to have raised my hands to my head; I understood with what intuition the wretch had had me bound. Impatience but aggravated the trouble; all the blood in my body rushed to my head. Every time Sophocles approached his hand to my scalp, a woful shivering seized my whole body. A thousand inexplicable stingings tormented my arms and legs. The nervous system, irritated at every point, enveloped me in a network more exasperating than Dejanire's tunic. I rolled over on the ground, I groaned, I cried for mercy, I regretted the bastinado. The executioner had pity on me only when he had completely exhausted himself. When he felt his eyes become dim, his head heavy, and his arm weary, he made a last effort, plunged his hand into my hair, seized a fist full, and fell over on his pallet, drawing from me a despairing cry.
"Come with me," said Moustakas. "Thou shalt decide, in a corner by the fire, if I can compete with Sophocles, and whether I merit a lieutenancy."
He raised me like a feather and carried me to the camp, in front of a heap of resinous wood and piled up brushwood. He took off the bonds, he stripped me of my clothes, leaving me only my trousers. "Thou shalt be my under-cook," he said. "We will make the fire and we will prepare the King's dinner, together."
He lighted the stack of wood and laid me out on my back, about two feet from the mountain of flames. The wood crackled, the red cinders fell like hail around me. The heat became unbearable. I hitched along with my hands a little distance, but he came with a frying-pan in his hand, and pushed me back with his foot to the place where he had first laid me.
"Look well, and profit by my lessons. Here are the heart, liver, and kidneys from three sheep; there is enough to feed twenty men. The King will choose the most delicate morsels; he will distribute the remainder to his men. Thou wilt have none of it for the present, and if thou tastest my cooking, it will be with the eyes only."
I soon heard the bubbling in the sauce pan, and it reminded me that I had been fasting since the evening before. My hunger added one more torment. Moustakas held the pan under my eyes and made me look at the appetizing color of the meat. He thrust it under my nose and I smelled the steam of the food. Suddenly he perceived that he had forgotten the seasoning, and he hurried away to find the salt and pepper, leaving the sauce pan to my care. The first idea which came to me was to steal a piece of the meat, but the brigands were only ten feet away; they would stop me at once. "If I only had my package of arsenic," I thought. What could I have done with it? I had not put it back in my box. I thrust my hands into my pockets. I drew out a soiled paper and a handful of that beneficent powder, which would save me, perhaps, or at least avenge me.
Moustakas returned at the instant when I was holding my open hand above the sauce pan. He seized me by the arm, looked me straight in the eye, and said in a menacing tone: "I know what thou hast done."
I dropped my arm discouraged. The cook added:
"Yes, thou hast thrown something over the King's dinner."