"Have you ever seen the process?" inquired Eliza.
"Frequently," was the reply. "My father was a Georgian chief,"—and as she spoke, tears started into her eyes:—"he had many slaves, and they prepared the tobacco which he purposely left in his tents, when the Persian invaders drove him from them. To poison your enemies thus, is not deemed a dishonourable mode of warfare in Georgia."
"Should you recognise tobacco so prepared, were you to see it?" asked Eliza.
"Instantaneously, lady, on the application of fire," replied Malkhatoun; "for the poison used is of so peculiar a nature that its qualities are only put into action by means of fire. The most skilful chemist cannot discover its presence in tobacco, unless he light the weed and inhale the perfume of the vapour."
"The idea of such a circumstance struck me also," observed Eliza.
As she spoke, she produced from her reticule a small galley-pot containing some of the late Lord Ravensworth's tobacco: then she drew forth a box of lucifer-matches.
Malkhatoun held the galley-pot, while Eliza procured a light; and the flame was then applied to the tobacco.
The beautiful Georgian immediately inhaled the vapour, and said, "Lady, this tobacco is so strongly impregnated with the poison, that were the strongest man to indulge freely in its use for a few months, he would sink into the tomb."
"It is as I suspected," murmured Eliza.
"Tobacco thus poisoned," continued Malkhatoun, "possesses properties of so fascinating a nature, that he who smokes it becomes irresistibly attached to it; and I have heard it said in Georgia, that men labouring under incurable maladies, or those whose life is burthensome to them, have voluntarily whiled away their existence by the use of the poisoned weed."