“Fine—”
She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my head, and let it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight, and bound me to a pillar.
A curious tremor seized me at that moment.
“I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed,” I said with a low voice.
“Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day,” exclaimed Wanda.
“But put on your fur-jacket, please,” I said.
“I shall gladly give you that pleasure,” she replied. She got her kazabaika, and put it on. Then she stood in front of me with her arms folded across her chest, and looked at me out of half-closed eyes.
“Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?” she asked.
“I remember it only vaguely, what about it?”
“A courtier invented a new implement of torture for the Tyrant of Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those condemned to death were to be shut, and then pushed into a mighty furnace.