This discussion was interrupted by the farewells of Dimitri. They had just set him at liberty.
"Wait for me," said I to him: "we will return together." He shook his head sadly, and answered me in English, so as to be understood by the ladies:-- "You are prisoners for some days, and you will not see Athens again before paying a ransom. I am going to inform the milord. Have these ladies any messages to give me for him?"
"Tell him," cried Mrs. Simons, "to run to the embassy, to go then to the Piraeus and find the admiral, to complain at the foreign office, to write to Lord Palmerston! They shall take us away from here by force of arms, or by public authority, but I do not intend that they shall disburse a penny for my liberty."
"As for me," replied I, without so much passion, "I beg you to tell my friends in what hands you have left me. If some hundreds of drachms are necessary to ransom a poor devil of a naturalist, they will find them without trouble. These gentlemen of the highway cannot rate me very high. I have a mind, while you are still here, to ask them what I am worth at the lowest price."
"It would be useless, my dear Mr. Hermann! It is not they who fix the figures of your ransom."
"And who then?"
"Their chief, Hadgi-Stavros."
From 'The King of the Mountains'