"She's a partner in Barley's Bank, you fool, you ass!" I shrieked. "She will get back all the £4,000 on your receipt."
Hadgi Stavros turned pale and trembled.
"No," he said, very slowly; "I will not kill you. You have not suffered enough. Four thousand pounds! It is a fortune. You have stolen my daughter's fortune. What can I do to you? Find me, you brutes," he cried, turning to his men, "a torture of £4,000."
Then he left me in their hands.
"Treat him gently," he said. "I don't want him to get so exhausted that he dies before I begin to play with him."
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!"