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!"
The cook was so astonished that he forgot me for a minute; and I managed to crawl away and lay on the cold grass. Then Hadgi Stavros appeared. With a cry of anguish he took me gently in his arms, and carried me to the cave among the rocks.
"Poor boy!" he said. "How you have suffered! But you will soon be well. I once had sixty strokes of the bastinado, and two days afterwards I was dancing the Romaika. It was this ointment that cured me."
"But what has happened?" I murmured.
"Read that!" he cried, throwing me a letter. "What a pirate! What an assassin! If I only had you and your friend, one in each hand! Oh, he won't do it! Will he?"
The letter was from John Harris. It ran:
"Hadgi Stavros,--Photini is now on my ship, the Fancy, which carries four guns. She remains a hostage as long as Hermann Schultz remains a prisoner. As you treat my friend, so I will treat your daughter. She shall pay hair for hair, tooth for tooth, head for head. Answer at once, or I will come and see you.--JOHN HARRIS."
"I know Photini," I said to the king, "and I swear that she will not be harmed. But I must return to Athens at once. Get four of your men to carry me down the mountains in a litter."
The king rose up, and then groaned and staggered. I remembered the arsenic. He must have eaten some of the meat. I tickled the inside of his throat, and he brought up most of the poison. Soon afterwards the other brigands came up to the enclosure, screaming with pain, and wanted to murder me. I had cast a spell over their meat, and it was torturing them, they cried. I must be killed at once, and then the spell would be removed. The king commanded them to withdraw. They resisted. He drew his saber, and cut down two of the ringleaders. The rest seized their guns and began to shoot. There were about sixty of them, all suffering, more or less, from the effects of arsenic poisoning. We were only twelve in number, but our men had the steadier aim; and the king fought like a hero, though his hands and feet were swelling painfully.
The fact was that he had eaten some time before his men, and I could not therefore get the poison completely out of his system. But it was the arsenic that saved his life. He had at last to come and lie down beside me. We heard the sound of rapid firing in the distance; and suddenly two men entered our enclosure, with revolvers in each hand, and shot down our defenders with an extraordinary quickness of aim. They were Harris and Lobster.
"Hermann, where are you?" Harris yelled at last, with all his strength, as he turned and found nothing more to shoot at.
"Here," I replied. "The men you've just killed have been fighting for me. There has been civil war in the camp."
"Well, we've stamped it out!" said Harris. "What's the matter with the old scoundrel lying beside you?"
"It's Hadgi Stavros," I said. "He and his men have been eating some arsenic I had in my collecting case."
My friends managed to carry me down the mountain, and at the first village we came to they got a carriage and took me to Athens. The ointment used by Hadgi Stavros was, as he had said, marvelous; and in two days I could walk as well as ever. I at once called on Mrs. and Miss Simons.
"They departed yesterday for Trieste," said the servant, "on their way to London."
As I was returning to Hermes Street I met Hadgi Stavros and Photini.
"How is it that the King of the Mountains is found walking in the streets of Athens?" I said.
"What can I do in the mountains now?" he replied. "All my men are killed, wounded or fled. I might get others. But look at my swollen hands. How can I use a sword? No; let some one younger now take my place. But I defy him to equal me in fame or fortune. And I have not done yet. Before six months are gone, you will see Hadgi Stavros, Prime Minister of Greece. Oh, there are more ways of making money than one!"
And that was the last I saw of the King of the Mountains. On the advice of Harris, I at once returned to Hamburg, lest some of the remaining brigands found me out, and take vengeance for the spell I had cast on their meat. But some day I hope to go to London, and call at 31, Cavendish Square.
HARRISON AINSWORTH
Tower of London
William Harrison Ainsworth, born at Manchester, England, Feb. 4, 1805, was a popular rather than a great writer. A solicitor's son, he was himself trained in the law, but some adventures in journalism led him finally to the literary life, his first success as a writer of romance being scored with "Rookwood" in 1834. "Tower of London" was the fourth work of the novelist, and, according to Ainsworth himself, it was written chiefly with the aim of interesting his fellow-countrymen in the historical associations of the Tower. From the popularity of the romance it is reasonable to suppose that it fulfilled its author's hopes in this respect, though it must be confessed its history leaves a good deal to be desired. Here is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of Ainsworth's bold liberties in respect to the historical personages he introduces; but there is no doubt that the romance is told with vigour and dramatic movement, and it is an excellent example of the novelist's spirited style of narrative, though, judged on purely literary merits, like his other works, the "Tower of London" will not bear comparison with the masterpieces of Sir Walter Scott in the field of historical romance. Ainsworth died at Reigate on January 3, 1882.
I.--Prisoners in the Tower
Edward VI. was dead, poisoned, it was rumoured, by the Duke of Northumberland, Grandmaster of the Realm. For three days had an attempt been made to keep his death secret, so that the proud and ambitious duke might seize the persons of the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth. But the former, warned in time, had escaped the snare; and the Duke of Northumberland, finding further dissimulation useless, boldly proclaimed his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, queen.
On July 10, 1553, Queen Jane, the wisest and most beautiful woman in the kingdom, though only sixteen years of age, was conducted in state to the Tower, where it was the custom for the monarchs of England to spend the first few days of their reign.
But the crowds who watched her departure from Durham House, in the Strand, were silent and sullen. Her youthful beauty and grace might win an involuntary cry of admiration, but the heart of the people was not hers. They recognised that she was but the tool of her father-in-law, whom, because of his overweening ambition, they hated.
All the pride and pomp of silken banners and cloth of gold could not mask the gloomy presage of the young queen's reign. The very heavens thundered; and owing to the press of boats that surrounded the procession, many small craft were overturned and their occupants thrown into the water. And if further signs of portending evil were wanted, they could be discerned in the uneasy whisperings of those lords of the Privy Council who were present, or in the sinister face of the Spaniard, Simon Renard, ambassador to the Emperor Charles V.