"So much the better; all the English are rich. Tell her to shell out!"
The poor woman emptied her pocket; her purse contained a dozen
sovereigns. As her watch was not in sight, and as they did not search
us, she kept that. The kindness of these thieves left her her
handkerchief.
Mary-Ann threw down her watch and a string of charms against the evil
eye. She took off, with mutinous grace, a shagreen-leather bag, which
she wore slung on her shoulder. The bandit opened it with all the
importance of a custom-house officer. He took out an English
dressing-case, a bottle of English smelling-salts, a box of English
Menthol pastilles and a hundred and several odd francs of English money.
"Now," said the enraged beauty, "you can let us go; we have nothing more
for you."
One of the men indicated to her by a menacing gesture, that the
interview was not yet over. The leader of the band knelt down before
their spoils, called the monk, counted the money in his presence and
gave to him a sum of forty-five francs. Mrs. Simons nudged me. "Do you
see?" she whispered; "the monk and Dimitri have betrayed us into their
hands; the bandits have divided with them!"
"No, Madame," I replied, "Dimitri has received only a fraction of what
was taken from him. It is customary everywhere. On the borders of the
Rhine, when a traveler is ruined at roulette, the banker gives him
enough to return home."
"But the monk?"
"He has only received the tithe of the spoils, according to custom from
time immemorial. Do not reproach him, but rather be grateful to him in
his wish to save us, when his convent would have benefited by our
capture."
This conversation was interrupted by Dimitri's departure. They had told
him that he was free. "Wait for me," I said to him, "we will return
together." He sadly shook his head and answered in English, so that the
ladies could understand:
"You are prisoners for a time, and you will not see Athens again until
you have paid a ransom. I am going to inform milord. Have the ladies any
message to send to him?"
"Tell him," cried Mrs. Simons, "that he must hurry to the Ambassador,
that he must go to Piraeus to find the Admiral, that he must complain at
the Foreign Office, and he must surely write to Lord Palmerston! That we
must be rescued from here by force of arms, if necessary, or by
political authority; but that I will not hear of paying one penny for my
liberty."
"And I," I said with less anger, "I pray thee to tell my friends in
whose hands thou hast left me. If it is necessary to have a few hundred
drachmas to ransom a poor devil of a naturalist, they will furnish them
without doubt. The lords of the road will not put a very high price on
me. I wish whilst thou art still here, that thou wouldst ask them the
price."
"Useless, my dear M. Hermann, they do not fix the ransom."
"Who, then?"
"Their chief, Hadgi-Stavros."