"Therefore, summoning up my small remnant of strength, I told the old woman who cooked our food to go and tell the governor that I knew perfectly well the doctor was not in the country, and that if he did not come to me in ten minutes' time, I gave him fair warning I would drag myself to the window and proclaim to the whole town that I had been poisoned--the news would no doubt cause little surprise, but it might at any rate expose his infamy. "This threat was effectual; five minutes later my door opened, and the surgeon, who had not been able to come because he was supposed to be away in the country, put in his appearance. "I had been studying my Tissot, and I had learned that a plentiful letting of blood was the only remedy for the condition I was in. I therefore peremptorily ordered the doctor to bleed me. "As though he did not dare to obey without orders from his superiors, he went back to the commander of the Castle to obtain leave from him. No doubt it was granted, for he drew a surgical instrument from his pocket; only, instead of this instrument being a lancet, it was a fleam used for bleeding horses. "I shrugged my shoulders-- 'Why not a dagger outright?' I said to him; 'it would be quicker done.' "I held out my arm. The first incision was, of course, not sufficient, and it was not until the wretch had made three incisions in my arm that he alighted upon a vein and drew blood. "This first attack of apoplexy was followed by a second, three days later. The same surgeon was again called in, and bled me again with the same instrument; only this time he thought it best to do it in my foot, and he did it either so clumsily or else so cleverly (for they were in constant fear that we should escape through the help of the patriots) that a sinew was cut, and for more than three months my leg swelled to a fearful size whenever I took a dozen steps. "As the governor feared, the report of this scandalous treatment was noised abroad in the town. One day a stone fell into my room, wrapped in a bit of paper. On the paper was written these words:-- "'They want to poison you, but you ought to have received a book, in which we underlined the word _poison._ If you need any remedy that you cannot procure in your prison, hang a string out of your window, and at the end of the string we will hook on what you want.' "Between the paper and the stone was rolled a long piece of string with a hook at the end. "The next night I let down the string, and asked for quinine to dose myself with, and chocolate to sustain me; the night following I received both articles.