Then, we counted our forces. Our army was composed of the King, his two servants, Tambouris with eight brigands, Dimitri, and myself; in all fourteen men, of whom three were disabled. The coffee-bearer had been poisoned also, and he began to show the first rigors of illness. But we had two guns apiece, and a great supply of cartridges, while the enemy had no arms nor ammunition except what they carried on their persons. They possessed the advantage of numbers and point of vantage. We did not know exactly how many able-bodied men they had, but we must expect to meet twenty-five or thirty assailants. I need not describe to you the place of siege: you know it. Believe, however, that the aspect of the place had changed a great deal since the day when I breakfasted there for the first time, under guard of the Corfuan, with Mrs. Simons and Mary-Ann. The roots of our beautiful trees were exposed, and the nightingale was far away. What is more important for you to know, is, that we were protected on the right and left by rocks, inaccessible even to the enemy. They could attack us from the King's cabinet, and they could watch us from the bottom of the ravine. On the one hand, their balls flew over us; on the other, ours flew over the sentinels, but at such long range that it was wasting our ammunition. If Coltzida and his companions had possessed the least idea of war, they could have done for us. They could have raised the barricade, entered by force, driven us into a corner, or thrown us over into the ravine. But the imbecile, who had two men to our one, thought to husband his ammunition, and place, as sharp-shooters, twenty stupid men who did not know how to discharge a gun. Our men were not much more skillful. Better commanded, however, and wiser, they managed to smash five heads before night fell. The combatants knew each other by name. They called to each other after the fashion of Homer's heroes. One attempted to convert the other by aiming at his cheek; the other replied by a ball and by argument. The combat was only an armed discussion when, from time to time, the muskets spoke. As for me, stretched out in a corner, sheltered from the balls, I tried to undo my fatal work, and to recall the poor King of the Mountains to life. He suffered cruelly; he complained of great thirst, and a sharp pain in the upper part of the abdomen. His icy hands and feet were violently convulsed. The pulse was irregular, the respiration labored. His stomach seemed to struggle against an internal execution, without being able to expel it. His mind had lost nothing of its vigor and its quickness; his bright and keen eye searched the horizon in the direction of the Bay of Salamis, and Photini's floating prison.