"They did not take from you your rings and your ear-rings?" "No, Monsieur le Capitaine." "Will you be good enough to give them to me?" "Give you what?" "Your rings, your ear-rings, the silver traveling case, two watches and the sum of three hundred francs." Mrs. Simons cried out: "What! Monsieur, you would take from us the articles the bandits returned to us?" The Captain replied with dignity: "Madame, I must do my duty." "Your duty is to despoil us?" "My duty is to collect all the articles for necessary conviction in the trial of Hadgi-Stavros." "He will then be tried?" "Since we have taken him." "It seems to me that our jewels and our money would serve nothing, and that you have sufficient testimony to hang him. First of all, he captured two Englishwomen; what more is necessary?" "It is necessary, Madame, that the forms of justice be observed." "But, dear sir, among the articles which you demand there are some which I prize highly." "The more reason, Madame, to confide them to my care." "But if I had no watch I should never----" "Madame, it will always give me pleasure to tell you the hour." Mary-Ann observed in her turn that it was disagreeable to her to be obliged to give up her ear-rings. "Mademoiselle," the gallant Captain replied, "you are beautiful enough not to need jewels. You can do better without gems than your gems can do without you." "You are very good, Monsieur, but my silver dressing case or necessaire is an indispensable article. What one calls a necessaire is a thing with which one cannot dispense." "You are a thousand times right, Mademoiselle. So I beg of you not to insist upon that point. Do not add to the regret with which I have already legally despoiled two so distinguished persons. Alas! Mademoiselle, we military men, we are the slaves of orders, instruments of the law, men of duty. Deign to accept my arm, I will do myself the honor of conducting you to your tent. There, we will proceed to the inventory, if you will be good enough to permit it." I lost not one word of this conversation, and I kept silent to the end; but when I saw this rascal of an officer offer his arm to Mary-Ann in order to politely plunder her, I became enraged, and I marched up to him to tell him what I thought of him. He must have read in my eyes the exordium of my discourse, because he threw a menacing look at me, left the ladies at the staircase of their chamber, placed a sentinel there, and returned to me, saying: "Between us two!" He drew me, without adding a word, to the rear of the King's cabinet. There, he seated himself before me, looked me straight in the eyes, and said: "Monsieur, you understand English?" I confessed my knowledge. He added: "You know Greek, also?" "Yes, Monsieur."