They had him down in the garden, over the blue water, and two of them held his arms stretched out."He has not groaned yet," one whispered, "but soon he will talk."The man who was being tortured stiffened his muscles and waited. Sweat glistened on his shaven skull except where his scalp lock hung to his shoulders. He had wide shoulders, and a fierce, sunburned face from which blue eyes gleamed. He was saying to himself that he would not talk."Give him the diadem," said a voice from the carpet under the trees.The eyes of the Cossack ataman turned from side to side. Some men were busy over a charcoal brazier, fanning it to red-hot heat. Smoke rose and vanished into the sunlight. A slave in a leather apron brought an iron ring ornamented with iron flowers. Lifting it in his hands, he set it on the Cossack's bare head. The touch of the iron was cool and pleasant.Then one of the soldiers at the brazier rose with something held in a pair of tongs. Swiftly he lifted the tongs and dropped something small and round and hard among the flowers of the iron diadem.
