TORN between wrath and superstitious fear, the Effendi summoned Demetrius, cursed him roundly, and asked him what it would take to lift his spells.

Demetrius replied that he wanted his wife Katinka and three children, taken into slavery by the Turks, brought to Marseilles. Within three months Demetrius’s family was reunited, and soon after the third ship was ready for launch.

To the Effendi’s relief, everything went without a hitch. A few days later, a fourth ship followed. Jubilant but a little overawed, the Effendi asked Demetrius what potent incantations he had used.

“My father” answered the Greek “was a shipwright. I saw at once that your first two ships were unseaworthy. After my Katinka came, I just had a word with the builders. It had nothing to do” he ended contemptuously “with your ‘evil eye’.”

The Effendi waddled off muttering that Greeks were all thieves. As for the two Turkish ships, they were blown to smithereens by the British at the Battle of Navarino.*