Darius Kazemi quoted Travels in Persia by Sir John Chardin
In this remarkable account of his second sojourn in Persia, the author paints a splendid …
I am naturally so very timorous, that so soon as I feel the Drubbing-Stick, there is no secret which I shall not reveal, and therefore secure me, or let me make my escape.
Here the author, writing in 1683, quotes a cryptographer ("Secretary of Ciphers") working for the French ambassador to Turkey in 1659, writing to the French ambassador asking for protection. Apparently a letter written in cypher was intercepted, and because he heard about a Venetian interpreter being "Drubb'd to Death", feared a similar fate might befall him.
