ivering for a minute and watched spellbound while Mahommed
Khan held the hot coal closer and even closer to the High Priest's naked
foot. The priest writhed in anticipation of the agony and turned his
eyes away, and as he turned them they met Ruth's. High priests of a
religion that includes sooth-saying and prophecy and bribery of gods
among its rites are students of human nature, and especially of female
human nature. Knowledge of it and of how it may be gulled, and when,
is the first essential of their calling. Her pale face, her blue eyes
strained in terror, the parted lips and the attitude of tension, these
gave him an idea. Before the charcoal touched him, he screamed--screamed
like a wounded horse.

"Mahommed Khan, stop! Stop this instant! I won't have it! I won't have
my life, even, on those terms! D'you hear me, sir!"

"Have courage, heavenborn! There is but one way to force a Hindu priest,
unless it be by cutting off his revenues--he must be hurt! This dog is
unhurt as yet--see! The fire has not yet touched his foot!"

"Don't let it, Mahommed Khan! Set that iron down! This is my room. I
will not have crime committed here!"

"And how long does the heavenborn think it would be her room were this
evil-living pig of a priest at large, or how long before a worse crime
were committed? Heavenborn, the hour is late and the charcoal dies out
rapidly when it has left the fire! See. I must choose another piece!"

He rummaged in the brazier, and she screamed again.

"I will not have it, Risaldar! You must find another way."

"Memsahib! Thy husband left thee in my care. Surely it is my right to
choose the way?"

"Leave me, then! I relieve you of your trust. I will not have him
tortured in my room, or anywhere!"

Mahommed Khan bowed low.

"Under favor, heavenborn," he answered, "my trust is to your husband. I
can be released by him, or by death, not otherwise."

"Once, and for all, Mahommed Khan, I will not have you torture him in
here!"

"Memsahib, I have yet to ride for succor! At daybreak, when these Hindus
learn that the guns will not come back, they will rise to a man. Even
now we must find a hiding-place or--it is not good even to think what I
might find on my return!"

He leaned over the priest again, but without the charcoal this time.

"Speak, thou!" he ordered, growling in Hindustanee through his savage
black mustache. "I have yet to hear what price a Hindu sets on immunity
from torture!"

But th