ilful hurt. I will but
anoint thine eyes with the contents of this bottle just as I did anoint
my own. Why should I slay thee or do thee hurt?'

"And I chuckled aloud. He was all Pathan then, Sahib, and handling his
enemy right subtly.

"And Ibrahim wept yet more loudly and said again:--

"'Slay me and have done.' Then my brother gave him the name by which he
was known ever after, saying:--

"'Why should I slay thee, _Ibrahim, the Weeper_?' and he produced the
bottle and held it above that villain's face.

"His screams were music to me, and in the joy of his black heart Moussa
Isa burst into some strange chant in his own Somali tongue.

"'Nay, our friends must hear thy eloquence and songs, Ibrahim,' said my
brother, after he had held the bottle tilted above the face of the
Weeper for some minutes. ''Twere greedy to keep this to ourselves.'

"Again and again that day my brother would say: 'Nay--I cannot wait
longer. Poor Ibrahim's weeping eyes must be relieved at once,' and he
would produce the bottle, uncork it, and hold it over Ibrahim's face as
he writhed and screamed and twisted in his bonds.

"'What ails thee, Ibrahim the Weeper?' he would coo. 'Thou knowest it is
a soothing lotion. Didst thou not see me use it on mine own eyes?' Yea,
he was true Pathan then, and I loved him the more.

"A hundred times that day he did thus and enjoyed the music of Ibrahim's
screams, and by night the dog was a little mad. So, lest we defeat
ourselves and lose something of the sport our souls loved, we left him
in peace that night, if 'peace' it is to know that the dreadful death
you have prepared for another now overhangs you. Moussa Isa kept watch
through the night. And in the morning came Abdul Haq and Hussein Ali
and the servants and _oont-wallahs_, save a few who had been sent with
laden camels by the Caravan Road. And, when all had eaten and rested, my
brother held _durbar_,[34] having placed Ibrahim Mahmud in the midst,
bound, and looking like one who has long lain upon a bed of sickness.

[34] Meeting.

"This _durbar_ proceeded with the greatest solemnity and no man smiled
when my brother said: 'And now, touching the matter of my beloved and
respected Ibrahim Mahmud, son of our grandfather's Vizier,--the learned
Ibrahim, who shortly goeth (perhaps) across the black water to Englistan
to become a great and famous pleader,--can any suggest the cause of the
strange and distressing madness that hath come upon him so