ed. He was a powerful, thick-set fellow and
evidently, by the deference the others paid him, a man of
considerable importance. His expression was one of fixed malignity,
and George rightly surmised that he need look for no mercy from this
individual. He wondered who and what he was. Was he a magistrate, or
some potentate of Arabi's army? He did not give him the idea of
being a military man. His costume was decidedly that of the native
civilian, and yet there was an air of stern command about the man
that puzzled him.

At a sign from the new-comer, the two men who held him proceeded to
divest Helmar of his coat and shirt. This done, his hands and feet
were fastened, and he was then thrown on the floor face downwards,
while the bigger of his two custodians stood by, handling the deadly
kourbash.

There was no mistaking their vile intentions; he was to be
interrogated with a vengeance, and George eyed the cruel thong as it
lay idly resting on the ground beside the great Arab. The horrors it
conjured up in his mind were too appalling for words. Already in
fancy he could feel its relentless blows on his bared back, and he
shuddered again and again. He shut his teeth and, to use his own
phraseology, determined to "die hard." He would show these inhuman
monsters that a white man could stand without a sign anything they
could think of to reduce him to submission. In bitterness he felt
that this mockery of interrogation was only an excuse to vent their
hatred of the European, and that in reality they did not hope to
discover anything from him, and, in fact, knew that he had no
information to give.

The dreaded kourbash, he was determined, should do its fell work
with no response from him, terrible as he knew that punishment would
be; they might kill him, they might flay him alive, but they could
not reduce his stubborn pride as no doubt they hoped to do. This
spirit bore him through those few moments that preceded the first
words of his mock interrogation, but he felt himself shrink on the
floor when he saw the slightest movement on the part of his
executioner. The torture of that short period was the refinement of
cruelty, but never for one moment did he waver from his fixed
determination to face his inquisitors like a man and a son of his
fatherland.

At last the man in the chair spoke; his tones were calm and
dispassionate, but there rang in them an undercurrent of intensity
that warned George, whose mental faculties w