reat, gaunt bird of prey and his thin claw-like
hand fastened itself on her thin shoulder.

"Thou liest, girl," he said hoarsely, "or art playing with me? Money
thou shalt have. Name thy price. I'll pay thee all that thou wouldst
ask. I'll not believe that thou dost not know! Think of thy lover under
torture, on the rack, burnt at the stake. Hast ever seen a man after he
has been broken on the wheel? his limbs torn from their sockets, his
chest sunken under the weights--and the stake? hast seen a heretic burnt
alive...?"

She gave a loud scream of agony: her hands went up to her ears, her eyes
stared out of her head like those of one in a frenzy of terror.

"Pity! pity! my lord, have pity! I swear that I do not know."

"Verdomme!" he cried out in the madness of his rage as with a cruel
twist of his hand he threw the wretched girl off her balance and sent
her half-fainting, cowering on the floor.

"Verdommt be thou, plepshurk," came in a ringing voice from behind him.

The next moment he felt as if two grapnels made of steel had fastened
themselves on his shoulders and as if a weight of irresistible power was
pressing him down, down on to his knees. His legs shook under him, his
bones seemed literally to be cracking beneath that iron grip, and he had
not the power to turn round in order to see who his assailant was. The
attack had taken him wholly by surprise and it was only when his knees
finally gave way under him, and he too was down on the ground, licking
the dust of the floor--as he had forced the wretched girl to do--that he
had a moment's respite from that cruel pressure and was able to turn in
the direction whence it had come.

Diogenes with those wide shoulders of his squared out to their full
breadth, legs apart and arms crossed over his mighty chest was standing
over him, his eyes aflame and his moustache bristling till it stood out
like the tusks of a boar.

"Dondersteen!" he exclaimed as he watched the other man's long, lean
figure thus sprawling on the ground, "this is a pretty pass to which to
bring this highly civilized and cultured country. Men are beginning to
browbeat and strike the women now! Dondersteen!"

Stoutenburg, whose vocabulary of oaths was at least as comprehensive as
that of any foreign adventurer, had--to its accompaniment--struggled at
last to his feet.

"You ..." he began as soon as he had partially recovered his breath. But
Diogenes putting up his hand hastily interrupted him