r, and then drag
you up to General Willoughby. He will hang you in chains if I say the
word." Alan Hawke was tiger-like now in his rapacity.

"I will leave the first set with you, and you will now give me your
check on the Oriental Bank for five thousand pounds. The other drafts
you will have all ready for me to-morrow and bring them to me at the
Marble House."

The jeweler groaned and swayed to and fro upon his seat in a mute agony.
"I cannot do it. I have not the money," he babbled.

"You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million pounds
out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here," mercilessly said the
torturer.

"I will not! I cannot! I dare not!" cried Ram Lal, dropping on the floor
and trying to bow his head at Hawke's feet.

"Get up! You old beast!" commanded Hawke. "By God! I'll shoot and
disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that dagger?"
With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch with his pistol,
Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily tearing off a silk
neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid down on the table the
blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The golden haft, the jeweled
fretwork and the broad blade were all covered with the life tide of the
great man whom no one mourned in Delhi.

"Mercy! Mercy!" hoarsely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped, as
in prayer.

"I know whose it is!" pitilessly continued the tormentor. "You dropped
it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in your mad haste to
get away! One single rebellious word and I will march you to the nearest
guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?"

"Anything, anything, Sahib!" begged the cowering wretch. "Put it away,
put it away!"

"Now, quick!" said the Major. "First, give me the check! Then indorse
all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the others
myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers. Your name
on all of them will make them go without question." The alert adventurer
watched Ram's trembling fingers achieve the work. "Do not dare to leave
your own inclosure till you come directly to me to-morrow, when you
have altered all those drafts to read five thousand pounds each. I have
charge of the estate of the man whom you butchered like a dog. I have
a guard of two companies of soldiers, and you will be arrested as a
murderer if you attempt to leave, save to come directly to me with these
papers."

Alan Hawke