For a few seconds a dark haze of blind terror shut off my power of vision. I felt the villain meant to do what he had threatened. His nerves had been shaken by what I had said to him about the Arab—though why, I could not fathom—and my challenge, although the merest bluff, had completed their disorder. He was in a spell of panic and it had swept his reason and his resolution to the winds. He intended to kill me in order to restore his own sense of security, and at once. And I was impotent to prevent him. He was counting aloud, "One, two, three, four." He had got up to fifteen before I even partially awoke out of my trance of craven fear. But in the next five seconds I had lived a whole series of lifetimes and I had received an inspiration born of wrath and hate and desperate necessity.
"Look in my eyes," I shrieked at him. "And listen if you want to live."
He looked at me. I put the strength of my existence into my gaze, and I felt a strange, wild thrill of exultation as I saw his eyes dilate encountering the glance I threw at him.
"My death means yours," I hissed. "My monitor stands over you. You'll be shrivelled as by lightning. We'll go together to the throne of God! Now shoot if you will and damn your soul for all eternity! Shoot—shoot!"
But Dr. Belleville did not shoot. His hand fell to his side. He staggered back, staring at me open-mouthed until the chair arrested him. I saw my advantage and pressed it home.
"Stop!" I shouted. "As you value your dirty life. Stop! Stand still and do not turn your head. One movement and we both die. I don't want to die for a dog like you."
He stood like a frozen image. Holding his glance with mine, I began to mutter in a sing-song way a string of meaningless Egyptian phrases. Then the more powerfully to impress the superstitious fool-scoundrel, all of a sudden I uttered a loud heart-rending groan and allowed my head to fall over on the strap that encircled and sustained my neck. But though I only affected to swoon, the frightful amount of will force and nervous energy I had expended in the crisis had induced a consequential lassitude so enthralling that I came very near to fainting in reality. And, indeed, it is quite likely that I lost my senses for a time. Soon, however, I felt water sprinkled on my face and slowly I raised my head. "A drink!" I gasped.
A glass was pressed to my lips. I drank thirstily and opened my eyes. Belleville, white-faced but composed now and gloomily frowning, was my minister.
"I make you my compliments," he said in cold, slow, even tones. "You have a quick wit and a nerve of iron. I am glad, because they saved me from a folly. You would cease to be of use to me dead, curse you, though I wish you carrion, and will make you worm food before I am much older."