"Sixty!" I gasped. "Impossible."
"It's a fact," he said, and stalked out of the room. But he returned within a few minutes carrying a tray set with cold meats and wine which he set on a little table and wheeled before me. Then he freed my right hand and stood over me with a revolver while I ate. But I could not eat at once, for the good reason that my arm was paralyzed, and minutes passed before I could make use of it. Even then it pained like a raw scald. But I suppressed a reference to its condition and at the earliest instant cleared the board in the fashion of a famished wolf. Afterwards he bound me up again, standing behind me to do it, out of respect for my strength, no doubt. Then he put up his pistol and resumed his chair.
"Upon my soul, I enjoy a chat with you," he assured me. "You see, I have no one else to confide in"—here he grinned—"and there's a peculiar pleasure in unbosoming to a helpless enemy."
"The pleasure is mutual," I protested courteously. "No other man has given me such mental pabulum."
He closed one eye in a very vulgar manner, "Confess you expire with curiosity to hear more of my beautiful fiancée—the woman you love!"
"The more readily," I responded, "because I know you'll be delighted to taunt me with the satisfaction of that same curiosity."
"Ah!" said he. "You are a foeman worthy of my steel. My heart warms with hate for you; respectful hate." He took out a silver pocket flask of spirit and filled the cup.
At this he began to sip, eyeing me the while with secret delight at my carefully repressed impatience. But he was too anxious to torture me directly to keep me waiting long.
"She's in a drugged sleep this moment," he announced. "I'll keep her like that till after the funeral."
"That's unlike you," I remarked. "It's almost kind."