At a sign from him one of the two who had been mounting guard over the entrance advanced, and tearing out handfuls from the stacks of kindling wood, began to arrange them beneath the grim receptacle. The victim watched the process with a sort of dazed, numbed attention.
And then, as he looked again at the ring of his tormentors, something he saw made him wonder whether his head was going round with him, or whether his reeling brain had actually and indeed given way beneath the shock.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
At Fault.
The hitherto glowering, menacing countenances, had all of a sudden taken on a heavy, vacuous expression. The stare of the fierce eyes had become dull and lack-lustre. Even the forms were swaying. And then—what marvel was this? The whole group seemed to collapse as one man, subsiding to the ground. There they lay, breathing with a heavy, stertorous kind of snore. All save one.
This was the stranger who had taken so vindictive and ruthless a part in the questioning. He still kept his upright seat, and over his face had come no change. Now he arose, and strode over to the man who kept the entrance, deftly manoeuvring between him and the latter.
The Gularzai stared at the towering, authoritative form, but said nothing.
“Take this, brother, and swallow it,” said the stranger. “Have no fear. It is not death, only short sleep. But to hesitate will be death.” And the speaker produced a Browning pistol in one hand, and something quite small in the other.