“I would rather die at once,” he said. “It will come to that, for I shall bleed to death in any case.”
“Bleed to death? No, no. Fire is a good hakîm,” (Physician), replied the Baluchi, with the laugh of a fiend. “Turn thy head and look.”
Campian was just able to do this, though otherwise powerless to move. Now he noticed that the fire near which they had been sitting had been blown into a glow, and an old sword blade which had been thrust in it was now red hot. The perspiration streamed from every pore at the prospect of the appalling torment to which they were about to subject him. Not even the thought that this was part of the forfeit he had to pay for the saving of Vivien availed to strengthen him. Unheroic as it may sound, there was no room for other emotion in his mind than that of horror and shrinking fear. The ring of savage, turbaned countenances thrust forward to witness his agony were to him at that moment as the faces of devils in hell.
Umar Khan drew his tulwar and laid its keen edge against one of the helpless man’s ankles.
“Which foot shall come off first?” he snarled. “You, Mohammed, have the hot iron ready.”
He swung the great curved blade aloft, then down it came with a swish. Was his foot really cut off? thought the sufferer. It had been done so painlessly. Ah, but the shock had dulled the agony! That would follow immediately.
Again the curved blade swung aloft. This time it was quietly lowered.
“Let him rise now,” said Umar Khan, with a devilish expression of countenance which was something between a grin and a scowl.
Those who held him down sprang off. In a dazed sort of way Campian rose to a sitting posture and stared stupidly at his feet. No mutilated stump spouting blood met his gaze. The vindictive savage had been playing horribly upon his fears. He was unharmed.
“I have another thought,” said Umar Khan, returning his sword to its scabbard. “I will leave thee the use of thy feet until to-morrow morning. Then thou shalt walk no more.”