“‘Well,’ returned the grim-visaged woman with a return to her customary austerity, ‘I did. The wound was slight; only a few easily subdued drops of blood followed; but, believe me, maiden, it will be sufficient.’
“‘What do you mean?’ demanded Lal Lu.
“‘This,’ returned the weird creature with repulsive, evil joy, which she made no attempt to disguise: ‘The point of that dagger was steeped in the most deadly poison known in India. In twenty minutes, ha, ha! it is the prince who will be the empty casket.’”
As the Sepoy reached this point in his narrative he paused with startling abruptness.
Raikes, no longer under the influence of the seductive cadences, looked up sharply.
“Well?” inquired the Sepoy as he met the inquiring glance of his furtive auditor, “what of the flaw in the sapphire? Can you trace the blemish?”
“Devil seize me!” exclaimed Raikes, as he offered, by this apostrophe, an invitation which was certain, at no distant date, to be accepted.
“Devil seize me if I have thought of the sapphire!” and he began at once an apologetic inspection of the brilliant with the magnifying glass.
“Ha, ha!” laughed the Sepoy. “I must congratulate myself upon my powers of narration.”