Under the Rebel's Reign

by Charles Neufeld

The gaoler smiled grimly. He had expected this, and refrained from comment, contenting himself with shrugging his shoulders in an approved Eastern style.

Seeing that nothing further was to be gained from this unintelligent pig, Helmar gave up the attempt, and examined more closely the instruments of torture, wondering in a hopeless sort of way what was to be his fate. Unable to come to any decision, he flung himself into the chair his gaoler had set in the centre of the room, a prey to a horrible despair.

He had hardly seated himself when he became aware of the sound of approaching footsteps. They did not come from the passage by which he had entered, but from the opposite side of the room. At that moment the gaoler approached, and, seizing him roughly by the shoulder, attempted to hustle him from his seat.

"This is for another; we will find something less comfortable for you."

Helmar detested being pushed about, and as he expected to be handled badly later on, he determined to put up with none of it now. He sprang in a bound from his seat and, turning, dealt the great Egyptian a smashing blow on the face, and was about to follow it up with another, when a door, which he had not seen, suddenly opened, and a procession of dusky figures entered. Instantly two of the new-comers sprang forward and, before George could continue his chastisement, had him securely pinioned, his flashing eyes indicating the storm of rage that was going on within him.

Realizing that now, if ever, he must be calm, he stifled back his feelings, and waited for the next act in the horrible drama. Six men had entered, and one of them seated himself at once in the arm-chair George had vacated. He was a powerful, thick-set fellow and evidently, by the deference the others paid him, a man of considerable importance. His expression was one of fixed malignity, and George rightly surmised that he need look for no mercy from this individual. He wondered who and what he was. Was he a magistrate, or some potentate of Arabi's army? He did not give him the idea of being a military man. His costume was decidedly that of the native civilian, and yet there was an air of stern command about the man that puzzled him.

At a sign from the new-comer, the two men who held him proceeded to divest Helmar of his coat and shirt. This done, his hands and feet were fastened, and he was then thrown on the floor face downwards, while the bigger of his two custodians stood by, handling the deadly kourbash.

There was no mistaking their vile intentions; he was to be interrogated with a vengeance, and George eyed the cruel thong as it lay idly resting on the ground beside the great Arab. The horrors it conjured up in his mind were too appalling for words. Already in fancy he could feel its relentless blows on his bared back, and he shuddered again and again. He shut his teeth and, to use his own phraseology, determined to "die hard." He would show these inhuman monsters that a white man could stand without a sign anything they could think of to reduce him to submission. In bitterness he felt that this mockery of interrogation was only an excuse to vent their hatred of the European, and that in reality they did not hope to discover anything from him, and, in fact, knew that he had no information to give.

The dreaded kourbash, he was determined, should do its fell work with no response from him, terrible as he knew that punishment would be; they might kill him, they might flay him alive, but they could not reduce his stubborn pride as no doubt they hoped to do. This spirit bore him through those few moments that preceded the first words of his mock interrogation, but he felt himself shrink on the floor when he saw the slightest movement on the part of his executioner. The torture of that short period was the refinement of cruelty, but never for one moment did he waver from his fixed determination to face his inquisitors like a man and a son of his fatherland.

At last the man in the chair spoke; his tones were calm and dispassionate, but there rang in them an undercurrent of intensity that warned George, whose mental faculties were painfully acute, that the latent feeling of racial hatred was only held in check by the power of an iron will, and that like a boiling volcano it needed but the faintest extra aggravation to make it burst forth and overwhelm its surroundings. The man's words fell on his ears like the knell of doom, and ere he replied he braced himself for the inevitable result of his answer.