We instantly let go of our ropes and hung solidly by the neck—it was awful.
“Hill, Jones!” The Pimple was shouting now. We could not have answered had we tried.
The door crashed open. The Pimple saw us, yelled at the top of his voice, and kept on yelling. Somebody rushed past (I was next the door) bumping against me so that my body swung violently, and the rope tightened unbearably round my throat. Then a pair of strong arms clasped my legs and—oh, blessed relief!—lifted me a little. (I found out afterwards it was Sabit, the sentry. The Pimple was doing the same for Hill.) There was soon pandemonium in the room; in answer to the Pimple’s cries people came rushing in from all over the hotel. The place was in darkness and everybody except Hill and myself were shouting as loud as they could, while the Pimple’s shrieks sounded clear above the din. Then somebody took me by the waist and threw all his weight on me. Through my closed eyelids I saw a whole firmament of shooting stars. I don’t quite know what happened after that until I found myself on the floor. The same thing was done to Hill. I believe it was one of the drovers who did it, but what his intention was I never knew. Perhaps he was testing us, to see if we would put up our hands, or perhaps he was a good Mohammedan anxious to finish off two infidel “giaours.” Whatever his object may have been, he did not succeed.
I don’t think either Hill or I ever quite lost consciousness, but for a time everything was very confused. We have quite clear recollections of unnamable tortures being inflicted upon us, which we endured without sign as best might be. Turkish methods of resuscitation are original and barbarous. At last somebody poured a bucketful of extraordinarily cold water over me and I half opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was Hill. He lay on a bed still feigning unconsciousness, with dropped jaw and protruding tongue. The local expert in anatomy was practising on him the same abominable treatment as I had just undergone. Another gentleman was pouring water impartially over Hill and the bed. The hotel-keeper, in a vain effort to save his mattresses, was tugging at Hill’s head so as to bring it over the edge of the bed and let the water fall on the floor. Hill opened his eyes and began to cry, as Doc. O’Farrell had warned him to do. They continued to pour water over us both, until the floor was an inch deep in it.
Doc.’s orders to me on “coming to” had been to be as abusive and noisy as possible, and to curse everybody for cutting me down. It was the only unfortunate bit of advice he ever gave us. As soon as I felt up to it, I tried to struggle to my feet, shook my fist at the Pimple and added to the general din by roaring out, “Terjuman chôk fena! Terjuman chôk fena!” (Interpreter very bad.)
Bekir, who had a firm grip on my collar, thrust me back to a sitting position on the floor and relieved his feelings at finding me so much alive by striking me a heavy blow with his fist under the ear. I paid no heed to him, though my head was singing, and continued to roar, “Terjuman chôk fena!” at the top of my voice, but Bekir’s action was the signal for a general assault by everyone within reach. Sabit, from behind, drove his rifle-butt into my back, a shepherd in front smote me on the head with a coil of rope, and a gentleman in wooden clogs on my left kicked me hard in the stomach. The rope and the rifle had been just endurable, but “clogs” was the last straw. An overwhelming nausea came over me, everything swam in a giddy mist, and my voice sank like Bottom the weaver’s from a good leonine roar of wrath to the cooing of a sucking-dove. I have never felt so ill in my life, and it was hard to keep at it, even in a whisper. They were going to do something more to me, when Moïse intervened. I was profoundly thankful, but went on raving at my rescuer between gasps. Bekir and Sabit contented themselves with holding me down on the floor.
Meantime my melancholic companion in crime was weeping and wailing on the bed. He was a most distressful figure, with his pale contorted face and streaming eyes and the great red weal round his neck where the rope had been. His shirt was torn half off, and everything about him from his hair to his socks was as wet as water could make it. Nobody paid the least attention to him and he wailed on in solitude.
The whole population of Mardeen seemed to be in the room or in the passage outside trying to get in. Gentlemen with swords; gentlemen with daggers; gentlemen with rifles, and blunderbusses, and knobkerries; shepherds and drovers with long sticks; a shoemaker with a hammer; and a resplendent gendarme with a long shining chain. On the table the hotel-keeper was standing; he held a torch in one hand and with the other exhibited a clasp-knife he had broken in cutting us down. Everyone was talking at once. The din was indescribable and the smell was beyond words. The Pimple, with fresh marks of tears on his cheeks (he had shrieked himself into hysterical weeping), waved his arms and explained over and over again about Hill’s gold trick and how we had fooled them into leaving the room. The mention of the gold fired the mob to search us. They did it very thoroughly, but found nothing but notes. Hill kept the gold out of sight by the aid of his sleight of hand, but let them find the rupee. This caused a fresh discussion—the rupee was evidence of the truth of what Moïse and the sentries had said, and it must be that the gold was magic gold, and had disappeared into the thin air whence it came. They looked at Hill’s weeping figure with something of awe in their glances.
After about half an hour, when Hill and I had begun to quieten down, Moïse questioned us for the benefit of the crowd as the Spook had previously ordered him to do. I admitted having attempted suicide, and said I did it because twenty English prisoners were chasing us (the Afion party which was two days’ behind), and Major Baylay was going to kill me. I managed to work myself up into a great state of terror. It was easy enough to do. I had only to let my body “go,” as it were, and as a result of our drenching, the extreme cold of the night and the rough treatment we had just come through, it did all that was necessary for a perfect simulation of fear. My teeth chattered and I shook all over as if with ague. The sentries were quite alarmed at the sight, and assured me for the hundredth time that no Englishman could come near me.
Then Hill, questioned in the same way, sobbed out that he knew suicide was a very wicked thing, but I had told him to do it. Moïse told him angrily that he was a fool to take any notice of me. Hill turned his face to the wall and went on weeping. His acting was wonderful. Next day Moïse told us the “control” had been marvellous.