"How can you prevent me, when you and all the Feringhees are in my power?"
"If we fall into your hands the diamond will not."
"How can you save it?"
"The Star of India is hidden where only he who hid it and God himself can find it."
"If I give you the choice of surrendering it to me or suffering torture, what will you do?"
Luchman laughed scornfully.
"Have I been a Hindoo for two score years to care for pain or suffering? Has my Christianity so weakened me that I am become a child? Talk not such language to me. But, Wana Affghar, if you will keep faith with me the Star of India shall be yours: it rests alone with you."
"What do you offer me?" asked the chieftain, whose serpent-like eyes greedily flashed.
"If you will allow the Feringhees in the temple to proceed on their journey, and not try to harm them afterward, I will give you the diamond, which I brought over the Himalayas, and which is but a younger sister of the Koh-i-noor of the Queen of England."
Here was the proposition, clear and unmistakable. Having made it, Luchman looked straight in the face of the Ghoojur chieftain and asked with military curtness,