"Have a care!" hissed the doctor. "That's the rack—the old-fashioned rack, such as your white holy men used to resort to when they wanted to make a man holy in some other way than his own. It is still in use in China for extorting confessions from thieves. Nice contrivance, isn't it? But its use has been by no means confined to the Chinese."
"What you allude to happened two hundred years ago, and you know it," retorted Alice. "It takes yellow fiends like you and your friends here to torture a woman in these days!"
"Bah! They would rack people to death for religion's sake to-day if they dared," answered the doctor.
"But you have your warning, so heed it," he added, and advancing to the princess, he again asked her if she was ready to reveal the secret.
"Never!" she cried. "You can torture me all you will, but you will never learn from me that which will place in your hands what I choose shall belong to my husband, Ah Lung."
"Ah Lung is not your husband nor will he ever be unless you yield to my request," declared the doctor.
She gave him one look and turned her head away.
"Give the screw a twist!" cried the doctor, and the old Chinaman obeyed, the two masks standing on each side reciting something in old Chinese which Alice could make nothing of.
Skeep Hup bore the pain thus inflicted unflinchingly.
She shut her eyes, set her lips, and never uttered a sound.