“Poor devil!”
“What! Do you pity him?”
“Yes; it would have been far more charitable to kill him.”
“In a week, perhaps, he shall lose the other ear.”
“In a week?”
“Yes, if he persists in his denials that he has not that which I seek,” said Ajeeb. “Were I to kill him at once, I should never, perhaps, recover the Eye of Jobu.”
“What do you care for the stone outside its intrinsic value?”
The high priest looked at his visitor in amazement.
“How can you talk like that?” he asked. “I would give my life a thousand times over if it were possible to recover that sacred relic, which for untold ages has been the property of my god.”
Ajeeb spoke with the greatest depth of religious fervor. His eyes stared, the muscles of his neck stood out like whipcords, and his form trembled. Barry had never before seen him so manifest himself.