The Raja smiled.
“Scoundrel!” Traherne hurled the word at him.
The Raja smiled.
Crespin sprang to the side of his wife, threw one hand on her quivering shoulders, drew and leveled his revolver. “Another word, and I shoot you like a dog,” he hissed. Antony Crespin was sober now.
The Raja laughed.
“Oh, no, Major—that wouldn’t help a bit,” he said genially—almost, too, as if he deprecated the fact. “You would only be torn to pieces instead of being beheaded. Besides, I have had your teeth drawn. That precaution was taken while you were at your bath.”
Crespin took his hand from Lucilla’s shoulder, and examined his revolver carefully and flung it down with an oath.
Again the gong sounded. It bleated through the night mournfully. A girl had died in child-bed. Rukh counted the strokes. “That’s a pity,” he said as the last faded away, and he lit a fresh cigarette.
The Englishwoman turned to her men. “Promise me,” she said almost fiercely, “promise you won’t leave me alone! If we must die, let me die first—” and her voice broke on the words.
They nodded. Neither could speak.