“We autocrats,” he added, “are badly brought up. We are not accustomed to having our desires, or even our whims thwarted.”
“Will you never cease tormenting this lady?” Traherne cut in violently. “Get on with your butchery!”
The Raja paid as little attention to Traherne as the Englishwoman had paid to the Raja.
“Remember my power,” Rukh continued. “If I may not take you back to my palace as my queen, I can send you back as my slave. . . . Have you nothing to say? . . . I repeat my offer as to your children. . . . Remember, too, that, if I so will it, you cannot save them by dying. I can have them kidnapped—or—I can have them killed.”
She answered him then—with a wild, anguished shriek.
An Englishman’s endurance snapped. He threw Lucilla’s poor, cold hands from his, and with an enfiended cry of, “Devil,” rushed on the throne, and leapt at the Raja’s diamond-circled throat; did it so suddenly, so quickly that before the startled priests could gather their bemazed wits he had pinned the Raja against the back of his throne.
But instantly then the huddled priests flung on Traherne, pulled him off—he was one, they were more than a score—pinioned him roughly, and dragged him struggling away.
Fast and furiously the priests chattered together, and the Chief Priest prostrated himself in hot supplication before the throne where the Raja sat coldly smiling. He heard the Chief Priest gravely, then rose and passed him with a word—pressed through the priests thronged near the throne, they striving to dissuade him, and went to Traherne, whom several of the priests who had seized him still held securely.
“Chivalrous but ill-advised, Dr. Traherne,” the Raja remarked. “I regret it, and so will you. My colleagues here insist that, as you have laid impious hands on the chief of their sacred caste, your death alone will not appease the fury of the Goddess. They insist upon subjecting you to a process of expiation—a ritual of great antiquity—but—” He broke off significantly.
“You mean torture?” Traherne spoke calmly.