Meanwhile the ugly work at the fireplace pursued its course. The two feet were reddened by the heat until it seemed almost as though the bright flames of the fire were glowing through them. The sufferer exerted all his strength in trying to bend his legs and to draw back; and a dull, continuous moan came through his gag.
“Oh, hang it all!” thought Patrice. “Are we going to let him roast like this, like a chicken on a spit?”
He looked at Coralie. She did not stir. Her face was distorted beyond recognition, and her eyes seemed fascinated by the terrifying sight.
“Couple of inches nearer!” cried the leader, from the other end of the room, as he unfastened Siméon’s bonds.
The order was executed. The victim gave such a yell that Patrice’s blood froze in his veins. But, at the same moment, he became aware of something that had not struck him so far, or at least he had attached no significance to it. The prisoner’s hand, as the result of a sequence of little movements apparently due to nervous twitches, had seized the opposite edge of the table, while his arm rested on the marble top. And gradually, unseen by the torturers, all whose efforts were directed to keeping his legs in position, or by the leader, who was still engaged with Siméon, this hand opened a drawer which swung on a hinge, dipped into the drawer, took out a revolver and, resuming its original position with a jerk, hid the weapon in the chair.
The act, or rather the intention which it indicated, was foolhardy in the extreme, for, when all was said, reduced to his present state of helplessness, the man could not hope for victory against five adversaries, all free and all armed. Nevertheless, as Patrice looked at the glass in which he beheld him, he saw a fierce determination pictured in the man’s face.
“Another two inches,” said Colonel Fakhi, as he walked back to the fireplace.
He examined the condition of the flesh and said, with a laugh:
“The skin is blistering in places; the veins are ready to burst. Essarès Bey, you can’t be enjoying yourself, and it strikes me that you mean to do the right thing at last. Have you started scribbling yet? No? And don’t you mean to? Are you still hoping? Counting on your wife, perhaps? Come, come, you must see that, even if she has succeeded in escaping, she won’t say anything! Well, then, are you humbugging me, or what? . . .”
He was seized with a sudden burst of rage and shouted: