"Do you feel that, and that, and that?" asked I, as I gave him an extra shake. "Now, the very first time that I catch you meddling with my affairs I shall not only shake the breath out of your lungs, but I'll beat the wind out of your spying little carcass. Now go!" I opened the wire door and kicked the Minion through into the next section of the veranda. He put up his black fists and began to cry, smearing the colouring matter all over his face until he looked so absurd that I could not refrain from laughing, angry as I was. While I stood there laughing at him, the farther door of the next compartment was opened and an arm in uniformed sleeve drew the lad in and closed the door and locked it. I returned to my own veranda, and soon I heard the wire door fasten with a click. I tried it, and found that I could not again open it. Then upon my ear broke the sound of wails. Sobs, groans, shrieks, and howls rent the air, and I laughed with fiendish glee.
"You see what a nice time you'll have between them and me," I called as loudly as I could. "Don't try it again, for there will be nothing to beat when I have got through with you."
And now I turned over in my hammock and went to sleep. I argued, that if they really intended to kill me I had better get some sleep when and how I could, to be ready for—I knew not what.
I awoke much refreshed. I saw from the long shadows in the garden below me that it must be later than I thought. I sprang from my hammock, determined to show some interest in the making of the ring, and thus deceive those who came to my chamber. I knew less than nothing about work such as this that I had offered to perform, but I decided to set about my fraudulent exhibit at once. I went to the door and tried to open it; as I had suspected, it was fastened on the outside. I then began to pound upon it. After making a tremendous noise, I heard the shuffling of feet, and an undersized negro turned the key and opened the door a crack. I jumped upon him and hurled him from the door, pushing it wide, whereupon I confronted three of Christophe's famed body guard. So this was the way that they proceeded! I saw that they simply wanted to discover if I was one of the docile kind. I proved the contrary very quickly. I began to storm and rage. I pointed to the table within my room, and asked how I could follow the commands of the King if I were not allowed fire to ignite the wick of my lamp. I said that I had been pounding on the door for hours. What was the matter with their ears that they could not hear me? The men looked at me with astonishment. Then they gave an order to the old negro, who quickly disappeared. While he was gone I worked myself into such a state of rage that my guard stood gazing open-mouthed. It was very exhausting, as when the person whom the old negro had been despatched to bring returned with him I was forced to repeat the entire performance, for this was the interpreter.
After my rage was quite exhausted, and my arms ached painfully from my having thrashed them round my head like the arms of a windmill, the interpreter turned to the guard and told them what I desired. The old negro was sent for a light, and I closed my door with a bang in the face of the guard, and settled down to my work. I felt confident that I should be able to produce nothing, but I held the metal before the flame, put the pipe in my mouth, and began to blow. I did not dare take my ring from beneath my clothes, for I feared that in the corner of some adjacent room there was a spy set to watch me, and it was not part of my plan that Christophe should know that I carried a ready-made symbol about with me. I found that the metal melted easily under the pipe. I allowed it to get partly cool, and then began to fashion it with my pincers into somewhat near the size and shape of the ring. I was much pleased with myself, and, after about an hour's work, I came to the conclusion that I had done pretty well for a novice. However creditable it was, I knew that that was not the sort of work that Christophe wanted. He required the smooth polish, the delicate arabesque, the exquisite symmetry, the perfect setting of those wonderful eyes, the expression of the face half human, half grotesque, and with a beastliness of vision that I can not describe, but which seemed to permeate the whole. Remembering Lacelle's horror of the ring as a symbol, I covered it with my handkerchief, thinking that if she saw it when she came to serve me she would be so terrified that she might never come to my aid again. I wondered why Christophe should care so much for the original ring—whether it was that blind devotion which every one who had ever come in contact with Mauresco had shared for that hypnotic personality, or whether Christophe himself was tainted with the love of fetish worship. This latter idea, however, was contradicted by the fact of his having built within his palace an Anglican church. This much I surmised: The King evidently thought that the ring held some occult power, and I could account for his anxiety to possess one, the counterpart of Mauresco's own, only on the supposition that he felt assured of its supernatural qualities.
My stay in this delightful spot would have been satisfactory enough had I not been anxious about our future, and had I been able to see Cynthia. Each day when my guard came into my room he cast a scrutinizing glance at the table where the lamp and the metal lay, but I had always the handkerchief thrown over them, so that his curiosity was never rewarded. Four days had now passed, and I had done little more than heat the metal and try to bend it into the shape of a circle, which bore no more resemblance to the original design than would any bit of carelessly twisted iron.
This, as I have said, was the fourth day. I did not wish the task to seem too easily accomplished, as I might be suspected of producing a ring that I had stolen and not made. Each morning when the old servant came in to bring me my breakfast I arose from the table, hurriedly blew out the lamp, threw my handkerchief over the awkward attempt at ring making, and seated myself on the balcony to sip my coffee and eat my bread. On this last morning I had grown a little careless, and had lost myself in speculations as to what a pleasure it would be to return once more to God's country, when I heard a chuckle. I jumped to my feet, but it was too late. The old man had twitched the handkerchief from the materials which I was pretending to use toward gaining my liberty. He held the ring in his grimy paw, and examined it as if he had every right in the world to do so. I sprang upon him and kicked him all across the chamber, and out into the passage, down which he ran howling with pain. The interpreter came to see me later, and explained to me in low tones that he was sorry that I had used such harsh measures, for the old man was a favourite with Christophe—his half brother, in fact—and he feared for the result.
"Very well, then," said I. "Let the result be what it will. I do not intend to be spied upon any longer. It is quite easy to make such a ring as the King wants, and that I will show you to-morrow morning if I may be taken before him."
"If he lets you remain so long," said the good interpreter, sighing. In that sigh I thought that I read my doom.
He looked with curiosity at my work, but shook his head.