“You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million pounds out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here,” mercilessly said the torturer.
“I will not! I cannot! I dare not!” cried Ram Lal, dropping on the floor and trying to bow his head at Hawke’s feet.
“Get up! You old beast!” commanded Hawke. “By God! I’ll shoot and disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that dagger?” With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch with his pistol, Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily tearing off a silk neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid down on the table the blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The golden haft, the jeweled fretwork and the broad blade were all covered with the life tide of the great man whom no one mourned in Delhi.
“Mercy! Mercy!” hoarsely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped, as in prayer.
“I know whose it is!” pitilessly continued the tormentor. “You dropped it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in your mad haste to get away! One single rebellious word and I will march you to the nearest guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?”
“Anything, anything, Sahib!” begged the cowering wretch. “Put it away, put it away!”
“Now, quick!” said the Major. “First, give me the check! Then indorse all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the others myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers. Your name on all of them will make them go without question.” The alert adventurer watched Ram’s trembling fingers achieve the work. “Do not dare to leave your own inclosure till you come directly to me to-morrow, when you have altered all those drafts to read five thousand pounds each. I have charge of the estate of the man whom you butchered like a dog. I have a guard of two companies of soldiers, and you will be arrested as a murderer if you attempt to leave, save to come directly to me with these papers.”
Alan Hawke lit a cigar and then took a refreshing draught from a pocket flask.
“Now open your strong box and show me your jewels! I want some of them!” The sobbing wretch at his feet demurred until the cold nozzle of the pistol was pressed against his forehead. “I will make the English bankers pay the other four bills; but, you brute, did you think that I would let you off with a poor five thousand pounds? Harken! I go to England in a week! Then you are safe forever! Bring out all your jewels! You got fifty thousand pounds from the old man! I know it!”
Begging and beseeching in vain, Ram Lal crawled to his great iron strong box studded over with huge knobs, and, after a half an hour’s critical selection, Alan Hawke had concealed on his person four little bags, in which he had made the shivering wretch place the choicest of his treasures.