"Beat the innocent until the guilty confess—it is a good maxim, O Master," said Zewar in his rasping tones.
Black Zogal, with his wild eyes, stepped out as if to lay hold of the lad, but Ishmael waved him back.
"Wait!" he said.
He was looking at Helena again, and his face had undergone a fearful change.
"My boy," he said, still keeping his eyes on Helena, "if you do not tell me I must give you back to the people."
At that the boy broke into a paroxysm of hysterical sobs.
"No, no, my Master will not do that. But see," he said, tearing wider his torn caftan so as to expose his breast, "my Master himself shall kill me."
At the next moment Helena's hand was on Ishmael's arm.
"Let the boy go," she said. "I can tell the rest."
A gloomy chill traversed Ishmael's heart. He had a sense of spiritual paralysis—as if everything in the world were crumbling and crashing down to impotent wreck and ruin.