“Ah! I know!” said Benjamin. “I know you, Ommony! What I have said is secret; therefore you don’t wish to hear any more, because you are too much a man to violate what is told in confidence. And you have made no promise to the Lama. Am I right?”
Ommony nodded—grimly. That was the one bright point of light.
“I could tell—I could tell much,” Benjamin went on. “But I saw you shut your mind against me. As well pour oil on fire to put it out as talk to a man who mistrusts! Very well. We have been friends, you and I. Remember that, Ommony. And now this: you believe in a devil—some kind of a devil—all Englishmen do. You believe I am a devil—Benjamin, your friend, whom you hid in a cave in your forest—me and my wife and my daughter. We are devils. Very well. A promise that is made to the devil has not to be kept, Ommony! Go and see for yourself. I will help you. When you have seen, you shall judge. Then, after that, if you say I am a devil, you shall break your faith with me. You shall denounce me. I will let you be the judge.”
“Have you ever been into the Ahbor country?” Ommony asked. His voice was sullen now. There was a leaden note in it.
“No,” Benjamin answered.
“And those—those children went to the Ahbor country?”
“Yes.”
“Then what proof have you of what the Lama has done with them?”
“Ommony—as God is my witness—I have none! I think—I—I am almost positively sure—but—”
He paced the floor twice, and then flung himself down on the blankets beside Ommony, looking up into his face. He was afraid at that moment, if ever man was.