"My life will be nothing to me if I sit here and see this horror. Here, Rajah. Those women; they are not going to be killed?"
"Yes," said the sultan, showing his teeth in a pleasant smile. "They escaped, and were brought back. My wives."
"But to be killed?"
"Yes. They will go to the river; and there——"
He laughed pleasantly, and placed his hands together, the wrists touching, the palm and fingers widely apart, and then brought them together sharply, in imitation of the closing of a crocodile's jaws.
"But it is horrible!" cried Beecher excitedly. "The English Government will never allow this."
"Quiet, man," whispered Hollins excitedly. "What can the English Government do now?"
"It's duty," whispered back Beecher excitedly. "We represent it: two officers of her Majesty's forces."
"Four of us altogether," said Hollins sternly, "standing on the edge of danger ourselves. Why, man, there must be five hundred of the sultan's people here."