“Good! Now tell me who instigated the crime?”
“A demon, sahib.”
“No trifling, thou rogue!” replied Martin, savagely. “Don’t answer me with your demons, or I will send thee to sup with them.”
“The gods forbid, sahib: it was a demon, the demon who prompts all men to crime—poverty. Yes, Huc-cuk was starving, and he stole the girl that he might get bread.”
“That is indeed candid, thou old rogue!” cried Martin. “Now, tell me, to whom didst thou sell her?”
“To some wandering merchants.”
“Villain,” cried Martin, “this is false; else how knowest thou she is even now alive, unharmed, uninjured?”
“Sahib, the merchants who bought her again sold her to be the handmaiden of a princess.”
“Now, thou rogue,” said Martin, making the lock of his pistol click, “prepare to die, or answer me truly: Where is she now—where may we find her?”
The old coward trembled like an aspen leaf, as he replied—