“I cannot tell thee!” I answered.
“Thou liest!” he cried. “Dost thou deny also that thou hast any secret message addressed to the imam, upon thee?”
“I deny nothing,” I gasped. “It was thee, paltry pilferer, who stole the box from me in the kahoua in Algiers; thee who offered Gajére a bag of gold to assist in my murder! I know thee, Labakan! Rest assured, that if thou killest me, my assassination will speedily be avenged.”
His fierce, brutal countenance, hideously distorted by uncontrollable anger, broadened into a fiendish grin as, with a loud, defiant laugh, he cried—
“Hadj Absalam is Sultan of the Desert, and Labakan his Grand Vizier. We care naught for Infidels who seek to avenge thee, nor for the homards who bear arms against us. Speak! Dost thou still refuse to disclose the hiding-place of the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, or to deliver unto me thy secret message?”
“I do,” I gasped.
“Too long then have I tarried and wasted words upon thee, courier of evil!” he shrieked, shaking me in his rage and tightening his painful grip upon my throat. At that moment, however, I succeeded in wrenching free my right hand from the outlaw’s grasp, and, desperately clutching the hilt of my thin, curved blade, unsheathed it. It was a struggle for life. Again he grasped my wrist and held it immovable.
“Cur of a Christian! thou who hast sought to bring ill-luck, disaster, and destruction upon us, shalt no longer pollute True Believers with thy baneful presence!” he roared furiously, adding, “Die! rot in the grave of the Infidels that is called the Hall of the Great Death! Curse thee! May Eblis condemn thee and all thine accursed race to the horrible tortures that are eternal, and may Allah burn thy vitals!”
“Thou hast brought me here to murder me!” I cried. “Yet I am willing to explain to thee the whereabouts of the Crescent, if thou wilt tell me of the fate of Zoraida, Daughter of the Sun.”
“The Lalla Zoraida?” he cried, in surprise. “Then it is true thou knowest her! We have not been mistaken! Thy dog’s eyes have rested upon her unveiled face; her beauty hath been defiled by thy curious gaze, and she hath spoken with thee, telling thee of wonders the secret of which she was charged to preserve under penalty of death!”