"You would—torture me?"
"If it were necessary," he admitted coolly.
She answered in a blaze of defiance.
"Get out your iron cubes for my fingers, you black-hearted villain!"
"Not for your soft fingers, ma cherie. I kiss them one by one as a lover should. Shall we say for your friend's fingers? If you won't talk, perhaps he will."
"Are you all tiger, Boris? Isn't there somewhere in your heart a spark of manhood?" she sobbed, her spirit melted at my danger.
"Rhetorical questions, Evie. Shall we come to business? How did your soon-to-be-deceased lover come on board? Who brought him? What were his plans?"
"If I tell you, will you spare him?" she begged.
"I'll promise this," he assured her maliciously. "If you don't tell I'll not spare him."
She told all she knew except my plan of rescue. As soon as she mentioned the boat in which I had come the fellow hurried up on deck to intercept it.