"Not knowing him--then," supplied the stranger, who seemed to have const.i.tuted himself--or been const.i.tuted--judge in chief, or president of the proceedings. "Afterwards--that was made good." And his eyes again seemed fixed with a deeper, more compelling glow, upon those of the Englishman.

Mervyn stood as though petrified. The words, the mesmeric glance seemed to take him out of himself--to take him back; back to--something.

Mechanically he raised a nerveless hand, and pa.s.sed it over his eyes.

He saw--yes, a.s.suredly he saw himself in dreamland, as it were. The next words aroused him--brought him to himself--thoroughly, completely.

And they were spoken by Allah-din Khan.

"Thou double traitor," said the chief, in deep, growling tones. "For the act of disobedience thine end should have been sure--sure but swift--the Point of the Star. For this it shall be long, and lingering.

Look."

Following the out-darted finger, Mervyn did look, and--

For the first time he became aware of a curious object which stood within the grisly vault, and that not far behind him. It was a long, coffin-shaped thing, and now, as two of those who had been seated there arose, and, kindling torches from the fire, approached it, he saw that it took on another shape, that of a long, lounge bath in fact. It was raised from the floor on metal feet, and the thing itself was made of metal, but of such ancient and strange manufacture that the British Museum, say, would probably have given a very large sum to possess. As the flare of the torches gleamed upon this he could see something else.

The fronting side of the structure was engraved with subjects of a hideous and revolting nature--that of human beings in process of being done to death under every circ.u.mstance of prolonged torment, and one of them, and the most prominent, by means of just such an implement as this. For there reproduced, was an exact facsimile of it. A fire was represented as burning underneath, and out of it the head and shoulders of a man appeared--the open mouthed, staring expression on the face conveying the indescribable and ghastly agony which the sufferer was undergoing.

Mervyn stared at the thing, and his blood froze. Here was his own fate represented. To lie for hours in that dreadful bath undergoing a process of slow boiling, this was what it meant. He had heard of this being done, knew that it actually was done. The cold sweat poured from his forehead, and he looked wildly in front for a means of putting a quick end to his existence. He had expected the quick, painless death, which his guest had died under his own roof at Heath Hover--but this!

Allah-din Khan's deep voice broke through the terror of the spell that was on him.

"Use no art to avoid this, double traitor, for it is thee or another.

If not thee, then the sun-crowned woman who is with thee shall lie yonder. By the tomb of the Prophet it shall be so."

A mist rose before his eyes and he swayed. The very fiend from h.e.l.l was speaking, of a surety. He wondered whether he could overcome his momentary faintness, lest they should think he had eluded them, and proceed to put their h.e.l.lish threat into immediate execution. Great Heaven! was this some awful, shocking nightmare from which he should presently wake? Was ever any one confronted with such an alternative?

Death he had expected, but these hours perhaps of fiendish torture? But it was himself or Melian. These devils were not to be balked.

Now he saw that there were piles of kindling wood standing beside the horrid implement. The ring of diabolical faces confronting him looked terrific in the fell, ruthless purpose, which he read therein. But for the alternative he would have made a frenzied dash at the nearest weapon and died fighting. Now, the alternative utterly disarmed him. He would make one appeal.

"Give me the Star, that I may die by it," he said. "I have a right to."

"Thou art no longer of its Brotherhood, double traitor," answered Allah-din Khan. "For thee, the boiling fat."

At a sign from him one of the two who had been mounting guard over the entrance advanced, and tearing out handfuls from the stacks of kindling wood, began to arrange them beneath the grim receptacle. The victim watched the process with a sort of dazed, numbed attention.

And then, as he looked again at the ring of his tormentors, something he saw made him wonder whether his head was going round with him, or whether his reeling brain had actually and indeed given way beneath the shock.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

AT FAULT.

The hitherto glowering, menacing countenances, had all of a sudden taken on a heavy, vacuous expression. The stare of the fierce eyes had become dull and lack-l.u.s.tre. Even the forms were swaying. And then--what marvel was this? The whole group seemed to collapse as one man, subsiding to the ground. There they lay, breathing with a heavy, stertorous kind of snore. All save one.

This was the stranger who had taken so vindictive and ruthless a part in the questioning. He still kept his upright seat, and over his face had come no change. Now he arose, and strode over to the man who kept the entrance, deftly manoeuvring between him and the latter.

The Gularzai stared at the towering, authoritative form, but said nothing.

"Take this, brother, and swallow it," said the stranger. "Have no fear.

It is not death, only short sleep. But to hesitate will be death."

And the speaker produced a Browning pistol in one hand, and something quite small in the other.

This particular believer was in no hurry to taste the joys of Paradise just yet, possibly through some misgiving as to whether he had sufficiently earned them. He glanced at the weapon, then at his unconscious tribesmen. Without a word he reached forth his hand, took what was placed therein and--did as directed. But the effect upon him was well nigh instantaneous. He swayed, staggered, then collapsed upon the ground. There remained now only the man who was engaged in the preparation of the bath of torment. To him, too, were the same instructions given. And he, too, with Oriental stoicism, succ.u.mbed to the inevitable. There remained now, in full possession of their faculties, only two--Mervyn and the tall sirdar.

"I think, on the whole, I've managed that rather well--so far," said the latter, in excellent and refined English.

More than ever did Mervyn think his brain was clean gone.

"Good G.o.d!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, giving a violent start and staring at the other in the wildest, blankest amazement.

"I don't wonder you've got--er--something of a shock," said Helston Varne, looking at him with a touch of concern. "It was a beastly ordeal, but it had to be gone through with."

"But--why didn't you contrive to let me know--to tip me the wink somehow?" asked Mervyn helplessly.

"It'd never have done. It'd have bungled the whole show. These worthies' faculties are much too keen to take any risks with. But now there's no time to talk. We must get along, and every blessed yard of start we steal is worth a lot. The effect of what I've given them may last three hours, but not many minutes longer. But it was the only chance. Come now. We shall find your niece all ready--Hussein Khan will have taken care of that--also of the residue of the Gularzai."

"Well, Varne! Of all the geniuses this world ever produced,"--began Mervyn, as they got outside--"you're that one. But, I had no idea you could patter the lingo, let alone so faultlessly."

"I was caught young, you see. Born in this country. Now let's lose no time."

When Melian, seated in her sleeping quarters, eagerly and with a deepening anxiety, listening for the return of her uncle, heard herself softly hailed by an English voice which was not his--and stepped forth to find herself confronted by a tall Gularzai, her astonishment was not much less than that of Mervyn had been. Him, too, she promptly descried, standing behind the other.

"What on earth does it all mean?" she began. "Why--Mr Varne!"

"Quite right, Miss Seward. And now, are you ready to start?"

"Perfectly."

"Come along then, and we'll go and get the horses. It'll save time, and Hussein Khan has his hands pretty full as it is."

The girl drew back in instinctive alarm as they literally stepped over the slumbering forms of their fierce enemies. Arrived at the picket ropes, their horses were promptly bitted and saddled. To Mervyn's suggestion that the Gularzai steeds should be cut loose and turned adrift, Helston objected that it would do more harm than good to set them stampeding in all directions, would raise the countryside on them perhaps even sooner than it would take their captors to recover from the effects of the drug. But already, in obedience to his direction, Hussein Khan had secured as much ammunition as he could find, and was hurling it over the _khud_. The Pathan was thoroughly enjoying himself now; would have enjoyed himself more, had he been allowed to send a few of these his fellow believers to Paradise--or Jehanum--but this he was not.

And as they fared forth beneath the stars, which fortunately shone with sufficient brilliancy to enable them to distinguish the narrow, treacherous, ledgelike paths which they mostly had to thread--conversing only in whispers, and that sparingly--the three Europeans at any rate, had food for thought. Mervyn was marvelling at the superhuman, and consummate cleverness of this friend in need. Why, the make-up alone was a work of genius, and he said as much.

"It was the easier," answered Helston, "because of the beard. That's genuine. I let it grow when I started to come out here--not altogether by accident either, but because I foresaw circ.u.mstances under which I might want to 'make up'--not your case, incidentally. A sham one you know, would never have humbugged these people for a moment."

"Well, you're a miracle all the same," said the other.

Helston Varne felt justified in being rather pleased with himself. His unexpected and startling discovery that these two were being carried away prisoners into the fastnesses of this wild and lawless band, had entailed upon him such a shock as he had seldom, if ever quite, experienced. And with it had come the chilling, stunning thought as to how he, with all his infinite and practised resource, was going to rescue them, and at first it certainly seemed almost hopeless. But born and bred in the East, he had made an especial study of all its dark and undercurrent systems. And he held an important clue.

That find he had made in the old lumber room at Heath Hover he had by no means dismissed from his thoughts. He had pondered over it long and deeply, and had not failed to connect it with some episode of Mervyn's earlier life. And the missing link in the chain had been, half unconsciously, placed within his grasp by his shikari, Hussein Khan, for the latter himself belonged to the Brotherhood of the Star.

But if Hussein Khan was bound to the Brotherhood of the Star, he was bound to his European master by an even stronger tie still. The former might take his life, and indeed sooner or later, under the existing circ.u.mstances would. For that he cared nothing. But should he fail the latter, in any point, at any crisis, why then his eternal weal, was not merely at stake--but doomed. For who shall explain the mysterious ravellings of the dim unfathomable East? Given these conditions, and Helston Varne's unlimited powers of resource and unfailing intrepidity availed to do the rest.

Now, under the starlight, he looked at the figure of the girl riding next in front of him along the single-file, narrow path. This was the prize for which he had thrown the stake--and he had won. His nerves thrilled exultantly within him at the thought. It was a trifle unsteadying even to him. There had been no hesitation in his reply when his kinsman had put the matter to him point blank. The time for that had gone by. Now he had saved her--from a fate of which she was in blissful ignorance, fortunately, but whose purport he had gleaned during his brief sojourn with Allah-din Khan--and his own mind was telling him that he had saved her for himself.

From their first meeting on the day when he had been imprisoned in the chill mysterious vault at Heath Hover, her image had remained fixed upon his mind. He had not striven to resist the growing fascination; he preferred to watch its development--or the reverse--as a matter of psychological study; for as we have seen, he did not err on the side of coming to Heath Hover too often. And now, would he win? He thought he would.

Was it by a subtle telepathy that as they fared thus forward through the night, and in silence, that she should be thinking exclusively of him?

Yet she was. She recalled how she had been looking forward to meeting him again--out here, in this wild, strange, and to her, new land. How, too, during the startling, then alarming occurrence of their captivity, her thoughts had flown at once to his propinquity as to a tower of refuge--she liked that simile and it would often recur. How, too, she had tried to impart that element of hope to her uncle, only to be told that their entanglement was even beyond Helston Varne's powers of unravelment. Yet the reverse had befallen. She had proved right, and Helston Varne had come to the rescue, and brought them forth triumphantly. Indeed, that everything was bound to come right if he had the settling of it had now become an article of faith with her.

A short halt was made to rest the horses, then on again. It will be remembered that the course of the freebooters had been set so as to bring them much nearer to Mazaran, and now with luck, they hoped to reach that station in about twenty-four hours' journeying. Why, Coates himself, who had started thither simultaneously with his kinsman's venture, would hardly have arrived by then, even if he did not decide to wait at Fort Shabal, a small post which lay between his camp and Mazaran--for safety's sake.