Part 33 (1/2)

”He lies!” he cried ”He lies, Rosamund! Do not heed hi away

A wave of colour suffused the swarthy face of Sakr-el-Bahr A moment his eyes followed her as she ht of anger upon Lionel He strode silently across to hi that Lionel shrank back in fresh terror

Sakr-el-Bahr caught his brother's wrist in a grip that was as that of a steel ht if we have to tear it from you with red-hot pincers,” he said between his teeth

He dragged him forward to the middle of the terrace and held hi hi attitude by the violence of that grip upon his wrist

”Do you know aught of the ingenuity of Moorish torture?” he asked him

”You may have heard of the rack and the wheel and the thuht compared with the contrivances of Barbary to loosen stubborn tongues”

White and tense, her hands clenched, Rosamund seemed to stiffen before hi!” she branded him

Oliver released his brother's wrist and beat his hands together Without heeding Rosa at his feet

”What do you say to a ers? Or do you think a pair of bracelets of living fire would answer better, to begin with?”

A squat, sandy-bearded, turbaned fellow, rolling slightly in his gait, caed--to answer the corsair's summons

With the toe of his slipper Sakr-el-Bahr stirred his brother

”Look up, dog,” he bade hiain Look at him, I say!” And Lionel looked, yet since clearly he did so without recognition his brother explained: ”His nah He was the skipper you bribed to carry me into Barbary He was taken in his own toils when his shi+p was sunk by Spaniards Later he fell intohim he is to-day my faithful follower I should bid hi to Rosaht you would believe his tale But since I a round to Jasper again ”Bid Ali heat me a pair of steel ainst my need of them” And he waved his hand

Jasper bowed and vanished

”The bracelets shall coax confession froht to confess,” protested Lionel ”You may force lies from me with your ruffianly tortures”

Oliver smiled ”Not a doubt but that lies will flow from you more readily than truth But we shall have truth, too, in the end, never doubt it” He washis mockery ”And you shall tell a full story,” he continued, ”in all its details, so that Mistress Rosamund's last doubt shall vanish You shall tell her how you lay in wait for hi in Godolphin Park; how you took him unawares, and”

”That is false!” cried Lionel in a passion of sincerity that brought him to his feet

It was false, indeed, and Oliver knew it, and deliberately had recourse to falsehood, using it as a fulcru as all the fiends, and never perhaps did he better

”False?” he cried with scorn ”Come, now, be reasonable The truth, ere torture sucks it out of you Reflect that I know all--exactly as you told itupon hih before he could so much as lay a hand to his sword, and so”

”The lie of that is proven by the very facts thee of tones nant truth that compelled conviction

”His sword lay beside him when they found him”

But Oliver was loftily disdainful ”Do I not know? Yourself you drew it after you had slain him”