"Liar, traitor, unfaithful to salt!" cried Dick, whose extraordinary appearance and absolutely reckless behaviour inspired his hearers with such awe that for the moment they stood transfixed. The revolver was levelled again, this time at Afzul, when the memory of other things beside revenge sobered the lad, and a flash of that inspiration which in time of danger marks the leader of men from his fellows made him throw aside the weapon and fold his arms. "No!" he said coolly, "I am faithful. I have eaten the salt of the Barakzais; they are my friends." "Don't hurt the lad," cried Afzul, not a moment too soon, for cold steel was at Dick's throat. "God smite you to eternal damnation, Haiyât! Put up that knife, I say. The lad's words are true. He has eaten of our salt, and we of his. He hath lived among us and done no harm to man or maid. By Allah! the lightning has got into his brain. Bind him fast; and mark you, 'twill be worse than death for him to lie here helpless, knowing that the wires he made such a fuss about have lured his friends to death. I know his sort. Death?--this will be seventy hells for him; and we can kill him after, if needs be." Dick, as he felt the cords bite into his wrists and ankles, ground his teeth at the man's jeering cruelty. "Kill me outright, you devils!" he cried, struggling madly. It was the wisest way to ensure life, for the sight of his impotent despair amused his captors. "Give him a nip of his own brandy, Haiyât, or he will be slipping through our fingers," said one, as he lay back exhausted. "Not I; the bottle's near empty as it is." Tales of his boyhood about drunken guards and miraculous escapes recurred to Dick's memory, and though he felt to the full the absurdity of mixing them up with the present deadly reality, the slenderest chance gave at least room for hope. "There is plenty more in the cupboard," he gasped. "The key is in my pocket." "True is it, O Kâreem, that the Feringhi infidel cannot die in peace without his _sharâb_," remarked Haiyât virtuously. But he did not fail with the others to taste all the contents of the cupboard, even to a bottle of Pain-killer which had belonged to the _bâbu_. Meanwhile Dick, lying helpless and bound, felt a fierce surge of hope and despair as he remembered that behind those open doors lay something which could put an end to treachery. Five minutes with his field-instrument in the open, and, let what would come afterwards, he would have done his work. The thought gave Dick an idea which, if anything, increased the hopelessness of his position, for the only result of his offer to work the wires on condition of his life being saved, was to drive Afzul, who saw his dread of Dick's getting his hands on the instrument in danger of being over-ruled, into settling the question, once and for all, by severing the connection with a hatchet.