“Be off! I won’t do it!” The words were uttered with difficulty, but they were in English. Ferrers started violently, and the Mirza threw him a menacing look. The captive, seeming to recollect himself, repeated the words in Persian, but the Mirza made no reply. After turning the light of the lantern once more on the man and his surroundings, he motioned Ferrers back. Ferrers obeyed. The moment before, it had been in his mind to say some word of cheer to the prisoner, at whatever risk to himself, if only to let him know that there was another Englishman--another Christian--within those terrible walls. But the words remained unspoken, and with a clank of chains the prisoner sank back into his former position, his chin supported on his knees. Meanwhile the Mirza had been fastening to the lantern the cord he had brought with him, and now he let it down into the well, ordering Ferrers to look over the edge, but not to go too near. Once more he obeyed, to behold a sickening chaos of human bones and dead bodies in all stages of decomposition, among which moved and scampered obscene creatures such as he had seen on the walls and floor of the cell. “All that die in the prison are cast here,” said the Mirza, and Ferrers realised that the hole in the roof must communicate with the courtyard above-ground. “And who was--that?” he asked fearfully, as they began to retrace their steps. The Mirza gave him a glance full of satisfied malignity. “That,” he said slowly, and as if enjoying each word, “is Whybrow Sahib.” “Whybrow, whom I came here to----?” “Whom you came to save. He is not a wise man, like Firoz Sahib. He will neither embrace the faith of Islam nor enter his Highness’s army. Therefore he lives here, with the rats and the scorpions.” “And what--what will become of him?” “Who can say? Perhaps he will die--the rats are often hungry--or he might be forgotten. Or it may be his cell will be needed for some other prisoner,--then he will be thrown into the well and left there. But that may not be for years.” Years--years of such captivity as that! Ferrers laughed harshly. “You should have brought him up into your house and made life mean as much to him as you have done to me,” he said. “We have,” was the answer; “and even into the very palace of his Highness, where one of the dancing-girls, pitying him, pleaded for his life with her lord and with him, but he would not yield. He returned hither, and she died, as a warning to her companions.” Again they made their way through the passages and up the stairs, again crossed the courtyard and entered the Mirza’s house. Ferrers turned aside to the steps which led up to the roof. “Take counsel with yourself,” the Mirza called after him. “To-morrow you must decide.”