I saw Joyful Star shrink back in her seat and turn her head away from him with a little cry as he said these evil words, and they angered me so, that--forgetting they were spoken by a man who stood helpless before me--I cried,-- 'Silence, liar and speaker of evil! or your next words shall be the last that human ears shall hear you speak. Are you still mad, or have you forgotten that you were once a man?' He smiled such a smile as you may have seen on the lips of one who has died in agony, and said with a swift change in his voice,-- 'I beg your Majesty's pardon, and--and the ladies' too. It was a most ungentlemanly thing to say, and one should not forget one's manners on the threshold of the next world--if there is one. But come, your Majesty, you are wasting your valuable time, and keeping all these interesting savages of yours waiting. You'll find I shall take it quietly enough. What do you propose that it shall be--something with boiling oil or red-hot pincers in it?' I knew that a man who could speak thus, believing that he was about to die, must be in a pitiful plight, and so I answered him sternly, and yet without anger,-- 'Laurens Djama, I have not brought you here to jest with you, nor yet, as you think, to condemn you to die, though your life is justly forfeit to me and my people, whom you would have betrayed again to their oppressors. Now, listen! You brought me back from death to life, and for my life I will give you yours, and for Golden Star's I will pay you the price agreed on and something more. It was by my foolish act that the madness of the gold-hunger came upon you, and for that I will give you your freedom; but not now, for that would not be safe for me or my people, since you have betrayed us once, and, knowing what you do, might do so again. You shall be taken hence to a pleasant and fertile valley, where you shall have all freedom, save permission to leave it until this war is over and I am undisputed lord of the land of my fathers. Then you shall take the wealth that shall be yours and go to your own country, or wherever you please, so long as you do not remain in mine, for here there is no place for you, since my people do not forgive as easily as I do. Now I have spoken; if there is anything more that you can ask, and I can give with safety, ask it.' Most men who had sinned as he had done would have very willingly taken such forgiveness, and Laurens Djama might have taken it but for a seemingly small thing. While I was speaking to him his eyes had wandered from mine and were looking into Golden Star's. As I ceased I felt her hands clasping my arm, and heard her voice say tremblingly in our own tongue,-- 'Save me, my lord and brother, save me! Evil Eyes is looking into my heart and turning it cold!' This Djama saw, though he did not understand her words, and the sight brought the madness into his blood again. He shouted with a voice like the cry of a wild beast in pain,--