You've promised me nothing
but a choice of deaths. I may be a fool, but I like life so well that I
prefer a lingering sort to any other, however painless." "You're a fool," he answered shortly, and pouted out his loose thick
lips beyond his beard, so that he seemed to have the snout of a hairy
pig. "You don't know what a pleasure it will be to me to torture you,"
he continued. "I'll make you suffer like the damned before you die." "I don't doubt your will; it's your ability which is in question," I
said, as coolly as I was able. "You may think you have me laid here
very nicely by the heels, Dr. Belleville, and so you have in seeming. But you're not the only man who has a knowledge of the old magic arts
of ancient Egypt. I tell you to your face that I possess a charm no
whit less potent than the one you found the secret of in yonder tomb. And if you force me to use it, why, I shall use it. Now put that in
your pipe and smoke it." He stood up at once, greatly surprised, much incredulous, but also a
little troubled and dubious, as I could see. "You think you can bluff me?" he snarled. But I _had_ bluffed him. I
could read it in his eyes. I answered him with nothing but a smile. He assumed a sneer. His eyes glinted. He put his hand in his pocket and
produced a revolver. He cocked the weapon and put it to my temple. "Well, you've challenged me," he jeered. "In just one minute I'll blow
your brains out. Your charm is now in question!" For a few seconds a dark haze of blind terror shut off my power of
vision. I felt the villain meant to do what he had threatened. His
nerves had been shaken by what I had said to him about the Arab--though
why, I could not fathom--and my challenge, although the merest bluff,
had completed their disorder. He was in a spell of panic and it had
swept his reason and his resolution to the winds. He intended to kill
me in order to restore his own sense of security, and at once. And I
was impotent to prevent him. He was counting aloud, "One, two, three,
four." He had got up to fifteen before I even partially awoke out of my
trance of craven fear. But in the next five seconds I had lived a whole
series of lifetimes and I had received an inspiration born of wrath and
hate and desperate necessity. "Look in my eyes," I shrieked at him. "And listen if you want to live." He looked at me. I put the strength of my existence into my gaze, and
I felt a strange, wild thrill of exultation as I saw his eyes dilate
encountering the glance I threw at him. "My death means yours," I hissed. "My monitor stands over you. You'll
be shrivelled as by lightning. We'll go together to the throne of
God! Now shoot if you will and damn your soul for all eternity! Shoot--shoot!" But Dr. Belleville did not shoot. His hand fell to his side. He
staggered back, staring at me open-mouthed until the chair arrested
him. I saw my advantage and pressed it home. "Stop!" I shouted. "As you value your dirty life. Stop! Stand still and
do not turn your head. One movement and we both die. I don't want to
die for a dog like you." He stood like a frozen image. Holding his glance with mine, I began to
mutter in a sing-song way a string of meaningless Egyptian phrases. Then the more powerfully to impress the superstitious fool-scoundrel,
all of a sudden I uttered a loud heart-rending groan and allowed my
head to fall over on the strap that encircled and sustained my neck. But though I only affected to swoon, the frightful amount of will
force and nervous energy I had expended in the crisis had induced
a consequential lassitude so enthralling that I came very near to
fainting in reality. And, indeed, it is quite likely that I lost my
senses for a time. Soon, however, I felt water sprinkled on my face and
slowly I raised my head. "A drink!" I gasped. A glass was pressed to my lips. I drank thirstily and opened my eyes. Belleville, white-faced but composed now and gloomily frowning, was my
minister. "I make you my compliments," he said in cold, slow, even tones. "You
have a quick wit and a nerve of iron. I am glad, because they saved
me from a folly. You would cease to be of use to me dead, curse you,
though I wish you carrion, and will make you worm food before I am much
older." "You'll not live to repent it," I replied. "I've bound your fate with
mine by ties no mortal can unsolve." "Enough of that rubbish," he retorted harshly. "You cannot haze me
twice. You could not have at all if I had stopped to think or been
quite well. But I'm liverish and out of sorts to-day--the result of
staying up all night nursing Ottley." "You'll see when the time comes--if you have the courage," I responded
in an acrid tone. "You cannot scare me, Belleville, because you cannot
harm me without hurting yourself--and in your deeps of heart, you
rogue, you know it." He burst out laughing, but there was a note of nervousness in his
mocking mirth that pleased me passing well. "Pah!" he said at last. "Would you sit there trussed up like a chooky
skewered for the table if you had the power you pretend?" "Idiot!" I snapped. "Can electricity unbuckle straps without machinery? Yet it can splinter rocks without an effort and without assistance." "Ah!" said he, "ah! So you pretend----"

"Try me!" I interrupted. "Not I," cried he. "I've encountered so many wonders lately that I'm
now beginning to regard what I of old considered the impossible as the
most likely thing of all to happen. I don't believe you, Pinsent, but
neither do I disbelieve you. Therefore, acting on the kindly hint you
dropped, I'll take all sane precautions. Au revoir." He marched to the door, passed out and disappeared. I chewed the bitter
cud of thought for some hours. Meanwhile I grew desperately hungry, ay,
and thirsty, too. There came a time when I would have given the last of
my possessions for a beef-steak and a jug of water. And, oh! how tired
I was of my position. The blood gradually ceased to circulate properly
through all my parts. My hands became purple. My legs went to sleep. My
limbs were on a rack of pins and needles and even breathing hurt me. I did my best by straining at the bonds at intervals to promote the
arterial flow and stop the agony of muscular irritation. But it was a
poor best, and I sank welcomely at length into a benumbed lethargic
state near akin to stupor, from which I knew I could wake to anguish by
the merest movement. As near as I can guess twelve hours had uncoiled their lethal folds
before my infernal captor returned to the laboratory. One instant I
was sharply sensible and suffering most damnably. The rogue looked
positively sick and he smelt like a gin palace. He had evidently drunk
a deal of spirit, but he was not the least intoxicated. "It is over!" he cried and threw himself into a chair. "What?" I questioned. "Ottley is dead," said he, "and I am glad of it, all said and done,
though I worked like a galley slave to keep him by me. He was a fine
cloak for my doings, but he grew wearisome--the fractious old fool--at
times.