Here, in England, you are
free. Why should you remain with that cowled monster?"
"Shall I tell you?" she asked, and he could feel how she trembled. "If
I tell you, will you promise to believe me--and to go?"
"Not without you!"
"Ah! no, no! If I tell you that my only chance of life--such a
little, little chance--is to stay, will you go?"
Stuart secured her other hand and drew her toward him, half resisting.
"Tell me," he said softly. "I will believe you--and if it can spare
you one moment of pain or sorrow, I will go as you ask me."
"Listen," she whispered, glancing fearfully back toward the closed
door--"Fo-Hi has something that make people to die; and only he can
bring them to life again. Do you believe this?"
She looked up at him rapidly, her wonderful eyes wide and fearful. He
nodded.
"Ah! you know! Very well. On that day in Cairo, which I am taken
before him--you remember, I tell you?--he ... oh!"
She shuddered wildly and hid her beautiful face against Stuart's
breast. He threw his arms about her.
"Tell me," he said.
"With the needle, he ... inject ..."
"Miska!"
Stuart felt the blood rushing to his heart and knew that he had paled.
"There is something else," she went on, almost inaudibly, "with which
he gives life again to those he had made dead with the needle. It is
a light green liquid tasting like bitter apples; and once each week
for six months it must be drunk or else ... the living death comes.
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