“I am sorry if I have angered you,” I replied humbly.

“Just so, and you will be more than sorry.  Man, I hold your life in the hollow of my hand.  One word from me, and your liberty is gone; you will be dragged through the streets like a common felon.”

“Am I guilty of so much, then?” I said.  “Did I really kill that man?”

He looked at me curiously, as if he suspected something.  “Kill him?” he replied.  “Of course you did.  But even if you did not, it is all the same.  Kaffar cannot be found, or proved alive, and thus my power over you is absolute.”

“I wonder you do not use it,” I said quietly.

“I do not use it because it does not pay me to do so.  My policy is to be quiet.  Miss Forrest is mine because she knows I am master of your life.  The months are swiftly passing away, Mr. Justin Blake.  It is May now; in December I shall take her to my breast.”

“But supposing,” I said, “that I find Kaffar; supposing before Christmas Eve comes I prove I am innocent of his death.  What then?”

“It is not to be supposed.  You killed my friend; and even if you did not, you could never find him.  You dare not, could not, take any necessary steps.  You have not the power to ask other people to do it.  Even now you cannot rise from your seat and walk across the room.”

Without a word I rose from my seat and walked across the room; then I came back and coolly sat down again.

“What does this mean?” he asked angrily.

“It means,” I said, “that you are deceived—­mistaken.  It means that your villainous schemes are of no effect; that the man whom you thought you had entrapped by a juggler’s trick to be your tool and dupe is as free as you are; that he defies your power; that he tells you to do your worst.”

I felt that again he was trying to throw me into a kind of trance, that he was exerting all his power and knowledge; but I resisted, and I was free.  I stood up again and smiled.

Then a strange light lit up his eyes.

“Curse you!” he cried, “you defy me, eh?  Well, you’ll see what you get by defying me.  In five minutes you will be safe in a policeman’s charge.”

“If I were you I would try and learn the Englishman’s laws before you appeal to them.  The first question that will be asked will be why you have refrained from telling so long, for he who shelters a criminal by silence is regarded as an aider and an abettor of that criminal.  Then, man, this case will be sifted to the bottom.  That pond will be pumped dry, and every outlet examined.  Besides, what about the booking-clerk that issued a ticket to Kaffar two hours after you and Mr. Temple found me?”

“It’s a lie!” he cried; “Kaffar was never seen.”