“I do not require three days to make up my mind,” said Desmond quietly.  “I cannot do what—­”

“Hush, you young fool!” cried Diggle angrily in English.

Turning to the Pirate he added:  “The boy is as stiff-necked as a pig; but even a pig can be led if you ring his snout.  I beg you leave him to me.”

“Take him away!” exclaimed Angria, clapping his hands.

Two attendants came in answer to his summons, and Desmond was led off and escorted by them to his workshop.

Angry and disgusted as he was with both the Maratha and Diggle, he was still more anxious at this unexpected turn in his affairs.  He had but three days!  If he had not escaped before the fourth day dawned, his fate would be the most terrible that could befall a living creature.  The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel!  He had seen, among the prisoners, some of the victims of Angria’s cruelty; they had suffered tortures too terrible to be named, and dragged out a life of unutterable degradation and misery, longing for death as a blissful end.  With his quick imagination he already felt the hands of the torturers upon him; and for all the self control which his life in Gheria had induced, he was for some moments so wholly possessed by terror that he could scarcely endure the consciousness of existence.

But when the first tremors were past, and he began to go about his usual tasks, and was able to think calmly, not for an instant did he waver in his resolve.  Betray his countrymen!  It was not to be thought of.  Give his word to Angria and then forswear himself!  Ah! even Diggle knew that he would not do that.  Freedom, wealth, a high place in some prince’s court!  He would buy none of them at the price of his honor.  Diggle was false, unspeakably base; let him do Angria’s work if he would; Desmond Burke would never stoop to it.

He scarcely argued the matter explicitly with himself:  it was settled in Angria’s presence by his instinctive repulsion.  But it was not in a boy like Desmond, young, strong, high spirited, tamely to fold his hands before adverse fate.  He had three days:  it would go hard with him if he did not make good use of them.  He felt a glow of thankfulness that the first step, and that a difficult one, had been taken, providentially, as it seemed, the very night before this crisis in his fate.  His future plan had already outlined itself; it was necessary first to gain over his companions in captivity; that done, he hoped within the short period allowed him to break prison and turn his back forever on this place of horror.