“I can deal with you with your hands free,” said the iblis after a minute or two.
“Try it,” Jim suggested, and threw caution to the winds.
Pretending to chafe more violently at the thong, measure the distance with his eyes meanwhile, he went for the iblis with a sudden run and jump, intending to land feet foremost on him. But without any obvious muscular effort, the iblis shifted his position just as suddenly half a yard to the right, and Jim’s feet hit the wall.
He made a prodigious effort to recover balance and jump again, but fell on his back, and having lost his Arab headdress when he shook the bag free, contact with the stone floor nearly stunned him. So he lay still, and the iblis leaned down to peer into his face, with that unchanging, curiously scornful smile that was half-sneer, half-amusement.
“I can deal with three—or thirty—or three hundred of you.”
Jim did not answer. With his hands free, half-stunned or not, he would have taken his chance in a free-for-all fight, though the iblis was as strong as two of him; but to tempt providence in his present position would have been sheer lunacy. He was constitutionally unable to believe himself down and out as long as consciousness remained, so he lay and wondered whence his opportunity would come and what form it would take.
The iblis provided it. He was evidently of an economical turn of mind, for he produced from a pocket in the discarded cloak the self-same stub of candle that had served his purpose in the tomb, and lit it. Jim set his teeth, thinking at first that torture was to be the next item on the program; for in the fingers of an expert a lighted candle can do as much mischief as a red-hot iron. But the iblis only looked about for a place to set the light on, and leaned over finally to drip wax on the floor and stick it there out of reach.
So Jim scrambled to his feet again. The iblis looked up at him and laughed.
“See what is upstairs,” he suggested.
“Untie my wrists!” said Jim.
The iblis did it, not troubling to get to his feet but turning Jim around and unknotting the thong with fingers that were strong enough to have unraveled wire. Standing, chafing his wrists to restore circulation and get some of the pain out of the swollen one, Jim realized how utterly helpless he would be if he tried to fight. It was true that he had boots on and could kick, but unless you are very certain of your aim, and equally sure of surprising your adversary, one blow wins no battle.
So he decided to try the stairs and see. But the iblis sprang across the room in front of him and prevented him by sitting on the bottom step.
“Not now,” he grinned.
“Why the change of mind?”
“Go back to the wall and sit down.”
Jim went back and leaned against the wall, holding his hot wrist against the cool stone, grateful for any way of gaining time, for time was obviously in his favor. For one thing, Catesby would probably report him missing; and Narayan Singh would certainly not rest until he had found him dead or alive.
If he could only guess what the iblis’ purpose was in bringing him to that place he would have a great deal more than time in his favor, for the man with definite plans and a nefarious purpose is always at a disadvantage as compared to an equally determined man aware of both plan and purpose and bent on spoiling both.
He felt his way along the wall to the door and tested the lock while he weighed the situation in his mind. The lock was set into an immensely heavy wooden door and was unbreakable without tools; but a little enlightenment dawned as he watched the iblis, who sat smiling at his futile effort to escape.
Upstairs there was probably loot—most likely rifles. That would account for the iblis being willing for him to go up there with his hands tied, and unwilling otherwise. Supposing that only five per cent of the loot stolen from the British camp in the last month or two was up there, the iblis certainly would not carry it away alone, and probably would not dare leave it where it was much longer. Therefore it was likely that he was waiting for men, who would come before morning to remove the stuff; nobody would be fool enough to run that risk after daybreak.
Jim’s spirits began to rise. If his guess was correct, then he was on the trail of something vastly more important than the mere thieves. The ultimate receivers of the loot were worth all risks to bring to book. Certainly the iblis could be nothing more than a mere agent, because a naked dervish trying to dispose of rifles for any purpose or in any market would fall foul of the law within an hour, even if he tried to employ agents on his own account. There was somebody higher up—not a doubt of it.
It began to seem wisest to play the other fellow’s game and wait patiently, if only because that might force the iblis to move next and show something of his hand. He might be a lunatic like many another pseudo- religious sensation-maker; but it was much more likely that he was a very shrewd expert in human nature, busily applying all the simple principles he knew, after the fashion of a drill-sergeant, or a jailer, or a trainer of wild beasts. His strength was circumstantial and physical; all the conditions were in his favor, as much as if he had deliberately decoyed his prisoner to chosen ground. His weak points were two—vanity and time.
So Jim sat down. And curiosity took hold of him so completely as to obliterate the pain in his wrists along with all sense of his own danger. Satisfied that the iblis had a definite objective and a motive behind every move, he cared for nothing but to discover what they were.
The same spirit that had made him study Arabic until he knew the language better than most Arabs did, gripped him in the same way that the laboratory scientist is seized. It would have annoyed him at that moment to be discovered by his friends and rescued.
“Don’t forget; his two weak points are time and vanity!”
That thought was like a formula running through the mind of a chemist bending over his retorts.
Even vanity was not strong enough to blind the iblis to the element of time, although it made him so sure of his own perceptive faculty that he never suspected his prisoner might be other than a local Arab. It was evidently no part of his plan to waste time letting the sense of mystery grow thin.
“Allah makes all things easy,” he announced again. “I can tell your father’s name and your mother’s, and the name of the village you come from.”
If Jim’s curiosity had been of a non-scientific turn he would have dared the man to do it; and the iblis no doubt would have side-stepped by refusing to commit himself. He would not have been one step nearer to discovery.
“Vanity and time—vanity and time—those are his weak points!”
Time could look after itself, for the minutes go by changeless measure. Jim decided to tickle vanity, which is usually dangerous until well fed.
“That is indeed a great gift,” he said respectfully. “I remember that you called me by my right name in the tomb tonight. To be able to tell a man’s name, and those of his father and mother, and his village—that is wonderful!”
“Allah makes all things easy,” smiled the iblis self- complacently. “I not only have gifts, I confer them. I not only have power, I can pass it on to others.”
There was something vaguely familiar about that statement. Jim had heard it, not exactly in those words, but near enough, in a back room in Boston where an occultist held forth; and again in New York City in a barroom where a political gang-leader held brief sway. Only this man, being half-savage and believing he dealt with another like himself, made his boasts a little bit more definite. Possibly, like the politician and the occultist, he half believed his own assertions.
“How does a man attain such gifts?” Jim asked him.
“It is all in the Koran,” said the iblis. “Allah makes all things easy.”
“They say that all knowledge is written in the Koran,”