Blogs and book

He held it up. "You know this? It is a
rosary of pain that has wrought the conversion of many a stubborn
heretic. It is capable of screwing the eyes out of a man's head
by way of helping him to see reason. As you please."
He flung the length of knotted cord to one of the negroes, who in
an instant made it fast about the prisoner's brows. Then between
cord and cranium the black inserted a short length of metal, round
and slender as a pipe-stem. That done he rolled his eyes towards
Levasseur, awaiting the Captain's signal.
Levasseur considered his victim, and beheld him tense and braced,
his haggard face of a leaden hue, beads of perspiration glinting on
his pallid brow just beneath the whipcord.
Mademoiselle cried out, and would have risen: but her guards
restrained her, and she sank down again, moaning.
"I beg that you will spare yourself and your sister," said the
Captain, "by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have
named? To your wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been
too modest.


Pages:
256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280