“The gallows await you.”
“Silence! Perhaps your father is a sorcerer?”
“Yes,” answered Stasch without hesitation, immediately realizing that these savage and superstitious beings regard the appearance of a snake as a bad omen—an augury that the flight would not be successful.
“So your father sent it to us,” continued Idris. “He ought to realize that we might take revenge on you for his witchcraft.”
“You will do nothing to me, for Fatima’s sons would pay you back for every wrong done to us.”
“Did you understand? Remember that if it had not been for me, not only you, but the little girl, too, would have bled to death under Gebhr’s scourge.”
“I shall intercede only for you. Gebhr will be hanged.”
Thereupon Idris looked at him for a while in surprise and said:
“Our lives are not in you
