As he did this, Moussa Isa entered, and knowing not why he did so,
sprang at his master and dashed the bottle from his hand. It fell to the
ground but broke not, the floor being _dhurrie_[26]-covered.

[26] Carpet.

"In greatest amazement Mir Jan glanced from Moussa Isa to the bottle,
clenching his hand to strike the boy--when behold! the very floor
bubbled and smoked beneath the touch of the liquid as it ran from the
bottle. By the Beard of the Prophet, that stone floor bubbled and smoked
like water and the _dhurrie_ was burnt! Snatching up the bottle my
brother dropped drops from it upon the blade of his knife, upon the
leather of his boots, upon paint and brass and clothing--and behold it
was liquid fire, burning and corroding all that it touched! To me he
called, and, being shown these things, I could scarce believe--and then
I cried aloud 'Ibrahim Mahmud! Thine enemy!... Oh, my brother,--thine
eyes!' and I remembered the words of Ibrahim, '_a vengeance that shall
turn men pale as they whisper it--a thing of which children yet unborn
shall speak with awe_' and we rushed to his room,--to find it empty. He
and his best camel and its driver were gone, but all his people and
servants and _oont-wallahs_[27] were in the _serai_,[28] and said they
knew not where he was, but had received a _hookum_[29] over-night to set
out that day for Mekran Kot. And, catching up a pariah puppy, I
re-entered the house and dropped one drop from the blue bottle into its
eye. Sahib, even _I_ pitied the creature and slew it quickly with my
knife. And it was this that Ibrahim Mahmud had intended for the blue
eyes of my beautiful brother. This was the vengeance of which men should
speak in whispers. Those who saw and heard that puppy would speak of it
in whispers indeed--or not at all. I felt sick and my fingers itched to
madness for the throat of Ibrahim Mahmud. Had I seen him then, I would