“Dom,” I said, very friendly. “Tell us where the captives are stowed away and you may live.”
He started to bluster and then to yell as soon as Lol took his clamping hand away. Lol tapped him alongside the skull, gently, put his fist back over the fellow’s mouth, and, leaning down with a fierceness that perfectly complemented my apparent gentleness, said, “If you do not instantly tell us what we wish to know, and do so quietly, you will miss—” Well, what he would miss would make him miss a lot of life hereafter. The Hikdar was happy, most happy, to tell Lol what he wanted to know.
Leaving the Hikdar stuffed under the ochreberry bushes we led the totrix through ways advised us until we passed a neat little pavilion reflected in a goldfish pool. Past a tall yew hedge a gravel path led to a
