She felt his hands fumbling with the rope tied round her waist and then he pulled the cloth from her head.
For a moment she could see nothing and thought that they must have blinded her.
Without speaking he tightened the rope round her hands again and then drew a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it over her mouth.
“This is to help you keep silent,” he muttered.
“I told you before what’d ’appen if you makes a noise and that goes for the rest of you!” he added in a louder tone.
The handkerchief hurt Lalitha’s mouth and she suspected that it was not particularly clean.
As the man went from the room, his feet heavy on the bare boards, she realised that there was a faint light coming through one porthole and that the reason it was hard to see was that it was still dark outside.
The
