“If you’ll give your word not to offer resistance, you shall be freed.”
“You didn’t ask that before you handcuffed me. I call these men to witness that. Take me in them to M. Volheno—if you dare. Or haul me off to gaol in them. It’s all one to me—until to-morrow.”
He paused and then signed to the men who freed me, and he left the room. I sat down and the men stood near the door whispering and sniggering together. They appeared to be rather pleased at their chief’s discomfiture.
He was away so long that I fell asleep and was in the middle of a realistic dream that I was in prison among the scum of the city when I was roused by some one thundering my name in my ear.
I started up and found the official had returned with a companion who was shaking me and calling me by name.
“Mr. Donnington! Mr. Donnington!”
“Well, what is it?” I grumbled, blinking at him like an owl until I recognized him as a man I had seen at Volheno’s bureau.
“M. Volheno desired me to come to you, sir.”
“Oh, ho,” I chuckled, turning to the official, “so you thought discretion was the better part of bullying, eh?”
“My name is Dagara, Mr. Donnington. I am M. Volheno’s private secretary. He instructed me to say that he desires to see you as soon as you can call on him.”