"It is the second night," Valerius answered. "When you asked Hito for leave, he gave command that you return last night."
"When I asked Hito—" Nicanor repeated. He had no recollection of having asked the overseer for anything.
"You did not come, so, being angry, he directed me to search for you and bring you back for a flogging. What more was in store, he did not say."
Nicanor shot a glance of swift suspicion at him through the darkness.
"What more should there be?" he demanded.
"Why, how can I tell?" Valerius parried. "Imprisonment, maybe, for a day or so.... Though, in truth, as the offence is repeated by some one or other every day, he can have no excuse for—"
"Well?" Nicanor said impatiently, as Valerius paused.
"Treating you as he would like to do," the latter added soberly. "Hito hates you, my friend."
Nicanor shrugged his shoulders. This tale of an overseer's feelings was not what he had feared.
"Oh, that!" he exclaimed, and snapped his fingers. "If that were all I had to think about.... Valerius, tell me this. Each time I have seen you I have wished to ask. How comes it that you are in the service of the Torturer?"