Murmurs of delight. Clinkings of glasses. Gurglings of liquid.
Someone bounded a piano chord. Voices rose:
"A-Driving he will go,
A-Driving he will go,
To Hell and back in a coffin-sack
A-Driving he will go."
Tom downed his glass of champagne. A pleasant warmth filled his belly. A satisfying numbness dulled the raw ache of fear.
He smiled bitterly.
There was kindness and gentleness within the human heart, he thought, but like tiny inextinguishable fires, there were ferocity and savageness, too. What else could one expect from a race only a few thousand years beyond the spear and stone axe?
Through his imagination passed a parade of sombre scenes: