“I do.”
“You desire me?”
“No, because I already have you. I can dispose of you as I see fit,” said Ommony. “I can send you to the jail for killings and for train-robberies, and for trying to murder me this afternoon. Or I can bid you work out the score in other ways.”
“That is true, more or less. Yes, there is something in what you say, Ommonee.”
“It is not more or less true. It is quite true.”
“How so? Have I not my knife? Would you like to fight me? I can slay that she-dog of thine as easily as I can lay thy bowels on the floor.”
“No,” said Ommony, “no honorable man could do that to his master. Are you not an honorable man?”
“None more so!”
“And I am your master, so that settles it.”
Dawa Tsering looked puzzled; there was something in the reasoning that escaped him. But it is what men do not understand that binds them to others’ chariot wheels.