intent to fill in
the blank spaces of his memory.

"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?"

"I got tired of the church," Valerius answered simply. "The good fathers
were very good, but me they singled out as the black sheep of all the
fold, and it was more than could be endured. 'What religion have you?'
says Father Ambrose. 'None at all,' says I, 'and want none.' So he
nearly wept, and told the others, and they agreed that I was fit food
for the fires of hell. So they gave me their blessing, and told me Holy
Church was better off without me, and there were no more sandals to be
repaired. Then I fell in with Hito, and he took me into the service of
our lord. How hath it been with you?"

Nicanor told of the manner of his capture, and Valerius laughed.

"Clever!" he chuckled. "But tell me truth, lad. Is not this a long sight
better than the work-room of that fish-faced brother Tobias? Are we not
hand in glove with the great ones of the earth? Do we not know them, in
all their parts, far better than those of their own world could ever do,
since we serve them?"

"Ay," said Nicanor. "That is so. And yet, after all--when I was in the
workshop, if the bone cut straight, and if there was what I liked for
supper, I was happy, and wanted nothing more. Now--"

"Now," said Valerius, dropping into his old familiar tone, with