"So strong and yet so impotent! Such muscles! Look at them! Can the buffalo hear, or are his ears stopped too ?" A woman rearranged the head-towel to make sure that my ears were missing nothing; after which Yasmini purred her pleasantest.
"O buffalo Ganesha, I would have you whipped to death if I thought that would not anger Athelstan! What do you mistake me for?
Me, who have been twice a queen! That was a mighty jump from my window; and even as the buffalo you swam, Ganesha! Buffalo, buffalo! Who but a buffalo would snatch my Athelstan away from me, and then return alone! What have you done with him?
Hah! You would like to answer that you have done nothing with him--buffalo, buffalo! He would never have left you willingly, nor you him--you two companions who share one foolish little bag between you! "Does he love you?
Hope, Ganesha! Hope that he loves you! For unless he comes to find you, Ganesha, all the horrors that you saw last night, and all the deaths, and all the tortures shall be yours--with alligators at last to abolish the last traces of you! Do you like snakes, Ganesha?
Do you like a madhouse in the dark?
I think not.

Therefore, Ganesha, you shall be left to yourself to think a little while.

Think keenly! Invent a means of finding Athelstan and I will let you go free for his sake.
But--fail--to think--of a successful plan--Ganesha--and you shall suffer in every atom of your big body! Bass! Take him away!" I was frog-marched, and flung face-downward on to cushions, after which I heard a door snap shut and had leisure to work myself free from the ropes and gag and towels.

It took time, for the hussies had drawn the cords until they bit into the muscles, and maybe I was twenty minutes about getting loose.

Then, for ten minutes more I sat and chafed the rope-cuts, craving food, examining the room, and wishing above all things that conscience would let me fall asleep on the feathery, scented pillows with which the floor was strewn, rather than stay awake on the off-chance of discovering where King might be.
It was practically a bare room, having walls of painted wood that sounded solid when I made the circuit of the floor and tapped each panel in turn.