Chapter five
Of fines, songs and fliersMy left arm flew out, as it were on its own, and palm back pressed Dayra away. I held that arm rigid so that she could not step forward, and Murkizon’s barrel body concealed my action. I stepped out before my comrades. I looked up.
With my back to them I could put on an imbecilic face, a vacuous grin, a semi-leering simpleton look that I can do so well — as I have all the natural advantages for it, according to my comrades. I stared up happily at the woman and said: “Why, lady, that is mine.” Before she could answer I rambled on in a loud bucolic voice: “My comrade, poor Nath the Kaktu, brought it back from some outlandish place, don’t ask me where, somewhere beyond the Pillars of Rhine where men have eyes in their stomachs; leastways, that’s what p
