Gaspode groaned. 'What do you think?' he said.
'Oh. Yes. There's a good boy, Laddie.'
Laddie yapped and tried to turn a somersault.
'What do we do next?' said Victor. 'I suppose we go in, do we?'
'Could be,' said Gaspode.
'Er. Or we could wait till she comes out. The fact is, I've never been very happy about darkness,' said Victor.
'I mean, night-time is OK, but pitch darkness-'
'I bet Cohen the Barbarian isn't afraid of the dark,' said Gaspode.
'Well, yes-'
'And the Black Shadow of the Desert, he's not afraid of the dark either.'
'OK, but-'
'And Howondaland Smith, Balgrog Hunter, practic'ly eats the dark for his tea,' said Gaspode.
'Yes, but I'm not those people!' wailed Victor.
'Try tellin' that to all those people who handed over their pennies to watch you bein' 'em,' said Gaspode. He scratched at an insomniac flea. 'Cor, it'd be a laugh to have a handleman here now, wouldn't it?' he said, cheerfully. 'Wot a comedy feature it'd make. Mr Hero Not Goin' Into the Dark, we could call it. It'd be better'n Turkey Legs. It'd be funnier'n A Night At The Arena. I reckon people'd queue fo-'
he whined for a bit and shuffled into the shadows, where there was less chance of being seen.
In the room above, Victor was standing facing the wall. This was humiliating. It had been bad enough bumping into a grinning Mrs Cosmopilite on the stairs. She had given him a big smile and a complicated, elbowintensive gesture that, he felt certain, sweet little old ladies shouldn't know.
There were clinks and the occasional rustle behind him as Ginger got ready for bed.
'She's really very nice. She told me yesterday that she had had four husbands,' said Ginger.
'What did she do with the bones?' said Victor.
'I'm sure I don't know what you mean,' said Ginger, sniffing. 'All right, you can turn around now. I'm in bed.'
Victor relaxed, and turned round. Ginger had drawn the covers up to her neck and was holding them there like a besieged garrison manning the barricades.
'You've got to promise me,' she said, 'that if anything happens, you won't try to take advantage of the situation.'
Victor sighed. 'I promise.'
'It's just that I've got a career to think about, you see.'
'Yes, I see.'
Victor sat by the lamp and took the book out of his pocket.
'I'm not trying to be ungrateful or anything like that,' Ginger went on.
Victor ruffled through the yellowing pages, looking for the place he'd got to. Scores of people had spent their lives by Holy Wood Hill, apparently just to keep a fire alight and chant three times a day. Why?
'What are you reading?' said Ginger, after a while.
'It's an old book I found,' said Victor, shortly. 'It's about Holy Wood.'