noon
The soldier with the bucket poured dutifully , however , almost drowning the helpless man . It helped , anyway ; and Sime returned to half-consciousness . A few minutes later , when Scar Balta came to inquire if he had changed his mind , Sime was able to curse thickly . And around noon , when Murray , jauntily dressed in the uniform of a Martian captain , bid him a cheerful good-by , Sime was almost fluent . His torture had now reached the pitch of exquisite keenness that made it something spiritual . Solicitously they kept him alive , and far back in his mind Sime wondered why they bothered to do that . Could n't they be satisfied with what they could learn from Murray ?