slaves, who took them away. There were between fifty and sixty other
horses in the place.

[Illustration:]

Divesting themselves of their weapons in an anteroom at the head of a
flight of steps, they passed under an arch and into a wide, shady
patio, where thirty or forty men stood about or squatted on piles of
cushions, smoking cheroots, drinking from silver cups, talking in a
continuous babel. Most of them were in Calera dress, though there were
men of other communities and nations, in other garb. As they moved
across the patio, Gathon Dard caught snatches of conversations about
deals in slaves, and horse trades, about bandit raids and blood feuds,
about women and horses and weapons.

An old man with a white beard and an unusually clean robe came over to
intercept them.

"Ha, lord of my daughter, you're back at last. We had begun to fear
for you," he said.

"Nothing to fear, father of my wife," Coru-hin-Irigod replied. "We
sold the slaves for a good price, and tarried the night feasting in
good company. Such good company that we brought some of it with
us--Atarazola and Ganadara, men of the Jeseru; Cavu-hin-Avoran, whose
daughter mothered my sons." He took his father-in-law by the sleeve
and pulled him aside, motioning Gathon Dard and Antrath Alv to follow.

"They brought weapons; they want outland slaves, of the sort I took to
sell in the Big Valley country," he whispered. "The weapons are