He would have you killed immediately."

"What are you going to do with us, then?" I asked.

Ulirus looked at the officer as though for instructions.

"Take them to the slaves' compound at the palace," he directed; "they look fit to serve the jong."

So Ulirus marched us off again. We passed along narrow, crooked streets flanked by one-storied houses built of frame or limestone. The former were of roughly split planks fastened to upright framework, the latter of carelessly hewn blocks of limestone. The houses were as crooked as the streets. Evidently they had been built by eye without benefit of plumb-line. The windows and doors were of all sizes and shapes and all manner of crookedness. They might have been designed by a modernist of my world, or by a child of five.

The city lay, as I later learned, on the shore of a great fresh-water lake; and as we approached the lake front we saw buildings of two stories, some with towers. The largest of these is the palace of Tyros.

The compound to which we were taken adjoined the palace grounds. Several hundred tiny cells bounded an open court, in the center of which was a pool. Just before we were admitted, Ulirus leaned close to me.

"Do not tell anyone that you are the son of a jong," he whispered.

"But I have already told you and the officer at the gate," I reminded him.

"We will not tell," he said, "but the slaves might in order to win favor."

I was puzzled. "And why won't you tell?" I asked.

"For one reason, I like you; for another, I hate Tyros. Everyone hates Tyros."

"Well, I thank you for the warning, Ulirus; but I don't suppose I can ever do anything to repay you;" then the guard opened the gate and we were ushered into our prison.

There must have been fully three hundred slaves in the compound, mostly creatures like ourselves; but there were also a few Myposans. The latter were common criminals, or people who had aroused the ire of Tyros the Bloody. The men and women were not segregated from one another; so Duare and I were not separated.

Some of the other slaves gathered around us, animated by curiosity, a part of which was aroused by Duare's great beauty and a part by my blond hair and blue eyes. They had started to question us when the officer who had admitted us strode into the compound.

"Look out!" whispered one of the slaves. "Here comes Vomer;" then they drifted away from us.

Vomer walked up to me and eyed first me and then Duare from head to feet. His bearing was obviously intentionally insulting.

"What's this I hear," he demanded, "about something that you ride in that flies through the air like a bird?"

"How should I know what you heard?" I retorted.

One couldn't tell, from their facial expressions, the mental reactions of these Myposans; because, like true fish, they didn't have any. Vomer's gills opened and closed rapidly. Perhaps that was a sign of rage or excitement. I didn't know, and I didn't care. He annoyed and disgusted me. He looked surprisingly like a moon fish, numbers of which I had seen seined off the Florida Keys.

"Don't speak to me in that tone of voice, slave," shouted Vomer; "don't you know who I am?"

"No, nor what."

Duare stood close to me. "Don't antagonize him," she whispered; "it will only go the harder with us."

I realized that she was right. For myself, I did not care; but I must not jeopardize her safety. "Just what do you wish to know?" I asked in a more conciliatory tone, though it griped me to do it.

"I want to know if Ulirus spoke the truth," he said. "He told me that you rode in a great thing that flew through the air like a bird, and the other warriors with him said the same thing."

"It is true."

"It can't be true," objected Vomer.

I shrugged. "If you know it can't be true, why ask me?"

Vomer looked at me steadily with his fishy eyes for a moment; then he turned and strode away.

"You have made an enemy," said Duare.

"They are all our enemies," I said. "I should like to punch his face."

A slave standing near smiled. "So should we all," he said. He was a nice looking chap, well put up; a human being and not a freak of nature like the Myposans.