All the slaves were looking at him, and you could almost read their thoughts in the expressions on their faces.

Hamas was furious, Phystal suspicious; and all the time the girl stood there with the most innocent and angelic expression on her face.

“What do you mean by saying such a thing?” shouted Hamas.

“What did I say?” she asked, innocently.

“You said—you said—”

“I just said, ‘ask Hamas.’ Is there anything wrong in that?”

“But what do I know about it?” demanded the major-domo.

Zanda shrugged her slim shoulders. “I am afraid to say anything more. I do not want to get you in trouble.”

“Perhaps the less said about it, the better,” said Phystal.

Hamas started to speak, but evidently thought better of it. He glowered at Zanda for a moment and then fell to eating his breakfast.

Just before the meal was over, I told Hamas that Fal Sivas had instructed me to select a slave.

“Yes, he told me,” replied the major-domo. “See Phystal about it; he is in charge of the slaves.”

“But does he know that Fal Sivas gave me permission to select anyone that I chose?”

“I will tell him.”

A moment later he finished his breakfast; and as he was leaving the dining room, he paused and spoke to Phystal.

Seeing that Phystal also was about ready to leave the table, I went to him and told him that I would like to select a slave.

“Which one do you want?” he asked.

I glanced around the table, apparently examining each of the slaves carefully until at last my eyes rested upon Zanda.

“I will take this one,” I said.

Phystal’s brows contracted, and he hesitated.

“Fal Sivas said that I might select whomever I wished,” I reminded him.

“But why do you want this one?” he demanded.

“She seems intelligent, and she is good-looking,” I replied. “She will do as well as another until I am better acquainted here.” And so it was that Zanda was appointed to serve me. Her duties would consist of keeping my apartments clean, running errands for me, cleaning my harness, shining my metal, sharpening my swords and daggers, and otherwise making herself useful.

I would much rather have had a man slave, but events had so ordered themselves that I had been forced into the rôle of the girl’s protector, and this seemed the only plan by which I could accomplish anything along that line; but whether or not Fal Sivas would permit me to keep her, I did not know. That was a contingency which remained for future solution when, and if, it eventuated.

I took Zanda back to my quarters; and while she was busying herself with her duties there, I received a call summoning me to Fal Sivas.

A slave led me to the same room in which Fal Sivas had received Rapas and me the night before, and as I entered the old inventor greeted me with a nod. I expected him to immediately question me concerning Zanda, for both Hamas and Phystal were with him; and I had no doubt but that they had reported all that had occurred at the breakfast table.

However, I was agreeably disappointed, for he did not mention the incident at all, but merely gave me instructions as to my duties.

I was to remain on duty in the corridor outside his door and accompany him when he left the room. I was to permit no one to enter the room, other than Hamas or Phystal, without obtaining permission from Fal Sivas. When he left the room, I was to accompany him. Under no circumstances was I ever to go to the level above, except with his permission or by his express command. He was very insistent in impressing this point upon my mind; and though I am not overly curious, I must admit that now that I had been forbidden to go to any of the levels above, I wanted to do so.

“When you have been in my service longer and I know you better,” explained Fal Sivas, “I hope to be able to trust you; but for the present you are on probation.”

That was the longest day I have ever spent, just standing around outside that door, doing nothing; but at last it drew to a close, and when I had the opportunity, I reminded Fal Sivas that he had promised to direct me to Ur Jan’s headquarters, so that I might try to gain entrance to them that night.

He gave me very accurate directions to a building in another quarter of the city.

“You are free to start whenever you wish,” he said, in conclusion; “I have given Hamas instructions that you may come and go as you please. He will furnish you with a pass signal whereby you may gain admission to the house. I wish you luck,” he said, “but I think that the best you will get will be a sword through your heart. You are pitting yourself against the fiercest and most unscrupulous gang of men in Zodanga.”

“It is a chance that I shall have to take,” I said. “Good night.”

I went to my quarters and told Zanda to lock herself in after I had left and to open the door only in answer to a certain signal which I imparted to her. She was only too glad to obey my injunction.

When I was ready to leave the building, Hamas conducted me to the outer doorway. Here he showed me a hidden button set in the masonry and explained to me how I might use it to announce my return.

I had gone but a short distance from the house of Fal Sivas when I met Rapas the Ulsio. He seemed to have forgotten his anger toward me, or else he was dissimulating, for he greeted me cordially.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Off for the evening,” I replied.

“Where are you going, and what are you going to do?”

“I am going to the public house to get my things together and store them, and then I shall look around for a little entertainment.”

“Suppose we get together later in the evening,” he suggested.

“All right,” I replied; “when and where?”

“I will be through with my business about half after the eighth zode. Suppose we meet at the eating-place I took you to yesterday.”

“All right,” I said, “but do not wait long for me. I may get tired of looking for pleasure and return to my quarters long before that.”

After leaving Rapas, I went to the public house where I had left my things; and gathering them up I took them to the hangar on the roof and stored them in my flier. This done, I returned to the street and made my way toward the address that Fal Sivas had given me.

The way led me through a brilliantly lighted shopping district and into a gloomy section of the old town. It was a residential district, but of the meaner sort. Some of the houses still rested upon the ground, but most of them were elevated on their steel shafts twenty or thirty feet above the pavement.

I heard laughter and song and occasional brawling—the sounds of the night life of a great Martian city, and then I passed on into another and seemingly deserted quarter.

I was approaching the headquarters of the assassins. I kept in the shadows of the buildings, and I avoided the few people that were upon the avenue by slipping into doorways and alleys. I did not wish anyone to see me here who might be able afterward to recognize or identify me. I was playing a game with Death, and I must give him no advantage.

When finally I reached the building for which I was seeking, I found a doorway on the opposite side of the avenue from which I could observe my goal without being seen.

The farther moon cast a faint light upon the face of the building but revealed to me nothing of importance.

At first, I could discern no lights in the building; but after closer observation I saw a dim reflection behind the windows of the upper floor. There, doubtless, was the meeting-place of the assassins; but how was I to reach it?

That the doors to the building would be securely locked and every approach to the meeting-place well guarded, seemed a foregone conclusion.

There were balconies before the windows at several levels, and I noticed particularly that there were three of these in front of windows on the upper story. These balconies offered me a means of ingress to the upper floor if I could but reach them.

The great strength and agility which the lesser gravitation of Mars imparts to my earthly muscles might have sufficed to permit me to climb the exterior of the building, except for the fact that this particular building seemed to offer no foothold up to the fifth story, above which its carved ornamentation commenced.

Mentally debating every possibility, by a process of elimination, I was forced to the conclusion that my best approach would be by way of the roof.

However, I determined to investigate the possibilities of the main entrance on the ground floor; and was about to cross the avenue for that purpose when I saw two men approaching.