Here the horrid

creature squatted, surrounded by a hundred slave maidens sparkling

in jewelled trappings. Brilliant cloths of many hues and strange

patterns formed the soft cushion covering of the dais upon which

they reclined about her.

On four sides of the throne and several feet below it stood three

solid ranks of heavily armed soldiery, elbow to elbow. In front

of these were the high dignitaries of this mock heaven--gleaming

blacks bedecked with precious stones, upon their foreheads the

insignia of their rank set in circles of gold.

On both sides of the throne stretched a solid mass of humanity

from top to bottom of the amphitheatre. There were as many women

as men, and each was clothed in the wondrously wrought harness of

his station and his house. With each black was from one to three

slaves, drawn from the domains of the therns and from the outer

world. The blacks are all "noble." There is no peasantry among the

First Born. Even the lowest soldier is a god, and has his slaves

to wait upon him.

The First Born do no work. The men fight--that is a sacred privilege

and duty; to fight and die for Issus. The women do nothing,

absolutely nothing. Slaves wash them, slaves dress them, slaves

feed them. There are some, even, who have slaves that talk for

them, and I saw one who sat during the rites with closed eyes while

a slave narrated to her the events that were transpiring within

the arena.

The first event of the day was the Tribute to Issus. It marked

the end of those poor unfortunates who had looked upon the divine

glory of the goddess a full year before. There were ten of

them--splendid beauties from the proud courts of mighty Jeddaks and

from the temples of the Holy Therns. For a year they had served

in the retinue of Issus; to-day they were to pay the price of this

divine preferment with their lives; tomorrow they would grace the

tables of the court functionaries.

A huge black entered the arena with the young women. Carefully

he inspected them, felt of their limbs and poked them in the ribs.

Presently he selected one of their number whom he led before the

throne of Issus. He addressed some words to the goddess which I

could not hear. Issus nodded her head. The black raised his hands

above his head in token of salute, grasped the girl by the wrist,

and dragged her from the arena through a small doorway below the

throne.

"Issus will dine well to-night," said a prisoner beside me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That was her dinner that old Thabis is taking to the kitchens.

Didst not note how carefully he selected the plumpest and tenderest

of the lot?"

I growled out my curses on the monster sitting opposite us on the

gorgeous throne.

"Fume not," admonished my companion; "you will see far worse than

that if you live even a month among the First Born."

I turned again in time to see the gate of a nearby cage thrown open

and three monstrous white apes spring into the arena. The girls

shrank in a frightened group in the centre of the enclosure.

One was on her knees with imploring hands outstretched toward

Issus; but the hideous deity only leaned further forward in keener

anticipation of the entertainment to come. At length the apes spied

the huddled knot of terror-stricken maidens and with demoniacal

shrieks of bestial frenzy, charged upon them.

A wave of mad fury surged over me. The cruel cowardliness of the

power-drunk creature whose malignant mind conceived such frightful

forms of torture stirred to their uttermost depths my resentment

and my manhood. The blood-red haze that presaged death to my foes

swam before my eyes.

The guard lolled before the unbarred gate of the cage which confined

me. What need of bars, indeed, to keep those poor victims from

rushing into the arena which the edict of the gods had appointed

as their death place!

A single blow sent the black unconscious to the ground. Snatching

up his long-sword, I sprang into the arena. The apes were almost

upon the maidens, but a couple of mighty bounds were all my earthly

muscles required to carry me to the centre of the sand-strewn floor.

For an instant silence reigned in the great amphitheatre, then

a wild shout arose from the cages of the doomed. My long-sword

circled whirring through the air, and a great ape sprawled, headless,

at the feet of the fainting girls.

The other apes turned now upon me, and as I stood facing them

a sullen roar from the audience answered the wild cheers from the

cages. From the tail of my eye I saw a score of guards rushing

across the glistening sand toward me. Then a figure broke from

one of the cages behind them. It was the youth whose personality

so fascinated me.

He paused a moment before the cages, with upraised sword.

"Come, men of the outer world!" he shouted. "Let us make our

deaths worth while, and at the back of this unknown warrior turn

this day's Tribute to Issus into an orgy of revenge that will echo

through the ages and cause black skins to blanch at each repetition

of the rites of Issus.