being dragged out of the taverns and sobered up; two days after tomorrow the great vessel would have to be towed out of the windbreak and sails set for the perilous and long voyage.

"I wouldn't worry," said Green. "You will find that tomorrow word will come from the hills that Green has been killed by a wild man of the Clan Axaquexcan, who will demand money before handing the dead slave's head over. The Duke will accept this as true and will conveniently forget all about searching the 'rollers."

Miran rubbed his fat oily palms, while one pale eye glowed. He loved a good intrigue, the more elaborate the better.

But the second day, even though what Green had predicted came true Miran became nervous and began to find the big blond man's constant presence in his cabin irksome. He wanted to send him down into the hold, but Green firmly refused, reminding the captain of his promise of haven within these very walls. He then calmly appropriated another bottle of the merchant's Lespaxian, having located its hiding place, and drank it. Miran glowered, and his face twitched with repressed resentment, but he said nothing because of the custom that a guest could do what he pleased--within reasonable limits.

The third day Miran was positively a tub of nerves, jittery, sweating, pacing back and forth. At last he left the cabin, only to begin pacing back and forth on the deck. Green could hear his footsteps for hours. The fourth day he was up at dawn and bellowing orders to his crewmen. A little later Green felt the big vessel move and heard the shouts of the foremen of the towing gangs and the chants of the slaves as they bent their backs hauling at the huge ropes attached to the 'roller.

Slowly, oh, so slowly it seemed to Green, the craft creaked forward. He dared open a curtain to look out the square port-hole. Before him was the rearing side of another 'roller, and just for a second it seemed to him that it, not his vessel, was the one that was moving. Then he saw that the 'roller was advancing at a pace of about fifteen or sixteen feet a minute. It would take them an hour to get past the towering brick walls of the windbreak.

He sweated out that hour and unconsciously fell into his childhood habit of biting his nails, expecting at any time to see the docks suddenly boil with soldiers running after the _Bird of Fortune_, shouting for it to stop because it had a runaway slave aboard.

But no such thing occurred, and at last the tug gangs 

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