One of the bandits fired. The forest was illuminated briefly by the flash of gunpowder, and Kesley thought he heard something like a grunt of pain, followed by a frantic threshing in the underbrush.

"I got him," a voice said.

"What of the other one?"

"We have him here."

"Muy bien! Don Miguel will be glad to see him."

Kesley was lifted to his feet. Dimly, he saw five men guarding him, and a sixth crouched a few feet away with his hand clapped to a raw knife-wound in his shoulder.

Efficiently, the bandits roped his arms to his sides.

"I have a safe-conduct from Duke Miguel," Kesley protested, as they hustled him out of the copse.

One of the bandits snorted derisively. "Safe conduct? Pah! Don Miguel gives no safe conducts!"

"But—"

They were in the open now. There was no sign of van Alen or of van Alen's horse.

The six small ponies of the bandits were grazing in a wide circle; near the edge of the copse lay the two horses van Alen's blaster had brought down, and a few feet away were the sprawled, blackened corpses of the two dead bandits.

The night was silent. Even the birds had ceased their harsh noise. Kesley tensely allowed himself to be tethered to a pommel.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded.

The bandit leader chuckled, showing a set of gleaming teeth. "Buenos Aires. The capital of Duke Miguel, no? Miguel is collecting norteamericanos this week!"

III

As well as being the chief city of Argentina Province, Buenos Aires was a Ducal capital—the first such city Kesley remembered having entered.

He knew the names of the others: Chicago, Tunis, Johannesburg, Stockholm, Canberra, Strasbourg, Kiev, Hankow, Calcutta, Manila, Leopoldville. They were strange and alien names; to him, abstract symbols of Ducal power rather than concrete geographical localities.

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