"You always were a courageous fellow, Callimachus," said the standing man. "I always admired that in you. Had you not been concerned to keep the codes, you might have gone far. I might have found a position for you even in my organization."Instead," said the man sitting at the table, "we met at Port Cos."

"Your gamble this night was successful," said the standing man. "I would advise against similar boldnesses in the future, however." The sitting man drank.

"Fortunatly for you, my dear Callimachus, my friend Kliomenes, the disagreeable fellow who left the tavern earlier, does not know you. He does not know as I do, thatyour eye is no longer as sharp as once it was, that your hand has lost its cunning, that you are now ruined and fallen, that the scarlet is not but meaningless on your body, naught but a remembrance, an empty recollection of a vanished glory."

The sitting man drank. "If he knew you as I do," said the standing man, 'You would not be dead."

The sitting man looked into the goblet, now empty, on the table. His hands clutched it. His fingers white. His eyes seemed empty. His cheeks, unshaven, were pale and hollow.

"Paga!" called the standing men. "Paga!" A blond girl, nude, with a string of pearls wound about her steel collar, ran to the table and from the bronze vessel, on its stap about her shoulder, poured paga into the goblet before the seated man. The fellow who stood by the table scarcely noticing the girl, placed a tarsk bit in her mouth, and she fled back to the counter where, under the eye of a paga attendant, she spit the coin into a copper bowl.

There seemed to me something familiar about the girl, but I could not place it.

"Drink, Callimachuis," said the standing man, "Drink."The seated man, unsteadily lifted the page to his lips.

Then he who had stood by the table, turned about and left. I backed away from the table."The fellow who threaten me," I said to Tasron, the proprietor of the tavern, "he called Kliomenes. Who is he?"

"He is Kliomenes, the pirate, lieutenant to Policrates," said Tasdron."And the other," I asked, "he who was standing by the table, speaking to the man who saved me?" His captain," said Tasdron, "Policrates himself."

I swallow hard. "You are fortunate to be alive," said Tasdron. "I think perhaps you should leave Victoria."

"At what time do the sales begin in the sales barns of Lysander?" I asked. "They have already begun," sid Tasdron.

Hurriedly, I ran to the table where I had left my things. I drew on my clothes and hastily slung my sword over my left shoulder. I picked up my winnings from the fighting. I saw the blond girl, she who had the pearls wrapped about her collar looking at me. It seemed to me that I had seen her somewhere. I placed my winnings in my pouch and tied it at my belt. I could not recall if, or where, or when, I might have seen her. I made my way rapidly toward the sales barn of Lysander

"This red-haired beauty," called the auctioneer, "is a catch of Captain Thrasymedes. She can play the lute."There was raucous laughter. "How good is she in the furs?" called a voice.The girl went for four copper tarsks.

"have the girls of Kliomenes been sold?" I asked a fellow. "Yes," said a fellow. I cried out in anguish. "Most," said another. "Most?" I pressed him."Yes," he said. "I think there are others, taken near Lara."

"What am I offered for this blonde?" called the auctioneer. "Weren't they sold before?" asked the first fellow. "Not all, I think," said the second man.

I left their sides and pushed through the crowd, making my way nearer the high, round, sawdust-strewn block."Watch where you are going, Fellow," snarled a man.

I stopped by the ready cage. Inside, sitting on a wooden bench, behind stout, closely-set bars, miserable, clutching sheets about themselves, some with glazed eyes, sat some ten girls. I clutched the bars, from the outside, looking within. She whom I sought was not there. One girl rose from the bench, her left ankle pulling against the chain and shackle that held her with the to others, and dropped the sheet to her waist."Buy me," she begged, putting her hand toward me. I stepped back. "This is not an exhibition cage," said an attendant, putting a hand on my arm.

"You many not loiter here," "Buy me," begged the girl, reaching toward me. I gathered that she, unlike several of the others, apparently, had had masters.

"Are these all the items that remain for sale?" I asked the attendant. «No» he said. "Are there girls of Kliomenes who remain to be sold?" I asked, desperately. "I do not know," he said, "I do not have the manifests."

Miserably, I turned about and went back to sand with the others in the vicinity of the block. The blonde went for six tarsks.

"And here," said the auctioneer, "we have another blonde. This one, like many of the girls now in the ready cage, was free." There was much laughter, "Make her kiss the whip!" called a man.

"Down, Wench, and kiss the whip!" ordered the auctioneer. The girl knelt and kissed the whip. There was more laughter. He then began to put her through slave paces.

There were some 200 men at the sale. Such sales occur frequently in the various sales barns of Victoria, sometimes running for several nights in a row. The spring and summer are the businest seasons, for these are the seasons of heaviest river traffic and, accordingtly, the seasons when pirates, after their raids, are likely to bring in their loot. Many of the men at the salves barn were professional salves, from other towns and cities, looking for bargains.

"Sold to Targo of Ar!" announced the auctioneer. Manacles were then clapped on the blonde and she was dragged from the block.

I was angry for I did not even know if Miss Henderson was to be sold, or if shse had already been sold. If she had been sold, she might even now, while I stood about, helplessly be being transported from Victoria, a slave, anywhere. My fist were clenched. My palms were sweating.

The next two girls, brunettes, were sold to Lucilius of Tyros. The next four slaves were purchased by a fellow named Publius, who was an agent for a Mintar of Ar.

I waited as the bidding grew more heated and as more men entered the building. Five times the read cage was emptied and fillled, and empted, as girls, freed of their shackles, were ordered to the block's surface for their vending.

"Do none of these women interest you?" ask a man nearby. "Many are lovely," I said. Indeed, had i not been waiting desperately, miserably for she whom I sought, I might have been tempted to bid hotly on several of them. To own any one of them would have been a joy and a triumph. The man who has owned a woman or women, knows of what I speak. Perhaps even those who have never owned a woman can sensek dimly, what it might be like. I know of no pleasure comparable to the pleasure of owning a woman, fully. It is indescribably delicious; it is glorious; it fills one with joy and power; it exhalts and fulfills the blood. It teaches a male, in the thunderous currency of intellect and emotion, what is the true meaning of manhood. Compared to it, the ratifiations of pretense and denial, the insistence on suberting one's blood and virility in the name of a false manhood conditioned by a demented, antibiological society, are pallid indeed. let those who can climb mountains climb them; let those who cannot climb them console themselves with denying their existence.

"The brunette four sales ago," said the man next to me, "was she not superb?" Yes," I said. She had indeed been stuning. In this market to her indignation, she had gone for only fourteen copper tarsks. She had been sold to an agent of Clark of Thentis. The next brunette, in my opinion, had been even more stunning. She had gone for a mere fifteen copper tarsks. She had been sold to a Cleanthes ofTeletus.