It is not every day I can speak to ears so friendly as yours.

I am a slave, chosen for my luckless beauty as last year's tribute to Ar-hap." "And now ?" "And now the slave of Ar-hap's horse-keeper, set aside to make room for a fresher face." "And do you know whose face that is ?" "Not I, a hapless maid sent into this land of horrors, to bear ignominy and stripes, to eat coarse food and do coarse work, the miserable plaything of some brute in semi-human form, with but the one consolation of dying early as we tribute-women always die.

Poor comrade in exile, I only know her as yet by sympathy." "What if I said it was Heru, the princess ?" The Martian girl sprang to her feet, and clasping her hands exclaimed, "Heru, the Slender! Then the end comes, for it is written in our books that the last tribute is paid when the best is paid.

Oh, how splendid if she gave herself of free will to this slavery to end it once for all.

Was it so ?" "I think, Si, your princess could not have known of that tradition; she did not come willingly.