tax that is levied upon them.  They prefer however, to furnish a substitute to perform this labor, and as our own people will not hire out for labor in the mines it has been necessary to obtain slaves, and I do not need to tell you that slaves are not won without fighting.  We sell these slaves in the public market, the proceeds going, half and half, to the government and the warriors who bring them in.  The purchasers are credited with the amount of labor performed by their particular slaves.  At the end of a year a good slave will have performed the labor tax of his master for six years, and if slaves are plentiful he is freed and permitted to return to his own people.”

“You fight in platinum and diamonds?” asked Tara, indicating his gorgeous trappings with a quizzical smile.

Gahan laughed.  “We are a vain people,” he admitted, good-naturedly, “and it is possible that we place too much value on personal appearances.  We vie with one another in the splendor of our accoutrements when trapped for the observance of the lighter duties of life, though when we take the field our leather is the plainest I ever have seen worn by fighting men of Barsoom.  We pride ourselves, too, upon our physical beauty, and especially upon the beauty of our women.  May I dare to say, Tara of Helium, that I am hoping for the day when you will visit Gathol that my people may see one who is really beautiful?”

“The women of Helium are taught to frown with displeasure upon the tongue of the flatterer,” rejoined the girl, but Gahan, Jed of Gathol, observed that she smiled as she said it.

A bugle sounded, clear and sweet, above the laughter and the talk.  “The Dance of Barsoom!” exclaimed the young warrior.  “I claim you for it, Tara of Helium.”

The girl glanced in the direction of the bench where she had last seen Djor Kantos.  He was not in sight.  She inclined her head in assent to the claim of the Gatholian.  Slaves were passing among the guests, distributing small musical instruments of a single string.  Upon each instrument were characters which indicated the pitch and length of its tone.  The instruments were of skeel, the string of gut, and were shaped to fit the left forearm of the dancer, to which it was strapped.  There was also a ring wound with gut which was worn between the first and second joints of the index finger of the right hand and which, when passed over the string of the instrument, elicited the single note required of the dancer.

The guests had risen and were slowly making their way toward the expanse of scarlet sward at the south end of the gardens where the dance was to be held, when Djor Kantos came hurriedly toward Tara of Helium.  “I claim—­” he exclaimed as he neared her; but she interrupted him with a gesture.

“You are too late, Djor Kantos,” she cried in mock anger.  “No laggard may claim Tara of Helium; but haste now lest thou lose also Olvia Marthis, whom I have never seen wait long to be claimed for this or any other dance.”