Three times he recited some formula and was answered by the others.  Then, in another period of sudden quiet, he raised the cup to his lips and drank off its contents in a single draught, turning the goblet upside down when he had done to prove that not a drop remained within.  A shout tore through the great hall.  The Salariki were all on their feet, waving their knives over their heads in honor to their new ruler.  And Groft for the first time seated himself in the high seat.  The clan was no longer without a chieftain.  Groft held his father’s place.

“Show over?” Dane heard Stotz murmur and Van Rycke’s disappointing reply: 

“Not yet.  They’ll probably make a night of it.  Here comes another round of drinks—­”

“And trouble with them,”—­that was Captain Jellico being prophetic.

“By the Coalsack’s Ripcord!” That exclamation had been jolted out of Rip and Dane turned to see what had so jarred the usually serene Astrogator-apprentice.  He was just in time to witness an important piece of Sargolian social practice.

A young warrior, surely only within a year or so of receiving his knife, was facing an older Salarik, both on their feet.  The head and shoulder fur of the older fighter was dripping wet and an empty goblet rolled across the table to bump to the floor.  A hush had fallen on the immediate neighbors of the pair, and there was an air of expectancy about the company.

“Threw his drink all over the other fellow,” Rip’s soft whisper explained.  “That means a duel—­”

“Here and now?” Dane had heard of the personal combat proclivities of the Salariki.

“Should be to the death for an insult such as that,” Ali remarked, as usual surveying the scene from his chosen role as bystander.  As a child he had survived the unspeakable massacres of the Crater War, nothing had been able to crack his surface armor since.

“The young fool!” that was Steen Wilcox sizing up the situation from the angle of a naturally cautious nature and some fifteen years of experience on a great many different worlds.  “He’ll be mustered out for good before he knows what happened to him!”

The younger Salarik had barked a question at his elder and had been promptly answered by that dripping warrior.  Now their neighbors came to life with an efficiency which suggested that they had been waiting for such a move, it had happened so many times that every man knew just the right procedure from that point on.

In order for a Sargolian feast to be a success, the Terrans gathered from overheard remarks, at least one duel must be staged sometime during the festivities.  And those not actively engaged did a lot of brisk betting in the background.

“Look there—­at that fellow in the violet cloak,” Rip directed Dane.  “See what he just laid down?”

The nobleman in the violet cloak was not one of Groft’s liege men, but a member of the delegation from another clan.  And what he had laid down on the table—­indicating as he did so his choice as winner in the coming combat, the elder warrior—­was a small piece of white material on which reposed a slightly withered but familiar leaf.  The neighbor he wagered with, eyed the stake narrowly, bending over to sniff at it, before he piled up two gem set armlets, a personal scent box and a thumb ring to balance.