At this practical indication of just how much the Terran herb was esteemed Dane regretted anew their earlier ignorance.  He glanced along the board and saw that Van Rycke had noted that stake and was calling their Captain’s attention to it.

But such side issues were forgotten as the duelists vaulted into the circle rimmed by the table, a space now vacated for their action.  They were stripped to their loin cloths, their cloaks thrown aside.  Each carried his net in his right hand, his claw knife ready in his left.  As yet the Traders had not seen Salarik against Salarik in action and in spite of themselves they edged forward in their seats, as intent as the natives upon what was to come.  The finer points of the combat were lost on them, and they did not understand the drilled casts of the net, which had become as formalized through the centuries as the ancient and now almost forgotten sword play of their own world.  The young Salarik had greater agility and speed, but the veteran who faced him had the experience.

To Terran eyes the duel had some of the weaving, sweeping movements of the earlier ritual dance.  The swift evasions of the nets were graceful and so timed that many times the meshes grazed the skin of the fighter who fled entrapment.

Dane believed that the elder man was tiring, and the youngster must have shared that opinion.  There was a leap to the right, a sudden flurry of dart and retreat, and then a net curled high and fell, enfolding flailing arms and kicking legs.  When the clutch rope was jerked tight, the captured youth was thrown off balance.  He rolled frenziedly, but there was no escaping the imprisoning strands.

A shout applauded the victor.  He stood now above his captive who lay supine, his throat or breast ready for either stroke of the knife his captor wished to deliver.  But it appeared that the winner was not minded to end the encounter with blood.  Instead he reached out a long, befurred arm, took up a filled goblet from the table and with serious deliberation, poured its contents onto the upturned face of the loser.

For a moment there was a dead silence around the feast board and then a second roar, to which the honestly relieved Terrans added spurts of laughter.  The sputtering youth was shaken free of the net and went down on his knees, tendering his opponent his knife, which the other thrust along with his own into his sash belt.  Dane gathered from overheard remarks that the younger man was, for a period of time, to be determined by clan council, now the servant-slave of his overthrower and that since they were closely united by blood ties, this solution was considered eminently suitable—­though had the elder killed his opponent, no one would have thought the worse of him for that deed.

It was the Queen’s men who were to provide the next center of attraction.  Groft climbed down from his high seat and came to face across the board those who had accompanied him on the hunt.  This time there was no escaping the sipping of the potent drink which the new chieftain slopped from his own goblet into each of theirs.