Now, for the first time, I had a fairly good look at my companion, for both Cluros and Thuria were in the heavens and it was quite light. If I revealed my surprise it is not to be wondered at for, in the darkness, having only my companion's voice for a guide, I had been perfectly confident that I had given aid to a female, but now as I looked at that short hair and boyish face I did not know what to think; nor did the harness that my companion wore aid me in justifying my first conclusion, since it was quite evidently the harness of a man. "I thought you were a girl," I blurted out. A fine mouth spread into a smile that revealed strong, white teeth. "I am," she said. "But your hair--your harness--even your figure belies your claim." She laughed gayly. That, I was to find later, was one of her chiefest charms--that she could laugh so easily, yet never to wound. "My voice betrayed me," she said. "It is too bad." "Why is it too bad?" I asked. "Because you would have felt better with a fighting man as a companion, whereas now you feel that you have only a burden." "A light one," I replied, recalling how easily I had lifted her to the thoat's back. "But tell me who you are and why you are masquerading as a boy." "I am a slave girl," she said; "just a slave girl who has run away from her master. Perhaps that will make a difference," she added a little sadly. "Perhaps you will be sorry that you have defended just a slave girl." "No," I said, "that makes no difference. I, myself, am only a poor padwar, not rich enough to afford a slave. Perhaps you are the one to be sorry that you were not rescued by a rich man." She laughed. "I ran away from the richest man in the world," she said. "At least I guess he must have been the richest man in the world, for who could be richer than Tul Axtar, Jeddak of Jahar?" "You belong to Tul Axtar, Jeddak of Jahar?" I exclaimed.