* * * * * When the night of the passing of Minos had worn into morning and disclosed the extent of the destruction which the Sardanian had wrought in the harbor of Adlaz, Vedor, the port captain, Nealdo, head of the harbor guardsmen, and such captains of the fademes as had escaped with their lives met in council in one of the offices at the wharves. Fear sat heavy at the hearts of all; for there was not one of them that dared go up to the city and make a report to the king of the loss of his fademes. "Not I," Vedor said hastily, when it was suggested that he, as captain of the port, was the logical bearer of the news. "It were worth a man's life to tell the king that a slave has shattered his fleet. Besides, my duties here do not allow me to absent myself. Choose ye some other to carry the tidings to Bel-Ar." Listening to the discussion was a rough old soldier of the guard. Brenak was his name, and he was a brave man. When it seemed that none of the gilded captains had heart for the task, Brenak stepped forward. "I will carry the news," he volunteered. "Lend me a horse, and give me a few dekkars to buy wine at the wine-shops in the Street of Sherne, and I will go. It may be my last drinking, though I think not. I fought with the king in the wars, and I am known to him. I think he will spare me." So Brenak rode up to the city and bought his wine. From the wine-shops he went to the palace and gained admittance to the king and told the tidings, which already were flying from mouth to mouth through the streets. "Fool! You are crazed!" Bel-Ar exclaimed when Brenak had made a short tale of it. But in the eyes of the soldier the king saw the truth, and his pallid face turned a shade more pale. In his fury, scarce knowing what he did, he struck Brenak with his closed fist so that the soldier died from it. For days thereafter the temper of the king was such that those who must come near him did so with fear and trembling. Even his queen, the petulant, flower-faced Raissa, who dared him more than most, avoided him and kept to her own apartments. Weeks before, when it became known that the captives had escaped, little heed had been paid to their going. They were only slaves, and who cared what became of a slave! Interest in them had been swallowed up in the general indignation at the defection of Oleric the Red and the supposed treachery of Mordo. Only Bel-Ar and Rhaen, the arch-priest of Shamar, had chafed, and that because of the escape of the man whom they had doomed for the slaying of the sacred bull. The king had sent fademes to scour the sea, and one to go up the coast to Ruthar to head the fugitives, should they have gone that way. That fademe had never returned. These happenings had irked the pride of the king, who, like all despots, was of a wild and ungovernable temper that flared to madness when he was crossed.