He nodded, still silent, and strode away. The girl, watching the swing of his broad shoulders, was piqued to note that there was nothing in his bearing to show that he was in any way chagrined or abashed. * * * * * When he had rounded a corner, he glanced back, and then changed his direction and quickened his pace. A few moments later he was in the quarter of the city containing the Horse Market. There he smote on a door until from the window above a bearded head was thrust to demand the reason for the disturbance. 'A horse,' demanded Conan. 'The swiftest steed you have.' 'I open no gates at this time of night,' grumbled the horse-trader. Conan rattled his coins. 'Dog's son knave! Don't you see I'm white, and alone? Come down, before I smash your door!' Presently, on a bay stallion, Conan was riding toward the house of Aram Baksh. He turned off the road into the alley that lay between the tavern compound and the date-palm garden, but he did not pause at the gate. He rode on to the northeast corner of the wall, then turned and rode along the north wall, to halt within a few paces of the northwest angle. No trees grew near the wall, but there were some low bushes. To one of these he tied his horse, and was about to climb into the saddle again, when he heard a low muttering of voices beyond the corner of the wall. Drawing his foot from the stirrup he stole to the angle and peered around it. Three men were moving down the road toward the palm groves, and from their slouching gait he knew they were negroes. They halted at his low call, bunching themselves as he strode toward them, his sword in his hand. Their eyes gleamed whitely in the starlight. Their brutish lust shone in their ebony faces, but they knew their three cudgels could not prevail against his sword, just as he knew it. 'Where are you going?' he challenged. 'To bid our brothers put out the fire in the pit beyond the groves,' was the sullen, guttural reply. 'Aram Baksh promised us a man, but he lied. We found one of our brothers dead in the trap-chamber. We go hungry this night.' 'I think not,' smiled Conan. 'Aram Baksh will give you a man. Do you see that door?' He pointed to a small, iron-bound portal set in the midst of the western wall. 'Wait there. Aram Baksh will give you a man.'