e, and he hushed them
with a gesture.

"Many of us," he said, "though rebels, have owed allegiance to the gods.
Our quarrel has been only with the gentry, whose useless existence and
awful power over us are a constant irritation. They who hunt us as
'foxes'--who kill us if we touch them--we have seen are only men like
ourselves, women like our women." He pointed to Nirea. "There's a
gentrywoman; is she different in body from our wives? Not by so much as
a mole!"

"I didn't see any moles," whispered Revel to the girl. She turned red in
the face and clamped her teeth together.

"Is her mind different, superior? It's eviller, cruder, more ferocious,
maybe, but no whit better than our own! Why then should her kind have
power over us?"

* * * * *

The amphitheater roared to the angry yells of rebels. Jerran waved his
hand again. "That's been our quarrel with the established way of things
in the world. We've hoped for weapons to fight the gentry, and prayed
for guidance from the gods. Now we know that the gods are mortal too!
They can die! Then they aren't gods, not if gods are the supreme beings
we've all been taught! They flee from a miner's pick? Then, by Orbs,
they're craven cowards, not fit to be worshipped!"

A hush, then another roar.

"I said we'd waited. The biggest need was a leader, a man of brains and
guts and power. We've sung of him for centuries, made up stories of him,
songs about him." Jerran paused dramatically. He flung out a finger at
the mob. "Who will he be?"

The answer almost broke Revel's eardrums.

_The Mink! The Mink! The Mink! The Mink!_

"He's here! He's come, from the bowels of the ruck, from the mines, from
the people, as he was to come! Already he's done some of the acts the
saga-makers put into the Ballad of the Mink!"

Revel frowned. Jerran hadn't told him that the Mink had come at last.
The small yellow-faced man went on.

"He's the greatest trapper of mink in Dolfya--his family sleeps under
blankets of the little beasts' hides. His own hair is the shade of a
mink's pelt, as was foretold. He's as swift and deadly and cunning as
the oldest mink alive. He's slain gods and priests, and taken toll of
the gentry. I've worked beside him for years, and know his mind and
heart have always been ours, though he lived in ignorance of us."

The light, a lurid incredible light, began to dawn on Revel.

Jerran's voice rose to a shriek as the rebels muttered