he mere
bought slayers. They hired themselves out to those who wished to do
away with their enemies. And death was an everyday matter to them.

Old Dragonbeard must have been a master swordsman standing midway
between those of the first and of the second order. Molo, however, of
whom this story tells, was a sword hero.

At that time there lived a young man named Tsui, whose father was a
high official and the friend of the prince. And the father once sent
his son to visit his princely friend, who was ill. The son was young,
handsome and gifted. He went to carry out his father's instructions.
When he entered the prince's palace, there stood three beautiful
slave girls, who piled rosy peaches into a golden bowl, poured sugar
over them and presented them to him. After he had eaten he took his
leave, and his princely host ordered one of the slave girls, Rose-Red
by name, to escort him to the gate. As they went along the young man
kept looking back at her. And she smiled at him and made signs with
her fingers. First she would stretch out three fingers, then she would
turn her hand around three times, and finally she would point to a
little mirror which she wore on her breast. When they parted she
whispered to him: "Do not forget me!"

When the young man reached home his thoughts were all in confusion.
And he sat down absent-mindedly like a wooden rooster. Now it happened
that he had an old servant named Molo, who was an extraordinary being.

"What is the trouble, master," said he. "Why are you so sad? Do you
not want to tell your old slave about it?"

So the boy told him what had occurred, and also mentioned the signs
the girl had made to him in secret.

Said Molo: "When she stretched out three fingers, it meant that she is
quartered in the third court of the palace. When she turned round her
hand three times, it meant the sum of three times five fingers, which
is fifteen. When she pointed at the little mirror, she meant to say
that on the fifteenth, when the moon is round as a mirror, at
midnight, you are to go for her."

Then the young man was roused from his confused thoughts, and was so
happy he could hardly control himself.

But soon he grew sad again and said: "The prince's palace is shut off
as though by an ocean. How would it be possible to win into it?"

"Nothing easier," said Molo. "On the fifteenth we will take two
pieces of dark silk and wrap ourselves up in them, and thus I will
carry you there. Yet th