s cargo of wine. His freehandedness with the gold
eggs got him immediate service even on this general holiday. Once in
the square, he and his men uncrated the wine but left the two heavy
chests on the wagon which was hitched to a powerful little six-legged
Jeep.

They stacked the bottles of wine in a huge pile while the curious
crowd in the square encircled them to watch. Rastignac then stood on a
chest to survey the scene, so that he could best judge the time to
start. There were perhaps seven or eight thousand of all three races
there--the Ssassarors, the Amphibs, the Humans--with an unequal
portioning of each.

Rastignac, looking for just such a thing, noticed that every non-human
Amphib had at least two Humans tagging at his heels.

It would take two Humans to handle an Amphib or a Ssassaror. The
Amphibs stood upon their seal-like hind flippers at least six and a
half feet tall and weighed about three hundred pounds. The Giant
Ssassarors, being fisheaters, had reached the same enormous height as
Mapfarity. The Giants were in the minority, as the Amphibs had always
preferred stealing Human babies from the Terrans. These were marked
for death as much as the Amphibs.

Rastignac watched for signs of uneasiness or hostility between the
three groups. Soon he saw the signs. They were not plentiful, but they
were enough to indicate an uneasy undercurrent. Three times the guards
had to intervene to break up quarrels. The Humans eyed the non-human
quarrelers, but made no move to help their Amphib fellows against the
Giants. Not only that, they took them aside afterwards and seemed to
be reprimanding them. Evidently the order was that everyone was to be
on his behavior until the time to revolt. Rastignac glanced at the
great tower-clock. "It's an hour before the ceremonies begin," he said
to his men. "Let's go."

XI

Mapfarity, who had been loitering in the crowd some distance away,
caught Archambaud's signal and slowly, as befit a Giant whose feet
hurt, limped towards them. He stopped, scrutinized the pile of
bottles, then, in his lion's-roar-at-the-bottom-of-a-well voice said,
"Say, what's in these bottles?"

Rastignac shouted back, "A drink which the new Kings will enjoy very
much."

"What's that?" replied Mapfarity. "Sea-water?"

The crowd laughed.

"No, it's not water," Rastignac said, "as anybody but a lumbering
Giant should know. It is a delicious drink that brings a rare ecstacy
upon the drinker. I got