citizen, who as all his acquaintance would swear had loudly welcomed theappointment of the prince, the new governor, and looked forward to the citybeing reformed - it had occurred to him that perhaps this was part of a plan.One could scarcely conceive of a high-ranking imperial officer being so casualwith what was obviously a top-secret document. Could one?

'Never,' murmured Nizharu, but sweat beaded his lip.

Next came the tricky bit. Everything depended on whether the commander wanted tokeep the mere existence of the scroll a secret. Now he knew Aye-Gophlan had it,it was open to him to summon his men and march down to the guardhouse and searchit floor to rooftree, for - according to what Jarveena said, at any rate - AyeGophlan was far too cautious to leave it overnight in the custody of a merescribe. He would return on his next duty-free day, the day after tomorrow or theday after that, depending on which of his fellow officers he could exchangewith.

But Melilot had deduced that if the scroll were so important that Nizharu keptit by him even when undertaking a mundane tour of inspection, it must be veryprivate indeed. He was, apparently, correct. Nizharu listened with closeattention, and many nods to the alternative plan of action.

For a consideration, Melilot was prepared to furnish a false translationdesigned to jar Aye-Gophlan into doing something for which Nizharu could safelyarrest him, without it ever being known that he had enjoyed temporary possessionof a scroll which by ' rights should have remained in the commander's hands. Lethim only specify the terms, and it would be as good as done.

When she - whom Nizharu still believed a he, for which she was profoundly glad finished talking, the commander pondered a while. At length he started to smile,though it never reached his eyes, and in firm clear terms expressed his