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Rh there were at least half-a-dozen large ones stand­ing upon the floor.

The slaves were of all ages from infancy to middle-age, but there were no aged venerables among them. The skins of the women and chil­dren were the whitest Tarzan had ever seen and he marveled at them until he came to know that some of the former and all of the latter had never seen daylight since birth. The children who were born here would go up into the daylight some time, when they were of an age that war­ranted beginning the training for the vocations their masters had chosen for them, but the women who had been captured from other cities would remain here until death claimed them, unless that rarest of miracles occurred—they should be chosen by a Veltopismakusian warrior as his mate; but that was scarce even a remote possibil­ity, since the warriors almost invariably chose their mates from the slaves of the white tunic with whom they came in daily contact in the domes above-ground.

The faces of the women bore the imprint of a sadness that brought a spontaneous surge of sympathy to the breast of the savage ape-man. Never in his life had he seen such abject hopelessness depicted upon any face.

As he crossed the room many were the glances that were cast upon him, for it was obvious from his deep tan that he was a newcomer, and, too,