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had slowly exorcised the part of his soul that would have flinched from Morgan's words.
    Underneath the peerless face of an angel Devon's ice-encrusted spirit disdained the female sex. Every woman he had ever desired had been his for the asking, and the result on the inner workings of his mind had been unsavory in the extreme. Morgan could have told anyone interested that on the digits of a one-handed gypsy you could count Devon's positive relationships with women.
    "1 don't think so," said the man Devon had become. "Thank you all the same. Tonight I don't find myself feeling sufficiently creative."
    "Why the devil not, Carl?" Jason was saying in an urgent whisper. Each passing minute had made him look, to Merry, increasingly high-strung. He had certainly become increasingly profane. "We'll have to take the risk, to get the girls out of here. Even a damned-to-hell pirate knows that a woman in Merry's condition . . . Monk's buttocks, it doesn't make a spit of difference whether it's real or supposed, as long as they believe it's real! What can they think but that Sally's taking Merry out to use the convenience? The girls don't look, do they, as if they're able to up and ride off for the Army?"
    Carl leaned forward on his elbows, lifting the fist that he had been lightly and nervously rapping against the table. "Maybe. Maybe. But what if it misfires, eh? And it ends up drawing more attention to them?"
    "More attention? What in the devil does that mean?" Jason hissed back. "You've seen the way that gorgeous blond son of a bitch has been looking at Merry."
    "The odds are, though," said Sally calmly, "that given Merry's state he won't do more than look."
    It was through clenched teeth that Jason said, "I'll bet with the odds every time, Sal, but not, damn it. when the stake is Merry's rosy pink— Here, what's this? Carl, take a gander over there."
    The rough fellow who had been sitting at the table with the man Merry had come to draw had gotten up and was walking toward Morgan's table with an agonizingly set grin on his bulldog face and a reluctant shuffle, as though he had little faith in the steadiness of his knees. He nodded eagerly to Morgan and boomed a few words of greeting. Morgan stared silently back, his eyes glittering in a strange way. With great casualness he pulled a knife from his belt and held it in front of him, examining it as one would a curiosity. And it was a curiosity—the blade was a long brass crescent, with small hungry slashes running backward on the edge like shark's teeth.
    Shaking like spooned jelly, the ruffian spread his arms in an expansive, conciliatory gesture and began to say something in a rapid voice that collapsed into spasmodic coughing. The crowd watched in horrified fascination as Rand Morgan slipped his wicked blade into the lamp chimney on the table. Blue flame licked at the serrated edge, making it glow red.
    "Carl, what's he doing?" Merry was unable to keep the apprehension from her voice. "What are they going to do?"
    "I don't know," said Carl, suddenly won over to Jason's point of view, "but whatever it is, I don't want you in here to watch." He glanced at his cousin. "We'll do it your way, Jason. Sally, you and Merry slip out the back door—it'll be less obtrusive. If there's any talking to be done, you take care of it."
    Sally whispered to Merry, "Lean against me and do your best to look faint. Can you do that?"
    Merry mustered the beginnings of a smile. "With dazzling authenticity—I am about to faint! Carl, are you sure you and Jason can't come with us?"
    "They're likely to kill us just for trying," answered Jason. "Now go, and quickly."
    Merry felt Sally's arm slide around her waist. She let her head droop to her cousin's shoulder, and they walked toward the door. Many in the tavern watched them go, with eyes frightened and curious, but no one in the tableau around the heating blade seemed to take notice of them. The pirate who was guarding their intended exit drew up and