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“Now, Granny.” The girl kept her eyes fixed on the court. “Remember, Tony took this match for charity. He wants the crowd to have a show, that’s all. He is in splendid shape.”

“No sleep,” Grant went on worriedly. “I’m sure it must be that. If his brain were alert, he’d control that ball until Slag went crazy. Without sleep, you can’t focus prop—”

“Please, Granny, stop!” In that instant her throbbing mind touched his, and he caught a glimpse of the alarm in her face. She, too, felt that something was wrong. But she tugged at his sleeve and pointed through the screen at the oval below. “Look!”

Slag’s feet were set wide apart, and his black-robed body stood square. But his head had begun a sort of slow wobble, from side to side, as the ball lanced in perihedral swings about the court.

“Praise Allah!” whispered Grant. “A beautiful dance! Tony’s thinking that gangster, into a coma.”

The white player was in concentration, using his eyes only rarely in shifting ever more complex movements to the sphere. Then the rhythmic pattern had become a wild corondo, with Slag as its center, and the dark figure stood hypnotized, with only spasmodic jerks of his brutal features to mark the fear in his mind.