Ylana of Callisto

Chapter 11 THE SEARCH BEGINS

THEY roused Xangan at dawn from a drunken stupor with the word that all the captives had somehow managed to escape during the night.

The chieftain, to quiet the qualms occasioned by the arrival of Zhu Kor the Mind Wizard, had partaken heavily of a sort of palm-wine called Bokka which the Cave People brew. The beverage, although potent, was not potent enough. It is one thing to worship your gods―at a safe distance. It is quite another thing to suddenly have one of them, living, breathing, and large as life, plunked down suddenly in your very midst.

Such, at least, was the experience of Xangan.

He blinked bleary eyes up at the guards, sitting up quickly. “What do you mean―escaped? Curse you, Mozar, how could the filthy fomaks have escaped?”

He broke off, groaning. Sitting up so quickly made it seem as if his head, which felt as fragile as an eggshell, was being kicked around by men in heavy jackboots.

“Come and see,” growled the guard, who was beginning to lose his fear of the swaggering bully. A coward himself, it somehow made him feel better to know that Xangan the chief was afraid of the Unseen One.

Xangan went to look. What he saw was to him inexplicable. The massive grill was enormously heavy … certainly much too heavy to have been opened by a slim girl and a scrawny boy.

“They must have sawed through the ropes,” smiled Thadron, who had come to enjoy the sight of Xangan’s discomfiture. He pointed to the unraveled ends of the strands of woven grass, which were stringy and tough, resilient and strong, but also dry.

“Notice how they worked it?” the young warrior pointed out to the belligerent, baffled, scowling Xangan. “They simply cut loose the door itself from the frame. Then they toppled it from its standing position. It fell on Fanga, who must have been asleep, and crushed his skull. Then they took up his weapons, and fled into the jungle, probably. Also, they seem to have picked up a bow and a quiverful of arrows from the front of Tugar’s cave. At least he is missing one, and believes he left it standing outside the mouth of the cave last night…”

“Cut the ropes? Cut them! With what, blast you?” roared Xangan, sick with fury. “They were disarmedthey had nothing to cut the grass ropes with!”

“With this, evidently,” said Thadron, mildly, holding out a long, sharp-edged sliver of bone like an ivory-bladed knife. “Do you recognize it, O Chief? It seems to be a piece broken off from the meat bone that you threw to your former chief last night, as a man might throw a bone to his favorite othode.”

Xangan flushed crimson, and turned a hot, malignant glare on the smiling, smooth-faced young tribesman. Shaking with rage, he leveled one hairy and not particularly clean arm at the lithe warrior.

“Thadron, I have endured your cunning remarks and sly inferences too long,” he growled deep in his chest. “Watch yourself, you girl-faced horeb, or you’ll end up in the sacrifice beside your traitorous friends!”

A horeb is a repulsive rodentlike scavenger of despicable habits. The word is a deadly insult among the Thanatorians, and in a warrior society―especially one as primitive as that of the Cave People―insults are not lightly thrown in the teeth of fighting men raised from the cradle with weapons in their hands. Thadron went white to the lips, and his eyes were hard. They bored coldly into the bleary, bloodshot orbs of Xangan. The bully blustered and swore, but dropped his gaze guiltily.

“I will let that pass,” said Thadron evenly, “my Chief. But I will say this only: if Thadron must die, he can think of no finer company in which to meet his end than that of Jugrid of the Jungle Country.”

Xangan flushed and cursed, waving his arms and mouthing loud oaths. But not one of the many tribesmen who stood in silent witness to the scene failed to notice that their new leader did not dare to meet the cool, contemptuous gaze of the youth, Thadron.

“Enough of this exchanging of words,” hissed a thin voice from behind them. “You waste time―and breath. Hasten, animals, in pursuit of the escaped prisoners. Not one must get away, do you understand?”

It was Zhu Kor. The malignant dwarf flicked his slitted gaze about the group, and men muttered and turned aside rather than meet the expression in those slant eyes, cold and black and deadly, like globules of frozen venom.

“You heard the Mighty One, you othodes,” blustered Xangan, trembling uncontrollably in the icy presence of his god, whom he loathed and feared, detested and yet went in livid terror of. Then a grin of gloating pleasure curved his loose lips.

“To you, O Thadron, I give the leadership of the war party,” he leered.

“I shall do my best to capture them …”

“Capture them? Did you not hear the words of the Lord? Kill them. Kill them all. The girl. Kill her. Not one must escape alive to join the River People and seek safe refuge amongst them. Go now―and do not come back unless success has rewarded your efforts! Or I will see you among the sacrifice, as long as I am chief of the tribe.”

Thadron said nothing. He saluted mechanically, and went to take up his weapons and assemble the warriors. But his heart was heavy within his breast at what he must do.

Zhu Kor gazed after the departing war party, his face a wrinkled, unreadable, saffron mask. But within his heart cold fear coiled and curled like a maggot in a lump of putrid meat.

The girl Ylana and the boy Tomar were the only humans alive, outside of the primitives themselves, who knew to what place he had fled. And even now the warriors of the West might well be scouring the plains for some sign of them, perhaps riding in one of the great galleons of the clouds, whose secrets they had wrested from the Sky Pirates. If either the youth or the girl survived the hunting by Thadron’s troop of savages to meet their Shondakorian friends, the immeasurable strength of the Three Cities would fall upon this jungle plateau that was his hiding place.

He licked his lips, numb with fear.

Like a cornered rat, he had fled to the nearest hole.

And there was no other hole to run to.

WHILE the Jalathadar hovered aloft, Koja and the others led Lukor to the spot from which they believed Ylana and Tomar had been carried off by the ghastozar.

The ground underfoot was a level plain of sterile sand, bestrewn with slabs and fragments of broken rock. In such terrain, even so mighty a hunter as Koja the Yathoon had great difficulty in discerning the spoor of those they had pursued. A pebble or two, dislodged from its bed; a scuffmark in the sand which might, or might not, have been made by a human foot: these alone afforded evidence that the jungle Maid and the youth had been carried away by the flying reptile from this particular spot.

Save for one other sign―the clawmarks of the giant reptile, clearly scored in the flinty soil.

Lukor surveyed the ground thoughtfully, his keen, quick eyes missing nothing, a frown of concentration upon his lofty brow, crowned with its gleaming wealth of silver hair.

“No sign of a battle here, that I can see, at least,” he mused. “Both boy and girl were armed, were they not? And would presumably attempt to fight off the sky dragon…”

“Unless they had been captured by the fugitive Mind Wizard, as we believe was the case, in which event surely the Kuurian would have disarmed them,” said Koja.

The old knight nodded reluctantly. Then his features brightened.

“In which event, the Kuurian himself would have fought the monster,” he chirruped brightly. “There should be more scuffmarks, certainly, and blood. Fresh blood.”

But there was no blood on the scene, and the soil seemed remarkably undisturbed. The only conclusion that could be reached under these circumstances was that the victims of the flying predator had, for some reason, not fought against the reptile.

“Perhaps the ghastozar took them completely off guard and by surprise,” murmured Jarak of Tharkol, the young warrior Koja had sent back to Kuur with his message.

“Perhaps,” mused Lukor, tugging his silvery spike of beard as if hoping by this action to stimulate thought.

Then he shrugged, admitting himself baffled by these apparently inexplicable events.

“If you watched the ghastozar rise from afar, friend Koja, doubtless you also marked the direction of its flight?”

The giant arthropod flexed his brow-antennae in the Yathoon equivalent of a nod.

“Due west,” he announced solemnly.

“Very well, then,” said Lukor of Ganatol crisply. “There are mountains in that direction, if I remember the map compiled by our friend, Abziz, correctly. Doubtless the creature’s lair is in those peaks.”

“It is your intention then to continue the search?” Koja inquired.

“Certainly! We have come all this way; we can attempt to follow the trail of our young friends a bit further, before giving up the search. One of the young people, at least, might still be alive.”

Lukor boarded the gig and flew back to the Jalathadar. The vessel lowered itself as close to the surface of the planet as the buoyant vapors trapped within its double hull would permit. Rope ladders were tossed over the deck-rails, and by these the warriors of Koja’s squad ascended to the deck of the aerial galleon, as did the Yathoon himself.

The great ornithopter then rose to the height of about a quarter of a mile and began to cruise slowly in a direction due west. From observation balconies and belvederes, keen-eyed lookouts kept the terrain under close surveillance, searching for any sign of the ghastozar’s descent.

None was visible, neither did they observe any further signs that indicated Tomar, Ylana or their captor had continued on foot beyond the point where they had been observed to have been carried off by the flying monster.

Flying with a skeleton crew, the stately galleon of the skies floated slowly into the golden west like some great cloud borne before the winds.

By nightfall the warriors of the West had found nothing. It was risky to attempt to fly by night in mountainous country, due to the sudden and unpredictable updrafts and the ever-present danger of collision with a rocky spire. They were approaching that region of the Far Side of Callisto known to be the haunts of the dreaded Zarkoon, the flying sub-men whose grisly and cannibalistic habits made them doubly feared. As it was known that the flying men preferred to hunt by night, as the full light of day was painful to their eyes, and as previous experience had demonstrated that the Zarkoon did not scruple even to attack one of the mighty ornithopters, Lukor commanded the vessel rise to the height of one mile above the surface of Callisto and pause there until daybreak.

Such a height was itself dangerous, but was believed to be beyond the limits to which the winged cannibals could ascend, and was also above and beyond the reach of the strong prevailing winds that blow powerfully in these latitudes. Hence the galleon of the clouds could float more or less stationary during the hours of darkness.

A full guard was mounted to keep watch for ghastozars or for the faint chance that marauding Zarkoon might come this way. The remainder of the ship’s company took to their bunks and hammocks for a few hours of well-earned rest.

With dawn they rose, broke their fast, descended into the strength of the prevailing winds, and continued on their way. Before long the great chain of mountains that encircled the plateau hove upon the horizon.

The Jalathadar pointed her prow in that direction, and began to search the peaks for the nesting-places of the giant winged reptiles.

Several such nests were in fact discovered, some empty and long abandoned, some containing eggs or the squalling young of the ghastozars, but none bore any sign or token that the missing young people had been there.

It took all of that day to circle the great plateau. The search proved fruitless. Several times, nesting ghastozar females attempted to attack the flying gigs that disturbed their nests. Each time archers mounted in the observation balconies and belvederes succeeded in driving away the enraged dragonesses before the fragile gigs could be damaged or their occupants injured.

By evening the plateau had been completely explored. Over dinner, the warriors of the West discussed what further could be done to search for their missing friends. An atmosphere of gloomy pessimism pervaded the discussion; few of the searchers retained the hope that Tomar or Ylana could possibly be alive after all this time.

Many, however, argued that in the mountains of the Zarkoon, a bit further to the west, ghastozars might also nest, and that this region should also be scrutinized before the search was abandoned and the Jalathadar pointed her prow east for the return voyage to the Valley of Kuur, where the remainder of Lukor’s troop held the subterranean citadel of the Mind Wizards under strong guard.

Lukor himself inclined toward continuing ‘ the search upon the following day.

With dawn the Jalathadar left her mooring to cruise across the breadth of the jungled plateau, in the direction of the westerly mountains of the Zarkoon.

An alert lookout sounded the alarm shortly thereafter, which brought the spry old Ganatolian to the bridge with haste. The warrior directed Lukor’s attention to the terrain below.

Koja ascended to the bridge, having also heard the lookout’s signal.

“What has happened, Lukor?” inquired Koja.

The Ganatolian beckoned him to the rail and pointed below their floating keel.

“We seem to have stumbled upon something,” the sword-master said excitedly.

“What is it?”

“It looks like a battle,” said Lukor. “Helmsman, take us down( Archers, to your postsl” Then, turning to Koja, the old knight said:

“I believe we have come at a most fortuitous moment, and that our descent should prove a timely interruption!”

Chapter 12 GRINNING JAWS

WITHIN half an hour after entering the jungle, young Tomar confessed to be completely lost.

The jungle aisles were pitch-black, drowned in a degree of gloom the youth found impenetrable. This was due to the fact that, although two or three of the larger moons of Gordrimator were aloft in the night skies, the interlaced boughs of the jungle trees, heavy with foliage and thick with tangled vines and lianas, met so completely overhead as to form an almost solid roof of verdure blocking the lunar radiance.

Jugrid and his daughter, however, seemed to possess an infallible sense of direction, and impatiently took the lead, demanding that the Shondakorian boy keep up with them. The youth, reared in the city and unaccustomed to the way of the jungle, found it difficult to believe that either Ylana or her father knew where they were going in such darkness.

A moment’s reflection might have reminded Tomar that the folk of Jugrid’s tribe subsisted entirely upon the hunt, and that hunters had no choice but to search the jungle for game during the hours of darkness, for at that time such game as dwelt upon this plateau was awake and abroad. Hence he should have guessed that Ylana and Jugrid knew every twist and turn of these paths as they knew the contours of their own cavernous home.

Even a chief and his daughter were not so privileged as to leave the hunting of game to others. Every member of the tribe, save for the Elders and children, customarily shared the duties of the hunt according to a rigid schedule.

Stumbling along behind them, Tomar felt himself remarkably clumsy and useless. Unseen roots caught his feet and sent him stumbling; dangling vines and lianas brushed against his face or on occasion tightened about his neck like a hangman’s noose. More than once he went blundering headlong into a tree trunk, unseen in the dark, or strayed from the path to find himself caught up in thick, thorny-leafed bushes.

At length, even Jugrid realized the impossibility of attempting to continue their flight through the darkness of the jungle aisles, encumbered as they were by one unused to such surroundings.

“We may as well pause for the night here,” he said to his daughter, “and seek safety in the branches above until day. Your friend is making enough commotion to rouse half the jungle. If any of Xangan’s men are already on our trail, the noise he is making will draw them to our position unerringly. Besides, he is slowing us down.”

Tomar flushed uncomfortably, hearing this exchange, and was suddenly grateful for the darkness, which meant that his companions could not see him blushing like a girl.

“But, Father, have we come far enough into the jungle?” protested Ylana. “They will hunt us with othodes, surely, once they discover that we have managed to escape from the prison-cave. And we have only been traveling for a half an hour, no more…”

Jugrid shook his head.

“It will be morning, at least, before any of Xangan’s men are likely to find that we have gotten away,” he said.

“How can you be certain of that?” asked the girl, dubiously.

“When Fanga replaced Thadron on guard duty before the cave wherein we were imprisoned,” Jugrid explained, “I recall that he said that he would be there until dawn. Even then it will probably take that clumsy oaf, Xangan, some time to organize a searching-party. It was always his way to waste half the day with bluff and swagger and loud boasting, before getting down to an attempt to accomplish anything. And we shall be up and away an hour before day. Come now, let us rest while we can. We have nothing to fear from pursuit until day has come.”

Such confidence was certainly reassuring. Ylana gave a shrug of her slim, bare shoulders, and began to climb into the nearest tree. Jugrid followed after. Springing lightly into the air for all his bulk, the big man reached up, grasped a heavy bough, and swung himself up into the foliage with a supple grace that would have shamed an acrobat.

And there was nothing else for Tomar to do but follow their example. Alas, even in this, the boy felt himself to be woefully clumsy and useless. The first tree he tried to climb he fell out of, landing on his shoulders with a resounding thump that knocked the wind out of him and left him puffing and blowing like a beached whale.

“Not that way, you stumble-footed lump!” Ylana snapped. “This way! Grasp the branch in both hands and lever yourself up until you have a footing. Then find a comfortable crotch or a branch broad enough to stretch out upon, and settle down for sleep.”

The boy tried to do as she suggested, but his sandals slipped on the bark and, unable to see in the dark, he bumped his head painfully on the branch above.

Eventually, with much effort and difficulty, Tomar found himself about fifteen feet aloft, clinging with both arms to the main trunk while seated on a broad branch which reached out horizontally, with his legs dangling down to either side.

He was secure enough, but could not imagine relaxing his hold enough to be able to fall asleep. Surely, the moment he had succeeded in nodding off, he would fall out of the tree and crack his skull.

“Oh, by the Cold Moon!” cursed Ylana, exasperatedly, after the boy had falteringly explained the cause of his trepidations in response to her query. “If that’s what’s worrying you, take off your baldric and tie yourself to the branch with it. Now hush up and let’s get what little sleep we can, in what remains, of the night!”

Shamefaced that this notion had not occurred to him, Tomar did as she suggested, looping the baldric of his swordbelt about the base of the branch, he discovered it did indeed hold him securely in place.

He lay upon his back, the belt fitting snugly under his arms, and tried to compose himself for sleep. If you have ever had to try to sleep in a tree, you may perhaps have some idea of how difficult it was for Tomar to do so.

In the first place, he could not roll over onto his side, as the swordbelt was too tight for that, and if he did so he might well drop right off the branch. Then again, the coarse bark rasped harshly against the skin of his legs and arms, and the hard wood made a flat and stony pillow. Every position in which he tried to put his head turned out after a few minutes to be an uncomfortable one.

Beyond these purely physical discomforts, there were a host of others that might be considered to fall into the category of the imaginary. These were occasioned by the fact that the jungle night was alive with noises, each of which seemed to whisper the stealthy approach of a host of creeping monsters, preparing to pounce on a juicy morsel: himself.

The branches creaked, rubbing together. Dead leaves rustled; boughs of the underbrush crackled, as if giving way before the sliding bulk of a crouching predator. Small creatures scurried, pattering through the grass, giving vent to small, shrill squeaks. Distantly, there sounded the heavy, coughing grunt of the big brutes. And once, at least, he heard the thunderous growl of challenge, followed by the noise of huge bodies thrashing in combat.

Once there was a sharp, unearthly screech that lifted the hairs on young Tomar’s nape and chilled his blood. He lay there frozen, utterly awake, his heart thudding painfully against his ribs, while the screech died slowly in sobbing murmurs.

And another time something passed through the up. per boughs of the tree he had picked as for his bedchamber. The boy had no idea what it might be, but the branches bent beneath its gliding weight and its eyes glowed like green moons through the dense gloom surrounding him.

Globules of cold perspiration burst out on his brow and neck, and the palms of his hands were clammy as he lay staring up into those fierce and lambent eyes burning like green flames.

They vanished; branches creaked; all was still.

And Tomar began to breathe again.

And somehow, finally, he fell to sleep.

HIS dreams were fitful and troubled and obscure, dreams of running and hiding from that which pursued him, some monstrous and hulking prowler of the jungle night.

Sometimes it was a deltagar which chased him through interminable vistas of savage jungle. Then again, the dream would melt and shift and change and it would be a massive vastodon which lumbered after him, angry little pig-eyes redly gleaming through the murk, cruel tusks flashing and chomping. At times the dream would change, and it would be a gigantic hopping karkadan which hunted him through the jungle aisles.

Mostly, however, it was a deltagar.*

In his dreams the huge beast crept upon him with stealthy, gliding steps―then leaped, knocked him over, and sat upon his chest, its crushing weight collapsing his lungs, its grinning jaws inches from his face, so that its hot, reeking breath, almost suffocated him.

He awoke suddenly, aware of a growing discomfort.

And for a horrible, spine-chilling moment he thought his dream was come true … for a terrible constriction bound his chest like a massive weight, and he struggled and fought for breath, and opened his eyes

To stare directly into the grinning jaws of a ferocious deltagar!

THE world whirled giddily about, then he righted himself.

And Tomar realized what had happened. He had, as he had feared he would, rolled off the branch in his sleep, but the swordbelt had held and now it pinned him to the branch, biting painfully under his arms and constricting his chest so that he could hardly draw a breath of air into his aching, oxygen-starved lungs.

He was dangling helplessly from underneath the branch, arms and legs hanging down.

And directly beneath him, clearly visible in a vagrant shaft of moonlight that had somehow found a vent in the thick foliage through which to hurl its cold glory, crouched the largest deltagar the boy had ever seen or heard of.

It was staring up at him as if puzzled by his predicament. Quite likely the giant, catlike predator had never before chanced to encounter a human being dangling from a branch like a ripe fruit, and did not know what to do about it.

In a moment or two, doubtless, the hunger which gnawed in the great cat’s lean belly would force a decision upon its murderous brain. But, for the moment, the scarlet super-tiger crouched with stiffened spine and slowly twitching tail, staring up at the helpless boy with burning eyes, panting between grinning jaws armed, like a terrestrial saber-tooth, with the longest and wickedest pair of gleaming ivory fangs you might ever hope to see.

Tomar squeezed his eyes shut, hoping he was still in the dream. When he opened them, he discovered he wasn’t. The dream was all too horribly real, and the great horned cat was still there.

And any instant now its growling and empty belly would overrule its innate, feline caution, and it would pounce upon this tempting morsel of boyflesh that dangled from the bough like an apple ready for picking. Tomar could almost feel those terrible fangs slicing like razors through his flesh

And then two things happened in the same identical instant of time.

From the tree at his left, in which Ylana had spent the night, a red arrow flashed to bury itself almost to the feather in the deltagar’s side, just below its breastbone.

At the same moment the foliage above Tomar’s head rustled as the brawny figure of Jugrid hurtled through the air, a bright knife clenched between his teeth. His burly form flung itself into space and came crashing down upon the back of the crouching cat, its weight nearly knocking the deltagar over. In a flash, Jugrid clamped his legs about the barrel of its chest and levered one arm about its neck with crushing force, like a vise. With the other hand he snatched the knife from between his teeth and drove it again and again into the beast’s side.

And in the next instant he was fighting for his life as the beast awoke from its paralysis and exploded in squalling, spitting fury!

Chapter 13 THE TRAIL OF BLOOD

THE deltagar strove to dislodge the hated man-thing clinging to its back, but its claws could not reach Jugrid, who buried his face in the scarlet fur of the beast’s neck.

Again and again, he drove the slim blade of the dagger to its hilt in the breast of the cat-monster. Blood spurted from the wounds, bedrabbling the trampled grasses with hot gore.

In its frenzy, leaping and bucking frantically, the deltagar crossed the small clearing. Suddenly rearing in its squalling, spitting fury, the giant cat sprang into the bushes that blocked the far end of the glade. In a moment the boughs closed over the opening its body had made, and it was as if the hideous monster had never been there at all, so magically swift was the manner of its going.

A knife sawed through the leather belt that still bound Tomar helpless to the underside of the branch whereon he had spent the night. He dropped heavily to the turf, the impact of his fall knocking the wind out of him. As he lay there gasping, struggling for breath, Ylana dropped lithely to the ground beside him, sheathing the blade with which she had cut him free.

The boy and the girl looked at each other in desperation. The last glimpse they had had of the girl’s father, he had still been clinging to the shoulders of the enraged deltagar. The sounds of the beast’s passage through the underbrush were already almost lost in the thick forest. For all they knew, Jugrid might still be clinging to the cat’s back, striving to slay it. Or he might already have lost his hold, and fallen, in which case the furious predator could have turned upon him, ripping him asunder with its claws―or it might have continued on in the direction it had orginally been traveling.

Jugrid could be dead by now, or seriously injured, or even relatively unharmed. Ylana was desperate to discover what had befallen her father.

Before the winded boy could recover himself, the girl turned on her heel and vanished between the trees in the same direction the beast had taken. Tomar croaked out her name, but she neither paused nor returned.

Staggering to his feet, Tomar plunged into the depths of the jungle, struggled through the thick bushes, and emerged upon a narrow jungle aisle, but dimly illuminated, still thick with darkness. He peered this way and that, but the girl was nowhere to be found. Having recovered his breath by now, he tried calling her name, and then Jugrid’s. Neither effort resulted in anything. So he continued on in the direction he had first taken―as well as he could remember―and, in less time than it takes me to tell of it, he was thoroughly lost.

After some hours, exhausted, thirsty, possessed by a feeling of helplessness, Tomar lay down beneath a bush to rest.

He must have fallen into a fitful, restless doze, because the next thing he knew a touch upon his shoulder aroused him from blurred, unpleasant dreams of pursuit and danger and fighting.

For a moment, blinking stupidly, he thought that he was still dreaming.

Then he knew that he wasn’t. A man was indeed standing over him with the point of his spear just pricking the smooth tanned skin above his heart.

YLANA had no difficulty in following the deltagar because the spoor of the beast clearly marked its trail.

Evidently, it was still bleeding heavily from the wounds inflicted by Jugrid’s knife. She knew this from the fresh blood that splattered the grasses and the leaves of the bushes through which she crept. The gore, still wet, indeed still warm, had been shed in such copious quantities, that she knew that the deltagar was seriously wounded by now, and could not for long maintain the pace of its flight.

She did not find her father, which was puzzling but not disheartening. At least, she did not find his mangled corpse, which meant that he was probably still alive.

She continued following the trail of blood with as much speed as she could attain, while being careful not to make any more noise than she could help.

If she thought at all about Tomar, it was to assume without really stopping to think much about it, that the boy was somewhere behind her, following in her wake. Surely, she thought, he was intelligent enough to find and follow the fresh trail of blood. Of course, she could not have guessed that he had become confused almost immediately upon entering the dense undergrowth, and had started off in an entirely wrong direction from the one the wounded beast had taken.

After about an hour, she came, quite suddenly, upon the body of the deltagar.

It lay sprawled on its side in a welter of gore, but Jugrid was no longer with it. Indeed, the jungle monarch was nowhere to be seen. The cat lay in a pool of its own blood and dabbling her fingers in the crimson fluid, Ylana found that it was tepid to the touch and already beginning to congeal where it lay the thinnest. By this sign she guessed that the brute had been dead for a little less than an hour.

Wiping her hands clean on the grasses, the girl rose easily to her feet and looked around her, thoughtfully, debating the course of action she should follow. Should she retrace her steps to meet Tomar? Or should she circle the’place where the beast had fallen, hoping to find her father? Obviously, Jugrid had fallen from the rampaging monster’s back, or had jumped clear, something before the deltagar had gasped its last breath. That he had left the path marked by the blood-trail, suggested to her anxious mind that he was himself injured, and had crawled into the thick brush for such protection or concealment as it might afford him from the lesser predators and scavengers of the jungle, who were doubtless even now following the blood so that they might sate their hungers on the body of the slain deltagar.

Reaching a decision shortly, the savage girl turned, surveyed the nearer trees, and selected one to her liking. Then she climbed it easily and swiftly to its middle tier of branches. From this height she could see more of the jungle paths and trails and clearings within her immediate vicinity. Nowhere did she spy the boy Tomar or Jugrid, her father.

She ran out along a broad branch which was level with the ground, and climbed therefrom into the next tree. From thence she found a tangle of thick vines by which she swung into the foliage of an adjoining tree, having tested them for strength. Moving through the middle terraces of the jungle in this manner, she could cover far more territory much more swiftly than on foot, and she could also enjoy a relative immunity from the possibilities of attack by the jungle scavengers, which were already gathering on the trail of the dead cat-monster.

Some two hours later, about to swing into the next tree, she stopped short, and froze motionless. Was it only her imagination, or had her keen ears indeed detected the approach of armed men?

There it was again, that crackling of dry leaves and snapping of twigs, as of many men forcing a path through the underbrush. And now she could faintly make out the muttering of voices conversing in low tones. The men, for there seemed to be several of them, were somewhere up ahead of her, not very far away, and moving at a good pace through the aisles of the forest, coming directly toward the tree in which she crouched.

She crouched lower, seeking a place of concealment behind a screen of thick leaves. As her sharp eyes searched the jungle path below, she clenched in one small, capable fist her only weapon, the bow she had taken up from before the mouth of the cave.

She placed an arrow nocked and ready, and crouched waiting.

If it was a search party from the Cave Country that she heard coming nearer, it was not her intention to permit herself to be taken alive. Like a beast, once trapped, who somehow has managed to escape from its captors, Ylana fiercely determined to give her life rather than suffer the indignity of falling a second time into the hunter’s snare.

She held her breath, eyes keen, as the first man stepped into view from the bushes.

JUGRID clung between the shoulders of the beast as the great cat sprang through the bushes into the thick darkness of the jungle. Twigs slashed at his arms and shoulders, leaves whipped across his eyes, blinding him, as the cat went crashing through the foliage. It landed on its haunches, and again he drew back his arm and struck, sinking his knife deep within its panting breast.

Hissing with pain and fury, maddened by the unaccustomed burden of bearing a rider, the cat went loping off down the nearest of the jungle aisles. It was panting heavily now, and foam dripped from its gaping jaws. Erelong, Jugrid saw that blood was mixed with this foam, and knew thereby that at least one of his dagger blows had bitten deep into the great cat’s lung.

Now it tried to scrape him from its back by brushing up against the trunks of trees. His bronze hide lacerated and bruised by the rough bark, the jungle man nevertheless continued to cling to his precarious perch atop the slavering brute. This he deemed the wiser course, for he knew that if he sprang from his place astride the savage deltagar, the great cat would turn upon him like a flash with its cruel fangs and claws. He was wise in the ways of cats, was Jugrid. So he clung to the back of the beast, overcoming its every attempt to dislodge him.

Then, a little while later, the deltagar, now wobbling drunkenly upon its feet and bleeding profusely from several of its wounds, blundered into a net of vines which dangled like a dense curtain from the branches of one enormous tree. As luck would have it, one of these lianas looped itself around Jugrid’s throat as the cat pushed its way through. The jungle man was forced to release his hold on the beast, or be garroted by the vine as by a strangler’s noose.

He swung free in the tangle of vines, clutching to them. As the beast realized the hated man-thing no longer clung between its shoulders, it whipped about as Jugrid had predicted it would do, filled with a furious frenzy to savage him with its great claws. One sidewise stroke of those fearsome hooked claws could disembowel him, Jugrid knew.

So he did the only logical thing: he climbed up the vines to the branch above, and sat upon it, hoping that the cat in its present condition would be unable to climb the tree after him.

It was. After staggering around and around the tree in a circle a time or two, the deltagar went lurching off through the bushes and vanished from view. And Jugrid began to relax, and to examine himself for wounds.

As far as he knew, no one had ever before slew one of the dreaded cat-monsters before, armed only with a knife. The beast had measured twenty-two feet from nose-tip to tail.

It was not a feat he cared to attempt a second time.

HIS wounds proved to be less serious than he might have expected. He was bruised and lame, aching and sore in every muscle, but nothing seemed to, be broken. His back and shoulders were marked with many small cuts and lacerations suffered when he had ridden the deltagar through the bushes, but these were mere scratches and would soon heal. His most dangerous injury was a long, jagged wound in the right thigh, where the deltagar had gored him with the tip of one of the two curling horns that grew from its brow.

Finding a small pool in a clearing, Jugrid cleansed the wound as best he could, smeared the raw flesh with the sticky ooze of a medicinal plant that grew amid the rocks above the pool, and bound the lips of the long cut together tightly with a strip of fur torn from the end of his garment.

It was rude enough medicine; but it would have to do.

He began to search for Ylana and Tomar. It was broad daylight by now, and the more dangerous of the jungle predators had crept one by one to their lairs, so he could stride along boldly without fear of any enemy other than man. That enemy, however, he was wary of and went cautiously about the search, making as little noise as possible, for he knew that by now a search party from the caves would have entered the jungle to track them. Xangan would never permit them to escape with their lives, if he could help it.

After about an hour he was forced to abandon the search for his daughter and her friend. The wound in his thigh gave him pain and made him walk with a limp, and the exertion caused it to begin bleeding again. He took up a length of sturdy sapling and leaned his weight on the stick, to ease his injured leg, but soon he could go no further. He sought the highest tree he could find and clambered up into its topmost branches, where few of the larger or more dangerous beasts could come. Then he composed himself as comfortably as was possible under the circumstances, and patiently waited for nightfall. A few hours of rest would give the medicinal herbs a chance to ease his injured leg, and would refresh him.

Hunger and thirst were a torment, but Jugrid was born to the jungle and its ways, and knew nothing of civilized luxuries. His entire life had been one of iron endurance and stoic patience, and he had never known anything but the crudest and most primitive conditions. So he simply put his bodily discomforts out of his mind, as he had learned long ago to do, and endured.

IT seemed he had fallen into a deep, restful sleep, for he awoke suddenly as his catlike senses detected the approach of many men still at a considerable distance. He went from deepest sleep to full, alert wakefulness instantly, as the beasts of the jungle learn to do if they are to survive therein for long.

It was night, which meant that he had slept longer than he could have wished. But his weary body had recovered much of its vigor from the hours of slumber, so he did not begrudge the time lost. His wound pained him but slightly, and while the great muscles of his upper leg were numb and, at the same time, tender, he tested the limb until he was certain that it would bear his weight.

Many men were moving through the trees, making little sound. It was a war party of considerable size, he decided, listening intently, or a band of hunters. Creeping out on a long branch which overlooked the trail, he lay in the shadows like a great cat, watching up the path.

Soon they came into view, and he was relieved to see that they were strangers, and not the men of his own tribe. They resembled the warriors of the Cave Country, and were dressed very much like them, but around their necks they wore shells strung on thongs. By this token he recognized them as huntsmen of the River People, as the tribe which inhabited the southern part of the jungle plateau were known.

And then he froze, as their prisoner came stumbling wearily into view. Froze, all but his right hand, which stole to his waist where the long knife with which he had slain the dreaded deltagar slept in its sheath.

His fingers closed about the hilt of the knife, then faltered and fell away. And the heart of Jugrid tasted bitterness.

They were too many for him to attack, a single man. It would be suicide.

He lay there, stretched out on the bough, and watched with an aching heart as the savages led his daughter, bound and helpless, into captivity. And he knew in his heart that he could do nothing to help her, except to die trying to set her free.

Chapter 14 THE GHOST THAT KILLS

CHARAK of the River People felt satisfaction, and the taste of it was like wine to a thirsty man. The long day’s hunt had been a successful one, and many a plump beast had fallen to the bows of his warriors, and now dangled from poles carried over their shoulders. But the prize of prizes had been the dark-haired girl who stumbled wearily before him, her head bowed upon her breast, her wrists bound behind her back, her ankles hobbled with a length of sturdy thong.

Charak knew her for the daughter of the chief of the Cave Country, and the tribe thereof had been the enemies of his own folk from the beginning of time. As long as anyone could remember, there had raged intermittent war between the two tribes who were situated at the opposite ends of the great plateau. True, the old chief of the River People, Zuruk, had won a truce of sorts, and for a time had put an end to the age-old strife. But he was old now, his beard and mane hoary with the years, and ripe for the challenging. A young, bold, strong man might yet win the necklace of the chieftainship―especially if he was supported by the younger, more quarrelsome element of the tribe. And by that faction, Charak was looked upon as a spokesman and a leader.

The burly subchieftan grinned in his black beard as he thought of the reception he would receive when he returned at last to the huts of the River People, bearing for hostage the girl Ylana, chief’s daughter of the hated Cave-Dwellers. The young men would cheer him loudly, and would call for war! And war it would be, between the north and the south, let the old chief yammer of peace and truce as loudly as he wished. With such a hostage, it would have to be war, for the insult to the pride of Jugrid’s folk could only be wiped out in blood.

He winced as he strode the jungle path, and began to limp again, favoring his left leg, where Ylana’s fifth arrow had sunk to the feather in the flesh of his thigh. And he cursed the wench for her coolness, her calm hand, her steady eye. But at that, he had been luckier than Varap or Marook or Nord. They would never return from this day’s hunting, for her arrows had struck true in their case…

They had surprised her in the trees, or so they thought, but the girl had been ready for them, after all, and fought with the fury of a tigress. Only when she had exhausted her store of arrows had they been able to capture her, and even then she had led them a furious and exhausting chase through the treetops. Now, hobbled with a length of thong, he thought with a spiteful grin, she limped along slowly enough. From time to time he struck her with the stick he had cut to walk with, in partial repayment for his injury.

It annoyed him that, strike her as hard as he could, he could not wring a cry of pain or a whimper of complaint from the girl. Well, she would wax eloquent enough when they bound her to the fire-stakes, once the chief had condemned her to death!

Charak grinned at the thought. Zuruk, that peaceloving old fool, had years before concluded a treaty with Jugrid, which had been sealed with a marriage, for Zuruk had given his own daughter to Jugrid of the Caves for a wife. She had been Ylana’s own mother. It amused Charak to think that soon he would be able to force Zuruk to burn his own granddaughter alive, to appease the will of his tribe!

Just how he might work this, however, still eluded his agile wits. True, the younger men of the River People agitated vociferously for war, since only through warfare could they prove their manliness and win the warrior’s plume. As there had existed no state of war between the two nations for about eighteen years, there were more than a few males among the River People who felt cheated of their manhood, and who wished, either secretly or loudly in public, for an end to this unnatural state of peace.

But public pressure alone would not suffice to force the old chief to break his own treaty, much less to sacrifice his own granddaughter, whom he had seen only as a child, and that once only.

Suddenly, a gleam lit the eyes of Charak with cruel cunning. What if old Zuruk did not know the Cave girl to be his granddaughter? What if he somehow contrived to silence her so that she could not speak? Busily, his mind turned over possible courses of action with great rapidity. He could hardly have her tongue cut out, and plead that the injury had been given in the struggle to capture her, since no one would believe so unlikely a story.

He was trying to think of another idea when an arrow struck out of nowhere.

It took the young warrior at his side full in the throat, killing him almost instantly. As the corpse toppled on its face, Charak whirled, yelling the alarm. Alert warriors raised their shields, ready to face a charge.

But no charge came. Nothing rustled in the bushes, and there was nothing to be seen in the trees. The warriors looked at one another blankly. Everything they had ever heard about war led them to assume that first the attackers strike from ambush, then charge their victims, once they have stirred them to panic. Where, then, was the charge?

The unknown attacker seemed to have melted into thin air, for wary search parties went out to beat the bush, returning with no glimpse of the mysterious assailant. It was as if they had incurred the malignity of a ghost. Ghosts they knew all about, but―a ghost that kills?

TOMAR raised his head slowly, and met the eye of the tall, lithe warrior who stood over him with the spearpoint touching his breast just above the heart. The boy gulped and paled, for he knew their flight to have been hopeless.

It was Thadron, with a band of young hunters at his back.

“Your name is Tomar,” said Thadron quietly. “Tomar, where are your companions, Jugrid the Chief, and Ylana?”

“I do not know,” said the boy flatly, “and I would not tell you, even if I did know!”

Thadron said nothing, but increased the pressure of his hand upon the spear shaft. The sharp point of the flint spearhead indented the tawny hide of the boy’s breast, then broke the skin. A bead of bright blood appeared, and a scarlet trickle slowly ran down Tomar’s ribs. The boy bit his lip, but his resolute expression did not change.

Something very near to admiration appeared briefly in the eye of Thadron, and was gone. He removed the spear, turning to his men.

“Bind his hands,” he said. Then he added that they were to give him water and food. One of the men challenged his orders, pointing out that it would not please Xangan if he were to learn that they coddled fugitives. Thadron shrugged.

“There are so many things that do not please Xangan already,” he said, “that one more will do no harm. Feed him and give him water. We are men, not beasts.”

They resumed the pursuit, and before long they found the trail of blood that led to the dead deltagar. Thadron knelt to examine the body, brushing away the buzzing cloud of insects.

“This is Jugrid’s work,” he said briefly.

“Jugrid’s?” sneered Pandan, the warrior who had objected to giving food and water to Tomar. “You think he could slay a full-grown deltagar with a knife?”

“No one but Jugrid could have accomplished it,” said Thadron. “No one else would have the courage to try.”

Scouts sent out to range through the brush to every side of the clearing now returned with word that a party of hunters had passed this way very recently, headed south. Thadron debated, chewing his lip.

“It must be a party of the River People,” he decided at last. “For Xangan would not have dispatched two search parties on the same task.”

“Well, whoever they were, they ran into a little trouble,” grinned the scout. “We found blood, and the signs of a struggle.”

“Show me the spot,” said Thadron. Examining it, he smiled and rose to his feet.

“The smaller prints could only have been made by Ylana,” he said. “Therefore, she still lives. They would not have bothered to carry her dead body with them, which means they must have taken her prisoner. They will be bound for the River Country. Let us be on our way.”

“Where to?”

“To rescue her, of course. Although a fugitive, she is still a woman of the tribe. We shall attempt to take her from them, even if only to bring her back for punishment.”

They made good time through the jungle for about an hour, before one of Thadron’s men spoke, giving words to the thought that was within the minds of them all.

“Why would the River People capture one of our tribe? Has there not existed peace between us ever since Jugrid the Chief took to wife the daughter of Zuruk of the River?”

“It would seem,” said Thadron dryly, “that some among the River People have had a bellyful of peace, and wish to foment war. What better way to do this than to capture one of our people, pretending to have caught a spy?”

The other hunter grinned.

“Xangan will definitely not be happy with this turn of events,” he laughed. “He is such a coward, war is the last thing he wants. I will wager that when he hears of it, he will even let Jugrid be chief again, so that Xangan will not have to lead the warriors of the tribe into battle.”

Thadron could not help smiling at this estimate of Xangan’s bravery. But then his expression sobered.

“War is the last thing any of us ought to wish for,” he said somberly. “For generations we have fought, and children went fatherless, and women husbandless, and the old were hungry and uncared for without their kin. Since Jugrid the chief concluded peace with Zuruk of the River People, life has been easier and more comfortable, and few of us have gone to sleep with an empty belly. War is an ugly thing, and life, which is difficult enough even in the best of times, is made harder and more miserable thereby. Let us move more quickly, or we shall not catch up with them before they reach their own country.”

SHORTLY thereafter they found the first body, that of the warrior who had gone at the side of Charak. The arrow was still sticking out of his throat. Thadron examined it carefully, and when he was through he looked mystified.

“I recognize it,” he said. “It is an arrow tied by Tugar… “

“Come to think of it, Tugar claimed to have lost his bow and quiver when Jugrid and the others fled into the jungle,” said his lieutenant. Thadron nodded, and took the bloody arrow over to where Tomar stood under guard. He showed it to him.

“Is this one of the arrows with which Ylana or Jugrid were armed?” he inquired.

Tomar looked stubborn and kept his lips clamped tightly shut. But something about the serious expression in Thadron’s face and the earnestness in his voice loosened the boy’s tongue.

“Ylana had the bow,” he said reluctantly. “And the arrows in her quiver were tied in that manner, yes.”

The young lieutenant, Goran, spoke up.

“But if Ylana was captured by the River People back at the trampled place,” he demanded, “how is it that she is firing off arrows at them?”

Thadron shrugged. “I am not sure. Perhaps they left her bow behind, the arrows lost or exhausted. And then someone may have found the bow and retrieved the arrows, and is now using the weapon from ambush, to pick off the stragglers for some reason…”

“But for what reason, and who?” asked Goran.

Thadron said nothing, but increased the pace. It did not take Goran very long to figure out that the one person known to be somewhere in the jungle who had the strongest reason to hurry and cut down Ylana’s captors was―Jugrid.

They found a second body a while later, and then a third.

The advance scout was examining the trail when Thadron caught up to him.

“They are running now,” the scout said, with a grin. “See where they have begun to throw aside their shields and baggage? And over there, they dropped one of the game beasts they had taken. The arrows, striking from the darkness and the silence of the jungle, must be driving them half-mad with terror. They cannot know that it is only one man. Maybe they think it is a ghost!”

THEY passed four more bodies, left behind in the flight of Charak and his huntsmen. From these corpses, the arrows had been retrieved. Obviously, jugrid had launched his campaign of terror and retaliation with a strictly limited supply of barbed shafts, and was in danger of running out of arrows long before he ran out of enemies to kill.

Maintaining a swift and steady pace, moving through the aisles of a jungle they knew like their own hands, Thadron’s band crossed the plateau from north to south. Tomar, no longer bound, as his bondage would have impeded the ease of their progress, accompanied them willingly, even more anxious than they about the safety of Ylana.

They paused neither to eat nor drink, to rest themselves nor to relieve nature, but continued with all possible speed. But the River People had an hour’s start on them, and they were moving with great rapidity, too, although their motive was one of superstitious terror, rather than revenge.

The territory of the River People lay among the low hills and fields which bordered the southeastern corner of the plateau, near the great waterfall. Their huts were clustered on both sides of the River of the Groack. It was towards this haven that Charak was leading his men with all haste.

By late afternoon, Thadron believed that he had almost managed to catch up with the hunting band. He was very near the edge of the jungle by now, and between it and the shore of the great lake called the Cor-Az there would be no cover for concealment.

Suddenly there dropped lithely from the branches above the gigantic figure of a bearded warrior of mature years. So swiftly had he appeared directly in their path that some of the men started, as at some apparition.

But it was no apparition. It was Jugrid. Arms folded upon his mighty breast, the deposed chief of the Cave People stood eyeing them calmly as Thadron came up to him, a spear ready in his hands.

Ignoring the spear, Jugrid gestured behind him.

“They have taken my daughter among the huts,” he said bleakly. “The band is led by one Charak, leader of a faction who desires to foment war between our two tribes. Zuruk the Peace-Maker, my father-in-law, still lives, but has lost much of his authority due to his years. Charak will use Ylana as a pretext for war.”

Thadron listened thoughtfully to his words, then shrugged.

Handing over his spear to Jugrid, he said simply: “Then we must get her back. What are your commands, my Chief?”

Chapter 15 A VOICE IN THE DARK

YLANA had been fed and given fresh water to assuage her thirst; albeit these small amenities were given grudgingly, she accepted them with gratitude. Now, tethered by a thong to the centerpost of one of the huts, her wrists and feet unbound at last, she was permitted to rest and recover her strength while under the glory of the moons her fate was being decided in tribal council. She could overhear some of the louder voices, but so exhausted was she from the long trek upon which she had been forced at breakneck speed and with many cruel blows, that she was content merely to rest and await whatever decision might be the outcome of the council.

Charak, in a bold, blustering manner, had given out that they had surprised her in spying upon the territory of the River People. Slanting his words with instinctive cunning, he made it seem as if a war party had been lurking in the underbrush, studying the defenses of the encampment. In this manner he explained the missing members of his hunting-band, claiming them to have been cruelly murdered from ambush by the marauding band of Cave People. He had hustled the girl out of sight before she could be questioned. Luckily, Zuruk did not seem to have recognized her, having not seen her since she was a small child.

The surviving members of his band of huntsmen, who were all supporters of his drive for war, loudly backed him in these lies, and those among the tribe who favored, for one reason or another, a return to the conditions of warfare that had long existed between the two tribes, were vociferous and insistent in calling upon Zuruk for a swift decision to attack the cavedwellings of their enemies in reprisal for this heinous betrayal of the peace.

The chief temporized, called for calmness, strove to discuss alternative courses of action in a sane and reasonable manner, but Charak’s hotheads raised a clamor and shouted him down. Zuruk was old, but he was not infirm. His mane and beard were gray as iron, and the years had lined his face with care. But still he retained considerable vigor and the light of the several moons gleamed along the great thews of his chest and shoulders and mighty arms.

At length he rose to his full height, commanding silence. Reluctantly, those of Charak’s faction who had hoped to outweigh the arguments of caution by sheer lungpower, fell silent one by one to let the old chief speak.

“We have heard much of spies and skulkers among the bushes,” Zuruk said quietly. “But no one has yet told us what there is to spy upon, or for what reason the skulkers skulk. Do not our friends, the Cave People, know full well the location of our village? They are aware from of old that no earthwork or palisade guards the approaches to the settlement. What, then, were they looking for? 1, for one, will refuse to believe they entertain any desire to renew the age-old conflict that once burned between our peoples, until I have better reason to suppose it to be the truth. For they, like us, will have discovered in these recent years of peace the fruitful rewards thereof. No more are wives left husbandless, no longer do children go hungry, not now do the young men die terribly in the full flower of their strength…”

Charak sprang to his feet, a sneer of derision on his coarse features.

“These are the words of a woman, or of a man who has lived so long that he has left manhood behind!” he bellowed. “What of the young warriors with me who fell this day to treachery and ambush? Their blood cries out: for vengeance…”

“Treachery and ambush, you say?” demanded Zuruk. “Mayhap those who slew the warriors you spoke of but sought to wrest free from your captivity the young woman you so cowardly seized( Since when do women spy on the encampment of the enemy? Since when do men fight with young girls? You will find, Charak, before the world is very much older, that Zuruk of the River People yet retains enough of the vigor of his youth to deal honorably with those who jeer insults at him.”

Charak glowered and looked disgruntled, but lapsed into a surly silence. The discussion continued, while the fate of Ylana hung in the balance.

FROM the wall of thick underbrush at the edge of the jungle, Jugrid and Thadron observed the village of the River People. They were too distant to make out what was being said, but it was obvious from the commotion and excitement that a heated argument was under way.

Since Thadron had vowed his allegiance to the former chief, Jugrid had been in a position to command the entire company. For when Thadron had picked his warriors for this expedition, he had, as was only natural, chosen those of his friends whom he knew to be honorable and brave, trustworthy, and of a similar disposition and outlook as himself. They were, therefore, for the most part, young men of the tribe who disliked Xangan and disapproved of his judgements and opinions. One and all, they would have preferred to have Jugrid as their chief again, and now that this was an accomplished thing, they were content to obey his orders without question.

The only member of the band who had any doubts about this was Pandan, the young warrior who had questioned Thadron’s kindness in giving food and water to Tomar. Pandan was no crony of Xangan, but was a cautious fellow who always liked to examine both sides of any course of action, before making up his mind which to follow. His fault seemed to lie in that he had an imagination which was too active. Where most of the tribesmen chose instinctively the path to which honor or loyalty or friendship bade them, Pandan would hesitate and temporize, to see which course held the least peril or the most personal advantage for himself. He had held his tongue when Thadron impulsively yielded command to Jugrid, but those who had observed him had noticed that the expression on his face was thoughtful, sly, and cunning. And he had carefully avoided the proximity of Jugrid or Thadron ever since.

TOMAR felt rather out of things, restless and uneasy. Younger than the jungle warriors, more rash and impulsive than they, and less given to thoughtful ponderings, his anxiety over Ylana’s safety by now chafed at the bonds of restraint. It began to look as if Thadron, and even Jugrid, were going to leave Ylana where she was, and wait for a more fortunate turn of events that would afford them an opportunity to strike.

Tomar felt the need to do something positive, some action that would restore his own diminished sense of selfesteem. The boy felt, rightly or wrongly, that his . own role in recent events had fallen considerably short of heroism or even of manliness. Because he had tied himself to the tree, then fallen into trouble like some oafish simpleton, all their plans had gone awry, they had become separated, and Ylana had gotten into her present dire predicament.

Stealing a knife, he began to creep away from where the hunters of Jugrid’s force lay. It was not difficult to do, since the attention of everyone else was riveted I upon the council of the River People, and no one was paying any attention at all to their former captive, who was now a captive no longer, but an ally.

Keeping well to the blacker shadows and avoiding, where possible, patches of moonlight, the determined boy circled the camp of Jugrid widely, and made his way down to the bank of the river, hopefully unseen. The grasses grew long and thick along here. He wormed through them on his belly, slid into the dark, cold waters, and made his way across to the other side of the stream. There the ground rose in low dunes or hillocks, and he could approach the village without detection.

He entered the town, staying in the shadows, and moved toward the but wherein Ylana was imprisoned. Jugrid had pointed it out to all of them, and it was unmistakable, even in the shifting rays of the many colored moonlight.

Tomar probably would not have been able to enter the village so easily had it not been for the war council. As its outcome was one that would affect the entire tribe, most of the people were gathered round the fire to listen and to lend their voice in support of the faction of their choice.

Reaching the rear of the but in which Ylana lay bound, the boy took the knife from between his teeth and began to cut his way in. This did not prove to be as difficult as he had feared, for the but was not constructed of wooden planks or logs but of dry bundles of river-reeds, tied together with ropes of woven grasses.

THE council arrived at the moment of decision. Zuruk obstinately refused to consider war on any terms, until he had himself laid questions to the captive Jungle Maid. Only she, he pointed out, could tell them what she and her comrades had really been doing “skulking” in the jungle. Her mission might easily have been an innocent one, posing no danger to the security of the River People. To decide on war without questioning her, was to decide upon the impulse of the moment, without ascertaining the facts. And the matter was too important to be decided impulsively.

Even among those of Charak’s faction, there were more than a few to whom the chief’s calm and reasonable remarks made good sense. So the angry chorus of hooting cries which rose―upon a secret signal from Charak―in protest to Zuruk’s decision was less vociferous and noisy than that worthy could have wished. He sprang to his feet, losing his temper, and growing fearful of the way events were beginning to slip from his control. Of all the things Charak did not wish to happen, he wished least of all for Zuruk to question Ylana and to discover her true identity.

But there was no way to stop the chief than by challenging him. The right of challenge belonged to every mature tribesmen, and was his to exercise upon any and all occasions when he disagreed vehemently with the decision of the moment. The challenge was, however, to personal combat. And Charak did not quite feel up to engaging in a handto-hand battle with Zuruk. The chief, once mighty, now old, was possibly still strong enough to beat Charak. Charak knew this, and hesitated.

Zuruk waited in majestic aloofness for a long, suspenseful moment, to see if Charak intended to challenge him. When the wrathful snarl died on Charak’s ugly visage, to be replaced by sullen scowls, he turned on his heel and began to stride in the direction of Ylana’s hut.

In so doing, of course, he turned his back on his enemy.

The tribesmen of the jungle plateau had a rude and simple conception of honor. Men fought face to face, they did not leap upon their foes from behind. But Charak, in this instance, threw honor to the winds. He knew that if he could slay Zuruk, even in so cowardly a manner as this, he would become chief in his stead.

Then all decisions of peace or war were his to make. The temptation to take the easiest way out of his dilemma proved irresistible.

Drawing his flint knife, he threw himself on Zuruk, striking from behind, swift as a serpent. Those near enough to see what he was attempting to do, shouted to alarm Zuruk. But, as it happened, the old chief did not need their warnings. For he knew Charak to the depths of his unscrupulous and ambitious heart, and had been listening for that scrape of sandal-leather against beaten earth that would announce his movement.

With a swiftness which belied his hoary locks, Zuruk turned to meet the astounded Charak in mid-leap. One strong hand reached up to seize Charak’s outthrust arm, and clamped about his wrist with a grip like steel. The other hand caught him by the upper thigh.

Whirling about, so that the impetus of Charak’s leap propelled him―but in another direction―Zuruk let go.

Charak yelped shrilly, losing his knife, and fell into the middle of the council fire!

Sparks exploded in every direction. Blazing coals and burning sticks of wood went flying. In the confusion, in the whirling smoke, everyone drew back from the scene, leaving Zuruk and Charak alone in the center of a wide circle.

Singed and besmirched with soot, Charak crawled and floundered out of the fire. With wincing hands he smote at his burning garment, beating out the smoldering places where the tanned hides had caught fire. Then, recovering himself, he glared around to locate his enemy―a wild-eyed and ferocious―looking madman, half his beard burnt away, his face blackened by soot, the ends of his tangled mane smoking and still afire in places.

He was furious and maniacal, and the expression on his face was foolish, compounded equally of astonished outrage and frustrated fury. His eyes bulged like those of a fish, and, equally ridiculous, he gasped and sputtered like a fish out of water.

Someone in the crowd tittered at his wild-eyed expression. He glared around furiously to see who was laughing at him, letting everyone see how funny he looked with his hair all on end and smoking, and half his beard gone.

They all began to laugh, for when tension grows so taut that it must be released, it gives way either to murderous fury or to helpless laughter. In the present instance, laughter proved the panacea. And to be laughed at, to appear ridiculous in the eyes of his followers and supporters, was the one thing in all the world that Charak feared the most. Far rather would he have faced Zuruk and fought him, than to endure the ridicule of his fellow-tribesmen.

Spitting curses, he limped away into the darkness, and the duel was over.

YLANA had fallen into a doze. Suddenly a furtive sound woke her to full alertness. Something was scratching away at the rear wall of the but in which she lay helplessly bound.

The girl sat up quickly, peering around her in the darkness. Her hands were free, but she was tethered to the centerpost of the but by stout thongs. If some deadly predator had crept stealthily into the camp and was now trying to claw its way through the but to pounce upon her in the night, she knew herself to be defenseless, for she could not flee, and had no weapon.

With a pounding heart she lay there in the darkness and strained her ears to make out what was trying to get to her. Should she cry out for help, and alarm the camp? That would have been the sensible thing to do, but how could a girl as stubborn and spirited as Ylana have called upon her enemies for help?

Suddenly whatever it was that worked at the rear wall of the but opened a seam between two bundles of dry reeds, for a ragged slit of moonlight showed where only blackness had been. As the girl watched, wideeyed and breathless with suspense, a black form came shouldering through the opening―and whispered her name!