oomian
lions that roam the desolate hills of the dying planet.

The creature's nose was close to the ground. It was evident that
he was following the spoor of meat by scent.

As Carthoris watched him, a great hope leaped into the man's heart.
Here, possibly, might lie the solution to the mystery he had been
endeavouring to solve. This hungry carnivore, keen always for the
flesh of man, might even now be trailing the two whom Carthoris
sought.

Cautiously the youth crept out upon the trail of the man-eater.
Along the foot of the perpendicular cliff the creature moved,
sniffing at the invisible spoor, and now and then emitting the low
moan of the hunting banth.

Carthoris had followed the creature for but a few minutes when it
disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as though dissolved into
thin air.

The man leaped to his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as the
man had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to the
spot at which he last had seen the great, skulking brute.

Before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken by any aperture
into which the huge banth might have wormed its great carcass.
Beside him was a small, flat boulder, not larger than the deck of
a ten-man flier, nor standing to a greater height than twice his
own stature.

Perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this? The brute might have
discovered the man upon his trail, and even now be lying in wait
for his easy prey.

Cautiously, with drawn long-sword, Carthoris crept around the
corner of the rock. There was no banth there, but something which
surprised him infinitely more than would the presence of twenty
banths.

Before him yawned the mouth of a dark cave leading downward into
the ground. Through this the banth must have disappeared. Was
it his lair? Within its dark and forbidding interior might there
not lurk not one but many of the fearsome creatures?

Carthoris did not know, nor, with the thought that had been spurring
him onward upon the trail of the creature uppermost in his mind,
did he much care; for into this gloomy cavern he was sure the banth
had trailed the green man and his captive, and into it he, too,
would follow, content to give his life in the service of the woman
he loved.

Not an instant did he hesitate, nor yet did he advance rashly; but
with ready sword and cautious steps, for the way was dark, he stole
on. As he advanced, the obscurity became impenetrable blackness.

CHAPTE