e self-sacrificing heroism of the act
that had sealed his doom. The Vanator now rested upon an even keel as
she was carried along by a strong, though steady, wind. The warriors
had cast off their deck lashings and the officers were taking account
of losses and damage when a weak cry was heard from oversides,
attracting their attention to the man hanging in the cordage beneath
the keel. Strong arms hoisted him to the deck and then it was that the
crew of the Vanator learned of the heroism of their jed and his end.
How far they had traveled since his loss they could only vaguely guess,
nor could they return in search of him in the disabled condition of the
ship. It was a saddened company that drifted onward through the air
toward whatever destination Fate was to choose for them.

And Gahan, Jed of Gathol--what of him? Plummet-like he fell for a
thousand feet and then the storm seized him in its giant clutch and
bore him far aloft again. As a bit of paper borne upon a gale he was
tossed about in mid-air, the sport and plaything of the wind. Over and
over it turned him and upward and downward it carried him, but after
each new sally of the element he was brought nearer to the ground. The
freaks of cyclonic storms are the rule of cyclonic storms, demolish
giant trees, and in the same gust they transport frail infants for
miles and deposit them unharmed in their wake.

And so it was with Gahan of Gathol. Expecting momentarily to be dashed
to destruction he presently found himself deposited gently upon the
soft, ochre moss of a dead sea-bottom, bodily no worse off for his
harrowing adventure than in the possession of a slight swelling upon
his forehead where the metal hook had struck him. Scarcely able to
believe that Fate had dealt thus gently with him, the jed arose slowly,
as though more than half convinced that he should discover crushed and
splintered bones that would not support his weight. But he was intact.
He looked about him in a vain effort at orientation. The air was filled
with flying dust and debris. The Sun was obliterated. His vision was
confined to a radius of a few hundred yards of ochre moss and
dust-filled air. Five hundred yards away in any direction there might
have arisen the walls of a great city and he not known it. It was
useless to move from where he was until the air cleared, since he could
not know in what direction he was moving, and so he stretched himself
upon the moss and waited, pondering the