more the dragon was sweeping toward us, and so rapidly that I had
no time to unsling my bow. All that I could do was to snatch up a
rock, and hurl it at the thing's hideous face. Again my aim was true,
and with a hiss of pain and rage the reptile wheeled once more and
soared away.

Quickly I fitted an arrow now that I might be ready at the next attack,
and as I did so I looked down at the girl, so that I surprised her in a
surreptitious glance which she was stealing at me; but immediately, she
again covered her face with her hands.

"Look at me, Dian," I pleaded. "Are you not glad to see me?"

She looked straight into my eyes.

"I hate you," she said, and then, as I was about to beg for a fair
hearing she pointed over my shoulder. "The thipdar comes," she said,
and I turned again to meet the reptile.

So this was a thipdar. I might have known it. The cruel bloodhound of
the Mahars. The long-extinct pterodactyl of the outer world. But this
time I met it with a weapon it never had faced before. I had selected
my longest arrow, and with all my strength had bent the bow until the
very tip of the shaft rested upon the thumb of my left hand, and then
as the great creature darted toward us I let drive straight for that
tough breast.

Hissing like the escape valve of a steam engine, the mighty creature
fell turning and twisting into the sea below, my arrow buried
completely in its carcass. I turned toward the girl. She was looking
past me. It was evident that she had seen the thipdar die.

"Dian," I said, "won't you tell me that you are not sorry that I have
found you?"

"I hate you," was her only reply; but I imagined that there was less
vehemence in it than before--yet it might have been but my imagination.

"Why do you hate me, Dian?" I asked, but she did not answer me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, "and what has happened to you since
Hooja freed you from the Sagoths?"

At first I thought that she was going to ignore me entirely, but
finally she thought better of it.

"I was again running away from Jubal the Ugly One," she said. "After I
escaped from the Sagoths I made my way alone back to my own land; but
on account of Jubal I did not dare enter the villages or let any of my
friends know that I had returned for fear that Jubal might find out.
By watching for a long time I found that my brother had not yet
returned, and so I continued to live in a cave beside a valley which my
race seldom f