wl with the jungle and its denizens, the only life she had
known. The fiercest animals had stalked her at times, just as the
warriors of her father's tribe had stalked them. She knew first-hand the
stinging insects, the loathsome snakes whose bite or coils could bring a
lingering death or a quick one. She knew the chill nights of the rainy
season, the unbearable heat and humidity at other times. As a result
death and suffering were able to touch her deeply only when they
affected some one close to her.

It was a kind of life that had its compensations. She was far more
self-reliant and much better equipped for survival under her present
circumstances than the average Ammadian would have been. Her eyes and
ears were more sharply attuned to impending danger, she could climb far
better, she knew how to find water where her recent companions would
perish of thirst, she could distinguish between poisonous and
non-poisonous fruits and roots.

Yet for all of that she was still a girl, young and, by jungle
standards, weak. She caught herself wishing Tharn were with her--and
even as the thought came she knew a fleeting doubt.

Did she love him? It was a question she was not yet able to answer. The
memory of his handsome face and splendid body rose to torment her with
doubt. She recalled him as he appeared in Sephar's arena facing
insurmountable odds with a laugh and a careless toss of his
black-thatched head, remembered his blazing eyes and rippling muscles as
he plummeted to earth between her and charging Sadu, appearing just in
time to stave in the lion's skull with one terrible blow. In all the
jungle, in all the world, there was no man a tenth his equal in cunning,
strength and courage! Even among his own kind he was unique; for no man
in Cro-Magnon history could use his nose the way the beasts used theirs,
no man who could travel among the trees with the rocketing agility of
little Nobar, the monkey.

If only he had met and wooed and won her instead of seizing her by force
and carrying her away like some bit of jungle loot! Pride and the
awareness of her position as daughter of a tribal chief could not permit
her to surrender to a man who would do such a thing. It was the way the
Hairy Men[2] won their mates, and Dylara, daughter of Majok, must give
her heart, not have it taken!

[2] The Hairy Men was the Cro-Magnards' name for Neanderthal Man. The
Neanderthalers appeared in Earth's prehistory roughly 100,000 years
be