ight. We tried to
drive----"

"Enough!" growled the captain. "We shall soon find out if you are lying.
If our scouts learn Jotan is still with his men I promise you a slow and
horrible death."

"And when you find I am telling the truth," Tykol said, feigning
eagerness, "will you then let me go?"

Ekbar sat there fingering his knife, thinking. If this man spoke true
words there would be no need for massacring Jotan's warriors. It would
be far better to permit them to reach Ammad and tell of his death under
Sadu's rending fangs. Thus the last threat to Vokal's plans would have
been accomplished without an air of mystery behind it that some one,
becoming curious, might dig into.

But he would need more than this man's word. On the morrow he would send
scouts who could recognize Jotan, back to spy on the column. If Jotan
was not there, then Tykol's story would be proved true; Ekbar would
withdraw his men and return to Ammad, leaving the remnants of Jotan's
troops to straggle back unmolested by him.

Either way he no longer had use of Tykol. His attention came back to the
bound man in front of him. "Yes," he said, replying to the young man's
last question, "you shall have your freedom. In fact I shall give it to
you now."

With those words he lunged forward and drove his knife into Tykol's
heart!

Thus died a true warrior--loyal unto death to the man he served, knowing
his heroism would lie with his bones unknown, yet making his supreme
sacrifice without hesitation and without self-pity.

Ekbar wiped clean his stone blade on the dead man's tunic and rose to
his feet. "Haul this carrion deeper within the jungle," he told his
sober-faced men, "and rouse the camp. We start back to Ammad at once."

CHAPTER VIII

A PRIZE FOR VOKAL

"I tell you it is useless, Jotan," Tamar said. "For three suns now we
have beat the jungle searching for some sign of her. How long do you
expect to keep up this useless hunt?"

There were five of them in the group: Jotan, Tamar and three of the
former's best fighting men. They were seated on a fallen log at the edge
of a narrow stream, having finished washing away the stains of jungle
travel only minutes before. Directly overhead hung the midday sun,
flooding them with humid heat, and hemming them in on all sides stood
towering giants of the forest.

Jotan shook his head and said nothing. The strain and hopelessness of
the last three days had aged him visibly: there were new