g the walls to keep free of the two battling figures
rolling about the floor, she edged her way swiftly toward the small
aperture that served as a door, then dropped to her knees and crawled
through. At any moment she expected one of those slender hands to close
about one of her ankles; but that did not happen and she gained one of
the branches outside.

Never in all her life before had the daughter of Majok descended from a
tree with such reckless abandon--but never before had she so strong a
motive for haste. In fact she slipped and fell the last ten feet, her
heart bounding into her throat as she toppled into Stygian blackness.

She was on her feet like a cat, not stopping to learn if the fall had
injured her, and ran blindly into the tangled fastness of brush, vine,
creeper and tree. Thorns tore at her skin and tunic, brambles tugged
painfully at her hair, the stems of bushes tripped her up, trees loomed
up too late for her to avoid slamming into them.

But Dylara was impervious to pain and heedless of obstacles. On and on
she went, stumbling, running, crawling--fighting to put distance between
her and the ugly monstrosities in those conical, tree-top huts.

How long this mad flight endured or how far it took her Dylara was never
to know. But at last overtaxed muscles rebelled, her laboring lungs
refused their task, and the cave girl collapsed in a pitiful heap among
a tangled maze of head-high bushes.

Twice she sought to rise and go on. But each time her legs turned to
water beneath her and she sank back to earth. Tears of utter
helplessness flooded her eyes; she put her head down against one
arm--and in that instant she fell sound asleep.

When she awakened night had fled and sunlight, pale and without warmth
after filtering through layer upon layer of foliage, made visible her
immediate surroundings.

* * * * *

She got shakily to her feet and stood there swaying a little as outraged
muscles reminded her painfully of last night's mad flight. Little lines
of dried blood on her arms and legs marked where thorns had raked her
and she realized her body was one aching mass of bruises. Added to this
was an inflexible stiffness brought on by sleeping on damp earth.

But all this was relatively unimportant. She was free once more--free to
begin her long journey back to the cave of her father. She must hasten
back to the trail which Jotan and his men had followed from Ammad and
re