rds stationed there.

From the shadows of a wall across the street, Tharn watched as Ekbar
held a brief conversation with those four sentries; then the gates swung
wide and the column, Dylara and Trakor among its members, disappeared
from view.

Tharn voiced a low grunt of approval and satisfaction. Somewhere within
the huge sprawling building of four floors looming massively against the
night sky was the girl he loved and the young man he had befriended.
Within another hour the dwellers of that cliff-like dwelling would have
finished welcoming the returning warriors and be back in their beds.
Then would Tharn enter in search of their captives.

* * * * *

In the interim a general reconnaissance seemed in order. The palace sat
squarely atop one of Ammad's low hills amid wide grounds. Here and there
behind the encircling wall a tree lifted its crested top, the night's
gentle wind stirring its leaves and branches.

Making certain his bow, quiver of arrows, grass rope and flint knife
were in their accustomed places, Tharn set out for a leisurely stroll.
For several hundred yards the street he followed lay unbroken by any
intersecting avenue and in all that length the only life in sight was
the group of four guards lounging outside that wide gateway which had
swallowed up Dylara and Trakor.

When he reached a position directly opposite those four Tharn was aware
that all of them were watching him from across the strip of paving that
made up the street itself. At any moment he might be challenged and
ordered to a halt.

But the challenge did not come and he passed casually on along the walk.
They were behind him now and, unless he turned his head to look back,
out of range of his eyes. His ears, however, were busy and soon they
caught the sound of voices.

An intersection appeared ahead and unhesitatingly the cave lord cut
diagonally across it and moved out of sight of the four sentries. If he
expected to find this section of the wall unguarded, however, he was
doomed to disappointment. Half way down the block a single lantern sent
out feeble rays from a small niche directly above a single gate--a gate
guarded by a patrolling sentry.

Because of the comparative narrowness of this street and the high walls
on either side, heavy shadows left it in almost total darkness. Tharn,
across the street and still a good hundred and fifty yards away, had not
yet been observed by that lone sentry