ieve they got her. There were no signs
of a struggle. No ... bones." His voice faltered on that last word, and
he threw his hands wide in sick bewilderment. "I don't know what to
think!"

The princess Alurna spoke up suddenly in silken tones. "Have you
forgotten so soon, O noble Jotan, the cave girl's own words?"

Jotan stared deep into the faintly mocking gray-green eyes of Urim's
daughter. "What do you mean?" he said stiffly.

"Did she not say: 'I would escape and return to the caves of Majok, my
father'? Did those words mean so little to you?"

Harsh lines deepened at the corners of Jotan's lips. "Yes, she said
that. But she would not try to get away at night. Especially tonight,
when there are the God knows how many lions roaming about the camp. The
hardiest warrior would not dare that, let alone a frail girl."

"How long," Tamar broke in, "will you go on thinking of Dylara as a
'frail' girl? Can't you understand that she is not our kind of woman?
She does not fear the jungle: all that she needed was a chance to get
into it without our seeing her, and tonight she was given that chance.
You have Sadu to thank for that."

For several long minutes Jotan sat there without speaking, his gaze
fixed unseeingly on the leaping flames of the campfire. What strange
currents and cross-currents, he mused, had been set into motion by his
love for the girl of the caves. There was the steadily widening rift
with Tamar--Tamar whose only flaw was his stiff-necked pride in lineage
and noble blood--Tamar, who was his closest friend, his almost constant
companion since boyhood. Together they had learned the arts of hunting
and fighting, together they had served as fellow officers in Jaltor's
armies, together they had crossed those interminable stretches of
jungle, plain and mountain between Ammad and far-off Sephar. Could he
afford to risk an almost certain break with Tamar by pursuing further
his mad infatuation for the missing cave girl?

There was another complication, too--one leaving him open for
repercussions even more unpleasant than the loss of a friend. There was
no doubt in his mind but that the Princess Alurna was in love with him.
He knew that in the eyes of his family and friends she would make any
man a mate to be proud of. From the standpoint of beauty alone she was
almost as lovely as Dylara. More than that, however, Alurna was the
niece of Jaltor, monarch of all Ammad and a personal friend of Jotan's
own father.