of the island, the more
frightful would the dangers become as I neared the stamping-grounds of
the more hideous reptilia and the haunts of the Alus and the Ho-lu, all
of which were at the southern half of the island; and then if I should
not find the members of my party, what was to become of me? I could
not live for long in any portion of Caspak with which I was familiar;
the moment my ammunition was exhausted, I should be as good as dead.

There was a chance that the Galus would receive me; but even Ajor could
not say definitely whether they would or not, and even provided that
they would, could I retrace my steps from the beginning, after failing
to find my own people, and return to the far northern land of Galus? I
doubted it. However, I was learning from Ajor, who was more or less of
a fatalist, a philosophy which was as necessary in Caspak to peace of
mind as is faith to the devout Christian of the outer world.

Chapter 5

We were sitting before a little fire inside a safe grotto one night
shortly after we had quit the cliff-dwellings of the Band-lu, when
So-al raised a question which it had never occurred to me to propound
to Ajor. She asked her why she had left her own people and how she had
come so far south as the country of the Alus, where I had found her.

At first Ajor hesitated to explain; but at last she consented, and for
the first time I heard the complete story of her origin and
experiences. For my benefit she entered into greater detail of
explanation than would have been necessary had I been a native
Caspakian.

"I am a cos-ata-lo," commenced Ajor, and then she turned toward me. "A
cos-ata-lo, my Tom, is a woman" (lo) "who did not come from an egg and
thus on up from the beginning." (Cor sva jo.) "I was a babe at my
mother's breast. Only among the Galus are such, and then but
infrequently. The Wieroo get most of us; but my mother hid me until I
had attained such size that the Wieroo could not readily distinguish me
from one who had come up from the beginning. I knew both my mother and
my father, as only such as I may. My father is high chief among the
Galus. His name is Jor, and both he and my mother came up from the
beginning; but one of them, probably my mother, had completed the seven
cycles" (approximately seven hundred years), "with the result that
their offspring might be cos-ata-lo, or born as are all the children of
your race, my Tom, as you tell me is the fact. I was t