第12章

he cried."I will tame you! I will break you! Es-sat, the chief, takes what he will and who dares question his right, or combat his least purpose, will first serve that purpose and then be broken as I break this," and he picked a stone platter from the table and broke it in his powerful hands."You might have been first and most favored in the cave of the ancestors of Es-sat;

but now shall you be last and least and when I am done with you you shall belong to all of the men of Es-sat's cave.Thus for those who spurn the love of their chief!"

He advanced quickly to seize her and as he laid a rough hand upon her she struck him heavily upon the side of his head with her golden breastplates.Without a sound Es-sat, the chief, sank to the floor of the apartment.For a moment Pan-at-lee bent over him, her improvised weapon raised to strike again should he show signs of returning consciousness, her glossy breasts rising and falling with her quickened breathing.Suddenly she stooped and removed Es-sat's knife with its scabbard and shoulder belt.

Slipping it over her own shoulder she quickly adjusted her breastplates and keeping a watchful glance upon the figure of the fallen chief, backed from the room.

In a niche in the outer room, just beside the doorway leading to the balcony, were neatly piled a number of rounded pegs from eighteen to twenty inches in length.Selecting five of these she made them into a little bundle about which she twined the lower extremity of her sinuous tail and thus carrying them made her way to the outer edge of the balcony.Assuring herself that there was none about to see, or hinder her, she took quickly to the pegs already set in the face of the cliff and with the celerity of a monkey clambered swiftly aloft to the highest row of pegs which she followed in the direction of the lower end of the gorge for a matter of some hundred yards.Here, above her head, were a series of small round holes placed one above another in three parallel rows.Clinging only with her toes she removed two of the pegs from the bundle carried in her tail and taking one in either hand she inserted them in two opposite holes of the outer rows as far above her as she could reach.Hanging by these new holds she now took one of the three remaining pegs in each of her feet, leaving the fifth grasped securely in her tail.Reaching above her with this member she inserted the fifth peg in one of the holes of the center row and then, alternately hanging by her tail, her feet, or her hands, she moved the pegs upward to new holes, thus carrying her stairway with her as she ascended.

At the summit of the cliff a gnarled tree exposed its time-worn roots above the topmost holes forming the last step from the sheer face of the precipice to level footing.This was the last avenue of escape for members of the tribe hard pressed by enemies from below.There were three such emergency exits from the village and it were death to use them in other than an emergency.

This Pan-at-lee well knew; but she knew, too, that it were worse than death to remain where the angered Es-sat might lay hands upon her.

When she had gained the summit, the girl moved quickly through the darkness in the direction of the next gorge which cut the mountain-side a mile beyond Kor-ul-ja.It was the Gorge-of-water, Kor-ul-lul, to which her father and two brothers had been sent by Es-sat ostensibly to spy upon the neighboring tribe.There was a chance, a slender chance, that she might find them; if not there was the deserted Kor-ul-gryf several miles beyond, where she might hide indefinitely from man if she could elude the frightful monster from which the gorge derived its name and whose presence there had rendered its caves uninhabitable for generations.

Pan-at-lee crept stealthily along the rim of the Kor-ul-lul.

Just where her father and brothers would watch she did not know.

Sometimes their spies remained upon the rim, sometimes they watched from the gorge's bottom.Pan-at-lee was at a loss to know what to do or where to go.She felt very small and helpless alone in the vast darkness of the night.Strange noises fell upon her ears.They came from the lonely reaches of the towering mountains above her, from far away in the invisible valley and from the nearer foothills and once, in the distance, she heard what she thought was the bellow of a bull gryf.It came from the direction of the Kor-ul-gryf.She shuddered.

Presently there came to her keen ears another sound.Something approached her along the rim of the gorge.It was coming from above.She halted, listening.Perhaps it was her father, or a brother.It was coming closer.She strained her eyes through the darkness.She did not move--she scarcely breathed.And then, of a sudden, quite close it seemed, there blazed through the black night two yellow-green spots of fire.

Pan-at-lee was brave, but as always with the primitive, the darkness held infinite terrors for her.Not alone the terrors of the known but more frightful ones as well--those of the unknown.

She had passed through much this night and her nerves were keyed to the highest pitch--raw, taut nerves, they were, ready to react in an exaggerated form to the slightest shock.

But this was no slight shock.To hope for a father and a brother and to see death instead glaring out of the darkness! Yes, Pan-at-lee was brave, but she was not of iron.With a shriek that reverberated among the hills she turned and fled along the rim of Kor-ul-lul and behind her, swiftly, came the devil-eyed lion of the mountains of Pal-ul-don.

Pan-at-lee was lost.Death was inevitable.Of this there could be no doubt, but to die beneath the rending fangs of the carnivore, congenital terror of her kind--it was unthinkable.But there was an alternative.The lion was almost upon her--another instant and he would seize her.Pan-at-lee turned sharply to her left.