We spent two days upon the cliff-top, resting and recuperating. There was some small game which gave us meat, and the littlepools of rainwater were sufficient to quench our thirst. The sun came out a few hours after we emerged from the cave,and in its warmth we soon cast off the gloom which our recentexperiences had saddled upon us.

Upon the morning of the third day we set out to search for apath down to the valley. Below us, to the north, we saw alarge pool lying at the foot of the cliffs, and in it we coulddiscern the women of the Band-lu lying in the shallow waters,while beyond and close to the base of the mighty barrier-cliffsthere was a large party of Band-lu warriors going north to hunt. We had a splendid view from our lofty cliff-top. Dimly, to thewest, we could see the farther shore of the inland sea, andsouthwest the large southern island loomed distinctly before us. A little east of north was the northern island, which Ajor,shuddering, whispered was the home of the Wieroo--the landof Oo-oh. It lay at the far end of the lake and was barelyvisible to us, being fully sixty miles away.

From our elevation, and in a clearer atmosphere, it would havestood out distinctly; but the air of Caspak is heavy withmoisture, with the result that distant objects are blurredand indistinct. Ajor also told me that the mainland east of Oo-ohwas her land--the land of the Galu. She pointed out the cliffsat its southern boundary, which mark the frontier, south ofwhich lies the country of Kro-lu--the archers. We now had butto pass through the balance of the Band-lu territory and thatof the Kro-lu to be within the confines of her own land; butthat meant traversing thirty-five miles of hostile countryfilled with every imaginable terror, and possibly many beyondthe powers of imagination. I would certainly have given a lotfor my plane at that moment, for with it, twenty minutes wouldhave landed us within the confines of Ajor's country.

We finally found a place where we could slip over the edge ofthe cliff onto a narrow ledge which seemed to give evidence ofbeing something of a game-path to the valley, though itapparently had not been used for some time. I lowered Ajor atthe end of my rifle and then slid over myself, and I am free toadmit that my hair stood on end during the process, for thedrop was considerable and the ledge appallingly narrow, with afrightful drop sheer below down to the rocks at the base of thecliff; but with Ajor there to catch and steady me, I made itall right, and then we set off down the trail toward the valley. There were two or three more bad places, but for the most partit was an easy descent, and we came to the highest of theBand-lu caves without further trouble. Here we went moreslowly, lest we should be set upon by some member of the tribe.

We must have passed about half the Band-lu cave-levels beforewe were accosted, and then a huge fellow stepped out in frontof me, barring our further progress.

"Who are you?" he asked; and he recognized me and I him, for hehad been one of those who had led me back into the cave andbound me the night that I had been captured. From me his gazewent to Ajor. He was a fine-looking man with clear, intelligenteyes, a good forehead and superb physique--by far the highesttype of Caspakian I had yet seen, barring Ajor, of course.

"You are a true Galu," he said to Ajor, "but this man is of adifferent mold. He has the face of a Galu, but his weapons andthe strange skins he wears upon his body are not of the Galusnor of Caspak. Who is he?"

"He is Tom," replied Ajor succinctly.

"There is no such people," asserted the Band-lu quitetruthfully, toying with his spear in a most suggestive manner.

"My name is Tom," I explained, "and I am from a countrybeyond Caspak." I thought it best to propitiate him if possible,because of the necessity of conserving ammunition as well as toavoid the loud alarm of a shot which might bring other Band-luwarriors upon us. "I am from America, a land of which younever heard, and I am seeking others of my countrymen who arein Caspak and from whom I am lost. I have no quarrel with youor your people. Let us go our way in peace."

"You are going there?" he asked, and pointed toward the north.

"I am," I replied.

He was silent for several minutes, apparently weighing somethought in his mind. At last he spoke. "What is that?"he asked. "And what is that?" He pointed first at my rifleand then to my pistol.

"They are weapons," I replied, "weapons which kill at agreat distance." I pointed to the women in the pool beneath us. "With this," I said, tapping my pistol, "I could kill as manyof those women as I cared to, without moving a step from wherewe now stand."

He looked his incredulity, but I went on. "And with this"--Iweighed my rifle at the balance in the palm of my righthand--"I could slay one of those distant warriors." And I wavedmy left hand toward the tiny figures of the hunters far to the north.

The fellow laughed. "Do it," he cried derisively, "and then itmay be that I shall believe the balance of your strange story."

"But I do not wish to kill any of them," I replied. "Why should I?"

"Why not?" he insisted. "They would have killed you when theyhad you prisoner. They would kill you now if they could gettheir hands on you, and they would eat you into the bargain. But I know why you do not try it--it is because you have spokenlies; your weapon will not kill at a great distance. It isonly a queerly wrought club. For all I know, you are nothingmore than a lowly Bo-lu."

"Why should you wish me to kill your own people?" I asked.

"They are no longer my people," he replied proudly. "Last night,in the very middle of the night, the call came to me. Like thatit came into my head"--and he struck his hands together smartlyonce--"that I had risen. I have been waiting for it andexpecting it for a long time; today I am a Krolu. Today I gointo the coslupak" (unpeopled country, or literally, no man'sland) "between the Band-lu and the Kro-lu, and there I fashionmy bow and my arrows and my shield; there I hunt the red deerfor the leathern jerkin which is the badge of my new estate. When these things are done, I can go to the chief of the Kro-lu,and he dare not refuse me. That is why you may kill those lowBand-lu if you wish to live, for I am in a hurry.

"But why do you wish to kill me?" I asked.

He looked puzzled and finally gave it up. "I do not know,"he admitted. "It is the way in Caspak. If we do not kill, weshall be killed, therefore it is wise to kill first whomeverdoes not belong to one's own people. This morning I hid in mycave till the others were gone upon the hunt, for I knew thatthey would know at once that I had become a Kro-lu and wouldkill me. They will kill me if they find me in the coslupak;so will the Kro-lu if they come upon me before I have won myKro-lu weapons and jerkin. You would kill me if you could, andthat is the reason I know that you speak lies when you say thatyour weapons will kill at a great distance. Would they, youwould long since have killed me. Come! I have no more time towaste in words. I will spare the woman and take her with me tothe Kro-lu, for she is comely." And with that he advanced uponme with raised spear.

My rifle was at my hip at the ready. He was so close that I didnot need to raise it to my shoulder, having but to pull the triggerto send him into Kingdom Come whenever I chose; but yet I hesitated. It was difficult to bring myself to take a human life. I couldfeel no enmity toward this savage barbarian who acted almost aswholly upon instinct as might a wild beast, and to the last momentI was determined to seek some way to avoid what now seemed inevitable. Ajor stood at my shoulder, her knife ready in her hand and a sneeron her lips at his suggestion that he would take her with him.

Just as I thought I should have to fire, a chorus of screamsbroke from the women beneath us. I saw the man halt and glancedownward, and following his example my eyes took in the panicand its cause. The women had, evidently, been quitting thepool and slowly returning toward the caves, when they wereconfronted by a monstrous cave-lion which stood directlybetween them and their cliffs in the center of the narrowpath that led down to the pool among the tumbled rocks. Screaming, the women were rushing madly back to the pool.

"It will do them no good," remarked the man, a trace ofexcitement in his voice. "It will do them no good, for thelion will wait until they come out and take as many as he cancarry away; and there is one there," he added, a trace ofsadness in his tone, "whom I hoped would soon follow me tothe Kro-lu. Together have we come up from the beginning." He raised his spear above his head and poised it ready to hurldownward at the lion. "She is nearest to him," he muttered. "He will get her and she will never come to me among theKro-lu, or ever thereafter. It is useless! No warrior liveswho could hurl a weapon so great a distance."

But even as he spoke, I was leveling my rifle upon the greatbrute below; and as he ceased speaking, I squeezed the trigger. My bullet must have struck to a hair the point at which I hadaimed, for it smashed the brute's spine back of his shouldersand tore on through his heart, dropping him dead in his tracks. For a moment the women were as terrified by the report of therifle as they had been by the menace of the lion; but when theysaw that the loud noise had evidently destroyed their enemy,they came creeping cautiously back to examine the carcass.

The man, toward whom I had immediately turned after firing,lest he should pursue his threatened attack, stood staring atme in amazement and admiration.

"Why," he asked, "if you could do that, did you not kill melong before?"

"I told you," I replied, "that I had no quarrel with you. I donot care to kill men with whom I have no quarrel."

But he could not seem to get the idea through his head. "I canbelieve now that you are not of Caspak," he admitted, "for noCaspakian would have permitted such an opportunity to escape him." This, however, I found later to be an exaggeration, as the tribesof the west coast and even the Kro-lu of the east coast are farless bloodthirsty than he would have had me believe. "And yourweapon!" he continued. "You spoke true words when I thought youspoke lies." And then, suddenly: "Let us be friends!"

I turned to Ajor. "Can I trust him?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Why not? Has he not asked to be friends?"

I was not at the time well enough acquainted with Caspakianways to know that truthfulness and loyalty are two of thestrongest characteristics of these primitive people. They arenot sufficiently cultured to have become adept in hypocrisy,treason and dissimulation. There are, of course, a few exceptions.

"We can go north together," continued the warrior. "I willfight for you, and you can fight for me. Until death will Iserve you, for you have saved So-al, whom I had given up as dead." He threw down his spear and covered both his eyes with the palmsof his two hands. I looked inquiringly toward Ajor, whoexplained as best she could that this was the form of theCaspakian oath of allegiance. "You need never fear him afterthis," she concluded.

"What should I do?" I asked.

"Take his hands down from before his eyes and return his spearto him," she explained.

I did as she bade, and the man seemed very pleased. I thenasked what I should have done had I not wished to accepthis friendship. They told me that had I walked away, the momentthat I was out of sight of the warrior we would have becomedeadly enemies again. "But I could so easily have killed himas he stood there defenseless!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," replied the warrior, "but no man with good sense blindshis eyes before one whom he does not trust."

It was rather a decent compliment, and it taught me just howmuch I might rely on the loyalty of my new friend. I was gladto have him with us, for he knew the country and was evidentlya fearless warrior. I wished that I might have recruited abattalion like him.

As the women were now approaching the cliffs, Tomar the warriorsuggested that we make our way to the valley before they couldintercept us, as they might attempt to detain us and werealmost certain to set upon Ajor. So we hastened down thenarrow path, reaching the foot of the cliffs but a shortdistance ahead of the women. They called after us to stop; butwe kept on at a rapid walk, not wishing to have any troublewith them, which could only result in the death of some of them.

We had proceeded about a mile when we heard some one behind uscalling To-mar by name, and when we stopped and looked around,we saw a woman running rapidly toward us. As she approachednearer I could see that she was a very comely creature, andlike all her sex that I had seen in Caspak, apparently young.

"It is So-al!" exclaimed To-mar. "Is she mad that she followsme thus?"

In another moment the young woman stopped, panting, before us. She paid not the slightest attention to Ajor or me; butdevouring To-mar with her sparkling eyes, she cried: "I haverisen! I have risen!"

"So-al!" was all that the man could say.

"Yes," she went on, "the call came to me just before I quit thepool; but I did not know that it had come to you. I can see itin your eyes, To-mar, my To-mar! We shall go on together!" And she threw herself into his arms.

It was a very affecting sight, for it was evident that thesetwo had been mates for a long time and that they had eachthought that they were about to be separated by that strangelaw of evolution which holds good in Caspak and which wasslowly unfolding before my incredulous mind. I did not thencomprehend even a tithe of the wondrous process, which goes oneternally within the confines of Caprona's barrier cliffs noram I any too sure that I do even now.

To-mar explained to So-al that it was I who had killed thecave-lion and saved her life, and that Ajor was my woman andthus entitled to the same loyalty which was my due.

At first Ajor and So-al were like a couple of stranger cats ona back fence but soon they began to accept each other undersomething of an armed truce, and later became fast friends. So-al was a mighty fine-looking girl, built like a tigress asto strength and sinuosity, but withal sweet and womanly. Ajor and I came to be very fond of her, and she was, I think,equally fond of us. To-mar was very much of a man--a savage, ifyou will, but none the less a man.

Finding that traveling in company with To-mar made our journeyboth easier and safer, Ajor and I did not continue on our wayalone while the novitiates delayed their approach to the Kro-lucountry in order that they might properly fit themselves in thematter of arms and apparel, but remained with them. Thus webecame well acquainted--to such an extent that we lookedforward with regret to the day when they took their placesamong their new comrades and we should be forced to continueupon our way alone. It was a matter of much concern to To-marthat the Krolu would undoubtedly not receive Ajor and me in afriendly manner, and that consequently we should have to avoidthese people.

It would have been very helpful to us could we have madefriends with them, as their country abutted directly upon thatof the Galus. Their friendship would have meant that Ajor'sdangers were practically passed, and that I had accomplishedfully one-half of my long journey. In view of what I hadpassed through, I often wondered what chance I had to completethat journey in search of my friends. The further south Ishould travel on the west side of the island, the morefrightful would the dangers become as I neared the stamping-grounds of the more hideous reptilia and the haunts ofthe Alus and the Ho-lu, all of which were at the southern halfof the island; and then if I should not find the members of myparty, what was to become of me? I could not live for long inany portion of Caspak with which I was familiar; the moment myammunition was exhausted, I should be as good as dead.

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