And at the same moment, a hundred miles away, a lithe figure,
naked but for a loin cloth and weapons, moved silently across a
thorn-covered, waterless steppe, searching always along the ground
before him with keen eyes and sensitive nostrils.





3

Pan-at-lee




Night had fallen upon unchartered Pal-ul-don. A slender moon, low
in the west, bathed the white faces of the chalk cliffs presented
to her, in a mellow, unearthly glow. Black were the shadows in
Kor-ul-ja, Gorge-of-lions, where dwelt the tribe of the same name
under Es-sat, their chief. From an aperture near the summit of the
lofty escarpment a hairy figure emerged--the head and shoulders
first--and fierce eyes scanned the cliff side in every direction.

It was Es-sat, the chief. To right and left and below he looked
as though to assure himself that he was unobserved, but no other
figure moved upon the cliff face, nor did another hairy body protrude
from any of the numerous cave mouths from the high-flung abode of
the chief to the habitations of the more lowly members of the tribe