'And why?' demanded Tanar.
'Because no one will bring it again,' she said.
'And why is that? Are they going to starve us to death?'
'No, the Council of the Chiefs has decided that you are both Korsars and that you must be destroyed.'
'And when will that be?' asked Stellara.
'As soon as the hunters return with food. We are going to have a great feast and dance, but I shall not enjoy it. I shall be very unhappy for I do not wish to see Tanar die.'
'How are they going to destroy us?' asked the man.
'Look,' said the girl, pointing through the open doorway. There, in the distance, the two prisoners saw men setting two stakes into the ground. 'There were many who wanted to give you to the Buried People,' said Letari, 'but Zural said that it has been so long since we have had a feast and a dance that he thought that we should celebrate the killing of two Korsars rather than let the Buried People have all the pleasure, and so they are going to tie you to those two stakes and pile dry wood and brush around you and burn you to death.'
Stellara shuddered. 'And my mother taught me that you were a kindly people,' she said.
'Oh, we do not mean to be unkind,' said Letari, 'but the Korsars have been very cruel to us and Zural believes that the gods will take word to the Korsars that you were burned to death and that perhaps it will frighten them and keep them away from Amiocap.'
Tanar arose to his feet and stood very straight and stiff. The horror of the situation almost overwhelmed him. He looked down at Stellara's golden head and shuddered. 'You cannot mean,' he said, 'that the men of Amiocap intend to burn this girl alive?'
'Why, yes,' said Letari. 'It would do no good to kill her first for then her spirit could not tell the gods that she was burned and they could not tell the Korsars.'
'It is hideous,' cried Tanar; 'and you, a girl yourself, have you no sympathy; have you no heart?'
'I am very sorry that they are going to burn you,' said Letari, 'but as for her, she is a Korsar and I feel nothing but hatred and loathing for her, but you are different. I know that you are not a Korsar and I wish that I could save you.'
'Will you—would you, if you could?' demanded Tanar.
'Yes, but I cannot.'
The conversation relative to escape had been carried on in low whispers, so that the guard would not overhear, but evidently it had aroused his suspicion for now he arose and came to the doorway of the hut, 'What are you talking about?' he demanded. 'Why do you stay in here so long, Letari, talking with these Korsars? I heard what you said and I believe that you are in love with this man.'
'What if I am?' demanded the girl. 'Do not our gods demand that we love? What else do we live for upon Amiocap but love?'
'The gods do not say that we should love our enemies.'
'They do not say that we should not,' retorted Letari. 'If I choose to love Tanar it is my own affair.'
'Clear out!' snapped the warrior. 'There are plenty of men in Lar for you to love.'
'Ah!' sighed the girl as she passed through the doorway, 'but there is none like Tanar.'
'The hateful little wanton,' cried Stellara after the girl had left.
'She does not hesitate to reveal what is in her heart,' said Tanar. 'The girls of Sari are not like that. They would die rather than reveal their love before the man had declared his. But perhaps she is only a child and did not realize what she said.'
'A child nothing,' snapped Stellara. 'She knew perfectly well what she was saying and it is quite apparent that you liked it. Very well, when she comes to save you, go with her.'
'You do not think that I intended to go with her alone even though an opportunity for escape presented itself through her, do you?' demanded Tanar.
'She told you that she would not help me to escape,' Stellara reminded him.
'I know that, but it would be only in the hope of helping you to escape that I would take advantage of her help.'
'I would rather be burned alive a dozen times than to escape with her help.'
There was a venom in the girl's voice that had never been there before and Tanar looked at her in surprise. 'I do not understand you, Stellara,' he said.
'I do not understand myself,' said the girl, and burying her face in her hands she burst into tears.
Tanar knelt quickly beside her and put an arm about her. 'Don't,' he begged, 'please don't.'
She pushed him from her. 'Go away,' she cried. 'Don't touch me. I hate you.'
Tanar was about to speak again when he was interrupted by a great commotion at the far end of the village. There were shouts and yells from men, mingled with a thunderous noise that fairly shook the ground, and then the deep booming of drums.
Instantly the men setting the stakes in the ground, where Tanar and Stellara were to be burned, stopped their work, seized their weapons and rushed in the direction from which the noise was coming.
The prisoners saw men, women and children running from their huts and all directed their steps toward the same point. The guard before their door leaped to his feet and stood for a moment looking at the running villagers. Then, without a word or backward glance, he dashed off after them.
Tanar, realizing that for the moment at least they were unguarded, stepped from the dark cell out into the open living apartment and looked in the direction toward which the villagers were running. There he saw the cause of the disturbance and also an explanation of the purpose for which the strange hanging barrier had been erected.
Just beyond the barrier loomed two gigantic mammoths—huge tandors, towering sixteen feet or more in height—their wicked eyes red with hate and rage; their great tusks gleaming in the sunlight; their long, powerful trunks seeking to drag down the barrier from the sharpened stakes of which their flesh recoiled. Facing the mammoths was a shouting horde of warriors, screaming women and children, and above all rose the thundering din of the drums. Each time the tandors sought to force their way through the barrier, or brush aside its posts, these swung about so that the sharpened stakes threatened their eyes or pricked the tender flesh of their trunks, while bravely facing them the shouting warriors hurled their stone-tipped spears. But however interesting or inspiring the sight might be, Tanar had no time to spare to follow the course of this strange encounter. Turning to Stellara, he seized her hand. 'Come,' he cried. 'Now is our chance!' And while the villagers were engrossed with the tandors at the far end of the village, Tanar and Stellara ran swiftly across the clearing and entered the lush vegetation of the forest beyond. There was no trail and it was with difficulty that they forced their way through the underbrush for a short distance before Tanar finally halted.
'We shall never escape them in this way,' he said. 'Our spoor is as plain as the spoor of a dyryth after a rain.'
'How else then may we escape?' asked Stellara. Tanar was looking upward into the trees examining them closely. 'When I was a prisoner among the black people with long tails,' he said, 'I had to learn to travel through the trees and this knowledge and the ability have stood me in good stead many times since and I believe that they may prove our salvation now.'
'You go then,' said Stellara, 'and save yourself, for certainly I cannot travel through the trees, and there is no reason why we should both be recaptured when one of us can escape.'
Tanar smiled. 'You know that I would not do that,' he said.
'But what else may you do?' demanded Stellara. 'They will follow the trail we are making and recapture us before we are out of hearing of the village.'
'We shall leave no trail,' said Tanar. 'Come,' and leaping lightly to a lower branch he swung himself into the tree that spread above them. 'Give me your hand,' he said, reaching down to Stellara, and a moment later he had drawn the girl to his side. Then he stood erect and steadied the girl while she arose to her feet. Before them a maze of branches stretched away to be lost in the foliage.
'We shall leave no spoor here,' said Tanar.
'I am afraid,' said Stellara. 'Hold me tightly.'
'You will soon become accustomed to it,' said Tanar, 'and then you will not be afraid. At first I was afraid, but later I could swing through the trees almost as rapidly as the black men themselves.'
'I cannot even take a single step,' said Stellara. 'I know that I shall fall.'
