island of Amiocap .'
'It is just as well that you were not here,' said Letari, 'for while you were away I have learned that I love Doval.'
'Where is Stellara?' demanded Tanar.
'She was taken by the Korsars,' said Doval. 'Thank God that it was not you, Letari,' and, stooping, he kissed the girl upon the lips.
With a cry of grief and rage Tanar ran swiftly to the house of Fedol the chief. 'Where is Stellara?' he demanded, springing unceremoniously into the center of the living room.
An old woman looked up from where she sat with her face buried in her hands. She was the sole occupant of the room. 'The Korsars took her,' she said.
'Where is Fedol then?' demanded Tanar.
'He has gone with warriors to try to rescue her,' said the old woman, 'but it is useless. They, who are taken by the Korsars, never come back.'
'Which way did they go?' asked Tanar. Sobbing with grief, the old woman pointed in the direction taken by the Korsars, and again she buried her face in her hands, grieving for the misfortune that had overtaken the house of Fedol the chief.
Almost immediately Tanar picked up the trail of the Korsars, which he could identify by the imprints of their heeled boots, and he saw that Fedol and his warriors had not followed the same trail, evidencing the fact that they must have gone in the wrong direction to succor Stellara successfully.
Sick with anguish, maddened by hate, the Sarian plunged on through the forest. Plain to his eyes lay the spoor of his quarry. In his heart was a rage that gave him the strength of many men.
In a little glade, partially surrounded by limestone cliffs, a small company of ragged, bewhiskered men had halted to rest. Where they had halted a tiny spring broke from the base of the cliff and trickled along its winding channel for a short distance to empty into a natural, circular opening in the surface of the ground. From deep in the bottom of this natural well the water falling from the rim could be heard splashing upon the surface of the water far below. It was dark down there—dark and mysterious, but the bearded ruffians gave no heed either to the beauty or the mystery of the spot.
One huge, fierce-visaged fellow, his countenance disfigured by an ugly scar, confronted a slim girl, who sat upon the turf, her back against a tree, her face buried in her arms.
'You thought me dead, eh?' he exclaimed. 'You thought Bohar the Bloody dead? Well he is not dead. Our boat weathered the storm and passing close to Amiocap we saw the wreck of The Cid's ship lying upon the sand. Knowing that you and the prisoners had been left aboard when we quit the ship, I guessed that perhaps you might be somewhere upon Amiocap; nor was I wrong, Stellara. Bohar the Bloody is seldom wrong.
'We hid close to a village which they call Lar and at the first opportunity we captured one of the villagers—a woman—and from her we learned that you had indeed come ashore, but that you were then in the village of your father and we made the woman guide us there. The rest you know and now be cheerful for at last you are to mate with Bohar the Bloody and return to Korsar.'
'Rather than that I shall die,' cried the girl.
'But how?' laughed Bohar. 'You have no weapons. Perhaps, however, you will choke yourself to death,' and he laughed uproariously at his own joke.
'There is a way,' cried the girl, and before he could guess what she intended, or stay here, she dodged quickly around him and ran toward the natural well that lay a few hundred feet away.
'Quick!' shouted Bohar. 'Stop her!' and instantly the entire twenty sprang in pursuit. But Stellara was swift and there was likelihood that they would not overtake her in the short distance that lay before her and the edge of the abyss.
Fortune, however, was with Bohar the Bloody that day and almost at her goal Stellara's foot caught in a tangle of grasses and she stumbled forward upon her face. Before she could recover her feet the nearest Korsar had seized her, and then Bohar the Bloody ran to her side and, taking her from the grasp of the other Korsar, shook her violently.
'You she tarag!' he cried. 'For this I shall fix you so that never again will you run away. When we reach the sea I shall cut off one of your feet and then I shall know that you will not run away from me again,' and he continued to shake her violently.
Breaking suddenly and unexpectedly from the dense jungle into the opening of the glade a warrior came upon the scene being enacted at the edge of the well. At the moment he thought that Stellara was being killed and he went mad with rage; nor was his rage any the less when he recognized Bohar the Bloody as the author of the assault.
With an angry shout he leaped forward, his heavy spear ready in his hand. What mattered it that twenty men with firearms opposed him? He saw only Stellara in the cruel grip of the bestial Bohar.
At the sound of his voice the Korsar looked up and instantly Bohar recognized the Sarian.
'Look, Stellara,' he said, with a sneer. 'Your lover has come. It is well, for with no lover and only one foot you will have no reason at all for running away.'
A dozen harquebuses had already been raised in readiness and the men stood looking toward Bohar.
Tanar had reached the opposite edge of the well, only a few yards distant, when Bohar nodded and there was a roar of musketry and a flash of flame accompanied by so dense a pall of black smoke that for an instant the figure of the Sarian was entirely obliterated from view.
Stellara, wide-eyed and trembling with pain and horror, tried to penetrate the smoke cloud with her frightened eyes. Quickly it lifted, revealing no sign of Tanar.
'Well done,' cried Bohar to his men. 'Either you blew him all to pieces, or his body fell into the hole,' and going to the edge of the opening he looked down, but it was very dark there and he saw nothing. 'Wherever he is, at least he is dead,' said Bohar. 'I should like to have crushed his life out with my own hands, but at least he is dead by my command and the blow that he struck me is wiped out, as Bohar wipes out the blows of all his enemies.'
As the Korsars resumed the march toward the ocean, Stellara walked among them with bent head and moist, unseeing eyes. Often she stumbled and each time she was jerked roughly to her feet and shaken, at the same time being admonished in hoarse tones to watch her footing. By the time they reached the seashore Stellara was sick with a high fever and she lay in the camp of the Korsars for what may have been a day or a month, too sick to move, while Bohar and his men felled timbers, hewed planks and constructed a boat to carry them to the distant shores of Korsar.
Rushing forward to rescue Stellara from the clutches of Bohar, Tanar's mind and eyes had been fixed on nothing but the figure of the girl. He had not seen the opening in the ground and at the instant that the Korsars fired their harquebuses he had stepped unwittingly into the opening and plunged to the water far below.
The fall had not hurt him. It had not even stunned him and when he came to the surface he saw before him a quiet stream moving gently through an opening in the limestone wall about him. Beyond the opening was a luminous cavern and into this Tanar swam, clambering to its rocky floor the moment that he had found a low place in the bank of the stream. Looking about him he found himself in a large cavern, the walls of which shone luminously, so considerable was their content of phosphorus.
There was a great deal of rubbish on the floor of the cave—the bones of animals and men, broken weapons, bits of hide. It might have been the dumping ground of some grewsome charnal house.
The Sarian walked back to the opening through which the little stream had borne him into the grotto, but a careful investigation revealed no avenue of escape in this direction, although he reentered the stream and swam into the bottom of the well where he found the walls worn so smooth by the long continued action of falling water that they gave no slightest indication of handhold or foothold. Then slowly he made a circuit of the outer walls of the grotto, but only where the stream passed out at its far end was there any opening—a rough archway that rose some six feet above the surface of the underground stream.
Along one side was a narrow ledge and looking through the opening he saw a dim corridor leading away into the distance and obscurity.
There being no other way in which to search for freedom Tanar passed along the narrow ledge beneath the archway to find himself in a tunnel that followed the windings of the stream.
Only here and there small patches of the rock that formed the walls and ceiling of the corridor threw out a
