'Come,' said Balal, 'I will take you to my father,' and forthwhile he led the way along the ledge.
As the first people they encountered saw Tanar they leaped to their feet, the men seizing their weapons. 'I am taking him to my father, the chief,' said Balal. 'Do not harm him,' and with sullen looks the warriors let them pass.
A log into which wooden pegs were driven served as an easy means of descent from one ledge to the next, and after descending for a considerable distance to about midway between the summit and the ground Balal halted at the entrance to a cave, before which sat a man, a woman and two children, a girl about Balal's age and a boy much younger.
As had all the other villagers they had passed, these, too, leaped to their feet and seized weapons when they saw Tanar.
'Do not harm him,' repeated Balal. 'I have brought him to you, Scurv, my father, because he saved my life when it was threatened simultaneously by a snake and a wolf and I promised him that you would receive him and treat him well.'
Scurv eyed Tanar suspiciously and there was no softening of the lines upon his sullen countenance even when he heard that the stranger had saved the life of his son. 'Who are you and what are you doing in our country?' he demanded.
'I am looking for one named Jude,' replied Tanar.
'What do you know of Jude?' asked Scurv. 'Is he your friend?'
There was something in the man's tone that made it questionable as to the advisability of claiming Jude as a friend. 'I know him,' he said. 'We were prisoners together among the Coripies on the island of Amiocap .'
'You are an Amiocapian?' demanded Scurv.
'No,' replied Tanar, 'I am a Sarian from a country on a far distant mainland.'
'Then what were you doing on Amiocap?' asked Scurv.
'I was captured by the Korsars and the ship in which they were taking me to their country was wrecked on Amiocap. All that I ask of you is that you give me food and show me where I can find Jude.'
'I do not know where you can find Jude,' said Scurv. 'His people and my people are always at war.'
'Do you not know where their country or village is?' demanded Tanar.
'Yes, of course I know where it is, but I do not know that Jude is there.'
'Are you going to give him food,' asked Balal, 'and treat him well as I promised you would?'
'Yes,' said Scurv, but his tone was sullen and his shifty eyes looked neither at Balal nor Tanar as he replied.
In the center of the ledge, opposite the mouth of the cave, a small fire was burning beneath an earthen bowl, which was supported by three or four small pieces of stone. Squatting close to this was a female, who, in youth, might have been a fine-looking girl, but now her face was lined by bitterness and hate as she glared sullenly into the caldron, the contents of which she was stirring with the rib of some large animal.
'Tanar is hungry, Sloo,' said Balal, addressing the woman. 'When will the food be cooked?'
'Have I not enough to do preparing hides and cooking food for all of you without having to cook for every enemy that you see fit to bring to the cave of your father?'
'This is the first time I ever brought any one, mother,' said Balal.
'Let it be the last, then,' snapped the woman.
'Shut up, woman,' snapped Scurv, 'and hasten with the food.'
The woman leaped to her feet, brandishing the rib above her head. 'Don't tell me what to do, Scurv,' she shrilled. 'I have had about enough of you anyway.'
'Hit him, mother!' screamed a lad of about eleven, jumping to his feet and dancing about in evident joy and excitement.
Balal leaped across the cook fire and struck the lad heavily with his open palm across the face, sending him spinning up against the cliff wall. 'Shut up, Dhung,' he cried, 'or I'll pitch you over the edge.'
The remaining member of the family party, a girl, just ripening into womanhood, remained silent where she was seated, leaning against the face of the cliff, her large, dark eyes taking in the scene being enacted before her.
Suddenly the woman turned upon her. 'Why don't you do something, Gura?' she demanded. 'You sit there and let them attack me and never raise a hand in my defense.'
'But no one has attacked you, mother,' said the girl, with a sigh.
'But I will,' yelled Scruv, seizing a short club that lay beside him. 'I'll knock her head off if she doesn't keep a still tongue in it and hurry with that food.' At this instant a loud scream attracted the attention of all toward another family group before a cave, a little further along the ledge. Here, a man, grasping a woman by her hair, was beating her with a stick, while several children were throwing pieces of rock, first at their parents and then at one another.
'Hit her again!' yelled Scruv.
'Scratch out his eyes!' screamed Sloo, and for the moment the family of the chief forgot their own differences in the enjoyable spectacle of another family row.
Tanar looked on in consternation and surprise. Never had he witnessed such tumult and turmoil in the villages of the Sarians, and coming, as he just had, from Amiocap, the island of love, the contrast was even more appalling.
'Don't mind them,' said Balal, who was watching the Sarian and had noticed the expression of surprise and disgust upon his face. 'If you stay with us long you will get used to it, for it is always like this. Come on, let's eat, the food is ready,' and drawing his stone knife he fished into the pot and speared a piece of meat.
Tanar, having no knife, had recourse to one of his arrows, which answered the purpose quite as well, and then, one by one, the family gathered around as though nothing unusual had happened, and fell, too, upon the steaming stew with avidity.
During the meal they did not speak other than to call one another vile names, if two chanced to reach into the caldron simultaneously and one interfered with another.
The caldron emptied, Scruv and Sloo crawled into the dark interior of their cave to sleep, where they were presently followed by Balal.
Gura, the daughter, took the caldron and started down the cliff toward the brook to wash out the receptacle and return with it filled with water.
As she made her precarious way down rickety ladders and narrow ledges, little Dhung, her brother, amused himself by hurling stones at her.
'Stop that,' commanded Tanar. 'You might hit her.'
'That is what I am trying to do,' said the little imp. 'Why else should I be throwing stones at her? To miss her?' He hurled another missile and with that Tanar grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
Instantly Dhung let out a scream that might have been heard in Amiocap—a scream that brought Sloo rushing from the cave.
'He is killing me,' shrieked Dhung, and at that the cave woman turned upon Tanar with flashing eyes and a face distorted with rage.
'Wait,' said Tanar, in a calm voice, 'I was not hurting the child. He was hurling rocks at his sister and I stopped him.'
'What business have you to stop him?' demanded Sloo. 'She is his sister, he has a right to hurl rocks at her if he chooses.'
'But he might have struck her, and if he had she would have fallen to her death below.'
'What if she did? That is none of your business,' snapped Sloo, and grabbing Dhung by his long hair she cuffed his ears and dragged him into the interior of the cave, where for a long time Tanar could hear blows and screams, mingled with the sharp tongue of Sloo and the curses of Scruv.
But finally these died down to silence, permitting the sounds of other domestic brawls from various parts of the cliff village to reach the ears of the disgusted Sarian.
Far below him Tanar saw the girl, Gura, washing the earthenware vessel in a little stream, after which she filled it with fresh water and lifted the heavy burden to her head. He wondered at the ease with which she carried the great weight and was at a loss to know how she intended to scale the precipitous cliff and the rickety, makeshift ladders with her heavy load. Watching her progress with considerable interest he saw her ascend the
