strange people would be dangerous to us. We are in their country. They know the places where they might most easily set upon us and kill us. We do not know what is just beyond the range of our vision.
'If this is the Forest of Death , the people who dwell here are dangerous because they are not as other men. I have heard it said. None of my people who are living has ever been here, but stories handed down from father to son tell of strange things that have happened in the Forest of Death . My people are brave people, but none of them would go to that forest. There are things in Pellucidar that warriors cannot fight with weapons. It is known that there are such things in the Forest of Death . If we are indeed in it, we shall never live to reach Lo-har.'
'Poor Gaz!' exclaimed von Horst.
'What do you mean?'
'I am sorry for him because he will not have the pleasure of killing me or taking you for his mate.'
She looked at him in disgust, continuing on in silence. They both watched for signs of the trailers they were sure were following them; but no sound broke the deathly silence of the wood, nor did they see aught to confirm their suspicions; so at length they decided that whatever it was they had seen at the cliff top had departed and would not molest them.
They came to the mouth of a cave in the cliff; and as they had not slept for some time, von Horst suggested that they go in and rest. His head still ached, and he felt the need of sleep. The mouth of the cave was quite small, making it necessary for von Horst to get down on his hands and knees and crawl in to investigate. He shoved his spear in ahead of him and felt around with it to assure himself that no animal was lairing in the darkness of the interior as well as to discover if the cave were large enough to accommodate them.
Having satisfied himself on both these points, he entered the cave; and a moment later La-ja joined him. A cursory exploration assured them that the cave ran back some little distance into the cliff, but as they were only interested in enough space wherein to sleep they lay down close to the entrance. Von Horst lay with his head to the opening, his spear ready to thrust at any intruder that might awaken him. La-ja lay a few feet from him farther back in the cave. It was very dark and quiet. A gentle draft of fresh air came through the entrance dispelling the damp and musty odors which von Horst had come to expect in caves. Soon they were asleep.
When von Horst awoke, his head no longer ached; and he felt much refreshed. He turned over on his back and stretched, yawning.
'You are awake?' asked La-ja.
'Yes. Are you rested?'
'Entirely. I just woke up.'
'Hungry?'
'Yes, and thirsty, too,' she admitted.
'Let's get started, then,' he suggested. 'It looks as though we'd have to get out of this forest before we find food.'
'All right,' she said, 'but what makes it so dark out?'
Von Horst got to his knees and faced the entrance to the cave. He could see nothing. Even the gloom of the forest had been blotted out. He thought it possible that he had become turned around in his sleep and was looking in the wrong direction, but no matter which way he turned he was confronted always by the same impenetrable blackness. Then he crawled forward, feeling with his hands. Where he had thought the entrance to be he found the rounded surface of a large boulder. He felt around its edges, discovering loose dirt.
'The entrance has been blocked up, La-ja,' he said.
'But what could have done it without awakening us?' she demanded.
'I don't know,' he admitted, 'but in some way the mouth of the cave has been filled with a boulder and loose dirt. There isn't a breath of air coming in as there was when we entered.'
He tried to push the boulder away, but he could not budge it. Then he started to scrape away the loose dirt, but what he scraped away was replaced by more sifting in from the outside. La-ja came to his side and they exerted their combined weight and strength in an effort to move the boulder, but to no avail.
'We are penned up here like rats in a trap,' said von Horst in deep disgust.
'And with our air supply shut off we'll suffocate if we don't find some way to get out.'
'There must be another opening,' said von Horst.
'What makes you think so?' asked the girl.
'Don't you recall that when we came in there was a draft of air entering from the outside?' he asked.
'Yes, that's right; there was.'
'Well, if the air came in this entrance in a draft, it must have gone out some other opening; and if we can find that opening, perhaps we can get out, too.'
'Do you suppose the white-haired man and his people blocked the entrance?' asked La-ja.
'I imagine so,' replied von Horst. 'It must have been men of some kind; no animal could have done it so quietly as not to have awakened us; and, of course, for the same reason, an earthquake is out of the question.'
'I wonder why they did it?' mused the girl.
'Probably an easy and safe way to kill strangers who come to their country,' suggested von Horst.
'Just let us starve to death or suffocate,' said the girl in disgust. 'Only cowards would do that.'
'I'll bet Gaz would never do anything like that,' said von Horst.
'Gaz? He has killed many men with his bare hands. Sometimes he bites the great vein in their neck and they bleed to death, and once he pushed a man's head back until he broke his neck.'
'What a nice little play fellow!'
'Gaz never plays. He loves to kill—that is his play.'
'Well, if I'm going to meet him, I'll have to get out of here. Let's follow the cave back and see if we can find the other opening. Stay close behind me.'
Von Horst rose slowly to gauge the height of the cave and found that they could stand erect; then he groped his way cautiously toward the rear, touching a wall with one hand. He moved very slowly, feeling ahead with each foot for solid ground before he planted it. They had not gone far when von Horst felt what appeared to be twigs and leaves beneath his feet. He stooped and felt of them. They were dry branches with dead leaves still clinging to them and long thick grasses. The floor of the cave here was strewn thickly with them.
'Must have been a sleeping place for some animal or perhaps for men,' he suggested. 'I wish we had a light; I don't like groping along in the dark like this.'
'I have my fire stones,' said La-ja. 'If we had some tinder, I could light a bundle of these grasses.'
'I'll make some,' said von Horst.
He stooped and cleared a place on the floor, exposing the bare ground; then he gathered some of the dried leaves and powdered them between his palms, making a little pile of the tinder on the bare ground.
'Come and try it, now,' he said. 'Here,' he guided her hand to the tinder.
La-ja knelt beside him and struck her fire stones together close above the little a single fragment, and it commenced to glow. La-ja bent low and blew gently upon it. Suddenly it burst into flame. Von Horst was ready with a bundle of the grasses he had gathered for the purpose, and a moment later he held a blazing torch in his hand.
In the light of the torch they looked about them. They were in a large chamber formed by the widening of the cave. The floor was littered with twigs and grasses among which were a number of gnawed bones. Whether it was the den of beasts or men, von Horst could not tell; but from the presence of the bedding he judged that it was the latter. Yet there was no article of cast-off clothing, no broken or discarded weapon or tool that he could find, no potsherds. If men had dwelt here they must have been of a very low order.
Before their torch burned low they gathered grasses and made a quantity of them, and thus supplied with the assurance of light for a considerable time they continued on through the large chamber into a narrow corridor that wound and twisted into the heart of the escarpment. Presently they came to another even larger chamber. This, too, bore evidence of having been inhabited; but the relics here were of a grisly nature. The floor was strewn with the bones and skulls of human beings. A foul odor of decaying flesh permeated the air of this subterranean charnel chamber.
'Let's get out of here,' said von Horst.
'There are three openings beside the one we came in,' said La-ja. 'Which one shall we take?'
Von Horst shook his head. 'We may have to try them all,' he said. 'Let's start with the one farthest on our
