So it was that they went warily along the shadowy ridge down to the rift in the opposite slope. Twice their soft shoes knocked unseen pebbles clattering downward, but other than that there was no sound.

And from the crevice a flicker of flame revealed that Nard Rost had already kindled a fire. Besan opened his mouth to call out a greeting.

But he never spoke. A great hard-palmed hand clamped across his lips and an arm crushed his ribs together. Dimly he could see a savage face and the naked body of his assailant. There were other shadowy shapes, too. He felt Relsa Dav's fingers torn from his grasp. His knotted fists slammed into the hard flesh of the savage.

His captor grunted. The hairy body shifted and Besan's head was rocked by a club in a bony fist. He sank down into a pain-throbbing gulf that was not completely without sound and sight.

His captor grunted ... and Besan's head was rocked by a club....

In a detached sort of way he knew that he was being dragged into the cave and bound with stinking rawhide ropes. He lay in a corner of the cave beside the bound shapes of Nard Rost and the girl. And by the fire a dozen half-naked man shapes crouched, harsh voices rumbling.

Relsa Dav was calling to him but he kept slipping further and further away into the blackness of the cavern until he heard her no more.

The haft of a spear thudded alongside his skull. Besan shook his head and found that he was walking along a sunken game trail in a patch of the yellow-green jungle flooring a narrow valley. His hands were roped behind him and his lips were cracked and dry. Overhead the sun was hand-high in the sky.

From behind him Nard Rost spoke.

"Better now, boy?"

Besan grunted. A sullen growing anger was blotting the fear and acquired timidity of Terra from his mind. If his hands were free....

"I'll do." He turned to see Nard Rost, and behind him the girl, with the balance of the fierce-looking savages strung out behind them.

"They're taking us to their caves," Nard Rost told him.

"To eat, I suppose." Besan turned his face to the front again.

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