His questions were acute and perceptive. Whereas Thadron―and even Ylana―had unquestioningly assumed us to be strangers from a tribe as primitive as their own, the Elder instantly guessed us to be aliens from a more advanced civilization. He examined our clothing with keen and curious eyes; Lukor’s clothing, that is, since Tomar and I wore nothing but sky-boots and ragged loin-cloths. Lukor, of course, wore the sleeveless, open-necked leather tunic, voluminous white blouse with tight cuffs, girdle and short cloak commonly worn by members of the warrior class throughout the other hemisphere.
Quone was interested in the brilliant red gem Lukor affected rakishly in one earlobe, in the supple, suedelike leather of his tunic, which was dressed and tanned in a manner superior to anything the jungle men knew, and in the ornaments of precious metal wherewith the sword-master’s girdle was adorned. Lukor, whose stiff-necked sense of the proprieties was ruffled by the personal nature of Quone’s interrogation, made terse responses to each query. He gruffly denied knowledge of the techniques of tanning leather to such suppleness, and declared himself likewise ignorant of the weaving methods used to produce such fine fabrics as composed his cloak and blouse.
The other Elders―there seemed to be seven of them in all―were a gaggle of toothless, rheumy-eyed old fellows who lazed sleepily in warm daylight, content to leave the questioning to Quone. I got the impression that he quite dominated the group.
I tried to keep my answers to his questions as unspecific as possible, when the interrogation got around to me. We were adventurers from a far-off land, I told him, strayed here by accident. We had been captured by the Zarkoon, and, together with Ylana, had narrowly managed to escape from the clutches of the cannibal bird-men. Fortunately, Xangan and his band had encountered us too late to see the flying machine in which we had descended to the plateau, so I was spared the necessity of explaining our possession of such a craft, and Ylana said nothing of it.
Jugrid, the king of the jungle tribe, had arrived on the scene during our interrogation. He was a big man with stalwart, clean-cut features and a powerful physique, and had about him a certain natural majesty. He was a born fighting-man and I must confess I liked him from the first. Together with Ylana and Thadron, he seemed to represent a superior strain; there was a definite innate nobility about these three which set them apart from the bulk of the tribesmen, who, save for a few tall, well-built, intelligent-looking men and women, seemed otherwise composed of hulking, unappetizing specimens like Xangan, or vulgar and slatternly women.
The glances of pity and commiseration Jugrid silently exchanged with his daughter did not escape my eye. Jugrid had evidently hoped the girl had by now long since effected her escape and had found safe refuge among her mother’s tribe, the River People. He took no part in our examination and his very presence was pointedly ignored by Quone and the other Elders. I got the distinct impression that the Elders seized every possible pretext to put the jungle king in his place, which they obviously conceived to be definitely subordinate to their own.
Although Xangan had loudly argued we should be put to death at once, to prevent our escaping and returning at the head of a war-band of our people to avenge our capture upon the tribe, Quone was much too canny to acquiesce to his grandson’s bullying demands.
“They shall be hostages,” he croaked, “wherewith we may bargain should others of their tribe come seeking them.”
Xangan grumbled and blustered, but Quone had made up his mind and that was the end of the matter.
“And, as well, I doubt me not the Unseen Ones will be interested in them,” he concluded. As you can imagine, my blood ran cold at his words. The very last thing I wanted to do was to have our presence on the plateau brought to the attention of the Mind Wizards. With their uncanny telepathic powers, they could penetrate my mental defenses in a moment, and discover the existence and the purpose of the armada in this hemisphere, and we should lose the slight advantage of surprise we perhaps still possessed.
Quone ordered us held in a small cave whose mouth was blocked by a palisade. That is, he ordered Lukor and Tomar and I thus imprisoned. As for the jungle girl, she would be held by the unmarried women of the tribe until “the moons were right” for her long-delayed wedding with Xangan. By this term, I assumed the Jungle People placed some superstitious value on astrology, and deduced from the movements of the Jovian moons times deemed propitious for various tribal activities.
We were thrust into the narrow cave, together with food and drink, and left to our own devices until such time as the Mind Wizards could be informed of our existence and give their judgment on our disposal.
And there was nothing to do but wait.
We searched the cave thoroughly, but found it secure. It ended in a passage which narrowed into a small pocket, blocked by a massive boulder. The roof arched above us, without chimney or fissure, and the sides of the cavern were smooth and unbroken. The only way out was the cave mouth itself, and the palisade wherewith this was closed was made of heavy logs, deeply buried in the soil and trimmed off to meet the lintel of the entrance with only a half inch of leeway. There did not seem to be any way we could effect an escape and we were guarded night and day by two warriors who squatted before the palisade, alternately dozing and playing some sort of dice-like game with knucklebones for pieces.
So we resigned ourselves to durance vile, keeping our eyes open for any opportunity to get away. Our chances for such seemed rather slender. There was simply no way out of our cave, and we soon decided that if we were going to make a break for it, we could only do so when the palisade was opened. This happened three times a day, when the gate was opened to replenish our supplies of food and water and we were escorted out of the cell for the purpose of relieving nature. Alas, on these occasions we were so heavily ringed about with guards that to try for freedom would be either an exercise in futility or in suicide.
Time weighed heavily on our hands. There was simply nothing to do but sprawl about, and either nap or converse. From time to time our boredom was relieved by a visitor. Xangan came strutting by to insult us in his loud, blustering way―staying safely on the other side of the bars and well beyond our reach. After a time we simply ignored him and pretended he was not there, and before long he found the baiting of men who ignored his baiting so lacking in savor that his visits dwindled and eventually ceased altogether.
A much more welcome visitor, however, was Thadron, the handsome, intelligent young warrior who had prevented Xangan from slaying us on the spot when we were captured. He visited from time to time, conversing through the bars, and seemed sympathetic to our predicament, although his words were guarded and neutral, due to the omnipresent guards, hulking louts of Xangan’s cut who listened with suspicious ears to every exchange.
Ylana also visited us now and again, for she was only watched, and not caged up as we were. I strove to find out how long it would be before the Mind Wizards were made aware of our captivity and would come hither to decide our fate. She did not know the answer to this question, for the Elders jealously guarded from the knowledge of the rest of the tribe the method by which they communicated with the Unseen Ones, as it was their exclusive monopoly of the channel of communication from which they derived their authority over their superstitious fellow-tribesmen. It would be many days, however, as she guessed from previous experiences.