For many hours these men searched diligently, without, however, finding any second cairn or other token of Jandar’s presence here.
“Perhaps it proved difficult for some reason to erect a second cairn here,” Glypto argued. “Jandar might have scratched a sign or a message in some prominent place here on the slope, which we cannot make out with clarity until daylight!”
“There is much in what you say, Glypto,” the captain said somberly. “Very well; we shall ascend to the three-thousand-foot level and await daybreak before resuming our search of the mountainside.”
As you may imagine, we got little sleep for the remainder of that night. While parties of vigilant archers stood watch on rotation against any attack on the part of the Zarkoon, those of us who tried at all to sleep tossed and turned in our bunks. In the minds of us all, I am sure, the same questions revolved.
Had Jandar and his companions escaped from the plateau, or had they been recaptured by Jugrid’s jungle men?
If they had managed to elude recapture, had they perchance fallen victim to some monster of the cliffs, or to some predator of the mountains?
Or had they perhaps been attacked by the Zarkoon while ascending the slope of the mountain, and before they had been able to build the cairn Jandar had promised to leave, or to inscribe whatever token or sign of their whereabouts he intended to make for our guidance?
None of these important questions could yet be answered. And that was the reason few of us, if any, got any sleep that night …
When daylight came at last we sent down search-parties amounting to perhaps forty men or more. I accompanied the foremost of these, on the premise that it seemed likely any directions or instructions Jandar had left for us might be in the same language as the manuscript.
We combed the slope of the mountain all that day, without finding the slightest trace that Jandar or any of his companions had ever even reached it. Towards early afternoon Zantor dispatched two skiffs under the command of Ergon and Glypto to explore the ravine at the bottom of the cliffs surrounding the plateau. By nightfall they returned, and again it was to report in the negative. There was no evidence that our lost friends had ever climbed down the cliffs, crossed the ravine, or even entered the mountains which encircled the plateau of the jungle men.
On the following day, which was the thirteenth since we had parted from the armada, Zantor sent heavily armed warriors into the subterranean world of the
Zarkoon to explore that region, hoping perhaps to discover that Jandar or his companions had been seized by the winged men. The Zarkoon fled into the remotest recesses of the immense cavern after several of their number had attacked the skiffs and were either slain or driven off. The cages Jandar had described were found, but they were empty and contained no signs of recent human occupancy. The nesting-place of Skeer, whom Jandar had called the chief of the winged monsters, was likewise discovered and was identified as such on the basis of the descriptions given in Jandar’s manuscript, which I had by now rendered into our own Thanatorian tongue and imparted to my comrades. In that nest was found what Jandar would probably call a “jackdaw’s hoard” of miscellaneous treasures-bones and shells and feathers and teeth and scraps of carven wood and brightly-colored cloth. Rusted implements of human workmanship were found among the bird-man’s loot as well-dagger hilts and broken sword-blades, old dented helmets and odds and ends of jewelry. But not a one of these items could positively be identified as having belonged to Jandar, Tomar, Lukor or Koja.
That night we flew in the Xaxar into the northerly corner of the plateau, and descended in force upon the country of the Jungle People. We found the village deserted, save for the small, thaptor-like fowl domesticated by the jungle men, and a number of stray othodes who scuttled off at our approach. It was easy to surmise that the savages had fled into the jungle at our appearance in the skies. With dawn we spent many wasted hours searching the jungle in hopes of encountering Jugrid’s men, but they evidently knew every place of concealment the dense undergrowth afforded, and we were unsuccessful in this venture as well.
We were by now mid-way into the last day of our expedition. If we were to rejoin the armada, as originally planned, we would have to depart soon. Already, in fact, we had lingered overlong, but Zantor was grimly determined to exhaust every possible avenue of investigation before giving up.
And―just as we were gathering aboard and preparing to up anchor and be off on the voyage to Kuur―at last we made a discovery!
A lone human figure appeared at the edge of the jungle and stood timidly staring up at the gigantic galleon which floated above her head like an astounding apparition conjured into reality by some magician.
Ergon and several crew-members swarmed down the rope ladders to effect her capture. But the child―for she was scarcely more than that―did not attempt to flee back into the shelter of the trees, and waited for them to approach her.
They soon returned to the ship, the jungle maid climbing the ladder with them. As she gained the midship deck, I saw that she was of about an age with Tomar, a long-legged, stunningly attractive girl wearing an abbreviated garment of tanned hides, her long bare arms and legs adorned with primitive jewelry.
“Is your name Ylana, my child?” I called out to her as she climbed nimbly over the rail and stood, staring about her in wonderment. She turned her wide eyes upon me with surprise.
“I am Ylana of the jungle country,” she admitted. “But who are you, old man, and how do you know my name?”
I introduced myself and explained that Jandar had described her in such detail in his manuscript that it was possible for me to guess her identity at a glance. The jungle maid did not understand the method by which Jandar had communicated with me―I gathered from her demeanor that the art of writing was all but unknown to her people―and asked me eagerly if Jandar “and that boy,” by which she evidently referred to Tomar, were aboard.
When I said that they were not, her face clouded and her eyes fell. At Zantor’s suggestion I took her below and offered her food and drink, which she fell upon as though famished. While she satisfied her appetite, I elicited from her, in bits and pieces her own story.
Chapter 18
The Mystery Deepens
“Yes, I know that Jandar and his friends escaped days ago,” the half-starved jungle maid told me there in the cabin as she devoured the meal hastily sent up from the galley. “For the morning after they managed their escape the emissary of the Unseen Ones appeared in the village, and there was a great uproar when the guards stationed outside the prison-cave were found, the one dead, the other one stunned and groggy.”
She made a little expression of distaste. “That brute, Xangan, hastily summoned a war-party and whistled up the hunting othodes, and plunged into the jungles in pursuit of the escaped prisoners.”
“Did he find them, and bring them back?”
“I do not know,” the girl admitted. “In the confusion of the moment I myself managed to elude the attention of the women consigned to watching over me. I snatched up a spear someone had left leaning against a rock, and ran into the jungle. There was so much milling around and people yelling that no one realized I was even gone until sometime after I had made my escape, I am sure.”
“Well, what did you do then?”