Return to Sephar
For the first time since she had started out that morning, Alurna was beginning to question her opinion of where Sephar lay. She sought to push out the thought lest it became certainty and bring utter panic in its wake.
She forced her mind into other channels. How silent the jungle had become! Somehow its spells of stillness were harder to bear than the most sinister of sounds. Unconsciously she strained her ears for some sound to relieve this feeling of complete loneliness.
Something was moving in the trail behind her!
Alurna was turning, even as her brain received the warning. Standing in the path was Tarlok, the leopard, less than ten paces away.
Stricken dumb with terror, Alurna could only gaze wide-eyed at that sleek, spotted head. The narrowed yellow eyes, the white teeth with four long fangs predominated, the back-curling lips drawn into a grimace of blood-lust, even the somehow ludicrous long white hairs on the upper lip—all were stamped indelibly within her mind.
Tarlok was enjoying himself. The utter fear expressed in every line of his prey's face and body appealed to the cruelty in his nature. Purely as a means of adding to that fear, he made a little half-spring toward the girl.
Voicing a half-mad sob of absolute despair, Alurna sank to her knees and closed her eyes to wait for a horrible death.
There followed an agonizing few moments of silence. Why did death delay? Alurna fought to keep her eyes tight shut; but terror plucked at the lids, forcing them open. Hardly more than a yard away was the cat's sleek, savage head!
