But they carried him back bodily to the sand-pool's edge, to a place where the serrate rocks rose in lowering, brooding ledges. A crevice yawned. Swiftly, they shoved him between the saw-toothed boulders, down into it.
Now other hands reached up from the depths of an inner cavern to receive him. He found himself lifted into the black emptiness of a narrow tunnel.
Then he was on his own feet once more. But the hands still gripped his arms, pushing him along as he stumbled through the ebon passage. Dimly, he became aware of a strange odor in his nostrils—a sweet yet musty scent he'd never smelled before.
The passage led on, ever downward. Steadily it grew cooler. Jarl began to lose the sense of draining pressure. His captors jabbered in the darkness. But their speech was like no tongue he'd ever heard before, all consonants and gutturals.
It seemed they hurried on for miles. Then, at last, a dim light showed ahead.
The party halted. Someone clamped a heavy metal mask upon Jarl's head—a mask with neither eye- nor ear-holes. It shut him off in a throbbing private night, through which the guttural voices drifted only as dim whispers.
Once more, the primitives shoved Jarl ahead, and as they moved forward, he had a sudden feeling that they had left the tunnel and come out into a larger room.
Then they were lifting him again; laying him down flat on some smooth surface; holding him there, rigid.
He clenched his teeth, bracing himself for the torture that he knew would sooner or later be his lot.