“I shall not leave you here long,” he said. “Presently I shall return and take you into the village of Carn as my mate. Do not be afraid. There are few wild beasts upon the mesa, and I shall return long before any one can find you.”
“Do not hurry,” said Stellara. “I shall welcome the wild beast that reaches me before you return.”
“You will think differently after you have been the mate of Jude for a while,” said the man, and then he left her and hurried toward the walled village of Carn.
Struggling to a sitting posture Stellara could look out across the country that lay at the foot of the cliff and presently, below her, she saw a man and a woman emerge from the forest.
For a moment her heart stood still, for the instant that her eyes alighted upon him she recognized the man as Tanar. A cry of welcome was upon her lips when a new thought stilled her tongue.
Who was the girl with Tanar? Stellara saw how close she walked to him and she saw her look up into his face and though she was too far away to see the girl’s eyes or her expression, there was something in the attitude of the slim body that denoted worship, and Stellara turned her face and buried it against the cold wall of the cave and burst into tears.
Gura pointed upward toward the high mesa. “There,” she said, “just beyond the summit of that cliff lies Carn, the village where Jude lives, but if we enter it you will be killed and perhaps I, too, if the women get me first.”
Tanar, who was examining the ground at his feet, seemed not to hear the girl’s words. “Someone has passed just ahead of us,” he said; “a man and a woman. I can see the imprints of their feet. The grasses that were crushed beneath their sandals are still rising slowly—a man and a woman—and one of them was Stellara and the other Jude.”
“Who is Stellara?” asked the girl.
“My mate,” replied Tanar.