She rose, saying: "I must leave you now. The guards will be wondering what has kept me. Tomorrow I will come again."
The two embraced. "Farewell, Nada," whispered the girl. "I shall try to sleep again. Being here does not seem so bad, now that I know you."
Tharn regained his feet quickly after the drop from the wall, and looked about. Failing to detect any cause for immediate alarm, he set out along a broad street, hugging the buildings and keeping well within the shadows. The moon was quite high by now, the strong light flooding the deserted streets and bringing every object into bold relief.
The man of the caves did not have the slightest idea as to how he might locate the girl he loved; he proposed, however, to pit his wit and cunning, together with the stone knife and grass rope against the entire city, if necessary, until he stumbled across a clue of some sort that would bring them together. How he expected to snatch Dylara from her captors and win through to the forest and plains he did not stop to consider—time enough for that when she was found.
Abruptly the street along which he was moving ended, crossed here by another roadway. Down this side street a few yards, and on the opposite side, a huge stone building loomed, its windows barred by slender columns of stone. To Tharn's inexperienced eyes this appeared to be a prison of some sort; and as it was the first of its kind he had noticed, he decided to investigate—that is, if a means of entry could be found. The hope that Dylara might be held behind one of those protected windows spurred him on.
Nonchalantly the mighty figure stepped from the sheltering shadows and leisurely crossed the street. He did not wish to excite suspicion, should any chance onlooker see him, by a sudden dash. Reaching the doorway of the edifice, he glanced sharply about; from all appearances he might have been in a city of the dead.
Delicate fingers, backed by a shrewd, imaginative mind, found the rude wooden latch, and solved its method of operation. Gently he pushed against the door and, not without surprise, felt it yield. Slowly the heavy planks swung inward until a space sufficient to admit his massive frame appeared, then he slid in and closed the door with his back.
The darkness was that of Acheron's pit; his eyes, keen as those of any jungle cat, were helpless to penetrate the blackness through which he moved with infinite stealth, arms outthrust before him, the cool hilt of his flint knife clutched in one muscular hand.
His nose warned him that there were men nearby; but the strangeness of his surroundings confused him as to their actual position.