“I am not afraid,” the man replied. “I came here to fight the demons.”
“But your bow is useless; you have only a knife, and that is little more than worthless against such creatures.”
“I will come up to you because I want to talk with you. After that I shall return to the crater.”
The man started toward them in a leisurely manner.
“I never saw such courage before. It borders on recklessness.”
“He must be crazy or trying to do away with himself,” Ted said emphatically. “Wonder who he can be?”
“The voice sounded familiar. I am sure I have heard it before, often. Do you realize that he saved our lives? The whiz we heard over our heads just as the tiger above us was about to spring was caused by an arrow. He saw our position and knew that it was hopeless, so he shot at the animal and wounded it; that destroyed its aim and it missed us, barely striking the edge of the shelf and falling to the ground. If it hadn’t been for him the brute should have dropped on top of us.”
“Well, it was a narrow escape, and I am glad we were able to repay the fellow in kind. But I want to meet him and thank him for his action, anyway.”
There was the scraping of the tall pole-ladder against the face of the rock, and a moment later the man’s head and shoulders appeared over the rim of the ledge. The two grasped his hands and helped him up.
His face was youthful. Ted and Stanley knew they had seen it somewhere. And his body, while inclined to be slender, was of strong, athletic build. His only article of clothing was a short tunic of a dark color, so tattered that it hung from him in strips and fringes of thread.