The ant-man stood for a moment astounded, and then wheeled around. I still held my club. There was now no reason why I should not kill him too, if I could. But he did not charge.
Instead he said: “Let us not fight. You have saved my life, and so I owe you yours. ‘A life for a life.’ No one shall ever say that 356-1-400 is ungrateful. Go in peace. Look, a mist approaches. My excuse shall be that I lost you in the fog. If you too are grateful, you will tell the same story.”
Then the fog, a frequent phenomenon of Poros, closed upon me, and I saw my captor no more. I lay down, covered myself with tartan leaves to keep off the wet, and waited for the fog to lift.
And the next thing I knew, it was morning.
In spite of my long fast—since supper two days ago—I felt refreshed by my sleep, and at once set out through the woods in as nearly a straight line as I could, in the hope of striking a road. The straight line was easy, as the eastern sky was still faintly pink; and likewise it was easy to head north along the road, when I finally reached one. But when at last I came to a city, it turned out to be Ktuth rather than Kuana.
Before seeking food or anything else, except a much-needed drink of water, I found a pinqui and asked him if he had heard any recent news from Kuana, relative to the disappearance of the princess.
“News from Kuana? Disappearance?” he repeated in surprise. “Surely not. The princess has been here safe and sound for two days, and left only a few paraparths ago by the Kuana road!”
So I had just missed her! If I had entered the city a bit later, I should have passed her on the road!
My tickets were not sufficient to hire a kerkool; and besides now that I knew Lilla was safe, I was in no hurry to face Bthuh, whom I had left waiting at the joining-stand, as it were. So, after breakfast, I set out on foot for Kuana, thirty stads away, carrying some lunch.
Around noon, when I had just eaten my lunch on a stone by the side of the road, a kerkool passed me, headed for Kuana. I hailed its single occupant, and was given a lift the rest of the way. He turned out to be the Chief of Pinquis of Ktuth, bound for a conference with the mango of Kuana. I welcomed the chance to get inside the Kuana jail, face to face with my old friend Poblath, for this opportunity would enable me to give him my long-deferred explanation of my relations—or rather lack of relations—with his Bthuh.