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Almost incredibly swift is the speed of a charging banth, and fortunate it was that

the girl had not been caught farther in the open. As it was, her margin of safety

was next to negligible, for as she swung nimbly to the lower branches the

creature in pursuit of her crashed among the foliage almost upon her as it sprang

upward to seize her. It was only a combination of good fortune and agility that

saved her. A stout branch deflected the raking talons of the carnivore, but so

close was the call that a giant forearm brushed her flesh in the instant before she

scrambled to the higher branches.

Baffled, the banth gave vent to his rage and disappointment in a series of frightful

roars that caused the very ground to tremble, and to these were added the

roarings and the growlings and the moanings of his fellows as they approached

from every direction, in the hope of wresting from him whatever of his kill they

could take by craft or prowess. And now he turned snarling upon them as they

circled the tree, while the girl, huddled in a crotch above them, looked down upon

the gaunt, yellow monsters padding on noiseless feet in a restless circle about

her. She wondered now at the strange freak of fate that had permitted her to

come down this far into the valley by night unharmed, but even more she

wondered how she was to return to the hills. She knew that she would not dare

venture it by night and she guessed, too, that by day she might be confronted by

even graver perils. To depend upon this valley for sustenance she now saw to be

beyond the pale of possibility because of the banths that would keep her from

food and water by night, while the dwellers in the towers would doubtless make it

equally impossible for her to forage by day. There was but one solution of her

difficulty and that was to return to her flier and pray that the wind would waft

her to some less terrorful land; but when might she return to the flier? The

banths gave little evidence of relinquishing hope of her, and even if they wandered

out of sight would she dare risk the attempt? She doubted it.

Hopeless indeed seemed her situation--hopeless it was.

The Chessmen of Mars