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the highest of the Band-lu caves without further trouble. Here we went more
slowly, lest we should be set upon by some member of the tribe.
We must have passed about half the Band-lu cave-levels before we were accosted,
and then a huge fellow stepped out in front of me, barring our further progress.
"Who are you?" he asked; and he recognized me and I him, for he had been one of
those who had led me back into the cave and bound me the night that I had been
captured. From me his gaze went to Ajor. He was a fine-looking man with clear,
intelligent eyes, a good forehead and superb physique--by far the highest type of
Caspakian I had yet seen, barring Ajor, of course.
"You are a true Galu," he said to Ajor, "but this man is of a different mold. He
has the face of a Galu, but his weapons and the strange skins he wears upon his
body are not of the Galus nor of Caspak. Who is he?"
"
"
He is Tom," replied Ajor succinctly.
There is no such people," asserted the Band-lu quite truthfully, toying with his
spear in a most suggestive manner.
"My name is Tom," I explained, "and I am from a country beyond Caspak." I
thought it best to propitiate him if possible, because of the necessity of
conserving ammunition as well as to avoid the loud alarm of a shot which might
bring other Band-lu warriors upon us. "I am from America, a land of which you
never heard, and I am seeking others of my countrymen who are in Caspak and
from whom I am lost. I have no quarrel with you or your people. Let us go our
way in peace."
"
You are going there?" he asked, and pointed toward the north.
I am," I replied.
"
He was silent for several minutes, apparently weighing some thought in his mind.
At last he spoke. "What is that?" he asked. "And what is that?" He pointed first
at my rifle and then to my pistol.
"They are weapons," I replied, "weapons which kill at a great distance." I pointed
to the women in the pool beneath us. "With this," I said, tapping my pistol, "I
could kill as many of those women as I cared to, without moving a step from
where we now stand."
He looked his incredulity, but I went on. "And with this"--I weighed my rifle at
the balance in the palm of my right hand--"I could slay one of those distant
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