thought never came to her that it might have been Tharn surprised
outside her door. So positive was she that the cave-man had died beneath
arrow and club, that she did not dream she had been on the verge of
rescue.

It was from her door that Tharn had been lifting the bar when attacked.

CHAPTER VI

Katon

A painful sensation in one shoulder brought full consciousness to Tharn,
and opening his eyes he stared blankly up into the face of a Sepharian
warrior. Noticing Tharn was awake, the man lowered the spear point with
which he had been prodding the captive.

"So--you are alive, after all!" exclaimed the Sepharian. "You have a
hard head, my savage friend; I thought they had beaten it in for you,
last night."

The speaker's thin sharp face reminded the cave-man of Toa, the hawk.
Tharn's lips curled with open contempt.

"The arms of your men are weak," he said mockingly. "It took many of
them to overcome me."

An angry red came into the man's cheeks. "They meant to take you alive,"
he snapped. "Try to escape and you will find a quick death." He turned
on his heel and strode away.

Tharn sat up and glanced about. It was evident he was in some
subterranean spot; the air was cool and slightly damp, and there was
that musty odor found only beneath the earth's surface. High up in one
wall he made out an immense grating of some sort outlined against an
early morning sky.

As the light grew stronger he saw the room to be tremendous. He noticed
now that he was not alone; near the far wall lay a full score of
sleeping men--many of them apparently cave-men like himself.

The sound of feet to his left attracted Tharn. He saw several men enter
the cell through the room's single door, and place huge platters of meat
on the several long tables near one wall. Noticing the sleeping men were
rousing and taking stools about those tables, Tharn got to his feet
and, ignoring their curious stares, joined them there.

Lowering his weight onto one of the three-legged stools, Tharn dipped
into one of the great platters a neighbor had pushed toward him. As he
ate, he looked about at the faces of his fellow prisoners.

They were an ill-assorted lot, most of them Sepharians, the balance men
of his own kind. The former, without exception, seemed to carry
themselves with the swaggering truculence of the true adventurer; the
latter seemed sullen and aloof, like caged animals.

Among them all, however, was one who stood out in