remained with every man in the cell, for Brosan never came
back....

Darkness came at last, and for a second time the roaring of beasts and
shrieks and moans of dying men ceased in the oval above. Food was
brought and the weary gladiators ate and drank, doing their best to
forget tiredness and strain.

Sleep came slowly that night to most of them. Within every heart was
strong desire for the morrow to come--the new day for which all had
waited. There were some here who would never see a second sunrise; but,
as is usual under such conditions, each man looked for death to single
out any one other than himself.

* * * * *

Less than a day's journey to the north of Sephar's walls a party of
fifty warriors supped on the freshly-killed meat of Neela, the zebra,
shortly before Dyta slid below the western earth-line. All that day they
had traveled slowly along a thread-like game trail leading directly
south. At times, for hours on end, they had walked through sombre depths
of brooding jungle, beneath grotesque shadows of forest kings. Again,
their way was across wide reaches of gently undulating prairie, where
thick yellow grasses, deep to a tall man's thighs, stirred beneath the
touch of baking winds.

Always, however, they had moved into the south, and ever in the lead was
he whose decision, based solely on a vague premonition, had brought them
so far from home. On this man's left forearm was the painted insignia of
a chief....

With the sudden coming of night, the entire party took to the safety of
high branches on either side of the trail. When Dyta returned on the
morrow, they once more would take up their march into the mountains to
the south ... always to the south.

* * * * *

Once more, dawn poked gray fingers through the overhead grill-work of
the great cell beneath Sephar's amphitheater. And from the same point
came sounds of Sephar's thousands, filing again into their seats for
another day of grisly entertainment.

Tharn rolled over, sat up and ran tanned fingers through his heavy shock
of black hair. For a moment his eyes ran over the sleeping scores,
picking out many whom he had learned to respect. There was Katon, head
pillowed on the biceps of a strong right arm, a half smile discernible
on his firm mouth; he was sleeping soundly. Near him lay Brutan, the red
edges of his wound showing through black stubble covering his cheek.
There was Ro