u are a fool!" he
said, "whatever else you may be. As you die, give thought to the fact
that you join a large company. Those who have faced the greatest
swordsman of Tarth and fallen ignobly before his blade."

With that the dark one whipped his blade home and spun his adversary
expertly in order to discover the exact point of entrance of the
blade. His aim was true.

It was just a trifle low but the other fell heavily and the dark
warrior withdrew his blade and wiped it uneasily. His nervousness
sprang from fear. If one of these so-called gods had appeared, why not
two, or four, or a dozen? The Tarthan swordsman, well up on the
principles of discretion, felt a sudden urge to be quit of this
locality.

It was indeed a disconcerting place. Brown folk, the identity and
origin of which he knew not. A white creature with steel hands
appearing from nowhere. What would the next manifestation be?

The dark warrior moved swiftly toward his waiting stad. He mounted and
rode away and not until the figures about the well were tiny spots
almost beyond range of his vision, did he again breathe easily.

CHAPTER VIII

_The Brown Virgin_

Bram Forest moved from unconscious into a dark half-world of pain and
frustration. He felt his flame-seared body to be hanging upon the edge
of a black abyss into which he could neither fall nor draw away from.

At times, it seemed, gentle hands reached out to explore but were
without the strength to draw him back from the perilous precipice upon
which he hung.

There was an endless time of balance in this dark half-world and then
the thick blackness faded to a gray, the precipice seemed to draw away
of its own volition, and the pain within him lessened.

He opened his eyes.

He was lying on a bed of soft, cool moss in a semi-dark cavern with
the sound of tinkling water in the distance. He lay staring at the
ceiling for a long time, wondering into what manner of place he had
come and how. Then his keen ears caught the sound of breathing other
than his own; a soft breathing that fell gently upon his senses and
calmed rather than alerted him.

He turned his head and saw a beautiful, naked brown-skinned girl
kneeling nearby but beyond his reach. He was struck first by the
beauty of her face and form and then by the fact that she was not as
completely brown as his first impression had given him to believe. Her
breasts and loins were of pure white and droplets of shining water ran