othing. There is a way for us to escape but it depends on
them leaving us here until Dyta finds his lair for the night."

"And if they don't leave us here until dark?"

Tharn's smile appeared again. "Would you cheat them of their pleasure by
worrying yourself to death?"

* * * * *

Trakor digested that in silence, seeing the wisdom in his friend's quiet
words. He found his fear lessening fast; there was something in Tharn's
calm acceptance of their present difficulty that inspired confidence in
their eventual escape.

With the waning of his own fear he found room for concern about someone
else. "Tharn!" he gasped. "Are these the ones who captured Dylara?"

A somber expression crept into the cave lord's eyes. "I am sure of it."

"Do you think that they have ... that they...." He could not finish.

"After we get away," Tharn said grimly, "I will learn the answer to
that. She may be held in another hut at this moment; but if they have
slain her...."

The rest of the morning and the long afternoon which followed wore on.
None of their captors entered the hut to learn how they were faring,
although not once were they unobserved from without. During the heat of
midday the sound of shrill voices stilled; but along toward evening it
started up again.

Tharn's position was such that he could see through the small aperture
which served at the hut's doorway. As a result he was able to see a
horde of the spider-men begin the construction of a good sized platform
of small branches in a neighboring tree. At first their purpose was not
clear to him; but when, shortly before darkness set in, he saw two tall
straight branches denuded of vegetation thrust upright, side by side,
into the platform, he understood something of what they had in mind.
This understanding became certainty a little later when he noticed a
score of the female members of the tribe busy at the task of putting
sharp points on many long straight sticks, using flint knives for that
purpose.

He and Trakor would be bound to those stakes and slowly prodded to
death! The all-important question was, would that take place this night
or would the spider-men wait until dawn? It hardly seemed logical they
would be so tortured without sufficient light for the spider-men to
observe their sufferings; and to use fire among the inflammable tree
tops would be sheer folly--if indeed these creatures were fire users at
all.

Darkness came a