al,
which is not the correct native plural form. The latter, it seems to
me, is awkward for us and so I have generally ignored it throughout my
manuscript, permitting, for example, Kor-ul-ja to answer for both
singular and plural. However, for the benefit of those who may be
interested in such things I may say that the plurals are formed simply
for all words in the Pal-ul-don language by doubling the initial letter
of the word, as k'kor, gorges, pronounced as though written kakor, the
a having the sound of a in sofa. Lions, d' don.

6

The Tor-o-don

Pan-at-lee slept--the troubled sleep, of physical and nervous
exhaustion, filled with weird dreamings. She dreamed that she slept
beneath a great tree in the bottom of the Kor-ul-gryf and that one of
the fearsome beasts was creeping upon her but she could not open her
eyes nor move. She tried to scream but no sound issued from her lips.
She felt the thing touch her throat, her breast, her arm, and there it
closed and seemed to be dragging her toward it. With a super-human
effort of will she opened her eyes. In the instant she knew that she
was dreaming and that quickly the hallucination of the dream would
fade--it had happened to her many times before. But it persisted. In
the dim light that filtered into the dark chamber she saw a form beside
her, she felt hairy fingers upon her and a hairy breast against which
she was being drawn. Jad-ben-Otho! this was no dream. And then she
screamed and tried to fight the thing from her; but her scream was
answered by a low growl and another hairy hand seized her by the hair
of the head. The beast rose now upon its hind legs and dragged her from
the cave to the moonlit recess without and at the same instant she saw
the figure of what she took to be a Ho-don rise above the outer edge of
the niche.

The beast that held her saw it too and growled ominously but it did not
relinquish its hold upon her hair. It crouched as though waiting an
attack, and it increased the volume and frequency of its growls until
the horrid sounds reverberated through the gorge, drowning even the
deep bellowings of the beasts below, whose mighty thunderings had
broken out anew with the sudden commotion from the high-flung cave. The
beast that held her crouched and the creature that faced it crouched
also, and growled--as hideously as the other. Pan-at-lee trembled. This
was no Ho-don and though she feared the Ho-don she feared this thing
more, with its