e dried
surface of the marsh and there is only the open water at the center to
materially impede progress. It is a condition that exists perhaps not
more than a few weeks, or even days at the termination of long periods
of drought, and so the two crossed the otherwise almost impassable
barrier without realizing its latent terrors. Even the open water in
the center chanced to be deserted at the time by its frightful denizens
which the drought and the receding waters had driven southward toward
the mouth of Pal-ul-don's largest river which carries the waters out of
the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho.

Their wanderings carried them across the mountains and into the Valley
of Jad-ben-Otho at the source of one of the larger streams which bears
the mountain waters down into the valley to empty them into the main
river just below The Great Lake on whose northern shore lies A-lur. As
they had come down out of the mountains they had been surprised by a
party of Ho-don hunters. Obergatz had escaped while Jane had been
taken prisoner and brought to A-lur. She had neither seen nor heard
aught of the German since that time and she did not know whether he had
perished in this strange land, or succeeded in successfully eluding its
savage denizens and making his way at last into South Africa.

For her part, she had been incarcerated alternately in the palace and
the temple as either Ko-tan or Lu-don succeeded in wresting her
temporarily from the other by various strokes of cunning and intrigue.
And now at last she was in the power of a new captor, one whom she knew
from the gossip of the temple and the palace to be cruel and degraded.
And she was in the stern of the last canoe, and every enemy back was
toward her, while almost at her feet Mo-sar's loud snores gave ample
evidence of his unconsciousness to his immediate surroundings.

The dark shore loomed closer to the south as Jane Clayton, Lady
Greystoke, slid quietly over the stern of the canoe into the chill
waters of the lake. She scarcely moved other than to keep her nostrils
above the surface while the canoe was yet discernible in the last rays
of the declining moon. Then she struck out toward the southern shore.

Alone, unarmed, all but naked, in a country overrun by savage beasts
and hostile men, she yet felt for the first time in many months a
sensation of elation and relief. She was free! What if the next moment
brought death, she knew again, at least a brief instant of absolute