onvinced that they spoke
the truth and when they had told him the direction in which the two
were traveling, Lu-don guessed that they were on their way to Ja-lur to
join Ja-don, a contingency that he felt must be prevented at any cost.
As was his wont in the stress of emergency, he called Pan-sat into
consultation and for long the two sat in close conference. When they
arose a plan had been developed. Pan-sat went immediately to his own
quarters where he removed the headdress and trappings of a priest to
don in their stead the harness and weapons of a warrior. Then he
returned to Lu-don.

"Good!" cried the latter, when he saw him. "Not even your
fellow-priests or the slaves that wait upon you daily would know you
now. Lose no time, Pan-sat, for all depends upon the speed with which
you strike and--remember! Kill the man if you can; but in any event
bring the woman to me here, alive. You understand?"

"Yes, master," replied the priest, and so it was that a lone warrior
set out from A-lur and made his way northwest in the direction of
Ja-lur.

The gorge next above Kor-ul-ja is uninhabited and here the wily Ja-don
had chosen to mobilize his army for its descent upon A-lur. Two
considerations influenced him--one being the fact that could he keep
his plans a secret from the enemy he would have the advantage of
delivering a surprise attack upon the forces of Lu-don from a direction
that they would not expect attack, and in the meantime he would be able
to keep his men from the gossip of the cities where strange tales were
already circulating relative to the coming of Jad-ben-Otho in person to
aid the high priest in his war against Ja-don. It took stout hearts and
loyal ones to ignore the implied threats of divine vengeance that these
tales suggested. Already there had been desertions and the cause of
Ja-don seemed tottering to destruction.

Such was the state of affairs when a sentry posted on the knoll in the
mouth of the gorge sent word that he had observed in the valley below
what appeared at a distance to be nothing less than two people mounted
upon the back of a gryf. He said that he had caught glimpses of them,
as they passed open spaces, and they seemed to be traveling up the
river in the direction of the Kor-ul-ja.

At first Ja-don was inclined to doubt the veracity of his informant;
but, like all good generals, he could not permit even palpably false
information to go uninvestigated and so he determined to vis