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Updated: June 14, 2025
Our plight seemed hopeless to me, but I dared not let Dian and Juag guess how utterly dismayed I was; though, as I soon discovered, there was nothing to be gained by trying to keep the worst from Juag he knew it quite as well as I. He had always known, from the legends of his people, the dangers of the open sea beyond the sight of land.
"They probably want to ask the way to the mainland themselves," said Juag, who was nothing if not a pessimist. "If they want to catch us, they can do it if they can paddle faster than we can sail," I said. "If we let them come close enough to discover their identity, and can then sail faster than they can paddle, we can get away from them anyway, so we might as well wait." And wait we did.
The canoe behaved much better under sail than I had hoped infinitely better than the battle-ship Sari had and we made good progress almost due west across the gulf, upon the opposite side of which I hoped to find the mouth of the river of which Juag had told me. The islander was much interested and impressed by the sail and its results.
I could see Juag standing just beneath her with his hands upstretched to assist her. A sullen roar from the warriors recalled my attention toward them. They stood shaking their fists at me and yelling insults. From the direction of the village I saw a single warrior coming to join them.
He ducked to avoid it, and instead of receiving it in his heart, for which it was intended, he got it on the side of the head. Down he went all in a heap. Then I glanced toward Juag. He was having a most exciting time.
Juag was leaning over a near-by rock, his hand out-stretched to aid me in clambering to his side; nor did I lose any time in availing myself of his proffered assistance. An occasional javelin was still dropping perilously close to us, so we hastened to draw as close as possible to the cliffside, where we were comparatively safe from the missiles.
I had no difficulty in following the directions given me by Juag, the name by which Dacor's friend said he was called. There was the leaning tree, my first point he told me to look for after rounding the boulder where we had met. After that I crawled to the balanced rock, a huge boulder resting upon a tiny base no larger than the palm of your hand.
I was glad to see the brute, and I lost no time in taking him to Juag and making him understand that Juag, too, was to be Raja's friend. With the female the matter was more difficult, but Raja helped us out by growling savagely at her whenever she bared her fangs against us. I told Juag of the disappearance of Dian, and of my suspicions as to the explanation of the catastrophe.
From here I had my first view of the village of caves. A low bluff ran diagonally across one end of the mesa, and in the face of this bluff were the mouths of many caves. Zig-zag trails led up to them, and narrow ledges scooped from the face of the soft rock connected those upon the same level. The cave in which Juag had been confined was at the extreme end of the cliff nearest me.
Horror-struck, I hastened to the brink of the abyss just in time to see two splashes upon the surface of the little cove below. For an instant I stood there watching with Dian at my side. Then, to my utter amazement, I saw Juag rise to the surface and swim strongly toward the boat. The fellow had dived that incredible distance and come up unharmed!
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