Above the snowcapped
heights hung masses of heavy clouds. It was these, Perry explained,
which evidently served the double purpose of replenishing the
melting snows and protecting them from the direct rays of the sun.
By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bastard language
in which our guards addressed us, as well as making good headway
in the rather charming tongue of our co-captives. Directly ahead
of me in the chain gang was a young woman. Three feet of chain
linked us together in a forced companionship which I, at least,
soon rejoiced in. For I found her a willing teacher, and from
her I learned the language of her tribe, and much of the life and
customs of the inner world--at least that part of it with which
she was familiar.
She told me that she was called Dian the Beautiful, and that she
belonged to the tribe of Amoz, which dwells in the cliffs above
the Darel Az, or shallow sea.
"How came you here?" I asked her.
"I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One," she answered, as
though that was explanation quite sufficient.
"Who is Jubal the Ugly One?" I asked. "And why did you run away
from him?"
She looked at me in surprise.
"Why DOES a woman run away from a man?" she answered my question
with another.
"They do not, where I come from," I replied. "Sometimes they run
after them."
But she could not understand. Nor could I get her to grasp the
fact that I was of another world. She was quite as positive that
creation was originated solely to produce her own kind and the
world she lived in as are many of the outer world.
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