Of course the languages differ in accordance with the culture of the nations; those with the fewest wants and the fewest experiences have the fewest words. The language of the nobargans is probably the most limited; a vocabulary of a hundred words may suffice them. But the basic root-words are the same everywhere. The creature that had protected me, it presently developed, was the jong, or king, of this tribe; and I later learned that his act was not prompted by humanitarian considerations but by a desire to save me for another fate. My act had not been entirely without good results, for during the balance of the march Duare was no longer dragged along by her hair. She thanked me for championing her; and that in itself was something worth being man-handled for, but she cautioned me against antagonizing them further. Having discovered that at least one of these creatures could speak at least one word of the Amtorian language with which I was familiar, I sought to delve farther in the hope that I might ascertain the purpose for which they had captured us. "Why have you seized us?" I inquired of the brute that had spoken that single word. He looked at me in surprise, and those near enough to have overheard my question commenced to laugh and repeat it. Their laugh is far from light, airy, or reassuring. They bare their teeth in a grimace and emit a sound that is for all the world like the retching of _mal de mer_, and there is no laughter in their eyes. It took quite a stretch of my imagination to identify this as laughter. "Albargan not know?" asked the jong. Albargan is, literally, no-hair-man, or without-hair-man, otherwise, hairless man. "I do not know," I replied. "We were not harming you. We were searching for the sea coast where our people are." "Albargan find out soon," and then he laughed again. I tried to think of some way to bribe him into letting us go; but inasmuch as he had thrown away as useless the only things of value that we possessed, it seemed rather hopeless. "Tell me what you want most," I suggested, "and perhaps I can get it for you if you will take us to the coast." "We have what we want," he replied, and that answer made them all laugh. I was walking close to Duare now, and she looked up at me with a hopeless expression. "I am afraid we are in for it," she said. "It is all my fault. If I had had brains enough to find the ocean this would never have happened." "Don't blame yourself. No one could have done more to protect and save me than you have. Please do not think that I do not appreciate it."