“To have served his daughter shall be reward enough for me,” I replied, “even though I succeed in winning not even her gratitude.” “That you already have for what you have just done at the risk of your life,” she assured me, and there was more graciousness in her voice than before. “What became of Vilor and Moosko?” I asked. Her lip curled in scorn. “When the kloonobargan attacked us, they fled.” “Where did they go?” I asked. “They swam the river and ran away in that direction.” She pointed toward the east. “Why did the klangan not desert you also?” “They were told to protect me. They know little else than to obey their superiors, and, too, they like to fight. Having little intelligence and no imagination, they are splendid fighters.” “I cannot understand why they did not fly away from danger and take you with them when they saw that defeat was certain. That would have insured the safety of all.” “By the time they were assured of that, it was too late,” she explained. “They could not have risen from behind our protection without being destroyed by the missiles of the kloonobargan.” This word, by way of parenthesis, is an interesting example of the derivation of an Amtorian substantive. Broadly, it means savages; literally, it means hairy men. In the singular, it is nobargan. _Gan_ is man; _bar_ is hair. _No_ is a contraction of _not_ (with), and is used as a prefix with the same value that the suffix _y_ has in English; therefore _nobar_ means hairy, _nobargan_, hairy man. The prefix _kloo_ forms the plural, and we have _kloonobargan_ (hairy men), savages. After determining that the four klangan were dead, Duare, the remaining angan, and I started down the river toward the ocean. On the way Duare told me what had occurred on board the _Sofal_ the preceding night, and I discovered that it had been almost precisely as Gamfor had pictured it. “What was their object in taking you with them?” I asked. “Vilor wanted me,” she replied. “And Moosko merely wished to escape?” “Yes. He thought that he would be killed when the ship reached Vepaja.” “How did they expect to survive in a wild country like this?” I asked. “Did they know where they were?” “They said that they thought that the country was Noobol,” she replied, “but they were not positive. The Thorans have agents in Noobol who are fomenting discord in an attempt to overthrow the government. There are several of these in a city on the coast, and it was Moosko’s intention to search for this city, where he was certain that he would find friends who would be able to arrange transportation for himself, Vilor, and me to Thora.” We walked on in silence for some time. I was just ahead of Duare, and the angan brought up the rear. He was crestfallen and dejected. His head and tail feathers drooped. The klangan are ordinarily so vociferous that this preternatural silence attracted my attention, and, thinking that he might have been injured in the fight, I questioned him.