In a world where the sun hangs perpetually at zenith there is no darkness and without darkness there is little opportunity to escape from the clutches of a watchful enemy. Yet never for a moment was the thought of escape absent from the mind of Tanar the Sarian. He studied the sentries and as each one was relieved he tried to enter into conversation with his successor, but all to no avail—the warriors would not talk to him. Sometimes the guards dozed, but the village and the clearing about it were always alive with people so that it appeared unlikely that any opportunity for escape might present itself. The sentries were changed, food was brought to the prisoners and when they felt so inclined they slept. Thus only might they measure the lapse of time, if such a thing occurred to them, which doubtless it did not. They talked together and sometimes Stellara sang—sang the songs of Amiocap that her mother had taught her, and they were happy and contented, although each knew that the specter of death hovered constantly above them. Presently he would strike, but in the meantime they were happy. “When I was a youth,” said Tanar, “I was taken prisoner by the black people with tails. They build their villages among the high branches of lofty trees and, at first they put me in a small hut as dark as this and much dirtier and I was very miserable and very unhappy for I have always been free and I love my freedom, but now I am again a prisoner in a dark hut and in addition I know that I am going to die and I do not want to die, yet I am not unhappy. Why is it, Stellara, do you know?” “I have wondered about the same thing myself,” replied the girl. “It seems to me that I have never been so happy before in my life, but I do not know the reason.” They were sitting close together upon a fiber mat that they had placed near the doorway that they might obtain as much light and air as possible. Stellara’s soft eyes looked thoughtfully out upon the little world framed by the doorway of their prison cell. One hand rested listlessly on the mat between them. Tanar’s eyes rested upon her profile, and slowly his hand went out and covered hers. “Perhaps,” he said, “I should not be happy if you were not here.” The girl turned half frightened eyes upon him and withdrew her hand. “Don’t,” she said. “Why?” he asked. “I do not know, only that it makes me afraid.” The man was about to speak again when a figure darkened the opening in the doorway. A girl had come bringing food. Heretofore it had been a man—a taciturn man who had replied to none of Tanar’s questions. But there was no suggestion of taciturnity upon the beautiful, smiling countenance of the girl. “Here is food,” she said. “Are you hungry?” “Where there is nothing else to do but eat I am always hungry,” said Tanar. “But where is the man who brought our food before?” “That was my father,” replied the girl. “He has gone to hunt and I have brought the food in his stead.”