“Fetch him!” he roared at Tav. “Fetch him! I will have his heart for my supper,” and after Tav had gone to fetch me, the giant stood there with his other followers, roaring and bellowing and always about himself and what he had done and what he would do. He seemed to me an exaggeration of a type I had seen before, wherein gestures simulate action, noise counterfeits courage, and wind passes for brains. The only impressive thing about him was his tremendous bulk and yet even that did not impress me greatly—I have known small men, whom I respected, that filled me with far greater awe. I did not fear him. I think only the ignorant could have feared him at all, and I did not believe all the pother about his eating human flesh. I am of the opinion that a man who really intended eating the heart of another would say nothing about it. Presently Tav came running back up the hill. He was much excited, as I had known that he would be, even before he started off to fetch me. “He is gone!” he cried to Raban. “They are both gone—Okonnor and the Yank. Look!” he held out the thongs that had fastened my wrists. “They have been cut. How could he cut them with his hands bound behind him? That is what I want to know. How could he have done it? He could not unless——” “There must have been others with him,” roared Raban. “They followed and set him free, taking Okonnor captive.” “There were no others,” insisted Tav. “Perhaps Okonnor freed him,” suggested another. So obvious an explanation could not have originated in the pea girth brain of Raban and so he said: “I knew it from the first—it was Okonnor. With my own hands I shall tear out his liver and eat it for breakfast.” Certain insects, toads and men make a lot of unnecessary noise, but the vast majority of other animals pass through life in dignified silence. It is our respect for these other animals that cause us to take their names. Whoever heard of a red hawk screeching his intentions to the world? Silently he soars above the treetops, and as silently he swoops and strikes. CHAPTER IX REUNION Through the conversation that I overheard between Raban and his minions I learned that Bethelda was imprisoned in the westerly ruin, but as Raban did not go thither during the afternoon I waited in the hope that fortune would favor me with a better opportunity after dark to attempt her liberation with less likelihood of interruption or discovery than would have been possible during the day, when men and women were constantly passing in and out of the easterly tent. There was the chance, too, that Okonnor might return with help and I did not want to do anything while that hope remained that might jeopardize Bethelda’s chances for escape.