Alan and Desmond lay and listened to the babel of their voices, for strangely enough the slightest sound from the other cave was magnified in this inner one. Then a silence fell, and they realized that the purple savages had once more gone. Hungrily they gathered roots and ate them greedily—when a woman’s cry, clear and distinct, startled them. Again and again it came—“Ar-lane! Jez-mun!” Their names were called in the quaint pronunciation of the underworld folk. “Who is it?” asked Desmond. “I’ll see.”— “No don’t go—don’t go—it’s some trick—” but Alan had already pulled down the stones in front of the hinged stone. “Ar-lane. Jez-mun.” Again the cry came. “Open—open I beg. I come to aid you.” “I am going to speak to her,” said Alan grimly, and he put his lips close against the stone. “Who are you and what do you want of us?” A glad cry was his answer, and then followed quickly—“Let me through, O Ar-lane—I have come to seek thee.” “What do you want of us?” “Listen, O Ar-lane, I have fled from my home in the temple of Fire, and have come to thee. Years ago when a tiny child, I found the cavern and knew it well. But Am-rab the Wise, my tutor and priest, forbade me with threats of torture to wander there again. Since then I have not set eyes upon the place. Let me in, O Ar-lane, for the spring is broken on this side, and I cannot find it.” Desmond was listening suspiciously. “What are you going to do?” he asked. And again came the pleading voice. “Let me in, O Ar-lane. Oh, let me in.” Alan looked questioningly at Desmond and he gave his cousin a quick nod. “If it’s treachery we’re done,” he remarked, as he touched the spring and the stone moved. As soon as it was wide open the woman entered. They did not know her, but her eyes were swollen from weeping and her face drawn with emotion, and they realized that she had suffered. “Waste no time,” she commanded imperiously. “My flight is already spoken of in the temple. Should they seek me, it will need all our strength, all our cunning to hide from them. Close the door, O Ar-lane, and build up a wall of stones in front, that is strong, and then let us hasten on.” So once more the place was barricaded, and only when the barrier was complete did she deign to explain her presence. “You know me not, O Men of the Upper World, for you have never set eyes upon me before; but I have seen you often. Behold, I am Jez-Riah, seed of the house of Bin-Nab, and hereditary Keeper of the Hall of Fire. It is the custom, know ye, in this land of ours, for the female seed of Bin-Nab to keep veiled after they have reached the age of ten. I cast aside my veil yester-eve, and immediately came to seek thee.” “Why?” asked Alan curtly. The woman was fair to look upon—her eyes were deep and luminous, and her tear-stained cheeks filled them with pity. Yet to be hampered with a woman seemed to take from them every chance of their ultimate escape.