Had the gentle wind that caressed the bosom of the lake been blowing
from a southerly direction the giant ape-man and Jane Clayton would
have been reunited then, but an unkind fate had willed otherwise
and the opportunity passed with the passing of his canoe which
presently his powerful strokes carried out of sight into the stream
at the lower end of the lake.
Following the winding river which bore a considerable distance to
the north before doubling back to empty into the Jad-in-lul, the
ape-man missed a portage that would have saved him hours of paddling.
It was at the upper end of this portage where Mo-sar and his warriors
had debarked that the chief discovered the absence of his captive.
As Mo-sar had been asleep since shortly after their departure from
A-lur, and as none of the warriors recalled when she had last been
seen, it was impossible to conjecture with any degree of accuracy
the place where she had escaped. The consensus of opinion was,
however, that it had been in the narrow river connecting Jad-ben-lul
with the lake next below it, which is called Jad-bal-lul, which
freely translated means the lake of gold. Mo-sar had been very wroth
and having himself been the only one at fault he naturally sought
with great diligence to fix the blame upon another.
He would have returned in search of her had he not feared to meet
a pursuing company dispatched either by Ja-don or the high priest,
both of whom, he knew, had just grievances against him.
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