He would come
back though. He would come back and when he had finished with her,
he would take that smooth throat in his two hands and crush the
life from her.
He kept repeating this over and over to himself and then he fell
to laughing out loud, the cackling, hideous laughter that had
terrified Jane. Presently he realized his knees were bleeding and
that they hurt him. He looked cautiously behind. No one was in
sight. He listened. He could hear no indications of pursuit and so
he rose to his feet and continued upon his way a sorry sight--covered
with filth and blood, his beard and hair tangled and matted and
filled with burrs and dried mud and unspeakable filth. He kept no
track of time. He ate fruits and berries and tubers that he dug
from the earth with his fingers. He followed the shore of the lake
and the river that he might be near water, and when ja roared or
moaned he climbed a tree and hid there, shivering.
And so after a time he came up the southern shore of Jad-ben-lul
until a wide river stopped his progress. Across the blue water a
white city glimmered in the sun. He looked at it for a long time,
blinking his eyes like an owl. Slowly a recollection forced itself
through his tangled brain. This was A-lur, the City of Light. The
association of ideas recalled Bu-lur and the Waz-ho-don.
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