When at last it intersected a shallow beach that reeked not only of one but of a number of familiar body odors, it knew it had come to the place where its friends had been brought ashore. There was neither smell nor sight of a struggle, which the cat found most peculiar. Knowing that the human Captain would not have left her ship wholly untended and therefore suspecting foul play, the litah had expected to find evidence of a fight. In the absence of such evidence, it grew, if possible, more wary than ever.
Voices approached and the litah hunkered down behind one of the small boats that had been drawn up onshore. Two figures passed, faceless like those who had come aboard the ship to participate in the human festivities. The litah could have killed them silently and easily, with a single bite to the neck of each. But ignorance made it cautious. Not knowing what it was up against, the big cat held off doing anything that might alert the locals to its presence on their island.
Instead, it waited motionless for the two blank-visaged humans to pass. Dark as the night, it was virtually invisible in the absence of a bright moon, and the strollers did not even look in its direction. When their silhouettes and voices had faded into the distance, the litah left the beach and moved inland.
So recent and strong were the multiple smells of his friends and the crew that he was able to diverge from the actual path whenever it seemed he might pass into the open. Always picking up the scent trail after such momentary digressions, the litah soon found itself concealed within a patch of brush, eyeing the entrance to a single impressive stone structure. A quick circumnavigation of the edifice turned up no traces of his companions. Therefore it was reasonable to assume that they had been taken inside, where the spoor vanished.