THE CHOSEN ONES ( PART THIRTY SEVEN )

"Who is this Meradith?" said Ivan staring at the
stranger.

"I don't know," said Meradith, "he jumped out on us, while we were walking."

The stranger looked puzzled. "Hang on a minute!"
he said, "I never jumped out on you, I was just very hungry and wanted a bit of your fish."

"So!" said Ivan, "who are you then?"

"My name is Jermiah, I have escaped from Jonah, the
bad hunter you talk of, I was one of his men...but
not any more."

Jermiah knelt down on the ground tired, he felt a
fear, when he thought of what would happen to him,
if he was caught.

Ivan turned to Jermiah, "so why were you running
away?"

Jermiah explained with fear in his eyes, that Jonah
had captured a young girl. While Jonah was sleeping, the girl had escaped. He explained that he was supposed to be guarding the girl, but he had
just slipped away for a drink, when he got back the
girl was gone. Then he said, "I did not want to hang around to be punished, so I ran."

Ivan and Meradith turned and looked at one another,
thinking the same thing, 'could it be Bella, that
had escaped?'

Jermiah looked at Meradith and asked, "why do you
want to know?"

"My daughter and her horse were taken, up at Stone
Crop, we were camped up there. It was a really bad
day, rain and thunder storms. I'm so worried about
her."

Jermiah realised this girl was most probably their
daughter. "Yes...I'm almost sure it's your daughter, though she did say, she never had any
family...Jonah never believed her. Though she managed to escape, I'm afraid her horse wasn't so
lucky, Jonah had the horse killed."

"But why kill the horse?" said Ivan.

"Jonah is a cruel man, that is how he leads his
men...he finds their weakness, then uses it against
them. Obviously your daughter was close to her horse."

Meradith looked at Ivan, "how much more sadness
could there be?"

But at least, they knew that Bella had escaped but
where could she be? they wondered.

To be continued .......