An hour passed. The light of the setting sun grew weaker and weaker. Everyone became irritable because the dense forest still showed no sign of ending.
Ali, too, walked among a group of women with a restless heart when she suddenly heard panicked shouts ahead. It was the screams of the two men leading the way, filled with despair and fear. For some reason, she thought that the young man they had just met would never scream like that.
The men had discovered a strip of cloth on a tree—it was the strip that had been torn from that woman's clothes earlier. Everyone realized that for the past hour, they had been walking in circles in this dense forest.
Yet the men, including the Chief, swore they had been moving in a straight line! People who live off the mountains would never be unclear about directions.
Two of the women were so scared that they immediately burst into tears, quickly silenced by slaps from their men. Everyone looked at the Chief, waiting for his instructions.
