Up he brought the automatic, till the bead lay fair upon the naked, muscular breast of the obeah. Beatrice handed Stern the rifle, then snatching the pail, dipped it, filled it to the brim. Stern heard the water lap and gurgle. He knew it was but a few seconds, yet it seemed an hour to him, at the very least. Keener than ever before in his whole life, his mental pictures now limned themselves with lightning rapidity upon his brain. Stamped on his consciousness was this lithe, lean, formidable body, showing beyond dispute its human ancestry; the right hand that held a _steel-pointed_ spear; the horrible ornament (a withered little smoked hand) that dangled from the left wrist by a cord of platted fiber. Vividly Stern beheld a deep gash or scar that ran from the chief's right eye--a dull, fishlike eye, evidently destroyed by that wound--down across the leathery cheek, across the prognathous jaw; a reddish-purple wale, which on that clay-blue skin produced an effect indescribably repulsive. Then the chief grunted, and moved forward, toward them. Stern saw that the gait was almost human, not shuffling and uncertain like that of the others, but firm and vigorous. He estimated the height at more than five feet, eight inches; the weight at possibly one hundred and forty pounds. Even at that juncture, his scientific mind, always accustomed to judging, instinctively registered these data, with the others. "Here, you, get back there!" shouted Stern, as the girl rose again from filling the pail. The cry was instinctive, for even as he uttered it, he knew it could not be understood. A thousand years of rapid degeneration had long wiped all traces of English speech from the brute-men, who now, at most, chattered some bestial gibberish. Yet the warning echoed loudly through Madison Forest; and the obeah hesitated. The tone, perhaps, conveyed some meaning to that brain behind the sloping forehead. Perhaps some dim, racial memory of human speech still lingered in that mind, in that strange organism which, by some freak of atavism, had "thrown back" out of the mire of returning animality almost to the human form and stature once again. However that may have been, the creature-chief halted in his advance. Undecided he stood a moment, leaning upon his spear, sucking at the rude mockery of a cigar. Stern remembered having seen Consul, the trained chimpanzee, smoke in precisely the same manner, and a nameless loathing filled him at his mockery of the dead, buried past. "Let me carry the pail!" said he. "We've got to hurry--hurry--or it may be too late!" "No, no--I'll keep the water!" she answered, panting. "You need both hands clear! Come!" Thus they turned, and, with a shuddering glance behind, started back for the tower again. But the obeah, with a whining plaint, spat away his tobacco-leaf. They heard a shuffle of feet. And, looking round again, both saw that he had crossed the little brook.