As he neared the swift promontory which terminated with the range of downs, Grom began to fear that he and his followers would have to take refuge in the water. This water, as it chanced, was the brackish estuary of a river which, sweeping down from the east, here made its way to the sea through a long, slanting break in the limestone hills. It was now near low tide, and there opened before the hard-pressed fugitives, as they approached the shore, a strip of damp beach running around the base of the bluff. As they left the grass and ran out upon the beach they were astonished to find that the thundering pursuit had stopped short. Just at the turn of the cliff they halted and stared back wonderingly. Their pursuers, though swinging their great horns and braying with rage, were evidently unwilling to venture so near the waterside. They drew back, indeed, as if they feared it, and at last went crashing away into the canes. The fugitives, glad of an opportunity to rest their laboring lungs, squatted down with their backs against the cliff and congratulated themselves on having got rid of such perilous attentions. But Grom's sagacious eyes searched the cliff face anxiously, without neglecting to watch the unruffled water. If that water was so dreaded that even the mighty herd of their pursuers durst not approach it, surely its smiling surface must hide some peril of surpassing horror. For the next few hundred yards, till it vanished around the curve, the strip of naked beach was not more than twenty or thirty feet in width. Not without some apprehensions, Grom decided to push forward. There seemed nothing else to do, indeed, seeing that the cane-beds behind them were occupied by that irresistible red herd. Somewhere ahead, he argued, there must be a break in the cliff which would give access to the rolling downs above, where they might travel in safety. Disguising his growing uneasiness that he might not discourage his followers--who were now full of elation at having reached the foot of the hills--he led on again in haste, though there seemed to be no need of haste. Both Hobbo and young Mo, indeed, were for staying a while and sleeping in the shade of an overhanging rock. But A-ya, who sensed through sympathy her lord's disquietude, and the little scout Loob, who was always, on principle, ill at ease in any spot where there was no tree to climb, were as eager as their chief to push ahead; and the others would never have dared, in any case, to question Grom's decision. As they rounded the next bend of the cliff, however, a clamor of excited satisfaction arose from all the party. Straight ahead, and not fifty paces distant, there opened before them a spacious cave-mouth, with a somewhat wider strip of beach before it. Immediately beyond the cave the strip of beach came sharply to an end, and the tide lapped softly against the foot of the cliff.