At the sound of her scream, Grom was back at her side in two leaps, his hair and beard bristling stiffly, his eyes blazing with rage. But there was no assailant in sight on whom to hurl himself. For a second or two he glared about him wildly, with Loob crouched beside him, snarling for vengeance. Then, perceiving the woman's plight, he flung himself upon her, trying to envelop her in one sweeping embrace that should crush all the virulent pests at once. In this he failed signally; and in an instant the liquid fire was running over his own body. The torture of it, however, was a small thing to him compared with the torture of seeing them sting the woman, and feeling himself impotent to effect her instant succor. He slapped and beat at her with his great hands, while she covered her face with her own hands to protect it from disfigurement. Loob came to help, but Grom, his brain keen in every emergency, stopped him. "Keep off!" he ordered. "Keep off! and keep watch!" Then he seized A-ya by one arm, rushed her to the edge of the bank, and dragged her with him into the water. At this point the water was not much more than three feet deep. They crouched down in it, heads under, for nearly a minute; while Loob, spear in hand, stood over them, his wild little eyes scanning the water depths in front and the jungle depths behind for the approach of any foe. When they could hold their breath no longer, they stood up. Their red assailants were floating off on the current; but the fiery poison remained, and they bathed each other's scarlet and scorched shoulders assiduously, forgetful for the moment of everything besides. At this moment a gigantic water python reared its head from the leafage close by, fixed its flat, lidless, glittering eyes upon them, and drew back to strike. But in the next second Loob's ready spear was thrust clean through its throat, and his yell of warning tore the air. Grom and A-ya whipped up onto the bank like a pair of otters: and the python, mortally stricken, shot out into the water over their heads, carrying Loob's spear with it, gripped tight in the constriction of its throat muscles. As the lashing body struck the surface the water boiled about it, suddenly alive with crocodiles. Balked of their human prey, they fell upon the python. One of the monsters shot straight up, half-way out of the water, with two convulsive coils of the python's tail wrapped crushingly about its jaws; but the python, with Loob's spear through its throat, could only struggle blindly. A moment more and it was bitten in two, and the crocodiles were fighting monstrously among themselves for the writhing fragments. "You got us out of that just in time," said Grom, grinning upon the little scout with approval. A-ya wrung the water out of her heavy hair with both hands, and threw the masses back with an upward toss of her head. "I hate ants," she said, shuddering. "Let's get away from here." II