"There is one way, perhaps," he said at length. "We have learned to journey on the water. We must build us rafts, many rafts, to carry all the tribe. And when we can no longer hold our fires and our caves we will push out upon the water, and perhaps make our way to that blue shore yonder, where they cannot follow us." "The waves, and the monsters of the waves, will swallow us up," suggested Bawr. "Some of us, perhaps many of us," agreed Grom. "But many of us will escape, to keep the tribe-fires burning, if the gods be kind upon that day and bind down the winds till we get over. If we stay here we shall all die." "It is well," grunted Bawr, turning to hurry down the steep. "We will build rafts. Let us hasten." * * * * * On the beach below the Caves the Men of the Tribe worked furiously, dragging the trunks of trees together at the water's edge, lashing them with ropes of vine and cords of hide, and laboriously lopping some of the more obstructive branches by the combined use of fire and split stones. The women, and the lame slave Ook-ootsk--with the old men, who, though their hearts were still high, were too frail of their hands for such a heavy task as raft-building--remained before the Caves under the command of A-ya, Grom's mate. They had enough to do in feeding the chain of fires, keeping the children out of danger, and fighting back with spear and arrow the ever-encroaching mob of wild-eyed beasts. The beasts feared the fires, and feared the human beings who leaped and screamed and smote from among the fires. But still more they seemed to fear some unknown thing behind them. For a time, however, the crackling flames and the biting shafts proved a sufficient barrier, and the motley but terrifying invaders went sheering off irresolutely to westward over the downs. Down by the edge of the tide the raft-builders worked under Grom's guidance. The broad water--some four or five miles across--was the tidal estuary of a great river which flowed out of the north-west. Its brimming current bore down from the interior jungles the trunks of many uprooted trees, which the tides of the estuary hurled back and strewed along the beach. The raft-builders, therefore, had plenty of material to work with. And the fear that lay chill upon their hearts urged them to a diligence that was far from their habit. It was rather like working in a nightmare. From time to time would come a rush, a stampede, of deer or tapirs, along the strip of beach between the water and the cliff. The toiling men would draw aside till the rabble went by, then fall to work again.