The Chief screeched an order. Straightway the mob divided. One part went racing clumsily up the shore to the left, the other followed the Chief along through the rank sedge-growth to the right--the Chief, by reason of his superior stature and length of leg, rapidly opening up his lead. "It's nothing but a pond," said Grom, in disgust, "and they're coming round the shore to head us off." But the girl, her hair trailing darkly on the water behind her, only laughed. She was free at last. And she was with her man. Suddenly Grom felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the calf of his leg. With a cry, he looked back, expecting to see a water-snake gliding off. He saw nothing. But in the next instant another stab came in the other leg. Then A-ya screamed: "They're biting me all over." A dozen stinging punctures distributed themselves all at once over Grom's body. Then he understood that their assailants were not water-snakes. "Quick! To shore!" he ordered. Throwing all their strength into a breath-sapping, over-hand roll, they shot forward, gained the weedy shallows, and scrambled ashore. Their bodies were hung thickly with gigantic leeches. Heedless of the wounds and the drench of blood, they tore off their loathsome assailants. Then, after a few seconds' halt to regain breath and decide on their direction, they started northwestward at a rapid, swinging lope, through a region of open, grassy glades set with thickets of giant fern and mimosa. They had run on at this free pace for a matter of half-an-hour or more, and were beginning to flatter themselves that they had shaken off their pursuers, when almost directly ahead of them, to the right, appeared the Black Chief, lumbering down upon them. Nearly half-a-mile behind, between the mimosa clumps, could be seen the mob of his followers straggling up to his support. He yelled a furious challenge, swung up his great club, and charged upon Grom. Waving A-ya behind him, Grom strode forward, accepting the challenge. As man to man, the rivals looked not unfairly matched. The fair-skinned Man of the Caves was the taller by half a head, but obviously the lighter in weight by a full stone, if not more. His long, straight, powerfully muscled legs had not the massive strength of his bow-legged adversary's. He was even slim, by comparison, in hip and waist. But in chest, arms and shoulders his development was finer. Physically, it seemed a matter of the lion against the bear. To Grom there was one thing almost as vital, in that moment, as the rescue of his woman. This was the slaking of his lust of hate against the filthy beast-man who had held that woman captive. Fading ancestral instincts flamed into new life within him. His impulse was to fling down spear and club, to fall upon his rival with bare, throttling hands and rending teeth. But his will, and his realization of all that hung upon the outcome, held this madness in check.