Loping onward at moderate pace through the enchanting pink light, which filtered down about them through the massed bloom overhead, they presently became conscious of an oppressive silence. The cries of their pursuers having died away behind them, there was now nothing but the soft thud of their own footfalls to relieve the anxious intentness of their ears. Not a bird-note, not the flutter of a wing, not the hum or the darting of a single insect, disturbed the strangely heavy air. No snake or lizard or squeaking mouse scurried among the fallen leaves. They wondered greatly at such stillness. Then they wondered at the absence of small undergrowth, the lack of other shrubs and trees such as were wont to grow together in the warm jungle. Nothing anywhere about them but the endless gray stems and pallid slim leaves of the oleander, with their rose-red roof of blossom. Presently they felt a lethargy creeping over their limbs, which began to grow heavy; and a dull pain came throbbing behind their eyes. Then understanding of those cries of triumph flashed into Grom's mind. He stopped and clutched the girl by the wrist. "It is poison here. It is death," he muttered. "That's why they shouted." "Yes, everything is dead but the red flowers," whispered A-ya, and clung to him, shuddering with awe. "Courage!" cried Grom, lifting his head and dashing his great hand across his eyes. "We _must_ get through. We _must_ find air." Shaking off the deadly sloth, they ran on again at full speed, peering through the stems in every direction. The effort made their brains throb fiercely. And still there was nothing before them and about them but the endless succession of slender gray stems and the downpour of that sinister rosy light. At last A-ya's steps began to lag, as if she were growing sleepy. "Wake up!" shouted Grom, and dragged so fiercely at her arm that she cried out. But the pain aroused her to a new effort. She sprang forward, sobbing. The next moment, she was jerked violently to the left. "This way!" panted Grom, the sweat pouring down his livid face; and there, through the stems to the left, her dazed eyes perceived that the hated rosy glow was paling into the whiteness of the natural day. It was a big white rock, an island thrust up through the sea of treacherous bloom. With fumbling, nerveless fingers they scaled its bare sides, flung themselves down among the scant but wholesome herbage, which clothed its top, and filled their lungs with the clean, reviving air. Dimly they heard a blessed buzzing of insects, and several great flies, with barred wings, lit upon them and bit them sharply. They lay with closed eyes, while slowly the throbbing in their brains died away and strength flowed back into their unstrung limbs.