Flatfoot trembled, his knees smote together, he staggered drunkenly, and then, when Waldo looked to see him go down, the brute power that was in him, responding to nature's first law, sent him hurtling at the Bostonian's throat in the snarling, blind rage of the death-smitten beast. Catapulted by all the enormous strength of his mighty muscles, the squat, bear-like animal bore Waldo to earth, and at the same instant each found the other's throat with sinewy, viselike fingers. They lay very still now, choking with firm, relentless clutch. Every ounce of muscle was needed, every grain of endurance. Waldo was suffering agonies after a moment of that awful death-grip. He could feel his gasping, pain-racked lungs struggling for air. He tried to wriggle free from those horrible fingers, but not once did he loosen his own hold upon the throat of Flatfoot; instead he tried to close a little tighter each second that he felt his own life ebbing. He became weaker and weaker. The pain was unendurable now. A haze obscured his vision--everything became black--his brain was whizzing about at frightful velocity within the awful darkness of his skull. The girl was bending close above them now, for both were struggling less violently. She had been minded to come to Thandar's rescue when suddenly she recalled his desertion of her, and all the wild hatred of the primitive mind surged through her. Let him die, she thought. He had spurned her, cast her off; he looked down upon her. Well, let him take care of himself, then, and she turned deliberately away to leave the two men to decide the outcome of their own battle, and started back upon the trail in the direction of her tribe's village. But she had taken scarce a score of steps when something flamed up in her heart that withered the last remnant of her malice toward Thandar. As she turned back again toward the combatants she attempted to justify this new weakness by the thought that it was only fair that she should give the yellow one aid in return for the aid that he had rendered her; that done, she could go on her way with a clear conscience. She wished never to see him again, but she could not have his blood upon her hands. At that thought she gave a little cry and ran to where the men lay. Both were almost quiet now; their struggles had nearly ceased. Just as she reached them Flatfoot relaxed, his hands slipped from Waldo's throat and he lay entirely motionless. Then the fair giant struggled convulsively once or twice; he gasped, his eyes rolled up and set, and with a sudden twitching of his muscles he stiffened rigidly and was very still. Nadara gave one horrified look at the ghastly face of her champion, and fled into the jungle. She stumbled on for a quarter of a mile as fast as her tired limbs would carry her through the entangling grasses, and then she came to that which she sought--a little stream, winding slowly through the valley down toward the ocean.