His will-power triumphed. He knew that did he once again get within grip of those ghastly tentacles he would never emerge alive. He swung up his improvised mace; the creature was now within twelve yards of him. He hurled the club; with terrific force it cleft the air, the massive band of gold which constituted its head lighting full upon one of the demon's eyes. For one moment the horror contracted into a heaving, writhing heap, frightful to behold, then, throwing out its grisly tentacles, it spun round and round as it had done before. The man's heart was beating as though it would burst. Was the thing slain, or in its vampire tenacity of life would it renew the combat? Ha!--was it coming again? Was it? One moment of the most unutterable suspense, and then--and then--the fearful thing drew back, turned round, and shoggled away in the direction whence it had come. It was worsted. Save for a few scratches, Laurence was unhurt. He had almost miraculously escaped the creature's nippers. Yet now that he had won his hard-fought victory, a sort of rage took possession of him, an impulse to follow it up, to destroy this fell horror utterly. Growling a savage curse, he started in pursuit of the retreating monster, but hardly had he taken two steps forward than there floated to his ear a sound--a voice which seemed to fall from the sky itself. He stopped short in his tracks and stood immovable, statuesque, listening. CHAPTER XXVIII. "ONLY A SAVAGE!" "Nyonyoba!" Clear, distinct, the name sounded, floating down from above. "What the devil is that?" was the characteristic exclamation that burst from Laurence--and there was something of a quaver in the tone. For his nerves were quite overstrung, and no manifestation of things unknown would have surprised him now. "Nyonyoba! Ho, Nyonyoba!" again called the voice in soft, rich Zulu tones, low but penetrating. "Move now some thirty paces to where the cliff juts. There is that by which you may return to earth again--and the Spider may go hungry." "The Spider has got enough to fill him up for some long time," answered Laurence, with excusable pride. "But who speaks?--The voice is like that of Lindela." "It is that of Lindela," came the soft-toned reply. "Climb now, and tarry not. I see the Spider. Climb before it is too late." With all his elation, now that the first flush of victory was over, Laurence could not recall without a shiver the grasp of those horrible tentacles, the fiend-like glare of that dreadful face. He vastly preferred flight to renewed fight, now.