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.

Following the voice, he came to the point indicated. A rope of twisted
raw-hide thong lay against the rock. His heart leaped within him. Soon
he would be free from this fearful place. The cliff here formed a
projecting angle, all jagged like the teeth of a saw. He remembered
noticing this, remembered balancing its capabilities of forming a
natural ladder. He had even climbed a few steps, and then had been
forced to own that it was impracticable. Now, however, with the aid of
the raw-hide rope, the thing could be done--done with comparative