But the rain
choked him. It beat down upon him with the weight of heavy hands, it
slushed up into his face from pools in the trail and drove the breath
from him when he attempted to open his jaws. So he ran close--so close
that at times Nada felt the touch of his body against her.

In these first minutes of her fight to overtake the man she loved Nada
heard but one voice--a voice crying out from her heart and brain and
soul, a voice rising above the tumult of thunder and wind, urging her
on, whipping the strength from her frail body in pitiless exhortation.
Jolly Roger was less than half an hour ahead of her. And she must
overtake him--quickly--before the forests swallowed him, before he was
gone from her life forever.

The wall of blackness against which she ran did not frighten her. When
the brush tore at her face and hair she swung free of it, and stumbled
on. Twice she ran blindly into broken trees that lay across her path,
and dragged her bruised body through their twisted tops, moaning to
Peter and clutching tightly to the sheathed knife in her hand. And the
wild spirits that possessed the night seemed to gather about her, and
over her, exulting in the helplessness of their victim, shrieking in
weird and savage joy at the discovery of this human plaything
struggling against their might. Never had Peter heard thunder as he
heard it now. It rocked the earth under his feet. It filled the world
with a ceaseless rumble, and the lightning came like flashes from
swift-loading guns, and with it all a terrific assault of wind and rain
that at last drove Nada down in a crumpled heap, panting for breath,
with hands groping out wildly for him.

Peter came to them, sodden and shivering. His warm tongue found the
palm of her hand, and for a space Nada hugged him close to her, while
she bowed her head until her drenched curls became a part of the mud
and water of the trail. Peter could hear her sobbing for breath. And
then suddenly, there came a change. The thunder was sweeping eastward.
The lightning was going with it. The wind died out in wailing sobs
among the treetops, and the rain fell straight down. Swiftly as its
fury had come, the July storm was passing. And Nada staggered to her
feet again and went on.

Her mind began to react with the lessening of the storm, dragging
itself out quickly from under the oppression of fear and shock. She
began to reason, and with that reason the beginning of faith and
confidence gave