clinging weakly to his neck. The Mink thanked his Orbs--no,
not them, but whatever brought him luck--that he was one of the few
ruckers who had taught himself to swim....

* * * * *

He had gone farther by swimming than he might have running, for the
current was like a demon with a thousand legs, all speeding it on and
carrying him with it. His head lifted clear of the waters in the center
of the stream, and Jerran behind him broke into coughs and gurgles.
Revel looked for globes, and saw them upriver, lifting and falling
uncertainly. He said, "Take a breath!" did so himself, and sank again.
This time he stayed under for the space he could have counted fifty,
then rose again near the far bank.

He was among trees, birch and poplar and evergreen, that grew to the
water's brink. He struggled ashore, carrying a limp Jerran, and fell
with his burden beneath a single giant oak, which sheltered him from the
buttoned, all-seeing sky.

"Rest a while, Jerran. We've put plenty of distance behind us."

Yet when he stood up and gave his friend a hand, five minutes later, he
could already hear the baying of hounds.

A touch of panic threaded down his spine--not the panic that flared and
died when a woodchuck startled him, but the panic of any hunted creature
who, do what he may, still hears the pursuers close behind him. The
sound of the howls told him the dogs had crossed the river. He looked
up, but saw no orbs. No dog scents a man two miles off. Who had betrayed
them? Or were the gentry presuming that they must have crossed?

He broke trail for Jerran through a section that a great bear would have
found hard going, all vines and tough saplings and snake holes that sunk
beneath his sandaled feet. His body was by this time a hatched network
of pain and scarlet stripes, oozing blood.

He had expected the mass of impeding vegetation to be a thin patch at
best, but it went on and on, and the trees thinned so that the sky was
open above them. It was a matter of time only till the globes spotted
him. The hounds were louder. Once he heard the shout of a man, thin and
high in the distance.

At last he was on solid, uncluttered ground again. He looked down at his
skin, wondering if it would ever be smooth and whole again. His body had
been gouged, gashed, torn, disfigured.

"Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo-lo-lo-lo-lo!" The terrible cry rang behind
him, and turning, he saw two horsemen cresting a hill t