k, bending down and holding
his fire-hardened stabbing-stick of ash in his hand, appeared Siss. He
stopped dead, and his eyes met Ugh-lomi's.

Ugh-lomi forgot he had a wounded leg. He stood firmly on both feet.
Something trickled. He glanced down and saw a little gout of blood had
oozed out along the edge of the healing wound. He rubbed his hand there
to give him the grip of his club, and fixed his eyes again on Siss.

"Wau!" he cried, and sprang forward, and Siss, still stooping and
watchful, drove his stabbing-stick up very quickly in an ugly thrust. It
ripped Ugh-lomi's guarding arm and the club came down in a counter that
Siss was never to understand. He fell, as an ox falls to the pole-axe,
at Ugh-lomi's feet.

To Bo it seemed the strangest thing. He had a comforting sense of tall
reeds on either side, and an impregnable rampart, Siss, between him and
any danger. Snail-eater was close behind and there was no danger there.
He was prepared to shove behind and send Siss to death or victory. That
was his place as second man. He saw the butt of the spear Siss carried
leap away from him, and suddenly a dull whack and the broad back fell
away forward, and he looked Ugh-lomi in the face over his prostrate
leader. It felt to Bo as if his heart had fallen down a well. He had a
throwing-stone in one hand and an ashen stabbing-stick in the other. He
did not live to the end of his momentary hesitation which to use.

Snail-eater was a readier man, and besides Bo did not fall forward as
Siss had done, but gave at his knees and hips, crumpling up with the
toothed club upon his head. The Snail-eater drove his spear forward
swift and straight, and took Ugh-lomi in the muscle of the shoulder, and
then he drove him hard with the smiting-stone in his other hand,
shouting out as he did so. The new club swished ineffectually through
the reeds. Eudena saw Ugh-lomi come staggering back from the narrow path
into the open space, tripping over Siss and with a foot of ashen stake
sticking out of him over his arm. And then the Snail-eater, whose name
she had given, had his final injury from her, as his exultant face came
out of the reeds after his spear. For she swung the first axe swift and
high, and hit him fair and square on the temple; and down he went on
Siss at prostrate Ugh-lomi's feet.

But before Ugh-lomi could get up, the two red-haired men were tumbling
out of the reeds, spears and smiting-stones ready, and Snake hard behind
the