ext meeting--the
same swift spear that would meet ja's advances would meet his.

That night her snug little nest perched high in the great tree seemed
less the sanctuary that it had before. What might resist the sanguinary
intentions of a prowling panther would prove no great barrier to man,
and influenced by this thought she slept less well than before. The
slightest noise that broke the monotonous hum of the nocturnal jungle
startled her into alert wakefulness to lie with straining ears in an
attempt to classify the origin of the disturbance, and once she was
awakened thus by a sound that seemed to come from something moving in
her own tree. She listened intently--scarce breathing. Yes, there it
was again. A scuffing of something soft against the hard bark of the
tree. The woman reached out in the darkness and grasped her spear. Now
she felt a slight sagging of one of the limbs that supported her
shelter as though the thing, whatever it was, was slowly raising its
weight to the branch. It came nearer. Now she thought that she could
detect its breathing. It was at the door. She could hear it fumbling
with the frail barrier. What could it be? It made no sound by which she
might identify it. She raised herself upon her hands and knees and
crept stealthily the little distance to the doorway, her spear clutched
tightly in her hand. Whatever the thing was, it was evidently
attempting to gain entrance without awakening her. It was just beyond
the pitiful little contraption of slender boughs that she had bound
together with grasses and called a door--only a few inches lay between
the thing and her. Rising to her knees she reached out with her left
hand and felt until she found a place where a crooked branch had left
an opening a couple of inches wide near the center of the barrier. Into
this she inserted the point of her spear. The thing must have heard her
move within for suddenly it abandoned its efforts for stealth and tore
angrily at the obstacle. At the same moment Jane thrust her spear
forward with all her strength. She felt it enter flesh. There was a
scream and a curse from without, followed by the crashing of a body
through limbs and foliage. Her spear was almost dragged from her grasp,
but she held to it until it broke free from the thing it had pierced.

It was Obergatz; the curse had told her that. From below came no
further sound. Had she, then, killed him? She prayed so--with all her
heart she prayed it. To b