But the panting men threw up their hands.

"As a swarm of locusts to a flock of starlings," they replied.

To their astonishment the Chief smiled with grim satisfaction at this
appalling news.

"It is well," said he. Mounting a rock by the cave-door, he gazed up
the valley, striving to make out the vanguard of the approaching
hordes; while Grom, marshalling the servitors of the fire, stationed
them by the range of piles, ready to set light to them on the given
word.

It was nearly an hour--so swift had been the terror of the scouts--before
a low, terrible sound of crashings and mutterings announced that the hordes
were drawing near. It was now twilight, with the first stars appearing in
a pallid violet sky; and up the valley could be discerned an obscurely
rolling confusion among the thickets. Bawr gave orders, rapid and concise;
and the combatants lined out in a double rank along the front of the
plateau some three or four paces behind the piles of wood.

They were armed with stone-headed clubs, large or small, according to
personal taste, and each carried at least three flint-tipped spears.
At the head of the narrow path leading up from the lower cave were
stationed half a dozen women, similarly armed. Bawr had chosen these
women because each of them had one or more young children in the cave
behind her; and he knew that no adventurous foe would get up that path
alive. But A-ya was not among these six wild mothers, for her place
was at the service of the fires.

The ominous roar and that obscure confusion rolled swiftly nearer, and
Bawr, with a swing of his huge club, sprang down from his post of
observation and strode to the front. Grom shouted an order, and light
was set to all the crescent of fires. They flared up briskly; and at
the same time the big central fire, which had been allowed to sink to
a heap of glowing coals, was heaped with dry stuff which sent up an
instant column of flame. The sudden wide illumination, shed some
hundreds of yards up the valley, revealed the front ranks of the
Bow-legs swarming in the brush, their hideous yellow faces, gaping
nostrils and pig-like eyes all turned up in awe towards the glare.

The advance of the front ranks came to an instant halt, and the low
muttering rose to a chorus of harsh cries. Then the tall figure of
Mawg sprang to the front, followed, after a moment of wondering
hesitation, by that of the head chief of the hordes, a massive
creature of the true B