club--which was longer and more symmetrically fashioned than that of
the chief. In color he was manifestly white, for all that dirt and
the weather could do to disguise it. He was taller even than the great
Black Chief himself--but shorter in the body, and achieving his
height through length and straightness of leg. He had chest and
shoulders of enormous power; but, unlike the barrel-shaped Bow-legs
he was comparatively slim of waist and hips. He had less hair on
the body--except on the chest and forearm--than his companions;
but far more on the head, where it stood out all around like an
immense black-tawny mane. His face, though heavy and lowering, _was_
a face--with square, resolute jaws, a modelled mouth, a big,
fully-bridged nose, and a spacious forehead. His eyes were blue, and
now, deep under their shaggy brows, glared upon the Chief with
desperate defiance. Close behind his heels crouched a girl,
obviously of his own race--a tall, strong, shapely figure of a
woman, as could well be seen, though her attitude was one of utter
dejection, her face sunk upon her knees, and half her body hidden
in the tangled torrent of her dull chestnut hair.

The tall alien, so dauntlessly eyeing the Chief, was Mawg the
renegade. Arrogant in his folly, he had not realized that the Tree Men
would hold him to account for the calamity which he had brought upon
them. He had not realized that the girl A-ya, with her straight limbs
and her strong comeliness, might stir the craving of others besides
himself. Now, as he listened to the fierce harangue of the Chief, as
his alert ears caught the mutterings behind and about him, he saw the
pit yawn suddenly at his feet. But though a brute and a traitor, he
was no coward. His veins began to run hot, his sinews to stretch for
the death struggle which would presently be upon him.

As for the girl, unseeing, unhearing, her head bowed between her naked
knees, she cared nothing. She loathed life, and all about her,
equally. Her baby and her lord, if they yet lived, were far away
beyond the mountains and the swamps, in the caverned hillside behind
the smoke of the fires. Her captor, Mawg, she loathed above all; but
she was here behind him because he held her always within reach lest
the filthy women of the Bow-legs should tear her to pieces.

Suddenly, without looking around, Mawg spoke to her, in their own
tongue, which the Bow-legs could not understand. "Be ready, girl. They
are going to kill