s
some three or four hundred yards in width. They did not know whether
it was a sluggish fenland river, or the arm of a lake; but, heedless
of the peril of crocodiles and water-snakes they plunged in, and with
long powerful side-strokes went surging across toward the opposite
shore. They had a clear start of thirty or forty yards, and their pace
in the water was tremendous. Some heavy splashes in the water behind
them showed how the clumsy missiles of their foes--ragged clubs and
fragments of broken branches--were falling short; and they looked back
derisively.

The bow-legged, shaggy men with their wide, red, skyward nostrils were
ranged along the shore, and the Chief was fiercely urging them into
the water. They shrank back in horror at the prospect--which, indeed,
seemed little to the taste of the Chief himself. Presently he seized
the two nearest by their matted manes, and flung them headlong in.
With yells of terror they scrambled out again, and scurried off to the
rear like half-drowned hens.

The Chief screeched an order. Straightway the mob divided. One part
went racing clumsily up the shore to the left, the other followed the
Chief along through the rank sedge-growth to the right--the Chief, by
reason of his superior stature and length of leg, rapidly opening up
his lead.

"It's nothing but a pond," said Grom, in disgust, "and they're coming
round the shore to head us off."

But the girl, her hair trailing darkly on the water behind her, only
laughed. She was free at last. And she was with her man.

Suddenly Grom felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the calf of his leg. With
a cry, he looked back, expecting to see a water-snake gliding off. He
saw nothing. But in the next instant another stab came in the other
leg. Then A-ya screamed: "They're biting me all over." A dozen
stinging punctures distributed themselves all at once over Grom's
body. Then he understood that their assailants were not water-snakes.

"Quick! To shore!" he ordered. Throwing all their strength into a
breath-sapping, over-hand roll, they shot forward, gained the weedy
shallows, and scrambled ashore. Their bodies were hung thickly with
gigantic leeches.

Heedless of the wounds and the drench of blood, they tore off their
loathsome assailants. Then, after a few seconds' halt to regain breath
and decide on their direction, they started northwestward at a rapid,
swinging lope, through a region of open, grassy glades set with
thickets of gian