t fern and mimosa.

They had run on at this free pace for a matter of half-an-hour or
more, and were beginning to flatter themselves that they had shaken
off their pursuers, when almost directly ahead of them, to the right,
appeared the Black Chief, lumbering down upon them. Nearly half-a-mile
behind, between the mimosa clumps, could be seen the mob of his
followers straggling up to his support. He yelled a furious challenge,
swung up his great club, and charged upon Grom. Waving A-ya behind
him, Grom strode forward, accepting the challenge.

As man to man, the rivals looked not unfairly matched. The fair-skinned
Man of the Caves was the taller by half a head, but obviously the
lighter in weight by a full stone, if not more. His long, straight,
powerfully muscled legs had not the massive strength of his bow-legged
adversary's. He was even slim, by comparison, in hip and waist. But
in chest, arms and shoulders his development was finer. Physically,
it seemed a matter of the lion against the bear.

To Grom there was one thing almost as vital, in that moment, as the
rescue of his woman. This was the slaking of his lust of hate against
the filthy beast-man who had held that woman captive. Fading ancestral
instincts flamed into new life within him. His impulse was to fling
down spear and club, to fall upon his rival with bare, throttling
hands and rending teeth. But his will, and his realization of all that
hung upon the outcome, held this madness in check.

Silent and motionless, poised lightly and gathered as if for a spring,
Grom waited till his adversary was within some thirty paces of him.
Then, with deadly force and sure aim, he hurled his one remaining
spear. But he had not counted on the lightning accuracy, swifter than
thought itself, with which the men of the trees used their huge hands.
The Black Chief caught the spear-head within a few inches of his body.
With a roar of rage he snapped the tough shaft like a parsnip stalk,
and threw the pieces aside. Even as he did so, Grom, still voiceless
and noiseless, was upon him.

Had the vicious swing of Grom's flint-headed club found its mark, the
battle would have been over. But the Black Chief, for all his bulk,
was quick as an eel. He bowed himself to the earth, so that the stroke
whistled idly over him, and in the next second he swung a vicious,
short blow upwards. It was well-aimed, at the small of Grom's back.
But the latter, feeling himself over-balanced by hi