iding all combats in
their haste to get back to their own country of the homely caves and
the guardian watch-fires. At the approach of the great black lion or
the saber-tooth, or the wantonly malignant rhinoceros, they betook
themselves to the tree-tops, and continued their way by that aerial
path as long as it served them. The most subtle of the beasts they
knew they could outwit, and their own anxiety now was Mawg, whose
craft and courage Grom could no longer hold in scorn. He was doubtless
at large, and quite possibly on their trail, biding his time to catch
them unawares. They never allowed themselves, therefore, to sleep both
at the same time. One always kept on guard: and hence their progress,
for all their eagerness, was slower than it would otherwise have
been.

On a certain day, after a long unbroken stretch of travel, A-ya rested
and kept watch in a tree-top, while Grom went to fetch a bunch of
plantains. It was fairly open country, a region of low herbage dotted
with small groves and single trees; and the girl, herself securely
hidden, could see in every direction. She could see Grom wandering
from plantain clump to plantain clump, seeking fruit ripe enough to be
palatable. And then, with a shiver of hate and dread, she saw the dark
form of Mawg, creeping noiselessly on Grom's trail, and not more than
a couple of hundred paces behind him. At the very moment when her eyes
fell upon him, he dropped flat upon his face, and began worming his
way soundlessly through the herbage.

Her mouth opened wide to give the alarm. But the cry stopped in her
throat, and a smile of bitter triumph spread over her face.

If Mawg was hunting Grom, he was at the same time himself being
hunted. And by a dreadful hunter.

Out from behind a thicket of glowing mimosa appeared a monstrous bird,
some ten or twelve feet in height, lifting its feet very high in a
swift but noiseless and curiously delicate stride. Its dark plumage
was more like long, stringy hair than feathers. Its build was
something like that of a gigantic cassowary, but its thighs and long
blue shanks were proportionately more massive. Its neck was long, but
immensely muscular to support the enormous head, which was larger than
that of a horse, and armed with a huge, hooked, rending, vulture's
beak. The apparent length of this terrible head was increased by a
pointed crest of blood-red feathers, projecting straight back in a
line with the fore-part of the skull and