s which besieged the open
space behind the fires. Some of the beasts were maddened with their
terror, some were in a fighting rage, some only wanted to escape the
throng behind them. But all seemed bent upon passing the fires and
getting into the Caves, as if they thought there to find refuge from
the unknown fear.

At the extreme right of the line the two farthest fires were already
overwhelmed, trodden out by frantic hooves, and three or four old
men, with a couple of desperate young women, behind a barrier of
slain elk and stags were fighting like furies to hold back the
victorious onrush. Two of the old men were down, trodden out between
the fires by blind hooves, and a third, jammed limply against the
rocky wall beside the furthest cave, was being worried by a
bear--hideously but aimlessly, as if the great beast hardly heeded
what it was doing. There was something peculiarly terrifying in the
animal's preoccupation.

At the center of the line, immediately before the main Cave-mouth--whose
yawning entrance seemed to be the objective of the swarming
beasts--A-ya was heading the battle, with the lame slave, Ook-ootsk,
crouched fighting at her side like a colossal frog gone mad. Here the
fires were almost extinguished--but the line of slain beasts formed a
tolerable barricade, upon the top of which the women leapt, stabbing
with their spears and screeching shrill taunts, while the old men
leaned upon the gory pile to save their strength with frugal
precision. Here and there among the carcases was the body of a woman or
an old man, impaled on the horn of a bull or ripped open by the
rending antler of an elk. As Grom and his men came shouting across the
level a huge woolly rhinoceros plunged over the barrier, his bloody
horn ploughing the carcases, trod down a couple of the defenders without
appearing to see them, dashed through the nearest fire, and charged
blindly into the Cave-mouth with his matted coat all ablaze. The
children and old women who had not already fled down to the beach
shrieked in horror. The frantic monster heeded them not at all, but went
thundering on into the bowels of the cavern.

"Go back, all you women!" yelled Grom above the tumult, as he and his
men raced to the barrier. "Get down to the beach with the children.
We'll hold the rush back till you get down. Run! Run!"

Sobbing with the fury of the struggle, the women obeyed, darting back
and pouncing upon their own little ones--all but A-ya,