n
the last great battle at the Caves, selling their lives as dearly as
possible to cover the retreat. Such of the young women as had no small
children to carry bore the heavy burdens of the fire-baskets, or
bundles of smoke-dried meat, leaving the warriors free to use their
bows and spears.

In traversing the swamp the march was sometimes at ground-level,
sometimes high in the tree-tops. In the tree-tops it was safer, but
the progress was slow and laborious. At ground-level the swarms of
stinging insects were always with them, till Grom invented the use of
smudges. When every alternate member of the tribe carried a torch of
dry grass and half-green bark, the march was enveloped in a cloud of
acrid smoke, which the insects found more or less disconcerting.

Of the grave perils of this weary march to the hills a single instance
may suffice. The nights, as a rule, were passed by the whole tribe in
the tree-tops, both for the greater security, and because there was
seldom enough dry ground to sleep upon. But one evening, toward
sunset, they came upon a sort of little island in the reeking jungle.
Its surface was four or five feet above the level of the swamp. The
trees which dotted it were smooth, straight, towering shafts with wide
fans of foliage at their far-off tops. And the ground between these
clean, symmetrical trunks was unencumbered, being clothed only with a
rich, soft, spicy-scented herbage, akin to the thymes and mints. Such
an opportunity for rest and refreshment was not to be let slip, and
Grom ordered an immediate halt.

A fat, pig-like water beast, of the nature of the dugong, had been
speared that day in a bayou beside the line of march, and with great
contentment the tribe settled themselves down to such a comfortable
feasting as they had not known for many days. While the fat dugong was
being hacked to pieces and divided under the astute direction of A-ya,
Grom made haste to establish the camp-fires in a chain completely
encircling the encampment, as a protection against night-prowlers from
the surrounding jungle. As darkness fell the flames lit up the soaring
trunks, but the roof of the over-arching foliage was so high that the
smoky illumination was lost in it.

While the rest of the tribe gave itself up to the feasting, Grom and
Loob, and half a dozen of the other warriors, kept vigilant watch
whilst they ate, distrusting the black depths of jungle and the deep,
reed-fringed pools beyond the circl