pursued him with awful relentlessness, screaming and
growling at him every time they came within sight of him. The one that
filled him with the greatest terror was the panther--the flaming-eyed,
devil-faced panther whose grinning jaws gaped wide at him by day, and
whose fiery orbs gleamed wickedly out across the water from the
Cimmerian blackness of the jungle nights.

The sight of the mouth of the Ugambi filled Rokoff with renewed hope,
for there, upon the yellow waters of the bay, floated the Kincaid at
anchor. He had sent the little steamer away to coal while he had gone
up the river, leaving Paulvitch in charge of her, and he could have
cried aloud in his relief as he saw that she had returned in time to
save him.

Frantically he alternately paddled furiously toward her and rose to his
feet waving his paddle and crying aloud in an attempt to attract the
attention of those on board. But loud as he screamed his cries
awakened no answering challenge from the deck of the silent craft.

Upon the shore behind him a hurried backward glance revealed the
presence of the snarling pack. Even now, he thought, these manlike
devils might yet find a way to reach him even upon the deck of the
steamer unless there were those there to repel them with firearms.

What could have happened to those he had left upon the Kincaid? Where
was Paulvitch? Could it be that the vessel was deserted, and that,
after all, he was doomed to be overtaken by the terrible fate that he
had been flying from through all these hideous days and nights? He
shivered as might one upon whose brow death has already laid his clammy
finger.

Yet he did not cease to paddle frantically toward the steamer, and at
last, after what seemed an eternity, the bow of the dugout bumped
against the timbers of the Kincaid. Over the ship's side hung a
monkey-ladder, but as the Russian grasped it to ascend to the deck he
heard a warning challenge from above, and, looking up, gazed into the
cold, relentless muzzle of a rifle.

After Jane Clayton, with rifle levelled at the breast of Rokoff, had
succeeded in holding him off until the dugout in which she had taken
refuge had drifted out upon the bosom of the Ugambi beyond the man's
reach, she had lost no time in paddling to the swiftest sweep of the
channel, nor did she for long days and weary nights cease to hold her
craft to the most rapidly moving part of the river, except when during
the hottest hours of the day s