silence. A dug-out projected partly from the
shoreline. Bell wielded his long pole cautiously now, and drew closer
and ever closer to the stream bank. Paula pointed again. There was
even a small dock--luxury unthinkable in these wilds.

The raft touched bottom. And suddenly from somewhere out of sight
there came a horrible and a bestial sound. It was a scream of
blood-lust, of madness, of overpowering and unspeakable rage.
Following it came cackling laughter.

Paula went white.

"The _fazenda_," said Bell softly, "of the sub-deputy who was
listening in on Ribiera last night. And it sounds as if someone were
very much amused. Some poor devil...."

Paula shuddered.

"I'm going ashore," said Bell, smiling frostily. "There's nothing else
to do."

CHAPTER VIII

Crouched at the edge of the jungle, where the clearing began, Paula
heard four shots. Two in quick succession, and a wait of minutes. Then
a third, and another long wait, and then the last. Then silence. Paula
began to shiver. Bell had helped her ashore from the raft and insisted
on her waiting at the edge of the jungle.

"Not that you'll be any safer," he had told her grimly, "but that I
may be. One person can move more quickly than two. And if I'm chased
I'll plunge for the place you're hidden, and you can open fire. Then
the two of us might hold them off."

"Why?" Paula said slowly.

And Bell caught at her wrist.

"Don't let me hear you talk like that!" he said sharply. "We're going
to beat this thing! We've got to! And being desperate helps, but being
in despair doesn't help a bit. Buck up!"

He frowned at her until she smiled.

"I will not despair again without your permission," she told him.
"Really. I will not."

He found her a hiding-place and went cautiously out into the clearing,
still frowning.

* * * * *

He had been gone five minutes before the first shot sounded, and quite
ten before the last rang out dully, and was echoed and re-echoed
hollowly by the jungle trees. And Paula lay waiting by the edge of the
clearing, Ribiera's pearl-handled automatic in her hand--Bell had
carried the rifle from the plane. Small insects moved all about her,
and she heard soft rustlings as the life of the jungle went on over
her head and under her feet, and terror welled up in her throat.

She was trembling almost uncontrollably when Bell came back. He walked
openly toward her hiding-place.

"Paula."

She came out