red
warrior of the stone age. Had he but reversed it and pulled the
trigger he might still be alive; maybe he is for all I know, since I
did not kill him then. When he was about twenty feet from me I flung
my javelin with a quick movement that I had learned from Ghak. He
ducked to avoid it, and instead of receiving it in his heart, for which
it was intended, he got it on the side of the head.

Down he went all in a heap. Then I glanced toward Juag. He was having
a most exciting time. The fellow pitted against Juag was a veritable
giant; he was hacking and hewing away at the poor slave with a
villainous-looking knife that might have been designed for butchering
mastodons. Step by step, he was forcing Juag back toward the edge of
the cliff with a fiendish cunning that permitted his adversary no
chance to side-step the terrible consequences of retreat in this
direction. I saw quickly that in another moment Juag must deliberately
hurl himself to death over the precipice or be pushed over by his
foeman.

And as I saw Juag's predicament I saw, too, in the same instant, a way
to relieve him. Leaping quickly to the side of the fellow I had just
felled, I snatched up my fallen revolver. It was a desperate chance to
take, and I realized it in the instant that I threw the gun up from my
hip and pulled the trigger. There was no time to aim. Juag was upon
the very brink of the chasm. His relentless foe was pushing him hard,
beat-ing at him furiously with the heavy knife.

And then the revolver spoke--loud and sharp. The giant threw his hands
above his head, whirled about like a huge top, and lunged forward over
the precipice.

And Juag?

He cast a single affrighted glance in my direction--never before, of
course, had he heard the report of a firearm--and with a howl of dismay
he, too, turned and plunged headforemost from sight. Horror-struck, I
hastened to the brink of the abyss just in time to see two splashes
upon the surface of the little cove below.

For an instant I stood there watching with Dian at my side. Then, to
my utter amazement, I saw Juag rise to the surface and swim strongly
toward the boat.

The fellow had dived that incredible distance and come up unharmed!

I called to him to await us below, assuring him that he need have no
fear of my weapon, since it would harm only my enemies. He shook his
head and mut-tered something which I could not hear at so great a
distance; but when I pushed hi