sank behind the
distant chestnuts and the night was dark.

Then an odd sound, a sobbing panting, that grew faster and fainter. Yet
another silence, and then dim sounds and the grunting of some animal.

Everything was still again. Far away eastwards an elephant trumpeted,
and from the woods came a snarling and yelping that died away.

In the long interval the moon shone out again, between the stems of the
trees on the ridge, sending two great bars of light and a bar of
darkness across the reedy waste. Then came a steady rustling, a splash,
and the reeds swayed wider and wider apart. And at last they broke open,
cleft from root to crest.... The end had come.

She looked to see the thing that had come out of the reeds. For a moment
it seemed certainly the great head and jaw she expected, and then it
dwindled and changed. It was a dark low thing, that remained silent, but
it was not the lion. It became still--everything became still. She
peered. It was like some gigantic frog, two limbs and a slanting body.
Its head moved about searching the shadows....

A rustle, and it moved clumsily, with a sort of hopping. And as it moved
it gave a low groan.

The blood rushing through her veins was suddenly joy. "_Ugh-lomi!_" she
whispered.

The thing stopped. "_Eudena_," he answered softly with pain in his
voice, and peering into the alders.

He moved again, and came out of the shadow beyond the reeds into the
moonlight. All his body was covered with dark smears. She saw he was
dragging his legs, and that he gripped his axe, the first axe, in one
hand. In another moment he had struggled into the position of all fours,
and had staggered over to her. "The lion," he said in a strange mingling
of exultation and anguish. "Wau!--I have slain a lion. With my own hand.
Even as I slew the great bear." He moved to emphasise his words, and
suddenly broke off with a faint cry. For a space he did not move.

"Let me free," whispered Eudena....

He answered her no words but pulled himself up from his crawling
attitude by means of the alder stem, and hacked at her thongs with the
sharp edge of his axe. She heard him sob at each blow. He cut away the
thongs about her chest and arms, and then his hand dropped. His chest
struck against her shoulder and he slipped down beside her and lay
still.

But the rest of her release was easy. Very hastily she freed herself.
She made one step from the tree, and her head was spinning. Her last
conscio