lads, she had fled into the wood, though never
so far as this. It was pleasant to be hidden and alone.

She lay a long time there, glad of her escape, and then she sat up
listening.

It was a rapid pattering growing louder and coming towards her, and in a
little while she could hear grunting noises and the snapping of twigs.
It was a drove of lean grisly wild swine. She turned about her, for a
boar is an ill fellow to pass too closely, on account of the sideway
slash of his tusks, and she made off slantingly through the trees. But
the patter came nearer, they were not feeding as they wandered, but
going fast--or else they would not overtake her--and she caught the limb
of a tree, swung on to it, and ran up the stem with something of the
agility of a monkey.

Down below the sharp bristling backs of the swine were already passing
when she looked. And she knew the short, sharp grunts they made meant
fear. What were they afraid of? A man? They were in a great hurry for
just a man.

And then, so suddenly it made her grip on the branch tighten
involuntarily, a fawn started in the brake and rushed after the swine.
Something else went by, low and grey, with a long body; she did not know
what it was, indeed she saw it only momentarily through the interstices
of the young leaves; and then there came a pause.

She remained stiff and expectant, as rigid almost as though she was a
part of the tree she clung to, peering down.

Then, far away among the trees, clear for a moment, then hidden, then
visible knee-deep in ferns, then gone again, ran a man. She knew it was
young Ugh-lomi by the fair colour of his hair, and there was red upon
his face. Somehow his frantic flight and that scarlet mark made her feel
sick. And then nearer, running heavily and breathing hard, came another
man. At first she could not see, and then she saw, foreshortened and
clear to her, Uya, running with great strides and his eyes staring. He
was not going after Ugh-lomi. His face was white. It was Uya--_afraid_!
He passed, and was still loud hearing, when something else, something
large and with grizzled fur, swinging along with soft swift strides,
came rushing in pursuit of him.

Eudena suddenly became rigid, ceased to breathe, her clutch convulsive,
and her eyes starting.

She had never seen the thing before, she did not even see him clearly
now, but she knew at once it was the Terror of the Woodshade. His name
was a legend, the children would frigh