ind.
They were working, slowly, now--and Grom felt suddenly that he must
put a stop to it, that he must put out the awful light in those
monstrous devil eyes. Stealthily, almost imperceptibly, he fitted an
arrow to his bow, raised it, drew it, and took a long, steady aim. He
must not miss. The shaft flew--and the great fly was pinned, through
the thorax, to the soft, rotten wood of its perch.

To Grom's horror that stroke, which to any beast he knew would have at
once been fatal, did not kill the monstrous fly. Its struggles, and
the beating of its four great wings were so violent that the
arrow-head was presently wrenched loose from its hold in the wood, and
the raging splendor, with the shaft half-way through its thorax,
bounded into the air. It darted straight at Grom, who had prudently
edged in among a tangle of stems. Its fury carried it through the
screen of leafage--but then, its wings impeded by the branches, and
the arrow hampering it, it dashed itself to the earth. Instantly Grom
was upon it, stamping its slim body, as it lay there blazing and
quivering, into the soil. The violet light in the huge, pupilless eyes
still stared up at him implacable, from a head turned squarely over
the back. But in a cold fury Grom shattered the gleaming head with his
club. Then he trod the silver wings to dust.

Having slaked his wrath effectually, Grom turned to stare forth again
at those destroying splendors darting and glittering above the surface
of the lake. To his surprise there were no more of them to be seen.
Then far off down the shore he heard the voice of Loob, shouting for
help. The shouting changed at once to a scream of terror, and Grom
started to the rescue on the full run--taking care, however, to keep
within cover of the thickets. But before he had gone a quarter of a
mile he heard A-ya's voice calling him, wildly, insistently, mingled
with excited yells from Mo. He shouted in reply and dashed madly for
the fires. The peril of A-ya put all other considerations out of his
mind.

As he burst forth into the glade of refuge, he saw A-ya and young Mo
leaping about frantically among their fires, now trying to stir the
fires to a fiercer blaze, now beating upwards with their spears, while
above them darted and gleamed and swooped and scintillated, with a
horrid dry rustling of their silver wings, shoal upon shoal of the
devouring monsters. As he burst into the open, with a great shout of
encouragement, something d