who remained
doggedly at Grom's side.

"Go," ordered Grom fiercely. "The children need you. Get them all
down."

Sullenly the woman obeyed, seeing he was right, but still lusting for
the fight, though her wearied arm could now do little more than lift
the spear.

Under the shock of these fresh fighters, with lionlike heads,
masterful eyes, and smashing, irresistible weapons, the front ranks of
the animals recoiled, trampling those behind them; and for a few
minutes the pressure was relieved. Grom turned to the old men.

"You go now," he ordered.

But they refused.

"We stay here," cried one, breathless, but with fire in his ancient
eyes. "None too much room on the rafts." And they fell again grimly to
the fight.

Grom laughed proudly. With such mettle even in withered veins, the
Tribe, he thought, was destined to great things. He turned to the lame
slave, whom he had ever favored for his faithfulness.

"You go! You are lame and cannot run."

The crouching giant looked up at him with a widemouthed grin.

"I am no woman," said he. "I stay and hold them back when you all go.
I kill, and kill. And then I go very far."

He waved one great gnarled hand, dripping with blood, toward the sun
and the high spaces of air.

Before Grom could answer, from below the southward edge of the plateau
there came a mad, high trumpeting, so loud that every other voice in
that pandemonium was silenced by it. At that dread sound the rabble of
beasts surged forward again upon the barrier, upon the clubs and
spears of the defenders. Up over the brow of the slope came a forest
of waving trunks, and tossing tusks, and ponderous black foreheads.

"The Two-Tails are upon us!" cried Grom, in a voice of awe. And his
followers gasped, as the colossal shapes shouldered up into full
view.

Grom looked behind him, and saw the last of the women and children,
shepherded vehemently by A-ya with the butt of her spear, vanishing
down the steep toward the beach.

"It is time for us to go too," shouted Grom, clutching the lame slave
by the arm to drag him off. But Ook-ootsk wrenched himself free.

"I'll hold them back till you get away," he growled, and drove his
great spear into the heart of a bull which came over the barrier at
that instant. Grom saw it would be useless now to try and save him.
With the rest of his band he ran for paths leading down to the beach.
It was well, he thought, that the valiant slave should die for the
Tribe.