for me and found me; and as I
fled, Du-seen ran after me crying that he would slay me. Kill me, my
Tom, and then fall upon thine own spear, for they will kill you
horribly if they take you alive."

I couldn't kill her--not at least until the last moment; and I told her
so, and that I loved her, and that until death came, I would live and
fight for her.

Nobs had followed us into the bog and had done fairly well at first,
but when he neared us he too sank to his belly and could only flounder
about. We were in this predicament when Du-seen and his followers
approached the edge of the horrible swamp. I saw that Al-tan was with
him and many other Kro-lu warriors. The alliance against Jor the chief
had, therefore, been consummated, and this horde was already marching
upon the Galu city. I sighed as I thought how close I had been to
saving not only Ajor but her father and his people from defeat and
death.

Beyond the swamp was a dense wood. Could we have reached this, we
would have been safe; but it might as well have been a hundred miles
away as a hundred yards across that hidden lake of sticky mud. Upon
the edge of the swamp Du-seen and his horde halted to revile us. They
could not reach us with their hands; but at a command from Du-seen they
fitted arrows to their bows, and I saw that the end had come. Ajor
huddled close to me, and I took her in my arms. "I love you, Tom," she
said, "only you." Tears came to my eyes then, not tears of self-pity
for my predicament, but tears from a heart filled with a great love--a
heart that sees the sun of its life and its love setting even as it
rises.

The renegade Galus and their Kro-lu allies stood waiting for the word
from Du-seen that would launch that barbed avalanche of death upon us,
when there broke from the wood beyond the swamp the sweetest music that
ever fell upon the ears of man--the sharp staccato of at least two
score rifles fired rapidly at will. Down went the Galu and Kro-lu
warriors like tenpins before that deadly fusillade.

What could it mean? To me it meant but one thing, and that was that
Hollis and Short and the others had scaled the cliffs and made their
way north to the Galu country upon the opposite side of the island in
time to save Ajor and me from almost certain death. I didn't have to
have an introduction to them to know that the men who held those rifles
were the men of my own party; and when, a few minutes later, they came
forth from