before Bradley could come within hailing distance.

That night they dropped anchor at the mouth of a sluggish stream

whose warm waters swarmed with millions of tiny tadpolelike

organisms--minute human spawn starting on their precarious

journey from some inland pool toward "the beginning"--a journey

which one in millions, perhaps, might survive to complete.

Already almost at the inception of life they were being greeted

by thousands of voracious mouths as fish and reptiles of many

kinds fought to devour them, the while other and larger creatures

pursued the devourers, to be, in turn, preyed upon by some other

of the countless forms that inhabit the deeps of Caprona's

frightful sea.

The second day was practically a repetition of the first.

They moved very slowly with frequent stops and once they landed

in the Kro-lu country to hunt. Here they were attacked by the

bow-and-arrow men, whom they could not persuade to palaver

with them. So belligerent were the natives that it became

necessary to fire into them in order to escape their persistent

and ferocious attentions.

"What chance," asked Bradley, as they were returning to the boat

with their game, "could Tyler and Miss La Rue have had among such

as these?"

But they continued on their fruitless quest, and the third day,

after cruising along the shore of a deep inlet, they passed a

line of lofty cliffs that formed the southern shore of the inlet

and rounded a sharp promontory about noon. Co-Tan and Bradley

were on deck alone, and as the new shoreline appeared beyond the

point, the girl gave an exclamation of joy and seized the man's

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