But the rain choked him.

It beat down upon him with the weight of heavy hands, it slushed up into his face from pools in the trail and drove the breath from him when he attempted to open his jaws.

So he ran close--so close that at times Nada felt the touch of his body against her.
In these first minutes of her fight to overtake the man she loved Nada heard but one voice--a voice crying out from her heart and brain and soul, a voice rising above the tumult of thunder and wind, urging her on, whipping the strength from her frail body in pitiless exhortation.
Jolly Roger was less than half an hour ahead of her.

And she must overtake him--quickly--before the forests swallowed him, before he was gone from her life forever.
The wall of blackness against which she ran did not frighten her.

When the brush tore at her face and hair she swung free of it, and stumbled on.