CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
A HEAVY COMBAT.
When they first saw the kobaoba, he was, as stated, just coming out of the thicket.

Without halting, he headed in the direction of the vley already mentioned; and kept on towards it, his object evidently being to reach the water.
This little lake, of course, owed its existence to the spring--though it was full two hundred yards from the latter--and about the same from the great tree.

It was nearly circular in shape, and about one hundred yards in diameter, so that its superficial area would thus be a little over two English acres.

It merited, then, the name of "lake;" and by that name the young people already called it.
On its upper side--that in the direction of the spring--its shore was high, and in one or two places rocky, and these rocks ran back to the spring along the channel of a little rivulet.

On the west or outer side of the lake the land lay lower, and the water at one or two points lipped up nearly to the level of the plain.