In the Morning of Time Part 10

The light stuff, with an immense number of short, highly-inflammable f.a.ggots, was piled inside the doorway where no rain could reach it. And the heavy wood was stacked outside, to right and left, in such a fashion as to form practical ramparts for the innermost line of defense.

Directly in front of the cave spread a small fan-shaped plateau several hundred square yards in area. On the right a narrow path, wide enough for but one wayfarer at a time, descended between perpendicular boulders to the second cave. On the left the plateau was bordered by broken ground, a jumble of serrated rocks, to be traversed only with difficulty. In front there was a steep but shallow dip, from which the land sloped gently up the valley, clothed with high bush and deep thickets intersected with innumerable narrow trails.

Directly in front of the cave, and about the center of the plateau, burned always, night and day, the sacred fire, tended in turn by the members of the little band appointed to this distinguished service by the Chief. Under the Chief's direction the whole of the plateau was now cleared of underbrush and gra.s.s, and then along its brink was laid a chain of small fires, some ten or twelve feet apart, and all ready for lighting.

Meanwhile, Grom was busy preparing the device on which, according to his plan of campaign, the ultimate issue was to hang. For days the tribe was kept on the stretch collecting dry and leafy brushwood from the other side of the valley, and bundles of dead gra.s.s from the rich savannahs beyond the valley-mouth, on the other side of the dancing flames. All this inflammable stuff Grom distributed lavishly through the thickets before the plateau, to a distance of nearly a mile up the slope, till the whole s.p.a.ce was in reality one vast bonfire laid ready for the torch.

While these preparations were being rushed--somewhat to the perplexity of the tribe, who could not fathom the tactics of stuffing the landscape with rubbish--Bawr was keeping a little band of scouts on guard at the far-off head of the valley. They were chosen from the swift runners of the tribe; and Bawr, who was a far-seeing general, had them relieved twice in twenty-four hours, that they might not grow weary and fail in vigilance.

When all was ready came a time of trying suspense. As day after day rolled by without event, cloudless and hot, the country became as dry as tinder; and the tribe, seeing that nothing unusual happened, began to doubt or to forget the danger that hung over them. There were murmurs over the strain of ceaseless watching, murmurs which Bawr suppressed with small ceremony. But the lame Ook-ootsk, squatting misshapen in Grom's doorway with A-ya's baby in his ape-like arms grew more and more anxious. As he conveyed to Grom, the longer the delay the greater the force which was being gathered for the a.s.sault.

Having no inkling of Grom's larger designs, he looked with distrust on the little heaps of wood that were to be fires along the edge of the plateau, and wished them to be piled much bigger, intimating that his people, though they would be terribly afraid of the Shining One, would be forced on from behind by sheer numbers and would trample the small fires out. The confidence of the Chief and Grom, and of A-ya as well, in the face of the awful peril which hung over them, filled him with amazement.

Then, at last, one evening just in the dying flush of the sunset, came the scouts, running breathlessly, and one with a ragged spear-wound in his shoulder. Their eyes were wide as they told of the countless myriads of the Bow-legs who were pouring into the head of the valley, led by Mawg and a gigantic black-faced chief as tall as Bawr himself.

"Are they as many," asked Grom, "as they who came against us in the Little Hills?"

But the panting men threw up their hands.

"As a swarm of locusts to a flock of starlings," they replied.

To their astonishment the Chief smiled with grim satisfaction at this appalling news.

"It is well," said he. Mounting a rock by the cave-door, he gazed up the valley, striving to make out the vanguard of the approaching hordes; while Grom, marshalling the servitors of the fire, stationed them by the range of piles, ready to set light to them on the given word.

It was nearly an hour--so swift had been the terror of the scouts--before a low, terrible sound of crashings and mutterings announced that the hordes were drawing near. It was now twilight, with the first stars appearing in a pallid violet sky; and up the valley could be discerned an obscurely rolling confusion among the thickets. Bawr gave orders, rapid and concise; and the combatants lined out in a double rank along the front of the plateau some three or four paces behind the piles of wood.

They were armed with stone-headed clubs, large or small, according to personal taste, and each carried at least three flint-tipped spears.

At the head of the narrow path leading up from the lower cave were stationed half a dozen women, similarly armed. Bawr had chosen these women because each of them had one or more young children in the cave behind her; and he knew that no adventurous foe would get up that path alive. But A-ya was not among these six wild mothers, for her place was at the service of the fires.

The ominous roar and that obscure confusion rolled swiftly nearer, and Bawr, with a swing of his huge club, sprang down from his post of observation and strode to the front. Grom shouted an order, and light was set to all the crescent of fires. They flared up briskly; and at the same time the big central fire, which had been allowed to sink to a heap of glowing coals, was heaped with dry stuff which sent up an instant column of flame. The sudden wide illumination, shed some hundreds of yards up the valley, revealed the front ranks of the Bow-legs swarming in the brush, their hideous yellow faces, gaping nostrils and pig-like eyes all turned up in awe towards the glare.

The advance of the front ranks came to an instant halt, and the low muttering rose to a chorus of harsh cries. Then the tall figure of Mawg sprang to the front, followed, after a moment of wondering hesitation, by that of the head chief of the hordes, a ma.s.sive creature of the true Bow-leg type, but as tall as Bawr himself, and in color almost black. This giant and Mawg, refusing to be awed by the tremendous phenomenon of the fire, went leaping along the lines of their followers, urging them forward, and pointing out that their enemies stood close beside the flames and took no hurt.

On the front ranks themselves this reasoning seemed, at first, to produce little effect. But to those just behind it appeared more cogent, seconded as it was by a consuming curiosity. Moreover, the ma.s.ses in the rear were rolling down, and their pressure presently became irresistible. All at once the front ranks realized that they had no choice in the matter. They sagged forward, surged obstinately back again, then gave like a bursting dam and poured, yelling and leaping, straight onward toward the crescent of fires.

As soon as the rush was fairly begun, both Mawg and the Black Chief cleverly extricated themselves from it, running aside to the higher, broken ground at the left of the plateau whence they could see and direct the attack. It was plain enough that they accounted the front ranks doomed, and were depending on sheer weight of numbers for the inevitable victory.

Standing grim, silent, immovable between their fires, the Chief and Grom awaited the dreadful onset. In all the tribe not a voice was raised, not a fighter, man or woman, quailed. But many hearts stood still, for it looked as if that living flood could never be stayed.

Presently from all along its front came a cloud of spears. But they fell short, not more than half a dozen reaching the edge of the plateau. In instant response came a deep-chested shout from Bawr, followed by a discharge of spears from behind the line of fire.

These spears, driven with free arm and practised skill, went clean home in the packed ranks of the foe, but they caused no more than a second's wavering, as the dead went down and their fellows crowded on straight over them. A second volley from the grimly silent fighters on the plateau had somewhat more effect. Driven low, and at shorter range, every jagged flint-point found its mark, and the screaming victims hampered those behind. But after a moment the mad flood came on again, till it was within some thirty paces of the edge of the plateau.

Then came a long shout from Grom, a signal which had been anxiously awaited by the front line of his fighters. Each fire had been laid, on the inner side, with dry f.a.ggots of a resinous wood which not only blazed freely but held the flame tenaciously. These f.a.ggots had been placed with only their tips in the fire. Seizing them by their unlighted ends, the warriors hurled them, blazing, full into the gaping faces before them.

The brutal, gaping faces screeched with pain and terror, and the whole front rank, beating frantically at the strange missiles, wheeled about and clawed at the rank behind, battling to force its way through. But the rolling ma.s.ses were not to be denied. After a brief, terrible struggle, the would-be fugitives were borne down and trodden underfoot. The new-comers were greeted with a second discharge of the blazing brands, and the dreadful scene repeated itself. But now there was a difference. For many of the a.s.sailants, realizing that there was no chance of retreat, came straight on, heedless of brand or spear, with the deadly, uncalculating fury of a beast at bay.

For some seconds, under the specific directions of the Chief on the right center and of Grom far to the left, many of the blazing brands had been thrown, not into the faces of the front rank, but far over their heads, to fall among the tinder-dry brushwood. Long tongues of flame leaped up at once, here, there, everywhere, curling and licking savagely. Screeches of horror arose, which brought all the hordes to a halt as far back as they could be heard. A light wind was blowing up the valley, and almost at once the scattered flames, gathering volume, came together with a roar. The hordes, smitten with the blindest madness of panic, turned to flee, springing upon and tearing at each other in the desperate struggle to escape.

Shouting triumph and derision, the defenders bounded forward, down over the edge of the plateau, and fell upon the huddled ranks before them. But these, with all escape cut off, and far outnumbering their exultant adversaries, now fought like rats in a pit. And the men of the caves found themselves locked in a struggle to the death just when they had thought the fight was done.

A-ya, no longer needed at the fires, was just about to follow Grom down into the thick of the reeking battle, when a scream from the cave-mouth made her whip round. She was just in time to see Ook-ootsk hurl his spear at the tall figure of Mawg, leaping down upon him from the broken slope on the left. A half score of the Bow-legs were following hard upon Mawg's heels. With a scream of warning to Grom she rushed back to the cave. But Grom did not hear her. He had been pulled down, struck senseless and buried under a writhing heap of foes.

Her long hair streaming behind her, her eyes like those of a tigress protecting her cubs, A-ya darted to the cave-door. But she did not reach it. Just outside the threshold a club descended upon her head, and she dropped. Instantly she was pounced upon, and bound. A moment later three Bow-legs, followed by Mawg, streaming with blood, came running out of the cave. Mawg swung the limp form across his shoulder with a grin of satisfaction, and the party beat a hurried retreat up the slopes.

In a few minutes that last death-grapple along the front of the plateau came to an end, and Bawr, leaving nearly a third of his followers slain with the slain Bow-legs, led the exultant survivors back to the cave. It had been a costly victory for the Children of the Shining One; but for the invaders it was little less than annihilation. The flames were raging for a mile up the valley, wherever they were not choked by the piles and windrows of the dead or dying Bow-legs. The lurid night was shaken with the incessant rising and falling chorus of shrieks, and far off under the glare rolled that awful receding wave of fugitives, with the flames leaping upon them and slaying them as they fled. Leaning upon his club and gazing thoughtfully across the scene of incredible destruction, Bawr told himself that never again, so long as the memory of this night survived, would the Bow-legs dare to come against his people.

Then wild lamentation from the women drew the Chief into the cave.

Here he found that half the little ones had been killed in that swift incursion of Mawg, and that nearly all the old men and women had been slaughtered in defending their charges. Across Grom's doorway, crouching on his face and with his great teeth buried in the throat of a dead Bow-leg, lay the lame captive, Ook-ootsk. Seeing that he still breathed, and marking the fury with which he had fought in defense of their little ones, the warriors lifted him aside gently. Beneath him, and safely guarded in the crook of his s.h.a.ggy arm, they found Grom's baby, without a hurt. The women defending the head of the path on the right having seen the rape of A-ya, Bawr handed the babe to one of his own wives to cherish.

Then search was made for Grom. At first the Chief imagined that he had followed the captors of A-ya, in a desperate hope of effecting her rescue alone. But they found him under a heap of dead, so nearly dead himself that they despaired of him. Realizing that it was he who had saved the tribe, they began over him that great keening lamentation hitherto reserved strictly for the funeral of the supreme Chief himself. But Bawr, his ma.s.sive features furrowed with solicitude, stopped them, vowing that Grom should not die. And lifting the hero in his arms he bore him into the cave.

Grom's wounds proved to be deep, but not fatal to one of these clean-blooded sons of the open and the wind. It was some days before it was clearly borne in upon him that A-ya had been carried off alive by the Bow-legs. Then, with a great cry, he sprang to his feet. The blood spouted afresh from his wounds, and he fell back in a swoon.

When he came to himself again, for days he would speak to no one, and it looked as if he would die, not of his wounds so much as of the insufficient will to live. But a chance word of the captive Ook-ootsk, who was being nursed back to life beside him, reminded him that there was vengeance to be lived for, and he roused himself a little. Then Bawr, ever subtle in the reading of his people's hearts, suggested to him that even such a feat as the rescue of the girl A-ya might not be impossible to the subjugator of the fire and the slayer of a whole people.

And from that moment Grom began climbing steadily back to life.

CHAPTER VII

THE RESCUE OF A-YA

The clay-colored, ape-like, bow-legged men squatted in council.

It was not long, as time went in the long, slow morning of the world--perhaps a half-score thousand years or so--since their ancestors, in the pride of their dawning intelligence, had swung down from their tree-tops, to walk upright on the solid earth and challenge the supremacy of the hunting beasts. Their arms were still of an unhuman and ungainly length, their short powerful legs were still so heavily bowed that they had no great speed in running; and they still had their homes high among the branches, where they could sleep secure from surprise. They were still tree dwellers; but they were men, intent upon a.s.serting their lordship over all the other dwellers upon earth's surface.

They were not beautiful to look upon. Their squat, powerful forms, varying in color from a dingy yellow-brown to blackish mud-color, were covered unevenly with a thin growth of dark hairs. On thigh and shoulder, down the backbone, and on the outer side of the long forearm, this growth was heavier and longer, forming a sort of irregular thatch; while the hair of their heads was jet black, and matted into a filthy tangle with grease and clay. Their faces were broad and flat, with powerful protruding jaws, low and very receding foreheads, and wide noses which seemed to have been punched in at the bridge so that the flaring red nostrils turned upwards hideously.

It was but a battered and crestfallen remnant of the tribe which now took counsel over their diminished fortunes. In an irregular half-circle they squatted, pawing gingerly at their wounds or scratching themselves uncouthly, while their apish women loitered in chattering groups outside the circle, or crouched in the branches of the neighboring trees. Those who were perched in the trees mostly held babies at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and were therefore instinctively distrustful of the dangerous ground-levels. Here and there on the outskirts of the crowd, either squatting on hillocks or clinging in a tree-top, wary-eyed old women kept watch against surprise; though there were few among either beasts or men who would be likely to venture an attack upon the ferocious tribe of the Bow-legs.

On a low, flat-topped bowlder, which served the purpose of a throne, sat the Chief of the Bow-legs, playing with his unwieldy club (which was merely the root end of a sapling hacked into shape with sharp stones), as if it had been a bulrush. In height and bulk he was far above his fellows, though similar to them in general type except for the matter of color, which was dark almost to blackness. His jaws were those of a beast, and his whole appearance was b.e.s.t.i.a.l beyond that of any other in the whole hideous throng--except for his eyes. These, though small and deep-set, blazed with fierce intelligence, and swept his audience with an air of a.s.sured mastery which made plain why he was chief. He was talking rapidly, with broad gestures, and in a barking, clicking speech which sounded little more than half articulate. He was working himself up into a rage; and the squatting listeners wriggled apprehensively, while they applauded from time to time with grunts and growls.

Near the end of the foremost rank of the semi-circle, very close to the haranguing Chief, sat one who was plainly of superior race to his companions. Something in the harangue seemed to concern him particularly, for he sprang to his feet and stood leaning on his club--which was longer and more symmetrically fashioned than that of the chief. In color he was manifestly white, for all that dirt and the weather could do to disguise it. He was taller even than the great Black Chief himself--but shorter in the body, and achieving his height through length and straightness of leg. He had chest and shoulders of enormous power; but, unlike the barrel-shaped Bow-legs he was comparatively slim of waist and hips. He had less hair on the body--except on the chest and forearm--than his companions; but far more on the head, where it stood out all around like an immense black-tawny mane. His face, though heavy and lowering, _was_ a face--with square, resolute jaws, a modelled mouth, a big, fully-bridged nose, and a s.p.a.cious forehead. His eyes were blue, and now, deep under their s.h.a.ggy brows, glared upon the Chief with desperate defiance. Close behind his heels crouched a girl, obviously of his own race--a tall, strong, shapely figure of a woman, as could well be seen, though her att.i.tude was one of utter dejection, her face sunk upon her knees, and half her body hidden in the tangled torrent of her dull chestnut hair.

The tall alien, so dauntlessly eyeing the Chief, was Mawg the renegade. Arrogant in his folly, he had not realized that the Tree Men would hold him to account for the calamity which he had brought upon them. He had not realized that the girl A-ya, with her straight limbs and her strong comeliness, might stir the craving of others besides himself. Now, as he listened to the fierce harangue of the Chief, as his alert ears caught the mutterings behind and about him, he saw the pit yawn suddenly at his feet. But though a brute and a traitor, he was no coward. His veins began to run hot, his sinews to stretch for the death struggle which would presently be upon him.

As for the girl, unseeing, unhearing, her head bowed between her naked knees, she cared nothing. She loathed life, and all about her, equally. Her baby and her lord, if they yet lived, were far away beyond the mountains and the swamps, in the caverned hillside behind the smoke of the fires. Her captor, Mawg, she loathed above all; but she was here behind him because he held her always within reach lest the filthy women of the Bow-legs should tear her to pieces.

Suddenly, without looking around, Mawg spoke to her, in their own tongue, which the Bow-legs could not understand. "Be ready, girl. They are going to kill me now. The Black Chief wants you. But I kill him and we run. They are all dirt. _Come!_"

On the word, he sprang straight at the great Black Chief, where he towered upon his rock. But the girl, though she heard every syllable, never stirred.

The spring of Mawg was like a leopard's; but the Black Chief, though slow of foot, was not slow of hand or wits. Though taken by surprise, he swung up his club in time to partly parry Mawg's lightning stroke, which would otherwise have broken his bull neck. As it was, the club was almost beaten from his grasp. He dropped it with a snarl and leaped at his a.s.sailant's throat with clutching hands.

Had it been possible to fight it out man to man, Mawg would have liked nothing better, though the issue would have been a doubtful one. But he had no mind to face the whole tribe, which was now surging forward like a pack of wolves. He had no time to repeat his blow fairly; but as he eluded the gigantic, clutching fingers he got in a light glancing stroke with the b.u.t.t which laid open his adversary's cheek and closed one furious little eye. At the same instant he whirled away lithely, sprang from the rock on the further side, and ran off like a deer through the trees, cursing the girl because she had not followed him. About half the tribe went trailing after him, yelling hoa.r.s.ely, while the rest drew back and waited uneasily to see what their Chief would do.