In the Morning of Time Part 9

But when the storm was violent, with drenching and persistent rain, then it was found necessary to feed the fires before the cave-mouths lavishly with dry fuel from the stores which Grom's forethought had caused to be acc.u.mulated under shelter. These contests between fire and rain were sagaciously represented by Bawr (who had by now to his authority as Chief added the subtle sanctions of High Priest) as the fight of the Shining One in protection of the tribe, his children.

On more than one occasion of torrential downpour the struggle had almost seemed to hang for a while in doubt. But the Shining One lost no prestige, thereby, for always, down there across the valley-mouth, kept leaping and dancing those unquenchable flames of scarlet, amber and violet, fed by the volcanic gases from within the crevice, and utterly regardless of whatever floods the sky might loose upon them.

This was evidence conclusive that the Shining One was master of the storm, no less than of the monsters which fled so terror-stricken before him.

In the early spring, the girl A-ya bore a child to Grom; a big-limbed, vigorous boy, with shapely head and s.p.a.cious brow. In this event, and in the mother's happiness about it (a happiness that seemed to the rest of the women to savor of foolish extravagance), Grom felt a gladness which dignity forbade him to betray.

But pondering over the little one with bent brows, and with deep eyes full of visions, he conceived such an ambition as had perhaps never before entered into the heart of man. It was that this child might grow up to achieve some wonderful thing, as he himself had done, for the advancement of his people. Of this baby, child of the woman toward whom he felt emotions so new and so profound, he had a premonition that new and incalculable things would come.

One day Grom was following the trail of a deer some distance up the valley. Skilled hunter that he was, he could read in the trail that his quarry was not far ahead, and also that it had not yet taken alarm. He followed cautiously, up the wind, noiseless as a leopard, his sagacious eyes taking note of every detail about him.

Presently he came to a spot where the trail was broken. There was a twenty-foot gap to the next hoofprints, and these went off at right angles to the direction which the quarry had hitherto been pursuing.

Grom halted abruptly, slipped behind a tree, crouched, and peered about him with the tense vigilance of a startled fox. He knew that something had frightened the deer, and frightened it badly. It behooved him to find out what that something was.

For some minutes he stood motionless as the trunk against which he leant, searching every bush and thicket with his keen gaze, and sniffing the air with expert nostrils. There was nothing perceptible to explain that sudden fright of the deer. He was on the point of slipping around the trunk to investigate from another angle. But stop!

There on a patch of soil where some bear had been grubbing for tubers he detected a strange footprint. Instantly, he sank to the ground, and wormed his way over, silently as a snake, to examine it.

It was a human footprint, but much larger than his own, or those of his tribe; and Grom's beard, and the stiff hairs on the nape of his corded neck, bristled with hostility at the sight of it.

The toes of this portentous print were immensely long and muscular, the heel protruded grotesquely far behind the arch of the foot, which was low and flat. The pressure was very marked along all the outer edge, as if the author of the print had walked on the outer sides of his feet. To Grom, who was an adept in the signs of the trail, it needed no second look to be informed that one of the Bow-legs had been here. And the trail was not five minutes old.

Grom slipped under the nearest bushes, and writhed forward with amazing speed in the direction indicated by the strange footprint, pausing every other second to look, sniff the air, and listen. The trail was as clear as daylight to him. Suddenly he heard voices, several of them, guttural and squealing, and stopped again as if turned to stone. Then another voice, at which he started in amazement.

It was Mawg's, speaking quietly and confidentially. Mawg, then, had gone over to the Bow-legs! Grom's forehead wrinkled. A-ya had been right. He ought to have killed the traitor. He writhed himself into a dense covert, and presently, over the broken brink of a vine-draped ledge, was able to command a view of the speakers.

They were five in number, and grouped almost immediately below him.

Four were of the Bow-legs, squat, huge in the shoulder, long-armed, flat-skulled, of a yellowish clay color, with protruding jaws, and gaping, pit-like, upturned nostrils to their wide, bridgeless noses.

Grom's own nose wrinkled in disgust as the sour taint of them breathed up to him.

They were all armed with spears and stone-headed clubs, such as their people had been unacquainted with up to the time of their attack upon the Tribe of the Little Hills. It was apparent to Grom that the renegade Mawg, who towered among them arrogantly, had been teaching them what he knew of effective weapons.

Having no remotest comprehension of the language of the Bow-legs--which Mawg was speaking with them--Grom could get little clue to the drift of their talk. They gesticulated frequently toward the east, and then again toward the caves at the valley-mouth, so Grom guessed readily enough that they were planning something against his people.

It was clear, also, that this was but a little scouting party which the renegade had led in to spy upon the weakness of the tribe. This was as far as he could premise with any certainty. The obvious conclusion was that these spies would return to their own country, to lead back such an invasion as should blot the Children of the Shining One out of existence.

Grom was quick to realize that to listen any longer was to waste invaluable time. All that it was possible for him to learn, he had learned. Writhing softly back till he had gained what he considered a safe distance from the spies, he rose to his feet and ran, at first noiselessly, and crouching as he went, then at the top of that speed for which he was famous in the tribe. Reaching the Caves, he laid the matter hurriedly before the Chief, and within five minutes they were leading a dozen warriors up the trail.

Besides their customary weapons, both Grom and the Chief carried fire-sticks, tubes of thick, green bark, tied round with a raw hide, filled with smouldering punk, and perforated with a number of holes toward the upper end. This was one of Grom's inventions, of proved efficacy against saber-tooth and bear. By cramming a handful of dry fiber and twigs into the mouth of the tube, and then whirling it around his head, he was able to obtain a sudden and most unexpected burst of flame which no beast ever dared to face, and which never failed to compel the awe and wonder of his followers.

Like shadows the little band went gliding in single file through the thickets and under the drooping branches, their pa.s.sage marked only by the occasional upspringing of a startled bird or the frightened crashing flight of some timorous beast surprised by their swift and noiseless approach. Arriving near the hollow under the ledge, they sank flat and wormed their way forward like weasels till they had gained the post of observation behind the vine-clad rock.

But the strangers had vanished. An examination of their footprints showed that they had fled in haste; and to Grom's chagrin it looked as if he had himself given them the alarm. The problem was solved in a few minutes by the discovery that Mawg--easily detected by his finer footprints--had scaled the ledge and come upon the place where Grom had lain hidden to watch them. Seeing that they were discovered, and that their discoverer had evidently gone to arouse the tribe, they had realized that, the Bow-legs being slow runners, their only hope lay in instant flight. From the direction which they had taken it was evident that they were fleeing back to their own country.

The Chief ordered instant pursuit. To this Grom demurred, not only because the fugitives had obtained such a start--as was shown by the state of the trail--but because he dreaded to leave the Caves so long unguarded. He foresaw the possibility of another band of invaders surprising the Caves during the absence of this most efficient fighting force. But the Chief overruled him.

For several hours was the pursuit kept up; and from the trail it appeared, not only that Mawg was leading his followers cleverly, but also that the Bow-legs were making no mean speed. The pursuers were come by now to near the head of the valley, a region with which they were little familiar. It was a broken country and well fitted for ambuscade, where a lesser force, well posted and driven to bay, might well secure a deadly advantage. The tribe was too weak to risk its few fighting men in any uncertain contest; and the Chief, yielding slowly to Grom's arguments, was on the point of giving the order to turn back, when a harsh scream of terror from just ahead, beyond a shoulder of rock, brought the line to a halt.

Waving their followers into concealment on either side of the trail, the Chief and Grom stole forward and peered cautiously around the turn.

Straight before them fell away a steep and rugged slope. Midway of the descent, with his back to a rock, crouched one of the Bow-legs, battling frantically with his club to keep off the attack of a pair of leopards. The man was kneeling upon one knee, with the other leg trailed awkwardly behind him. It seemed an altogether difficult and disadvantageous position in which to do battle.

"The fool!" said Bawr. "He doesn't know how to fight a leopard."

"He's hurt. His leg is broken!" said Grom. And straightway, a novel purpose flashing into his far-seeing brain, he ran leaping down the slope to the rescue, waving his fire-stick to a blaze as he went.

The Chief looked puzzled for a moment, wondering why the deliberate Grom should trouble to do what it was plain the leopards would do for him most effectually. But he dreaded the chance of an ambuscade.

Shouting to the men behind to come on, he waved his own fire-stick to a blaze, and followed Grom.

One of the leopards had already succeeded in closing in upon the wounded Bow-leg; but at the sight of Grom and the Chief leaping down upon them they sprang back snarling and scurried off among the thickets like frightened cats. The Bow-leg lifted wild eyes to learn the meaning of his deliverance. But when he saw those two tall forms rushing at him with flame and smoke circling about their heads, he gave a groan and fell forward upon his face.

Grom stood over him, staring down upon the misshapen and bleeding form with thoughtful eyes; while the Chief looked on, striving to fathom his purpose. The warriors came up, shouting savage delight at having at last got one of their dreaded enemies into their hands alive. They would have fallen upon him at once and torn him to pieces. But Grom waved them back sternly. They growled with indignation, and one, sufficiently prominent in the tribal counsels to dare Grom's displeasure, protested hotly against this favor to so venomous a foe.

"I demand this fellow, Bawr, as my captive!" said Grom.

"It was you who took him," answered the Chief. "He is yours." He was about to add, "though I can't see what you want of him"; but it was a part of his policy never to seem in doubt or ignorance about anything that another might perhaps know. So, instead, he sternly told his followers to obey the law of the tribe and respect Grom's capture.

Then Grom stepped close beside him and said at his ear: "Many things which we need to know will Bawr learn from this fellow presently, as to the dangers which are like to come upon us."

At this the Chief, being ready of wit, comprehended Grom's purpose; and, to the amazement of his followers, he looked down upon the hideous prisoner with a smile of satisfaction.

"Well have I called you the Chief's Right Hand," he answered. "I shall also have to call you the Chief's Wisdom, for in saving this fellow's life you have shown more forethought than I."

The captive's wounds having been dressed with astringent herbs, and his broken leg put into splints in accordance with the rude but not ineffective surgery of the time, he was placed on a rough litter of interlaced branches and carried back by the reluctant warriors to the Caves.

None of the warriors were advanced enough to have understood the policy of their leaders, so no effort was made by either the Chief or Grom to explain it. The Chief, doubly secure in his dominance by reason of Grom's loyal support, cared little whether his followers were content or not, and he took no heed of their ill-humor so long as they did not allow it to become articulate.

But when, after an hour's sullen tramping, they suddenly grew merry at their task, and fell to marching with a child-like cheer under their repulsive and groaning burden, he was surprised, and made inquiry as to the reason for this sudden complaisance. It turned out that one of the warriors, accounted more discerning than his fellows, had suggested that the captive was to be nursed back to health in order that he might be made an acceptable sacrifice to the Shining One. As this notion seemed to meet with such hearty approval, the wise Chief did not think it worth while to cast any doubt upon it. In fact, as he thought, such a solution might very well arrive, in the end, in case Grom's design should fail to come up to his expectations.

To the presence of the hideous and repulsive stranger in her dwelling, A-ya, as was natural, raised warm objection. But when Grom had explained his purpose to her, and the imminence of the peril that threatened, she yielded readily enough, the dread of Mawg being yet vivid in her imagination. She lent herself cheerfully to the duty of caring for the captive's wounds and of helping Grom to teach him the simple speech of the tribe.

As for the captive, for some days he was possessed by a morose antic.i.p.ation of being brained at any moment--an antic.i.p.ation, however, which did not seem to interfere with his appet.i.te. He would clutch eagerly all the food offered him, and crouch, huddled over it, with his face to the rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and b.e.s.t.i.a.l noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable kindness, he began to develop an anxious grat.i.tude and docility. On A-ya's tall form his little round eyes, shy and fierce at the same time, came to rest with an adoring awe. The smell of him being extremely offensive to all this cleanly tribe, and especially to A-ya and Grom, who were more fastidious than their fellows, A-ya had taken advantage of her office as priestess of the Shining One to establish a little fire within the precincts of her own dwelling, and by the judicious use of aromatic barks upon the blaze she was able to scent the place to her taste. And the Bow-leg, seeing her mastery of the mysterious and dreadful scarlet tongues which licked upwards from the hollow on their rocky pedestal, regarded her less as a woman than as a G.o.ddess--a being who, for her own unknown reasons, chose to be beneficent toward him, but who plainly could become destructive if he should in any way transgress. Toward Grom--who regarded him altogether impersonally as a means to an end, a p.a.w.n to be played prudently in a game of vast import--his att.i.tude was that of the submitted slave, his fate lying in the hollow of his master's hand. Toward the rest of the tribe--who, till their curiosity was sated, kept crowding in to stare and jeer and curse--he displayed the savage fear and hate of a lynx at bay.

But the babe on A-ya's arm seemed to him something peculiarly precious. It was not only the son of Grom, his grave and distant master, but also of that wonderful, beautiful, enigmatic deity, his mistress, the fashioner and controller of the flames. The adoration which soon grew up in his heart for A-ya's beauty, but which his awe of her did not suffer him even to realize to himself, was turned upon the babe, and speedily took the form of a pa.s.sionate and dog-like devotion. A-ya, with her mother instinct, was quick to understand this, and also to realize the possible value to her child of such a devotion, in some future emergency. Moreover, it softened her heart toward the hideous captive, so that she busied herself not only to help Grom teach him their language, but also to reform his manners and make him somewhat less unpleasant an a.s.sociate. His wounds soon healed, thanks to the vitality of his youthful stock; and the bones of the broken leg soon knit themselves securely. But Grom's surgery having been hasty and something less than exact, the leg remained so crooked that its owner could do no more than hobble about with a laborious, dragging gait. It being obvious that he could not run away, there was no guard set upon him.

But it soon became equally obvious that nothing would induce him to remove himself from the neighborhood of A-ya's baby. He was like a gigantic watchdog squatting at Grom's doorway, chained to it by links stronger than any that hands could fashion. And those of the tribe who had been hoping to do honor to the Shining One, as well as to the spirits of their slain kinsmen back in the barrow on the windy hills, by a great and b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, began to realize with discontent that their hopes were like enough to be disappointed.

II

The captive said his name was Ook-ootsk--a clicking guttural which none but A-ya was able to master. When he had learned to make himself understood, he proved eager to repay Grom's protection by giving all the information that he possessed. Simple-minded, but with much of a child's shrewdness, he quickly came to regard himself as of some importance when both the Chief and Grom would spend hours in interrogating him. His own people he repudiated with bitterness, because, when he had fallen among the rocks and shattered his leg, his party had refused to burden their flight by helping him. It became his pride to identify himself with the interests of his master, and to call himself the slave of his master's baby.

The information which he was able to give was such as to cause the Chief and Grom the most profound disquietude. It appeared that the Bow-legs, having gradually recovered from the panic of their appalling defeat in the Pa.s.s of the Little Hills, had made up their minds that the disaster must be avenged. But no longer did they hold their opponents cheap on account of their scanty numbers. They realized that if they would hope to succeed in their next attack they must organize, and prepare themselves by learning how to employ their forces better.

To this end, therefore, when Mawg and his fellow-renegades fell into their hands, instead of tearing them to pieces in b.e.s.t.i.a.l sport, they had spared them, and made much of them, and set themselves diligently to learn all that the strangers could teach. And Mawg, seeing here his opportunity both for vengeance on Grom and for the gratification of that mad pa.s.sion for A-ya which had so long obsessed him, had gone about the business with shrewd foresight and a convincing zeal.

It was apparent from the accounts which Ook-ootsk was able to give that the invasion would take place as soon as possible after their hordes were adequately armed with the new weapons. This, said Ook-ootsk, would be soon after the dry season had set in. In any case, he said, the hordes were bound to wait for the dry season, because the way from their country to the Valley of Fire lay through a region of swamps which became impa.s.sable for any large body of migrants during the month of rains.

As the dry season was already close upon them, Bawr and Grom now set themselves feverishly to the arrangement of their defenses. Counting the older boys who had grown into sizable youths since the last great battle and all the able-bodied women and girls, they could muster no more than about six score of actual combatants. They knew that defeat would mean nothing less than instant annihilation for the tribe, and for the women a foul captivity and a loathsome mating. But they knew also that a mere successful defense would avail them only for the moment. Unless they could inflict upon the invaders such a defeat as would amount to a paralyzing catastrophe, they would soon be worn down by mere force of numbers, or starved to death in their caves. It was not only for defense, therefore, but for wholesale attack--the attack of six score upon as many thousand--that Bawr planned his strategy and Grom wove unheard-of devices.

Of the two great caves occupied by the tribe one was now abandoned, as not lending itself easily to defense. To Bawr's battle-trained eyes it revealed itself as rather a trap than a refuge, because from the heights behind it an enemy could roll down rocks enough to effectively block its mouth. But the cliff in which the other cave was hollowed was practically inaccessible, and hung beetling far over the entrance.

Into this natural fortress the tribe--with an infinite deal of grumbling--was removed. Store of roots and dried flesh was gathered within; and every one was set to the collection of dry and half-dry fuel.