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 theworld--perhaps a half-score thousand years or so--since theirancestors, in the pride of their dawning intelligence, had swung downfrom their tree-tops, to walk upright on the solid earth and challengethe supremacy of the hunting beasts. Their arms were still of anunhuman and ungainly length, their short powerful legs were still soheavily bowed that they had no great speed in running; and they stillhad their homes high among the branches, where they could sleep securefrom surprise. They were still tree dwellers; but they were men,intent upon asserting their lordship over all the other dwellers uponearth'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, werecovered unevenly with a thin growth of dark hairs. On thigh andshoulder, down the backbone, and on the outer side of the longforearm, this growth was heavier and longer, forming a sort ofirregular thatch; while the hair of their heads was jet black, andmatted into a filthy tangle with grease and clay. Their faces werebroad and flat, with powerful protruding jaws, low and very recedingforeheads, and wide noses which seemed to have been punched in at thebridge so that the flaring red nostrils turned upwards hideously.
It was but a battered and crestfallen remnant of the tribe which nowtook counsel over their diminished fortunes. In an irregularhalf-circle they squatted, pawing gingerly at their wounds orscratching themselves uncouthly, while their apish women loitered inchattering groups outside the circle, or crouched in the branches ofthe neighboring trees. Those who were perched in the trees mostly heldbabies at their breasts, and were therefore instinctively distrustfulof the dangerous ground-levels. Here and there on the outskirts of thecrowd, either squatting on hillocks or clinging in a tree-top,wary-eyed old women kept watch against surprise; though there were fewamong either beasts or men who would be likely to venture an attackupon 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 (whichwas merely the root end of a sapling hacked into shape with sharpstones), as if it had been a bulrush. In height and bulk he was farabove his fellows, though similar to them in general type except forthe matter of color, which was dark almost to blackness. His jaws werethose of a beast, and his whole appearance was bestial beyond that ofany other in the whole hideous throng--except for his eyes. These,though small and deep-set, blazed with fierce intelligence, and swepthis audience with an air of assured mastery which made plain why hewas chief. He was talking rapidly, with broad gestures, and in abarking, clicking speech which sounded little more than halfarticulate. He was working himself up into a rage; and the squattinglisteners wriggled apprehensively, while they applauded from time totime with grunts and growls.
Near the end of the foremost rank of the semi-circle, very close tothe haranguing Chief, sat one who was plainly of superior race to hiscompanions. Something in the harangue seemed to concern himparticularly, for he sprang to his feet and stood leaning on hisclub--which was longer and more symmetrically fashioned than that ofthe chief. In color he was manifestly white, for all that dirt andthe weather could do to disguise it. He was taller even than the greatBlack Chief himself--but shorter in the body, and achieving hisheight through length and straightness of leg. He had chest andshoulders of enormous power; but, unlike the barrel-shaped Bow-legshe was comparatively slim of waist and hips. He had less hair onthe body--except on the chest and forearm--than his companions;but far more on the head, where it stood out all around like animmense 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 spacious forehead. His eyes were blue, andnow, deep under their shaggy brows, glared upon the Chief withdesperate defiance. Close behind his heels crouched a girl,obviously of his own race--a tall, strong, shapely figure of awoman, as could well be seen, though her attitude was one of utterdejection, her face sunk upon her knees, and half her body hiddenin the tangled torrent of her dull chestnut hair.
The tall alien, so dauntlessly eyeing the Chief, was Mawg therenegade. Arrogant in his folly, he had not realized that the Tree Menwould hold him to account for the calamity which he had brought uponthem. He had not realized that the girl A-ya, with her straight limbsand her strong comeliness, might stir the craving of others besideshimself. Now, as he listened to the fierce harangue of the Chief, ashis alert ears caught the mutterings behind and about him, he saw thepit yawn suddenly at his feet. But though a brute and a traitor, hewas no coward. His veins began to run hot, his sinews to stretch forthe death struggle which would presently be upon him.
As for the girl, unseeing, unhearing, her head bowed between her nakedknees, she cared nothing. She loathed life, and all about her,equally. Her baby and her lord, if they yet lived, were far awaybeyond the mountains and the swamps, in the caverned hillside behindthe smoke of the fires. Her captor, Mawg, she loathed above all; butshe was here behind him because he held her always within reach lestthe filthy women of the Bow-legs should tear her to pieces.
Suddenly, without looking around, Mawg spoke to her, in their owntongue, which the Bow-legs could not understand. "Be ready, girl. Theyare going to kill me now. The Black Chief wants you. But I kill himand we run. They are all dirt. _Come!_"
On the word, he sprang straight at the great Black Chief, where hetowered 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, thoughslow 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 clubwas almost beaten from his grasp. He dropped it with a snarl andleaped at his assailant's throat with clutching hands.
Had it been possible to fight it out man to man, Mawg would have likednothing better, though the issue would have been a doubtful one. Buthe had no mind to face the whole tribe, which was now surging forwardlike a pack of wolves. He had no time to repeat his blow fairly; butas he eluded the gigantic, clutching fingers he got in a lightglancing stroke with the butt which laid open his adversary's cheekand closed one furious little eye. At the same instant he whirled awaylithely, sprang from the rock on the further side, and ran off like adeer through the trees, cursing the girl because she had not followedhim. About half the tribe went trailing after him, yelling hoarsely,while the rest drew back and waited uneasily to see what their Chiefwould do.
The Chief, clapping one hairy hand over his wounded eye, glared afterthe fugitive with the other. But he knew the folly of trying to catchhis fleet-footed adversary, and after a moment he dismissed him fromhis mind. With a grunt he stepped down from his rock, and heedless ofhis wound, strode over to the girl. Through all the tumult she hadnever lifted her head from between her knees, or shown the least signof concern. The Chief seized her by the shoulder and shook herroughly, ordering her to come with him. She did not understand hislanguage, but his meaning was obvious. She looked up and staredstraight into his one open eye. In her own eyes shifted the dangerous,lambent flame of a beast at bay, and for a moment she was on the pointof darting at his throat.
But not without reason was the Black Chief dictator of the Bow-legs.Brutal and filthy though he was, and hideous beyond description, andhorrible with his gashed face and the blood pouring down over his hugeand shaggy chest, he was all a man, and the mastery in him checkedher. She felt the hopelessness of fighting her fate. The flameflickered out, leaving her eyes dull and leaden. She rose listlessly,and followed her new lord to the tree in which he had his dwelling ofwoven branches.
At the foot of the tree the Black Chief stopped, stood back, andsigned the girl to ascend. A climber as expert as himself, sheclutched the rough trunk with accustomed hands.
Then she hesitated,and shut her eyes. Should she obey, yielding to her fate? Mawg, herlate captor, she had hated with a murderous hate; yet she hadsubmitted to him, in a dim way biding her time for vengeance. He wasof her own race; and it was in her mind, her spirit--though sheherself could not so analyze the emotion--that she hated him. But thisnew master was an alien, and of a lower, beastlier type. Toward himshe felt a sick bodily repulsion. Behind her tight-shut lids the darkwent red. She stood rigid and quivering, stormed through by a ragingimpulse to tear out either his throat or her own. She was herself amore advanced product of her own advanced race, and urged by impulsesstill new and imperfectly applied to life. But the countless centuriesof submission were in her blood also; and they whispered to herinsidiously that she was lawful prey. A huge hand fell significantlyupon the back of her neck. She jumped, gave a sobbing cry, and sprangup into the tree. Who was she to challenge doom for an idea, a hundredthousand years before her time.
* * * * *
Some days' journey to the westward of the swampy refuge of theBow-legs, a tall hunter was making his way warily through the forest.His color, his build, and his swift grace of movement proclaimed himof the same race as Mawg and the girl A-ya, acquitting him easily ofany kinship with the People of the Trees. In height and weight he wasmuch like Mawg, but lighter in complexion, somewhat less hairy, and ofa frank, sagacious countenance. His eyes were of a blue-gray, calm andpiercing, yet with a look in them as of one who broods on mysteries.He was obviously much older than Mawg, his long, thick hair and short,close-curling beard being liberally touched with gray. He carried inone hand a peculiar long-handled club, which he had fashioned bylashing, with strips of green hide, a split and jagged flint-stoneinto the cleft head of a stick. In the other hand he bore two long,slender spears, their tips hardened and pointed in fire.
On the day, now many weeks back, when Grom set out from the Cavesbehind the Fire to seek for A-ya in the far-off country of theBow-legs, he had carried also two hollow tubes of green bark, with theseeds of fire, kept smouldering in a bed of punk, hidden in the heartsof them. But the need of stopping frequently to build a fire and renewthe vitality of the secret spark had soon exasperated his impatientspirit. Intolerant of the hindrance, and confident in his own strengthand craft, he had thrown the fire-tubes away and fallen back upon theweapons which had sufficed him before his discovery and conquest ofthe Shining One.
Engrossed in his purpose, thinking only of regaining possession of thegirl, the mother of his man-child, he shunned all contest with thegreat beasts which crossed his path, and fled without shame from thosewhich undertook to hunt him.
He would risk no doubtful battle. He satisfied his hunger on wildhoney, and the ripe fruits and tubers with which the forest aboundedat this season. At night he made his nest, of hurriedly wovenbranches, in the highest swaying of the tree-tops, where not even theleopard, cunning climber though she was, could come at him withoutgiving timely warning. And so, doggedly and swiftly making his way dueeast, he came at length to the fringes of that vast region of swampymeres and fruitful, rankly wooded islets which was occupied by theBow-legs.
Here he had need of all that wood-craft which had so often enabled himto stalk even the wary antelope. The light color of his skin being abetrayal, he rubbed himself with clayey ooze till he was of the samehue as the Bow-legs. Crawling through the undergrowth at dusk assoundlessly as a snake, or swinging along smoothly through thebranches like a gray ape in the first confusing glimmer of the dawn,he made short incursions among the outlying colonies, but could findno sign of the girl, or Mawg, in whose hands he imagined her still tobe. But working warily around the outskirts of the tribe, tonorthward, he came at last upon the stale but unmistakable trail of aflight and a pursuit. This he followed up till the pursuit camestragglingly to an end, and the trail of the fugitive stood out aloneand distinct. One clear footprint in the wet earth revealed itselfclearly as Mawg's--for there was no such thing as confounding thatarched and moulded imprint with those left by the apish men.Feverishly the hunter cast about for another trail, smaller andslimmer. Forward he searched for it, and then back among the trampingsof the pursuers. But in vain. Clearly Mawg had been the solefugitive.
Grom sat down in sudden despair. If Mawg, who at least was no coward,had fled alone, then surely the girl was dead. Grom's club and hisspears dropped from his nerveless hands. His interest in life sankinto a sick indifference, a dull anguish which he did not even try tounderstand. It was well for him that no prowling beast came by in thatmoment of his unseeing weakness. Then a new thought came to him, andhis despair flamed into rage. He leapt to his feet, clutching at hisshaggy beard. The girl had been seized, without doubt, by the greatBlack Chief. The thought of this defilement to his woman, the motherof his man-child, drove him quite mad for the moment. Snatching up hisweapons, he roared with anguish, and ran blindly forward along thetrampled trail, ready to hurl himself upon the whole loathsome tribe.A gigantic leopard, crouching in a thicket of scarlet poinsettiabeside the trail, made as if to pounce upon him as he went by--butshrank back, instead, with flattened ears, daunted by his fury.
But presently the madness burned itself out. As sanity returned hechecked his rush, glanced once more watchfully about him, and atlength stepped furtively into the thick of the jungle. Now more thanever was his coolest craft demanded, that A-ya might be plucked fromthe monster's arms.
Following up the plain clue of that tremendous pursuit, Grom workedhis way deep into the Bow-legs' country. With all his craft and hislynx-like stealth, it was at times hair-raising work. Not only theground thickets, but the tree-tops as well, were swarming with hiskeen-eyed foes. He had to worm his way between swamp-sodden roots, andsometimes lie moveless as a stone for hours, enduring the stings of amillion insects. Sometimes, not daring to lift his head to look abouthim, he had to trust to his ears and his hound-like sense of smell forinformation as to what was going on. And sometimes it was only histireless immobility that saved him from the stroke of a startled adderor a questioning and indignant crotalus. After long swaying, poisedfor the death-stroke, the serpent would decide that the menacing thingbefore it was not alive. It would slowly dissolve its tense coils, andglide away; and Grom would resume his shadowy progress.
Then, about sunrise (for the Bow-legs, like the birds, were earlyrisers) of the second day after the discovery of Mawg's footprints,the patient hunter's eyes fell upon A-ya. He had crept in to within ahundred yards or so of the Council Rock, which was surrounded by ahorde of the Bow-legs. Crouching low as he was, in a dense thicket,Grom's view was limited; but he could see, over the heads of thelistening mob, the Black Chief seated on the rock, his ragged club inhis hand. He was haranguing his warriors in rapid clicks andgutturals, which conveyed no meaning to Grom's ear. The harangue camesoon to an end. The Chief stood up. The bestial crowd parted--andthrough the opening Grom saw A-ya, crouched, with her hair over herknees, at the Chief's feet. Stepping down from the rock, the Chiefseized her by the wrist and dragged her upright. She took her place athis heels, dejectedly, like a whipped dog. Grom, from within histhicket, ground his teeth, and with difficulty held himself in leash.Surrounded as A-ya was, at that moment, by the hordes of her captors,any attempt at her rescue would have been hopeless folly.
There was something going on among the bow-legged mob which Grom, fromhis hiding-place could not at first make out. Then he saw that theChief was trying to instruct his powerful but clumsy followers in thehandling of the club and spear. Having been taught by the whiterenegade, Mawg, the Chief used his massive club with skill, but he wasstill clumsy and absurdly inaccurate in throwing the spear. After hehad split the face of one of his followers by a misdirected cast, hegave up the spear-throwing, turned to the girl, and ordered her toteach this art of her people. It was obvious that the mob had vastconfidence in her powers, as one of superior race, although a merewoman, for they opened out at once on two sides to leave room for theexpected display. The heart of the watche
r in the thicket began tothump as he saw a way clearing itself between his hiding-place and thewild-haired woman he loved.
A-ya affected to misunderstand the Chief's orders. She took the spear,but stood holding it in stupid dejection. The Chief threatened herangrily, but she paid no attention. At this moment the whistling cryof a plover sounded from the thicket. The girl straightened herselfand every muscle grew tense. The melancholy cry came again. It was astrange place for a plover to lurk in, that rank thicket of jungle;but the Bow-legs took no notice of the incongruity. Upon the girl,however, the effect of the cry was magical. She gave no glance towardthe thicket, but suddenly, smilingly, she seemed to understand theorders of the Chief. Poising the rude spear at the height of hershoulder, she pointed to a huge, whitish fungus which grew upon atree-root some sixty or seventy feet away. With a flexing of her wholelithe body--as Grom had taught her--she made her throw. The whitefungus was split in halves.
With a hoarse clamor of admiration, the mob surged forward to examinethe fragments. Even the Chief, though disdaining to show the interestof his followers, took a stride or two in the same direction. For asecond his back was turned. In that second, the girl fled, light andswift as a deer, speeding toward the thicket whence the cry of theplover had sounded. Her long bushy hair streamed out behind her as sheran.
With a bellow of wrath, the Black Chief, the whole mob at his heels,came pounding after her. The next instant, out from the thicket leaptGrom, a towering figure, and stood with spear uplifted. Like a lion atbay, he glanced swiftly this way and that, balancing the chances ofbattle and escape, while he menaced the foes immediately confrontinghim.
At this amazing apparition, the mob paused irresolute; but the BlackChief came on like a mad buffalo. Grom hurled one of his two spears.He hurled it with a loathing fury; but he was compelled to throw high,to clear A-ya's head. The Chief saw it coming, and cunningly flunghimself forward on his face. The weapon hurtled on viciously, andpierced the squat body of one of the waverers a dozen paces behind. Athis yell of agony the mob woke up, and came on again with guttural,barking cries. But already Grom and the girl, side by side, werefleeing down an open glade to the left, toward a breadth of stillwater which they saw gleaming through the trunks. Grom knew that theway behind him was swarming with the enemy. He had seen that there wasno chance of getting through the hordes in front and to the right. Butin this direction there were only a few knots of shaggy women, whoshrank in terror at his approach; and he gambled on the chance of thebow-legged men having no great skill in the water.
All the Folk of the Caves could swim like otters, and both Grom andthe girl were expert beyond their fellows. The water before them wassome three or four hundred yards in width. They did not know whetherit was a sluggish fenland river, or the arm of a lake; but, heedlessof the peril of crocodiles and water-snakes they plunged in, and withlong powerful side-strokes went surging across toward the oppositeshore. They had a clear start of thirty or forty yards, and their pacein the water was tremendous. Some heavy splashes in the water behindthem showed how the clumsy missiles of their foes--ragged clubs andfragments of broken branches--were falling short; and they looked backderisively.
The bow-legged, shaggy men with their wide, red, skyward nostrils wereranged along the shore, and the Chief was fiercely urging them intothe water. They shrank back in horror at the prospect--which, indeed,seemed little to the taste of the Chief himself. Presently he seizedthe two nearest by their matted manes, and flung them headlong in.With yells of terror they scrambled out again, and scurried off to therear like half-drowned hens.
The Chief screeched an order. Straightway the mob divided. One partwent racing clumsily up the shore to the left, the other followed theChief along through the rank sedge-growth to the right--the Chief, byreason of his superior stature and length of leg, rapidly opening uphis lead.
"It's nothing but a pond," said Grom, in disgust, "and they're cominground the shore to head us off."
But the girl, her hair trailing darkly on the water behind her, onlylaughed. She was free at last. And she was with her man.
Suddenly Grom felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the calf of his leg. Witha cry, he looked back, expecting to see a water-snake gliding off. Hesaw nothing. But in the next instant another stab came in the otherleg. Then A-ya screamed: "They're biting me all over." A dozenstinging punctures distributed themselves all at once over Grom'sbody. Then he understood that their assailants were not water-snakes.
"Quick! To shore!" he ordered. Throwing all their strength into abreath-sapping, over-hand roll, they shot forward, gained the weedyshallows, and scrambled ashore. Their bodies were hung thickly withgigantic leeches.
Heedless of the wounds and the drench of blood, they tore off theirloathsome assailants. Then, after a few seconds' halt to regain breathand decide on their direction, they started northwestward at a rapid,swinging lope, through a region of open, grassy glades set withthickets of giant fern and mimosa.
They had run on at this free pace for a matter of half-an-hour ormore, and were beginning to flatter themselves that they had shakenoff their pursuers, when almost directly ahead of them, to the right,appeared the Black Chief, lumbering down upon them. Nearly half-a-milebehind, between the mimosa clumps, could be seen the mob of hisfollowers straggling up to his support. He yelled a furious challenge,swung up his great club, and charged upon Grom. Waving A-ya behindhim, Grom strode forward, accepting the challenge.
As man to man, the rivals looked not unfairly matched. The fair-skinnedMan of the Caves was the taller by half a head, but obviously thelighter in weight by a full stone, if not more. His long, straight,powerfully muscled legs had not the massive strength of his bow-leggedadversary's. He was even slim, by comparison, in hip and waist. Butin chest, arms and shoulders his development was finer. Physically,it seemed a matter of the lion against the bear.
To Grom there was one thing almost as vital, in that moment, as therescue of his woman. This was the slaking of his lust of hate againstthe filthy beast-man who had held that woman captive. Fading ancestralinstincts flamed into new life within him. His impulse was to flingdown spear and club, to fall upon his rival with bare, throttlinghands and rending teeth. But his will, and his realization of all thathung upon the outcome, held this madness in check.
Silent and motionless, poised lightly and gathered as if for a spring,Grom waited till his adversary was within some thirty paces of him.Then, with deadly force and sure aim, he hurled his one remainingspear. But he had not counted on the lightning accuracy, swifter thanthought itself, with which the men of the trees used their huge hands.The Black Chief caught the spear-head within a few inches of his body.With a roar of rage he snapped the tough shaft like a parsnip stalk,and threw the pieces aside. Even as he did so, Grom, still voicelessand noiseless, was upon him.
Had the vicious swing of Grom's flint-headed club found its mark, thebattle would have been over. But the Black Chief, for all his bulk,was quick as an eel. He bowed himself to the earth, so that the strokewhistled idly over him, and in the next second he swung a vicious,short blow upwards. It was well-aimed, at the small of Grom's back.But the latter, feeling himself over-balanced by his own ineffectiveviolence, leapt far out of reach before turning to see what hadhappened. The Chief recovered himself, and the two lashed out at eachother so exactly together that the great clubs met in mid-air. Soshattering was the force of the impact, so numbing the shock to thehairy wrists behind it, that both weapons dropped to the ground.
Neither antagonist dared stoop to snatch them up. For several secondsthey stood glaring at each other, their breath hissing throughclenched teeth, their knotted fingers opening and shutting. Then theysprang at each other's throats--Grom in silence, the Black Chiefsnarling hoarsely. Neither, however, gained the fatal grip at which heaimed. They found themselves in a fair clinch, and stood swaying,straining, sweating, and grunting, so equally matched in sheerstrength that to A-ya, standing breathless with suspense, the dreadfulseconds seemed to drag themselves
out to hours. Then Grom, amazed tofind that in brute force he had met his match, feigned to give way.Loosing the clutch of one arm, he dropped upon his knees. With a gruntof triumph the Black Chief crashed down upon him, only to find himselfclutched by the legs and hurled clean over his wily adversary's head.Before he could recover himself, Grom was upon him, pinning him to theearth and reaching for his throat. In desperation he set his huge apeteeth, with the grip of a bull-dog, deep into the muscular base ofGrom's neck, and began working his way in toward the artery.
At this moment A-ya glanced about her. She saw two bodies of theBow-legs closing in upon them from either side--the nearest not muchmore than a couple of hundred yards distant. Her lord had plainlyordered her to stand aside from this combat, but this was no time forobedience. She snatched up the sharpened fragment of the broken spear.Gripping it with both hands she drove it with all her force into theside of the Black Chief's throat, and left it there. With a hideouscough his grip relaxed. His limbs straightened out stiffly, and he layquivering.
Covered with blood, Grom sprang to his feet, and turned angrily uponA-ya. "_I_ would have killed him," he said, coldly.
"There was no time," answered the girl, and pointed to the advancinghordes.
Without a word Grom snatched up his club, wrenched the broken spearfrom his dead rival's neck, thrust it into the girl's hands, anddarted for the narrowing space of open between the two convergingmobs.
With their greatly superior speed it was obvious that the twofugitives might reasonably expect to win through. They were surprised,therefore, at the note of triumph in the furious cries of theBow-legs. A few hundred yards ahead the comparatively open countrycame to an end, and its place was taken by a belt of splendid crimsonbloom, extending to right and left as far as the eye could see. It wasa jungle of shrubs some twenty feet high, with scanty, pale-greenleaves almost hidden by their exuberance of blossom. But jungle thoughit was, Grom's sagacious eyes decided that it was by no means denseenough to seriously hinder their flight. When they reached it, thejabbering hordes were almost upon them. But, with mocking laughter,they slipped through, and plunged in among the gray stems, beneath theovershadowed rosy glow. Their pursuers yelled wildly--it seemed toGrom a yell of exultation--but they halted abruptly at the edge of therosy barrier and made no attempt to follow.
"They know they can't catch us," said Grom, slackening his pace. Butthe girl, puzzled by this sudden stopping of the pursuit, felt uneasyand made no reply.
Loping onward at moderate pace through the enchanting pink light,which filtered down about them through the massed bloom overhead, theypresently became conscious of an oppressive silence. The cries oftheir pursuers having died away behind them, there was now nothing butthe soft thud of their own footfalls to relieve the anxious intentnessof their ears. Not a bird-note, not the flutter of a wing, not the humor the darting of a single insect, disturbed the strangely heavy air.No snake or lizard or squeaking mouse scurried among the fallenleaves. They wondered greatly at such stillness. Then they wondered atthe absence of small undergrowth, the lack of other shrubs and treessuch as were wont to grow together in the warm jungle. Nothinganywhere about them but the endless gray stems and pallid slim leavesof the oleander, with their rose-red roof of blossom.
Presently they felt a lethargy creeping over their limbs, which beganto grow heavy; and a dull pain came throbbing behind their eyes. Thenunderstanding of those cries of triumph flashed into Grom's mind. Hestopped and clutched the girl by the wrist. "It is poison here. It isdeath," he muttered. "That's why they shouted."
"Yes, everything is dead but the red flowers," whispered A-ya, andclung to him, shuddering with awe.
"Courage!" cried Grom, lifting his head and dashing his great handacross his eyes. "We _must_ get through. We _must_ find air."
Shaking off the deadly sloth, they ran on again at full speed, peeringthrough the stems in every direction. The effort made their brainsthrob fiercely. And still there was nothing before them and about thembut the endless succession of slender gray stems and the downpour ofthat sinister rosy light. At last A-ya's steps began to lag, as if shewere growing sleepy.
"Wake up!" shouted Grom, and dragged so fiercely at her arm that shecried out. But the pain aroused her to a new effort. She sprangforward, sobbing. The next moment, she was jerked violently to theleft. "This way!" panted Grom, the sweat pouring down his livid face;and there, through the stems to the left, her dazed eyes perceivedthat the hated rosy glow was paling into the whiteness of the naturalday.
It was a big white rock, an island thrust up through the sea oftreacherous bloom. With fumbling, nerveless fingers they scaled itsbare sides, flung themselves down among the scant but wholesomeherbage, which clothed its top, and filled their lungs with the clean,reviving air. Dimly they heard a blessed buzzing of insects, andseveral great flies, with barred wings, lit upon them and bit themsharply. They lay with closed eyes, while slowly the throbbing intheir brains died away and strength flowed back into their unstrunglimbs.
Then, after perhaps an hour, Grom sat up and looked about him. Onevery side outspread the fatal flood of the rose-red oleanders,unbroken except toward the north-west. In that quarter, however, aspur of the giant forest, of growths too mighty to feel the spell ofthe envenomed blooms, was thrust deep into the crimson tide. Its tipcame to within a couple of hundred yards of the rock. Having fullyrecovered, Grom and A-ya swung down, with loathing, into the pinkgloom, fled through it almost without drawing breath, and foundthemselves once more in the rank green shadows of the jungle. Theywent on till they came to a thicket of plantains. Then, loadingthemselves with ripe fruit, they climbed high into a tree, and wovethemselves a safe resting-place among the branches.
For the next few days their journey was without adventure, save forthe frequent eluding of the monsters of that teeming world. Grom hadhis club, A-ya her broken spear; but they were avoiding all combats intheir haste to get back to their own country of the homely caves andthe guardian watch-fires. At the approach of the great black lion orthe saber-tooth, or the wantonly malignant rhinoceros, they betookthemselves to the tree-tops, and continued their way by that aerialpath as long as it served them. The most subtle of the beasts theyknew they could outwit, and their own anxiety now was Mawg, whosecraft and courage Grom could no longer hold in scorn. He was doubtlessat large, and quite possibly on their trail, biding his time to catchthem unawares. They never allowed themselves, therefore, to sleep bothat the same time. One always kept on guard: and hence their progress,for all their eagerness, was slower than it would otherwise havebeen.
On a certain day, after a long unbroken stretch of travel, A-ya restedand kept watch in a tree-top, while Grom went to fetch a bunch ofplantains. It was fairly open country, a region of low herbage dottedwith small groves and single trees; and the girl, herself securelyhidden, could see in every direction. She could see Grom wanderingfrom plantain clump to plantain clump, seeking fruit ripe enough to bepalatable. And then, with a shiver of hate and dread, she saw the darkform of Mawg, creeping noiselessly on Grom's trail, and not more thana couple of hundred paces behind him. At the very moment when her eyesfell upon him, he dropped flat upon his face, and began worming hisway soundlessly through the herbage.
Her mouth opened wide to give the alarm. But the cry stopped in herthroat, and a smile of bitter triumph spread over her face.
If Mawg was hunting Grom, he was at the same time himself beinghunted. And by a dreadful hunter.
Out from behind a thicket of glowing mimosa appeared a monstrous bird,some ten or twelve feet in height, lifting its feet very high in aswift but noiseless and curiously delicate stride. Its dark plumagewas more like long, stringy hair than feathers. Its build wassomething like that of a gigantic cassowary, but its thighs and longblue shanks were proportionately more massive. Its neck was long, butimmensely muscular to support the enormous head, which was larger thanthat of a horse, and armed with a huge, hooked, rending, vulture'sbeak. The apparent length of this terrible head w
as increased by apointed crest of blood-red feathers, projecting straight back in aline with the fore-part of the skull and the beak.
The crawling figure of Mawg was still a good hundred paces from theunsuspecting Grom, when the great bird overtook it. A-ya, watchingfrom her tree-top, clutched a branch and held her breath. Mawg's earscaught a sound behind him, and he glanced around sharply. With ascream, he bounded to his feet. But it was too late. Before he couldeither strike or flee, he was beaten down again, with a smash of thatpile-driving beak. The bird planted one huge foot on its victim'sloins, gripped his head in its beak, and neatly snapped his neck. Thenit fell greedily to its hideous meal.
At Mawg's scream of terror, Grom had turned and rushed to the rescue,swinging his club. But before he had covered half the distance, he sawthat the monster had done its work; and he hesitated. He was too lateto help the victim. And he knew the mettle of this ferocious bird,almost as much to be dreaded, in single combat, as the saber-toothitself. At his approach, the bird had lifted its dripping beak, halfturned, and stood gripping the prey with one foot, swaying its grimhead slowly and eyeing him with malevolent defiance. Still hehesitated, fingering his club; for the insolence of that challengingstare made his blood seethe. Then came A-ya's voice from the tree-top,calling him. "Come away!" she cried. "It was Mawg."
Whereupon he turned, with the content of one who sees all old scorescleanly wiped out together, and went back to gather his ripeplantains.
The peril of Mawg being thus removed from their path, they journeyedmore swiftly; and when the next new moon was a thin white sickle inthe sky, just above the line of saw-toothed hills, they came safelyback to the comfortable caves and the clear-burning watch-fires oftheir tribe.
In the Morning of Time Page 7
