In the Morning of Time

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

  CHAPTER XI

  THE FEASTING OF THE CAVE FOLK

  I

  At last, and reluctantly, the Folk of the Caves had withdrawn fromtheir earthquake-harassed valley and betaken themselves to the newdwelling-place which Grom had found for them, on the green hill-slopebeside the Bitter Waters. They had lost no time, however, in acceptingthe new conditions; for these caves in the limestone were ample andsecure--it was hard for any invader to come at them save by way of thelong, bare ridge of the downs running westward behind the caves; asweet-water brook ran almost past their threshold to fall with apleasant clamor into the bay,--and the surrounding country was rich ingame. The vast basin of marshy plain and colossal jungle, to be sure,which stretched and steamed below the downs to southward, was thehabitation of strange monsters; but these, apparently, had no tastefor exploring the high, clean, windy downs.

  On a certain golden morning it chanced that the caves were well-nighdeserted. The men of the tribe, including the chiefs themselves, Bawrand Grom, together with most of the women and the half-grown children,had gone off down the shore to a shallow inlet five or six milesdistant to gather shell-fish--great luscious mussels and peculiarlyplump and savory whelks. The girl A-ya, absorbed in her specialoccupation of fashioning bows and arrows for the tribe, had remained,with a half-score of old men and women and Grom's giant slave, thelame Bow-leg, Ook-ootsk, to guard the little children and the tribalfires. As Grom's mate, and his confidential associate in all hisgreatest ventures, A-ya's prestige in the tribe had come to be onlyless than that of Bawr and Grom themselves.

  On the open, grassy level before the cave mouth, the two great firesburned steadily in the sun. The giant Ook-ootsk, hideous with hisape-like forehead, his upturned, flaring nostrils, his protruding jaw,his shaggy, clay-colored torso, and his short, massive, grotesquelybowed legs--of which one was twisted so that the toes pointed almostbackwards--lay sprawling and chuckling benevolently near the entrance,while a swarm of little ones, A-ya's two among them, clambered overhim. The old men and the old women most of them dozed in the shade,save two or three of the most diligent, who occupied their gnarledfingers in twisting thin strips of hide into bow-strings, or lashingslivers of stone into the heads of spears. A-ya sat cross-legged alittle apart, beside a tiny fire, laboriously fashioning her bows andarrows by charring the wood in the embers and then rubbing it betweentwo rough stones. With her head bent low over her work, the heavy,tangled masses of her hair fell upon it and got in her way, and fromtime to time she shook them aside impatiently. It was a picture ofprimeval peace.

  But peace, in the days when earth was young, was something moreprecarious than a bubble.

  From around the green shoulder of the hill came a sound of tramplinghooves and labored breathing. A-ya sprang to her feet, snatching upher own well-tried bow and fitting an arrow to the string. At the sametime she gave a sharp alarm-cry, at which the lame slave, Ook-ootsk,arose, shaking off the swarm of children, and came hobbling towardsher with his weapons in both hands. An old woman pounced upon thestartled, wide-eyed children, and in a twinkling had them shepherdedinto the cave-mouth, out of sight. The old men, springing from theirsleep, and blinking, hurried forth into the sunlight, with such spearsor clubs as they could lay instant hand upon.

  A breathless moment, while all stood waiting for they knew not what.Then around the corner appeared a tall, wide-antlered elk, its eyesshowing the whites with terror, its dilated nostrils spattering bloodyfroth. A long, raking wound ran scarlet down one flank. Staggeringfrom weariness or loss of blood, it came on straight toward thecave-mouth, so blinded by its terror that it seemed not to see thehuman creatures awaiting it, or even the fires before them.

  A-ya fetched a deep breath of relief when she saw that this was noravening monster. Her immediate thought was the hunter's thought. Shedrew her bow to the full length of her shaft, and as the panting beastwent by she let drive. The arrow pierced to half its span, just behindthe straining fore-shoulder. Blood burst from the animal's nostrils.It fell on its knees, struggled up again, blundered on for half adozen strides, and dropped half-way across the second fire.

  There was a chorus of triumphant shouts from the old men and women;and A-ya started forward with the intention of dragging her prize fromthe fire. But a look of apprehension and warning in the keen littleeyes of Ook-ootsk, who had by this time hobbled to her side, checkedher. In a flash the meaning of it came to her.

  "What do you suppose was chasing it, Ook-ootsk?" she queried; andwhipped about, without waiting for his answer, to stare anxiously atthe green shoulder of the hillside.

  "Black lion, maybe," said Ook-ootsk, in his harsh, clucking voice,dropping his spear and club beside him and setting a long arrow to thestring of his massive bow.

  But the words were hardly out of his throat, when his guess was provedwrong. Around the turn came lumbering, with huge heads hung low andslavering, half-open jaws a pair of those colossal red bears of thecaves which had always been A-ya's peculiar terror.

  "Hide the children!" she yelled, and then let fly an arrow, almostwithout aim, at the foremost of the monsters. She was the best shot inthe tribe, and the shaft sped even too true. It struck the bear fullin the snout, and pierced through the palate and into the throat--awound which, though likely to prove mortal after a time, only made thebeast more dangerous for the moment. It paused, coughing, and tried topaw the torment from its jaws, and then rushed forward, screaminghideously.

  In that pause, however, though it was but for a second or two, thesecond bear had forged ahead of its companion. It was greetedinstantly by an arrow from the massive bow of Ook-ootsk, aimed withcool deliberation. The long shaft of hickory, delivered thus at closerange, caught the enemy in the front of the right shoulder and droveclean in to the joint, so that the leg gave way and the gigantic brutealmost fell upon its side. With a roar, it bit off the protruding halfof the tough hickory, and then came on again, on three legs. FromA-ya's nimble bow it got another arrow, which went half-way throughits neck; but to this deadly wound, which sent the blood gushing fromits mouth, it seemed to pay no heed whatever. A-ya's next shot missed;and then, screaming for the old men to come into the fray, shesnatched up her stone-headed spear and ran around behind the nearestfire, expecting the bears to follow her and be led away from thehiding-place of the children.

  But she had forgotten that the slave, Ook-ootsk, with his twisted andshrunken leg, could not run. That valiant savage, blinking his littleeyes rapidly and blowing defiantly through his upturned nostrils as hesaw his doom rushing upon him, let drive one more of his long shaftsinto the red, towering bulk, then dropped his bow, sank upon one knee,and held up his spear slantingly before him, with its butt firmlybraced upon the ground. As the monster reared itself and fell uponhim, the jagged point of the spear was forced deep into its belly,straight up till it reached the backbone. Then the shaft snapped,Ook-ootsk sprawled forward upon his face, and the monster, in theparoxysm of its amazement and agony, leapt onward and plunged rightover him, involuntarily hurling him aside and clawing most of theflesh off his back with a kick of one gigantic hind paw.

  He clenched his teeth stoically, shut his eyes, folded his long, hairyarms about his head, and rolled himself into a ball, confidentlyexpecting in the next moment to feel the life crunched out of him.

  But just as the monster, recovering itself, was turning madly tofinish off its insignificant but torturing opponent, A-ya came leapingback to the rescue, with a blazing and sparkling faggot in each hand,and the old men, some with fire-brands, some with spears, clamoringresolutely behind her. With fearless dexterity, she thrust the firestraight into the monster's eyeballs, totally blinding him. As hewheeled to strike her down, she slipped aside with a mocking laugh,and threw one of the brands between his jaws, where he crunched uponit savagely before he felt the torment of it and spat it out.

  Depending now upon his ears, the monster blundered straight forward inthe direction of the shouting voices. He had quite forgottenOok-ootsk. He raged to
come at this last intolerable foe, who hadscorched the light from his eyes. He made for her voice straightenough; but it chanced that exactly in his path lay the secondfire--that into which the body of the elk had fallen. Already toomaddened with the anguish of his wounds to notice the fire atonce, he stumbled upon the body. Here, surely, was one of his foes.He fell to rending the carcase with his claws, and biting it,crawling forward upon it to reach its throat with the fire licking upderisively about his head; till at length the flames were drawn deepinto his laboring lungs, searing them and sealing them so that theycould no more perform their office. With a shallow, screeching gasp hethrew himself backwards out of the fire, rolled upon the turf, andlay there fighting the air with his paws as he strangled swiftly andconvulsively.

  The second bear, meanwhile, wallowing with astonishing nimbleness onthree legs, had charged roaring into the group of old men. In atwinkling he had three or four spears sticking into him; but the armsthat hurled the spears were weak, and the monster ramped on unheeding.Several fire-brands fell upon him, scorching his long, red fur, but heshook them off, too maddened to remember his natural dread of theflames.

  The group scattered in all directions. But one brave old gray-beard,who had marked A-ya's success, lingered in the path, and tried tothrust his blazing faggot into the monster's eyes, as she had done. Hewas not quick enough. The monster threw up its muzzle, dodging thestroke, and the next moment it had struck down its feeble adversaryand crushed his head between its tremendous jaws.

  In its folly, it now forgot its other enemies, and fell to wreakingits madness on the lifeless victim. But in another second or two itwas fairly overwhelmed with the red brands descending upon its head.A-ya, with all the force of her strong young arms, drove her shortspear half-way through its loins. Then, with one eye blinded and itslong fur smouldering, its rage gave way suddenly into panic. Liftingits giant head high into the air, as if thus to escape its fieryassailants, it turned and scuttled back the way it had come, while theold men swarmed after it, belaboring and jabbing its elephantine rumpwith their live brands.

  A-ya, racing like a deer and screaming with exultation, ran round thepack of old men and stabbed the frantic brute in the neck, with herspear held short in both hands. Shrinking abjectly from this attack,he swerved off toward the left. It was his left eye that was blinded,and the other was full of smoke and ashes. He missed the path,therefore, and plunged squalling over the edge of the bluff, which atthis point dropped about a hundred feet, almost perpendicularly, tothe beach. Rolling over and over, and bouncing out into space everytime he struck the cliff face he fell to the bottom amid a shower ofstones and dust, and lay there as shapeless as a fur rug dropped froman upper window.

  The old men, jabbering in triumph, craned their shaggy gray heads outover the brink to grin down upon him, while A-ya, with a wild light inher eyes and her strong white teeth gleaming savagely, turned back totend the wounds of her slave, Ook-ootsk.

  II

  Having assured herself that the hurts of Ook-ootsk, dreadful thoughthey were, were yet not mortal (our sires of Cave and Tree took a lotof killing!), A-ya stepped over to the further fire to see aboutrescuing the carcase of the slain elk before it should be quite burnedup. As a matter of fact, there was little of it actually consumed bythe fire, but it was amazingly shredded by the clawing of the blindedbear; and an odor of roasted venison steamed up from it, which seemedrather pleasant to A-ya's nostrils. Under her direction, the old menhauled the body from the fire by the hind-legs, and dragged it over tothe edge of the bluff before cutting it up, for convenience in gettingrid of the offal. Every one followed, to secure their due share of thetit-bits, except Ook-ootsk and one old woman. This old woman satrocking and keening beside the body of her mate whom the bear hadslain; while Ook-ootsk crawled off into a neighboring hollow to lookfor certain healing herbs which should cleanse and astringe hiswounds.

  The hide of the elk was too much burnt, too ripped and torn by theclaws of the bear, to be of any use except for thongs; but the old menskinned it off expertly before dividing the flesh. Though theirgnarled fingers were feeble, they were amazingly clever in the use ofthe sharp-edged flakes of stone which served them as knives. A-yastood by them, watching closely, to see that none of the speciallydainty cuts were appropriated. These delicacies were reserved forherself and her two children, and for Grom when he should return. Shehad the right to them, not only because she was the mate of Grom, butbecause the kill was hers.

  As she stood over the carcase--the fore-part of which had beensuperficially barbecued in the fire--the smell of the roasted fleshbegan to appeal to her even more strongly than at first. As shesniffed it, curiously, it began to entice her appetite as nothing hadever tempted it before. She touched a well-browned, fatty morsel, andthen put her fingers into her mouth. The flavor seemed to her asdelightful as the smell. She cast about for a suitable morsel on whichto experiment.

  Now it chanced that the elk's tongue, having lain in the heart of thefire, but enclosed within the half-open jaws, had been cooked to aturn. A-ya possessed herself of this ever-coveted delicacy. It lookedso queer, in its cooked state, charred black along the lower edge,that she hesitated to taste it. At last, persuaded by its fragrance,she brought herself to nibble at it.

  A moment more and she was devouring it with a gusto which, had mannersbeen greatly considered in the days when the earth was young, mighthave seemed unbecoming in the wife of a great chief. Never before hadshe eaten anything that seemed to her half so delicious. It was thefood she had all her life been craving. Her two little boys, pullingat her, aroused her from her ecstasy. She gave them each a fragment,which they swallowed greedily, demanding more; and between the threeof them the great lump of roast tongue quickly vanished.

  The rest of the crowd meanwhile had been looking on with instinctivedisapproval. The portions of the meat which the fire had cooked, orpartly cooked, seemed to them spoiled. A-ya might, indeed, like thestrange food; but she was different from the rest of them in so manyways! When, however, they saw her two boys follow her example, andnoted their enthusiasm, several of the old men ventured to try forthemselves. They were instant converts. Last of all, the old women andthe children--always the most conservative in such matters, took thenotion that they were losing something, and dared to essay the noveldiet. One taste, as a rule, proved enough to vanquish theirprejudices. In a very few minutes every shred of the carcase thatcould claim acquaintance with the fire had been eaten, and all wereclamoring for more. Fully three-parts of the carcase remained, indeed,but it was all raw flesh. A-ya looked down upon it with disdain.

  "Take it back and throw it on the fire again!" she ordered angrily.The generous lump of steak, which she had hacked off for herself fromthe loin, had proved to be merely scorched on the outside, and she wasdisappointed. She stood fingering the raw mass with resentfulaversion, while the old men and women, chattering gleefully andfollowed by the horde of children dragged the mangled carcase back tothe fire, lifted it laboriously by all four legs, and managed todeposit it in the very midst of the flames. A shrill shout of triumphwent up from the withered old throats at this achievement, and theyall drew back to wait for the fire to do its wonderful work.

  But A-ya was impatient, and vaguely dissatisfied as she watched thatcrude roasting in the process. She stood brooding, eyeing the fire andturning her lump of raw flesh over and over in her hands. The attitudeof body was one she had caught from Grom, when he was groping for asolution to some problem. And now it seemed as if she had caught hisattitude of mind as well. Into her brain, for the moment passive andreceptive, flashed an idea, she knew not whence. It was as if it hadbeen whispered to her. She picked up a spear, jabbed its stone headfirmly into the lump of meat, and thrust the meat into the edge of thefire, as far as it could go without burning the wood of the spearshaft.

  It took her a very few minutes to realize that her idea was nothingless than an inspiration. Moving the morsel backwards and forwards tokeep it from charring, she found that i
t seemed to do best over a massof hot coals rather than in a flame; and being a thin cut, it cookedquickly. When it was done she burnt her fingers with it, and her bigred mouth as well; and her two boys, for whom she had torn off shredstoo hot for herself to hold, danced up and down and wept loudly withthe smart of it, to be instantly consoled by the savor.

  Noting the supreme success of A-ya's experiment, the spectators rushedin, dragged the carcase once more from the fire, and fell to hackingoff suitable morsels, each for himself. In a few minutes every one whocould get hold of a long arrow, or a spear, or a pointed stick, wasbusy learning to cook. Even the wailing old mourner, finding theexcitement irresistible, forsook the body of her slain mate and cameforward to take her share. Only the dead man, lying outstretched inthe sun by the cave-door, and the crippled giant Ook-ootsk, away inthe green hollow nursing his honorable wounds, had no part in therejoicing, in this revel of the First Cooked Food. The hot meatjuices, modified by the action of the fire, were almost as stimulatingas alcohol in the veins of these simple livers, and the revel grew tosomething like an orgie as the shriveled nerves of the elders began tothrill with new life. A-ya, seeing the carcase of the elk melt awaylike new snow under a spring sun, gave orders to skin and cut up thebody of the first bear.

  But the old men were too absorbed in their feasting to pay anyattention to her orders; and she herself was too exhilarated andcontent to make any serious effort to enforce them. Every one, old andyoung alike, was sucking burnt fingers and radiating greasy, happysmiles, and she felt dimly that anything like discipline would beunpopular at such a moment.

  During all this excitement the main body of the tribe came stragglingback along the beach from their hunting of whelks and mussels. At thefoot of the bluff below the cave they found the body of the secondbear, and gathered anxiously about it, clamoring over its spear-woundsand the arrows sticking in it, till Bawr and Grom, who were in therear, came up. It was plain there had been a terrific battle at theCave. With most of the warriors the two Chiefs dashed on and up thepath, to find out how things had gone, while a handful remained behindto skin the bear and cut up the meat.

  When the anxious warriors arrived before the cave, they were amazed atthe hilarity which they found there--and inclined, at first, to resentit, being something to which they had no clue. What were all the oldfools doing, dancing and cackling about the fire, and wasting goodmeat by poking it into the fire on the ends of sticks and spears andarrows?

  The younger women, coming up behind the warriors, were derisive. Theywere always critical in their attitude towards A-ya--so far as theydared to be--and now they ran forward to scold and slap theirrespective children for putting this disgusting burnt meat into theirmouths.

  To Grom and Bawr, however, A-ya explained the whole situation in a fewpertinent phrases, and followed up her explanation by proffering themeach a well-cooked morsel. They both smelled it doubtfully, tasted it,broke into smiles, and devoured it, smacking their bearded lips.

  "Did _you_ do this, girl?" demanded Grom, beaming upon her proudly andholding out his great hairy hand for another sample. But Bawr strodeforward, thrust the old men aside, hacked himself off a generouscollop, stuck it on his spear-head, and thrust it into the fire.

  In his impatience, Bawr kept pulling the roast out every minute ortwo, to taste it and see if it was done enough. His enthusiasm--andthat of Grom, who was now following his example--cured the rest of thewarriors of their hesitation, so effectually that in five minutesthere was nothing more left of the great elk's carcase but antlers,bone and offal. Those who had got nothing fell upon the body of thebear, skinning it and hacking it in greedy haste. The young women,having satisfied convention by slapping their bewildered andprotesting brats, soon yielded to curiosity and began surreptitiouslyto nibble at the greasy cooked morsels which they had confiscated.Then they, too, grabbed up spears and sticks for toasting-forks andcame clamoring shrilly for their portions. And A-ya, standing a littleapart with Grom, smiled with comprehending sarcasm at theirconversion.

  For the next few hours the fires were surrounded each by a seethingand squabbling mob, the innermost rings engaged in toasting theircollops with one hand, while with the other they tried to shield theirfaces from the heat. As fast as those in the front rank wriggled outwith their browned and juicy tit-bits, others battled in to take theirplaces; and the Tribe of the Cave Men, mindful of nothing but thegratification of this new taste, feasted away the afternoon with suchunanimous and improvident rejoicing as they had never known before. Atlast, radiant with gravy and repletion, they flung themselves downwhere they would and went to sleep, Bawr and Grom, and two or threeothers of the older warriors, who had been wise enough to banquetwithout gorging themselves, thought with some misgiving of what mighthappen if an enemy should steal upon them at such an hour of torpor.

  But no enemy approached. With the fall of the dew the moon arose overthe bay, honey-colored in a violet sky, and played fantastic trickswith the shifting light of the fires. And from within the cave camesoftly the voice of A-ya, soothing a restless child.