CHAPTER XIII
THE FEAR
The People of the Caves were beginning to dread their good fortune.Plenty was being showered upon them with so lavish and sudden a handthat they looked at it askance, distrustful of the unsought-forlargess. For a week or more their hunting-grounds had been swarmingwith game, in amazing and daily increasing numbers, till there waslittle more of chance or of excitement in the hunt than in plucking aripe mango from its branch. It was game of the choicest kinds,too--deer of many varieties, and antelope, and the little wild horsewhose flesh they accounted such a delicacy. They slew, and slew, andtheir cooking-fires were busy night and day, and the flesh they couldnot devour was dried in the sun in long strips or smoked in the reekof green-wood fires. They feasted greedily, but there was somethingsinister in the whole matter, something ominous; and they would stopat times to wonder anxiously what stroke of fate could be hanging overthe Caves.
During the past day or two, moreover, there had been a disquietinginflux of those great and fierce beasts which the Cave Men were by nomeans anxious to hunt. The giant white and the woolly rhinoceros hadarrived by the score in the dense thickets of the steaming savannahwhich unrolled its green-and-yellow breadths along the southward baseof the downs. These half-blind brutes appeared to be waging a dreadfuland doubtful war with the red herds of those monstrous, cone-hornedsurvivals from an earlier age, the Arsinotheria, who had ruled thereeking savannah for countless cycles. The roar and trampling of thestruggle came up from time to time to the dwellers in the Caves, whenthe hot breeze came up from the southward.
What concerned the Cave Folk far more than any near-sighted andblundering rhinoceros, however malignant, was the sudden arrival ofthe great red bears, the black lions, the grinning and implacablesaber-tooth tigers, and giant black-gray wolves which hunted in small,handy packs of six or seven in number. All these, the dread foes ofMan for as long as tradition could remember, had been mercifully fewand scattered. Now, in a night, they had become as common as conies;and not a child could be allowed to play beyond shelter of thecave-mouth fires, not a woman durst venture to the spring without abrightly blazing fire-brand in her hand. Yet--and this seemed to theTribe the most portentous sign of all--these blood-thirsty beastsappeared to have lost much of their ancient hostility to Man. Theywere all well fed, of course, their accustomed prey being now soabundant that they had little more to do than put forth an armed pawand seize it. But they all seemed uneasy and half-cowed, as if weigheddown by a menace which they did not know how to face. When a manconfronted them, the fiercest of them made way with a deprecating air,as if to say that they had troubles enough on their minds.
* * * * *
Bawr, the Chief, and Grom, his right hand and his counselor, stoodupon the bare green ridge above the Cave-mouth, and stared downanxiously upon the sun-drenched plain. Of old it had taken keen eyesto discern the varied life which populated its bamboo-thickets andcane-choked marshes. Now it was as thronged as the home pastures of acattle-farm. Here and there a battle raged between such small-brainedbrutes as the white rhinoceros and the cone-horned monster; but forthe most part there was an apprehensive sort of truce, the differentkinds of beasts keeping as far as possible to themselves.
Further out in the plain pastured a herd of gigantic creatures such asneither Bawr nor Grom had ever seen before. A pair of rhinoceroslooked like pygmies beside them. They were both tall and massive, of adark mud-color, with colossal heads, no necks whatever, huge ears thatflapped like wings, immensely long, up-curving tusks of gleamingyellow--mighty enough to carry a bison cradled in their curve--and itseemed to the astonished watchers on the ridge that from the snout ofeach monster grew a great snake, which reared itself into the air, andwaved terribly, and pulled down the tops of trees for the monster'sfood.
It was the Cave Man's first view of the Mammoth--which had not yetdeveloped the shaggy coat it was later to grow on the cold sub-Articplains.
Recovering at length from his amazement, Bawr remarked:
"They seem to have two tails, those new beasts--a little tail behind,in the usual place, and a very big tail in front, which they use as ahand. They are very many, and very terrible. Do you think it is theywho are driving all these other beasts upon us to overwhelm us?"
Grom thought long before replying.
"No," said he, "they are not flesh-eaters. See! They do not heed theother beasts. They eat trees. And they, too, seem restless. I thinkthey are themselves driven. But what dreadful beings must be they whocan drive them!"
"If they are driven over us," muttered Bawr, "they will grind us andour fires into the dust."
"It must be men," mused Grom aloud, "men far mightier than ourselvesand so countless that the hordes of the Tree Men would seem a handfulin comparison. Only men, or gods, and in swarms like locusts, could sodrive all these mighty beasts before them as a child drives rabbits."
"Before they come," said Bawr, dropping his great craggy chin upon hisbreast, "the People of the Caves will be trodden out. Whither can weescape from such foes? We will build great fires before the caves, andwe will go down fighting, as befits men."
He lifted his maned and massive head, and shook his great speardefiantly at the unknown doom that was coming up from the south. ButGrom's eyes were sunken deep under his brows in brooding thought.
"There is one way, perhaps," he said at length. "We have learned tojourney on the water. We must build us rafts, many rafts, to carry allthe tribe. And when we can no longer hold our fires and our caves wewill push out upon the water, and perhaps make our way to that blueshore yonder, where they cannot follow us."
"The waves, and the monsters of the waves, will swallow us up,"suggested Bawr.
"Some of us, perhaps many of us," agreed Grom. "But many of us willescape, to keep the tribe-fires burning, if the gods be kind upon thatday and bind down the winds till we get over. If we stay here we shallall die."
"It is well," grunted Bawr, turning to hurry down the steep. "We willbuild rafts. Let us hasten."
* * * * *
On the beach below the Caves the Men of the Tribe worked furiously,dragging the trunks of trees together at the water's edge, lashingthem with ropes of vine and cords of hide, and laboriously loppingsome of the more obstructive branches by the combined use of fire andsplit stones. The women, and the lame slave Ook-ootsk--with the oldmen, who, though their hearts were still high, were too frail of theirhands for such a heavy task as raft-building--remained before theCaves under the command of A-ya, Grom's mate. They had enough to do infeeding the chain of fires, keeping the children out of danger, andfighting back with spear and arrow the ever-encroaching mob ofwild-eyed beasts. The beasts feared the fires, and feared the humanbeings who leaped and screamed and smote from among the fires. Butstill more they seemed to fear some unknown thing behind them. For atime, however, the crackling flames and the biting shafts proved asufficient barrier, and the motley but terrifying invaders wentsheering off irresolutely to westward over the downs.
Down by the edge of the tide the raft-builders worked under Grom'sguidance. The broad water--some four or five miles across--was thetidal estuary of a great river which flowed out of the north-west. Itsbrimming current bore down from the interior jungles the trunks ofmany uprooted trees, which the tides of the estuary hurled back andstrewed along the beach. The raft-builders, therefore, had plenty ofmaterial to work with. And the fear that lay chill upon their heartsurged them to a diligence that was far from their habit.
It was rather like working in a nightmare. From time to time wouldcome a rush, a stampede, of deer or tapirs, along the strip of beachbetween the water and the cliff. The toiling men would draw aside tillthe rabble went by, then fall to work again.
Once, however, it was a herd of wild cattle, snorting, and tossingtheir wide, keen-pointed horns; and their trampling onrush filled thewhole space so that the men had to plunge out into deep water toescape. Several, afr
aid of the big-mouthed, flesh-eating fish whichinfested the estuary at high tide, stayed too close in shore, and paidfor their irresolution by being gored savagely.
It was about the full of the moon and the time of the longest days,and the raft-builders toiled feverishly the whole night through. Bysunrise Bawr and Grom estimated that there were rafts enough to carrythe whole tribe, provided the present calm held on. They decided,however, to construct several more, in case some should prove lessbuoyant than they hoped.
But for this most wise provision Fate refused to grant the time.
A naked slip of a girl, her one scant garment of leopard skin caughtupon a rock and twitched from off her loins as she ran, came fleeingdown the hill-path, her hair afloat upon the fresh morning air.Straggling far behind her came a crowd of children, and old womencarrying babies or bundles of dried meat.
"They must not come yet. They'll be in the way!" cried Bawr angrily,waving them back. But they paid no attention--which showed that therewas something they feared more even than the iron-fisted Chief.
"There are none of the young women or the old men, who can fight,among them," said Grom. "A-ya must have sent them, because the timehas come. Let us wait for the young girl, who seems to bring amessage."
Breathless, and clutching at her bosom with one hand, the girl fell atBawr's feet.
"A-ya says, 'Come quick!'" she gasped. "They are too many. They runover the fires and trample us."
Grom sprang forward with a cry, then stopped and looked at his Chief.
"Go, you," said Bawr, "and bring them to us. I will stay here and lookto the rafts."
Taking a half-score of the strongest warriors with him, Grom raced upthe steep, torn with anxiety for the fate of A-ya and the children.
It was now about three-quarters tide, and the flood rising strongly.By way of precaution some of the rafts had been kept afloat, let downwith ropes of vine to follow the last ebb, and guided carefully backon the returning flood. But most of them were lying where they hadbeen built, or left by the preceding tide, along high-water mark, ashopelessly stranded, for the next two hours, as a birch log after afreshet. As the old women with children arrived, Bawr rushed them downthe wet beach to the rafts which were afloat, appointing to eachclumsy raft four men, with long, rough flattened poles, to manage it.For the moment, all these men had to do was hold their charges inplace that they might not be swept away by the incoming tide.
When Grom and his eager handful, passing a stream of tremblingfugitives on the way, reached the level ground before the Caves, thesight that greeted them was tremendous and appalling. It looked as ifsome great country to the southward had gathered together all itsbeasts and then vomited them forth in one vast torrent, confused andirresistible, to the north. It was a wholesale migration, on such ascale as the modern world has never even dreamed of, but suggested ina feeble way by the torrential drift of the bison across the NorthAmerican plains half a century ago, or the sudden, inexplicablemarches of the lemming myriads out of the Scandinavian barrens thatgive them birth.
The shrill cries of the women, fighting like she-wolves in defense ofthe children and the home-caves, the hoarse shouts of the old men,weak but indomitable, were mingled with an indescribable medley ofnoises--gruntings, bellowings, howlings, roarings, bleatings andbrayings--from the dreadful mob of beasts which besieged the openspace behind the fires. Some of the beasts were maddened with theirterror, some were in a fighting rage, some only wanted to escape thethrong behind them. But all seemed bent upon passing the fires andgetting into the Caves, as if they thought there to find refuge fromthe unknown fear.
At the extreme right of the line the two farthest fires were alreadyoverwhelmed, trodden out by frantic hooves, and three or four oldmen, with a couple of desperate young women, behind a barrier ofslain elk and stags were fighting like furies to hold back thevictorious onrush. Two of the old men were down, trodden out betweenthe fires by blind hooves, and a third, jammed limply against therocky wall beside the furthest cave, was being worried by abear--hideously but aimlessly, as if the great beast hardly heededwhat it was doing. There was something peculiarly terrifying in theanimal's preoccupation.
At the center of the line, immediately before the main Cave-mouth--whoseyawning entrance seemed to be the objective of the swarmingbeasts--A-ya was heading the battle, with the lame slave, Ook-ootsk,crouched fighting at her side like a colossal frog gone mad. Here thefires were almost extinguished--but the line of slain beasts formed atolerable barricade, upon the top of which the women leapt, stabbingwith their spears and screeching shrill taunts, while the old menleaned upon the gory pile to save their strength with frugalprecision. Here and there among the carcases was the body of a woman oran old man, impaled on the horn of a bull or ripped open by therending antler of an elk. As Grom and his men came shouting across thelevel a huge woolly rhinoceros plunged over the barrier, his bloodyhorn ploughing the carcases, trod down a couple of the defenders withoutappearing to see them, dashed through the nearest fire, and chargedblindly into the Cave-mouth with his matted coat all ablaze. Thechildren and old women who had not already fled down to the beachshrieked in horror. The frantic monster heeded them not at all, but wentthundering on into the bowels of the cavern.
"Go back, all you women!" yelled Grom above the tumult, as he and hismen raced to the barrier. "Get down to the beach with the children.We'll hold the rush back till you get down. Run! Run!"
Sobbing with the fury of the struggle, the women obeyed, darting backand pouncing upon their own little ones--all but A-ya, who remaineddoggedly at Grom's side.
"Go," ordered Grom fiercely. "The children need you. Get them alldown."
Sullenly the woman obeyed, seeing he was right, but still lusting forthe fight, though her wearied arm could now do little more than liftthe spear.
Under the shock of these fresh fighters, with lionlike heads,masterful eyes, and smashing, irresistible weapons, the front ranks ofthe animals recoiled, trampling those behind them; and for a fewminutes the pressure was relieved. Grom turned to the old men.
"You go now," he ordered.
But they refused.
"We stay here," cried one, breathless, but with fire in his ancienteyes. "None too much room on the rafts." And they fell again grimly tothe fight.
Grom laughed proudly. With such mettle even in withered veins, theTribe, he thought, was destined to great things. He turned to the lameslave, whom he had ever favored for his faithfulness.
"You go! You are lame and cannot run."
The crouching giant looked up at him with a widemouthed grin.
"I am no woman," said he. "I stay and hold them back when you all go.I kill, and kill. And then I go very far."
He waved one great gnarled hand, dripping with blood, toward the sunand the high spaces of air.
Before Grom could answer, from below the southward edge of the plateauthere came a mad, high trumpeting, so loud that every other voice inthat pandemonium was silenced by it. At that dread sound the rabble ofbeasts surged forward again upon the barrier, upon the clubs andspears of the defenders. Up over the brow of the slope came a forestof waving trunks, and tossing tusks, and ponderous black foreheads.
"The Two-Tails are upon us!" cried Grom, in a voice of awe. And hisfollowers gasped, as the colossal shapes shouldered up into fullview.
Grom looked behind him, and saw the last of the women and children,shepherded vehemently by A-ya with the butt of her spear, vanishingdown the steep toward the beach.
"It is time for us to go too," shouted Grom, clutching the lame slaveby the arm to drag him off. But Ook-ootsk wrenched himself free.
"I'll hold them back till you get away," he growled, and drove hisgreat spear into the heart of a bull which came over the barrier atthat instant. Grom saw it would be useless now to try and save him.With the rest of his band he ran for paths leading down to the beach.It was well, he thought, that the valiant slave should die for theTribe.
The beasts came over the barrier and the fi
res like a yelling flood.But now, finding all opposition so suddenly withdrawn, the flooddivided upon the massive, thrusting figure of Ook-ootsk as upon ablack rock in mid-stream. It united again behind him, surgingpell-mell for the Cave-mouths, where in the crush the weaker andlighter were savagely torn and trampled underfoot.
Then the Mammoths came thundering and trumpeting across the plateau,going through and over the lesser beasts like a tidal wave. Grom,having seen the last of his warriors pass down the beach paths, turnedfor one more glimpse of the monstrous and incredible scene. He had aswift vision of the squatting form of Ook-ootsk thrusting upward withreddened spear at the breast of a black monster which hung over himlike a mountain. Then the mountain rolled forward upon him, blottinghim out, and Grom slipped hurriedly over the brink and down the path.
* * * * *
At the rafts it was bedlam. A score or more of the women and children,as they were crossing to the water's edge, had been wiped out ofexistence by the rush of maddened bison along the beach, and thekeenings of their relatives rose above the shouts and cries ofembarkation. Fully half the rafts were afloat, with their loads, bynow, and men grunted heavily in the effort to pry the others free,while women and children crowded into the water around them, waitingto struggle aboard as soon as the men would let them.
As Grom and his panting band, covered with blood from head to foot,reached the waterside and flung their dripping weapons upon the rafts,a fringe of animals came over the edge of the steep, crowded asidefrom the caves. Some, being sure-footed, like the lions and bears,made their way with care down the paths. Others, pushed over andstruggling frantically, came rolling downward, bouncing from rock andledge, and landing on the beach a mass of broken bones. Then behindthem, along the brink, black and gigantic against the blue sky-line,appeared a group of the Mammoths. They waved their long trunks, andtrumpeted piercingly, but hesitated to try the descent.
"Hurry! hurry!" thundered Bawr, straining at the stranded timbers tillthe great veins stood out on neck and forehead as if they wouldburst.
Under the added efforts of Grom and his band the last of the raftsfloated. The children were thrown aboard, the women clambered afterthem, and the men, wading and guiding, lest the rafts should groundagain, began to follow cautiously.
At this moment, along the beach came a new rush of animals--chieflybuffalo, headed by three huge white rhinoceros. These all seemed quiteblind with panic. They dashed on straight ahead, paying no heedwhatever either to the people on the rafts or to the other beastscoming down the steep. On their heels thundered a second herd ofMammoths, their trunks held high in the air, the red caverns of theirmouths wide open.
As these colossal, rolling bulks came abreast of the rafts, a childshrieked at the terrifying sight. The leader of the herd turned hismalignant little eye upon the rafts, seeming to perceive them for thefirst time. Without pausing in his huge stride he reached down histrunk, whipped it about the waist of Bawr, and swung him aloft,crushing in his ribs with the terrific pressure, and carried him alonghigh in the air above the trumpeting ranks.
A howl of rage went up from the rafts; and A-ya, whose bow was quickas thought, let fly an arrow before Grom could stay her hand. Theshaft struck deep in the monster's trunk. Dashing down its lifelessvictim among the feet of the herd, the monster tried to turn back totake vengeance for the strange wound. But unable to stem the avalanchebehind, it was borne up the beach, screaming with rage.
Grom, who was now sole chief and master of the tribe, signed everyraft to push out into deep water, beyond reach of further attack. Withall responsibility now upon his shoulders, he had little time togrieve for the death of Bawr, who, after all, had died greatly, as aChief should. The rafts were now traveling inland at a fair rate, onthe last half-hour of the flood; and, as the estuary narrowed rapidlyabove their starting-place, he hoped to be able, during the slack oftide, to work the clumsy rafts well over towards the northern shorebefore getting caught in the full strength of the ebb. As he studiedout this problem, and urged the warriors to their utmost effort on theheavy and awkward pole-paddles, he kept puzzling all the time over thegreat mystery. What was it that swept even the mighty mammoths beforeits face? How should he name the Fear?
Then all at once, when the rafts were about three or four hundredyards out from shore, he saw. A low cry of wonder broke from his lips,and was reechoed in chorus from all the burdened rafts.
Down over the heights where the Cave Folk had been dwelling, up alongthe beach from which the rafts had just escaped, in countlessravening, snapping swarms, poured hyenas by the myriad--huge hyenas,bigger than the mightiest timber wolves, their deep-jowled headscarried close to the ground. It was clear in a moment that they weremad with hunger, driven by nothing but their own raging appetites.They fled from nothing, but some of them stopped, in strugglingmasses, to devour the bodies of the beasts which they found slain,while the rest poured on insatiably, to pull down by sheer weight ofnumbers and the might of their bone-crushing jaws the mightiest of themonsters which fled before them. Here and there a mammoth cow,maddened by the slaughter of her calf, or an old rhinoceros bull,indignant at being hunted by such vermin, would turn and run amuckthrough the mass, stamping them out by the hundred. But this made noimpression at all, either upon their numbers or the rage of theirhunger, and in a few minutes the colossus, its feet half eaten off,would come crashing down, to be swarmed over and disappear like a fatgrub in an ant-heap. Here and there, too, a mammoth, more sagaciousthan its fellows, would wade out belly deep into the water--uponfinding its escape cut off--and stand there plucking its foes one byone from the shore to trample them under its feet, screaming shrilltriumph.
Grom turned with a deep breath from the unspeakable spectacle, lookedacross to the green line of the opposite shore, and thanked hisunknown gods that it was so far off. With that great river rolling itsflood between, he thought the Tribe might rest secure from thesefiends and once more build up its fortunes.
In the Morning of Time Page 13
