The other warrior met the charge of the infuriated lioness with his spear. Straight into the broad breast ran the sharp point, the while the man clung tenaciously to the haft, whipped hither and thither as the beast reared and wheeled and struck at him with her claws.
Now Nu, the chief, and his fellows arrived upon the scene. A score of spears bristled from the bodies of Zor and his mate. Axes fell upon their heads, and Nu, the mighty, leaped upon Zor"s back with only his stone knife. There he clung to the thick mane, driving the puny weapon time and again into back and side until at last the roaring, screaming beast rolled over upon its side to rise no more.
The lioness proved more tenacious of life than her lord, and though bristling with spears and cut to ribbons with the knives of her antagonists she charged into close quarters with a sudden rush that found one of the cave men a fraction of a second too slow. The strong claws raked him from neck to groin and as he fell the mighty jaws closed with a sickening crunch upon his skull.
At bay over her victim the lioness stood growling and threatening, while the wild warriors danced in a circle about her awaiting the chance to rush in and avenge their comrade.
Within the circle of fires Nat-ul replenished the blaze, keeping the whole scene brilliantly lighted for the warriors. That she had stumbled upon men of her own tribe so unexpectedly seemed little short of miraculous. She could scarce wait for the battle with the lions to be concluded, so urgent was the business that filled her thoughts.
But at last Zor"s savage mate lay dead, and as Nu, the chief, returned to the camp Nat-ul leaped forward to meet him.
"Quick!" she cried. They are killing Nu, thy son," and she pointed toward the south in the direction of the glare that was now plainly visible through the darkness.
Nu did not wait to ask questions then. He called his warriors about him.
"Nat-ul says that they slay Nu, the son of Nu, there," he said, pointing toward the distant fire-glow.
"Come!"
As Nat-ul led them along the beach and through the jungle she told Nu, the chief, all that had transpired since Hud had stolen her away. She told of her wanderings, and of the Boat Builders. Of how one had chased her, and of the terrible creature that had seized and carried her to its nest. She told of the strange creature that crawled into the shelter where she was confined, leaping upon the back of Tur. And of how she slipped out of the shelter as the two battled, and escaped into the jungle, wriggling her hands from their bonds as she ran. She shuddered as she told Nu of the gauntlet of savage beasts she had been forced to run between the beast-fires of the Boat Builders and the safety of the jungle trees.
"I rested for the balance of the night in a great tree close beside the village of the strangers," she said.
"Early the next morning I set out in search of food, intending to travel northward until I came to our old dwellings where I could live in comparative safety.
"But all the time I kept wondering what it might have been that leaped upon Tur"s back in the shelter the night before and the more I thought about it the more apparent it became that it might have been a man -- that it must have been a man, for what animal could pa.s.s through the beastfires unseen?
"And so, after filling my stomach, I crept back through the trees to the edge of the village, and there I watched. The sun then was straight above me -- half the day was gone. I could not reach the caves before darkness if anything occurred to delay me, and as I might at any moment stumble upon some of the strangers or be treed by Ur, or Zor, or Oo, I decided to wait until early tomorrow morning before setting out for the caves. There was something within me that urged me to remain. What it was I do not know; but it was as though there were two Nat-uls, one wishing to hurry away from the land of the strangers as rapidly as possible and the other insisting that it was her duty to remain. At last I could deny my other self no longer -- I must stay, and so I found a comfortable position in a great tree that grows close beside the clearing where the strangers" village stands, and there I remained until long after darkness came.
"It was then that I saw the thing within the village that sent me here. Before, I had seen your fires, and wondered who it might be that came from the north. I knew that all the strangers had returned in the afternoon, so it could be none of them, and the first tribe to the north I knew was my own, so I hoped, without believing, that it might indeed be some of thy warriors, Nu.
"And then I saw that something was going to occur in the village below me. Warriors approached a hut from which they dragged a captive. By the legs they dragged him, through the village and about it, and as they did so the women and children tortured and spat upon the prisoner.
"At first I could not see the victim plainly, but at last as they raised him to his feet and bound him to a stake where they are going to roast him alive among slow fires I saw his face.
"Oh, Nu, can you not guess who it was that had followed me so far, had overcome such dangers and fought his way through the awful waters to rescue me?"
"Nu, the son of Nu," said the old warrior, and his chest swelled with pride as he strode through the jungle in the rear of the village.
Angry beasts of prey menaced the rescuing party upon every hand. Twice were they attacked and compelled to battle with some fierce, primordial brute; but at last they won to the edge of the jungle behind the village they sought.
There the sight that met their eyes and ears was one of wild confusion. Men and women were running hither and thither uttering shouts of rage. Beyond them was a circle of flaming brush. In the center of this, Nat-ul told the rescuers, Nu, the son of Nu, was fast bound to a stake. Slowly he was roasting to death -- possibly he was already dead.
Nu gathered his warriors about him. Two he commanded to remain always beside Nat-ul. Then, with the others at his heels, his long, white feather nodding bravely above his n.o.ble head, and the s.h.a.ggy pelt of Ur, the cave bear, falling from his shoulders, Nu, the chief, slunk silently out of the jungle toward the village of the excited Boat Builders.
There were forty of them, mighty men, mightily muscled. In their strong hands they grasped their formidable spears and heavy axes. In their loin cloths rested their stone knives for the moment when they closed in hand-to-hand combat with foes. In their savage brains was but a single idea -- to kill -- to kill -- to kill!
To the outer rim of fires they came and yet the excited populace within had not discovered them. Then a girl, remembering tardily her duties at the fires, turned to throw more brush upon the blaze and saw them -- saw a score of handsome, savage faces just beyond the flames.
With a scream of terror and warning she turned and scurried amongst the villagers. For an instant the hub-hub was stilled, only to break out anew at the girl"s frightened cry of: "Warriors! Warriors!"
Then Nu and his men were among them. The warriors of the Boat Builders ran forward to meet the attackers. The women and children fled to the opposite side of the enclosure. Hoa.r.s.e shouts and battle cries rang out as the Cliff Dwellers hurled themselves upon the Boat Builders. A shower of long slim spears volleyed from one side, to be answered by the short, stout harpoons of the villagers.
Then the warriors rushed to closer conflict with their axes. Never after the first a.s.sault was the outcome of the battle in question -- the fiercer tribe of Nu -- the hunters of beasts of prey -- the warrior people - - were the masters at every turn. Back, back they forced the wearers of "cow" skins, until the defenders had been driven across the enclosure upon their women and children.
And now the inner circle of fires was surrendered to the invaders, and as Nat-ul sprang between the warriors of her people to be first to the side of Nu and cut away his bonds, the last of the Boat Builders turned and fled into the outer darkness, along the beach to where their boats were drawn up beyond the tide.
Nu, the chief, leaped through the flames upon the heels of Nat-ul. In the terrible heat within the two came side by side before the stake. The girl gave a single glance at the bare and smoking pole and at the ground around it before she turned and threw herself into Nu"s arms.
Nu, the son of Nu, was not there, nor was his body within the enclosure.
GRON"S REVENGE.
GRON, SUFFERING and exhausted from the effects of the cruel beating Tur had administered, lay all the following day in her shelter. Tur did not molest her further. Apparently he had forgotten her, a suggestion which aroused all her primitive savagery and jealousy as no amount of brutal punishment might have done.
All day she lay suffering, and hating Tur. All day she planned new and diabolical schemes for revenge.
Close to her breast she hugged her stone knife. It was well for Tur that he did not chance to venture near her then. While he had beaten her the knife had remained in her loin cloth, nor had the thought to use it against her mate entered the head of Gron; but now, now that he had deserted her, now that he was doubtless thinking upon a new mate her thoughts constantly reverted to the weapon.
It was not until after nightfall that Gron crawled from beneath the hides and thatch of her shelter. She had not eaten for twenty-four hours, yet she felt no hunger -- every other sense and emotion was paralyzed by the poison of jealousy and hate. Gron slunk about the outskirts of the crowd that pressed around the figure at the stake.
Ah, they were about to torture the prisoner! What pleasure they would derive from that! Gron raised herself on tip-toe to look over the shoulder of a woman. The latter turned, and, recognizing her, grinned.
"Tur will enjoy the death agonies of the mate of the woman he is going to take in your stead, Gron,"
taunted her friend.
Gron made no reply. It was not the way of her period to betray the emotions of the heart. She would rather have died than let this woman know that she suffered.
"That is why he was so angry," continued the tormentor, "when you tried to rob him of this pleasure."
With the woman"s words a sudden inspiration flashed into the mind of Gron. Yes, Tur would be made mad if the prisoner escaped. So would Scarb, the chief who had commanded Tur to beat her and to take another mate.
Gron raised herself again upon her toes and looked long and earnestly at the face of the man bound to the stake. Already the flames of the encircling fires illuminated his figure and his every feature -- they stood out as distinctly as by sunlight. The man was very handsome. There was no man among the tribe of Scarb who could compare with the stranger in physical perfection and beauty. A gleam of pleasure shot Gron"s dark eyes. If she could only find such another man, and run off with him then, indeed, would she be revenged upon Tur. If it could be this very man! Ah, then, indeed, would Scarb and Tur both be punished. But that, of course, was impossible -- the man would be dead in a few hours.
Gron wandered about the village -- too filled with her hate to remain long in one place. Like an angry tigress she paced to and fro. Now and again some other woman of the tribe hurled a taunt or a reproach at her.
It would be ever thus. How she hated them -- every one of them. As she pa.s.sed her shelter in her restless rounds she heard the plaintive wailing of her child. She had almost forgotten him. She hurried within, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the infant from where it lay upon a pile of otter and fox skins.
This was Tur"s child -- his man-child. Already it commenced to resemble the father. How proud Tur was of it. Gron gasped at the hideous thought that followed remorselessly upon the heels of this recollection.
She held the child at arm"s length and tried to scrutinize its features in the dim interior of the hut.
How Tur would suffer if harm befell his first man-child -- his only offspring! Gron almost threw the wee bundle of humanity back upon its pile of skins, and leaping to her feet ran from the shelter.
For half an hour she roamed restlessly about the camp. Her brain was a whirling chaos of conflicting emotions. A dozen times she approached the death fires that were slowly roasting alive the man bound to the stake they encircled. As yet they had not injured him -- but given him a taste of the suffering to come, that was all.
Suddenly she came face to face with Tur. Involuntarily her hands went out in a gesture of appeal and supplication. She was directly in Tur"s path. The man stopped and looked at her for an instant, then with a sneer that was half snarl he raised his hand and struck her in the face.
"Get out of my way, woman!" he growled, and pa.s.sed on.
A group of women, standing near, had seen. They laughed boisterously at the discomfiture of their sister.
But let us not judge them too harshly -- it was to require countless ages of humanizing culture before their sisters yet unborn were to be able to hide the same emotions.
Gron went cold and hot and cold again. She burned with rage and humiliation. She froze with resolve -- a horrid resolve. And suddenly she went mad. Wheeling from where she stood she ran to the shelter that housed her babe. In the darkness she found the wee thing. It was Tur"s. Tur loved it. For a moment she pressed the soft cheek to her own, she strained the warm body close to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then -- May G.o.d forgive her, for she was only a wild thing goaded to desperation.
Dropping the pitiful bundle to the floor of the shelter Gron ran back into the open. She was wild eyed and disheveled. Her long black hair streamed about her face and across her shoulders. She ran to the outskirts of the crowd that was watching the victim who obstinately refused to gratify their appet.i.te for human suffering -- Nu would not wince. Already the heat of the flames must have caused him excruciating agony, yet not by the movement of a muscle did he admit knowledge of either the surrounding fires or the savage, eager spectators.
Gron watched him for a moment. His fate was to be hers when Tur and Scarb discovered the deed she had committed, for a man-child was a sacred thing.
And now there sprang to Gron"s mind a recurrence of the thought that the taunting female"s words had implanted there earlier in the evening. How could she compa.s.s this last stroke of revenge? It seemed practically impossible. The stake was hemmed in upon all sides by the cl.u.s.tering horde of eager tribesmen.
Gron turned and ran to the opposite side of the village, beyond the shelters. There was no one there.
Even the girls tending the fires had deserted their posts to witness the last agonies of the prisoner. Gron seized a leafy branch that lay among the firewood that was to replenish the blaze. With it she beat out two of the fires, leaving an open avenue into the enclosure through which savage beasts might reasonably be expected to venture. Then she ran back to the crowding ring of watchers.
As she approached them she cried out in apparently incoherent terror. Those nearest her turned, startled by her shrieks.
"Zors!" she cried. "The fires have died and four of them have entered the shelters where they are devouring the babes. On that side," and she pointed to the opposite side of the enclosure.
Instantly the whole tribe rushed toward the ring of huts. First the warriors, then the women and children.
The victim at the stake was deserted. Scarce was every back turned toward the prisoner than Gron leaped through the fiery girdle to his side.
Nu saw the woman and recognized her. He saw the knife in her hand. She had tried to kill him the previous night, and now she was going to have her way. Well, it was better than the slow death by fire.
But Gron"s knife did not touch Nu. Instead it cut quickly through the bullock sinews that bound him to the stake. As the last strand parted the woman seized him by the hand.
"Come!" she cried. "Quick, before they return -- there are no Zors in the village."
Nu did not pause to question her, or her motives. For a few steps he staggered drunkenly, for the bonds had stopped the circulation in his arms and legs. But Gron, half supporting, half dragging him, pulled him across the fires about the stake, on past the outer circle of the beast-fires toward the Stygian blackness that enveloped the beach toward the sea.
As Nu advanced the blood commenced to circulate once more through the veins from which it had been choked, so that by the time they came to the water he was almost in perfect command of his muscles.
Here Gron led him to a dug-out.
"Quick!" she urged, as the two seized it to run it through the surf. "They will soon be upon us and then we shall both die."
Already angry shouts were plainly distinguishable from the village, and the firelight disclosed the tribe running hither and thither about the fires that encircled the stake to which Nu had been secured. The boat was through the surf and riding the waves beyond. Gron had clambered in and Nu was taking his place in the opposite end of the craft, when a new note arose from the village. The savage shouting carried a different tone. Now there were battle cries where before there had been but howls of rage. Even at the distance at which they were Gron and Nu could see that a battle was raging among the shelters of the Boat Builders. What could it mean?
"They have fallen upon one another," said Gron. "And while they fight let us hasten to put as great a distance between them and ourselves as we can before the day returns."
But Nu was not so anxious to leave. He wanted to know more of the cause of the battle. It was not within the bounds of reason that the villagers could have set upon one another with such apparent unanimity, and without any seeming provocation, and, too, it appeared to Nu that there were more people in the village now than there had been before he left it. What did all this mean? Why it meant to the troglodyte that the village had been attacked by enemies, and he wished to wait until he might discover the ident.i.ty of the invaders.
But Gron did not wish to wait. She seized her paddle and commenced to ply it.
"Wait!" urged Nu, but the woman insisted that they must hasten or be lost.
Even as they argued Gron suddenly leaned forward pointing toward the beach.
"See!" she whispered. "They have discovered us. We are being pursued."
Nu looked in the direction that she pointed, and, sure enough, dimly through the night he descried two forms racing toward the beach. As he looked he saw them seize upon a boat and start launching it, and then he knew that only in immediate flight lay safety. He seized his paddle and in concert with Gron struck out for the open sea.
"We can turn to one side presently and elude them," whispered the woman.
Nu nodded.
"We will turn north toward my country," he said.
Gron did not demur. She might as well go north as south. Her life was spent. There was to be no more happiness for her. Her thoughts haunted the dim interior of a hide shelter where lay a pathetic bundle upon a pile of fox and otter skins.
For a while both were silent, paddling out away from sh.o.r.e. Behind them they now and then discerned the darker blotch of the pursuing canoe upon the dark waters of the sea.
"Why did you save me?" asked Nu, at length.
"Because I hated Tur," replied the woman.
Nu fell silent, thinking. But he was not thinking of Gron. His mind was filled with speculations as to the fate of Nat-ul. Whither had she fled when she had escaped from the clutches of the Boat Builders? Could she have reached the tribe in safety? Had she known that it was Nu who had entered the shelter where she lay and rescued her from Tur? He thought not, for had she known it he was sure that she would have remained and fought with him.
Presently Gron interrupted his reveries. She was pointing over the stern of the boat. There, not fifty yards away, Nu saw the outlines of another craft with two paddlers within.
"Hasten!" whispered Gron. "They are overtaking us, and but for my knife we are unarmed."
Nu bent to his paddle. On the boat wallowed toward the open sea. There was no chance to elude the pursuers and turn north. First they must put sufficient distance between them that the others might not see which way they turned. But there seemed little likelihood of their being able to accomplish this for, strive as they would, they could not shake off the silent twain.
The darkest hours of the night were upon them -- those that precede dawn. They struggled to outdistance their pursuers. That they were lengthening the distance between the two boats seemed certain. In another few minutes they might risk the stratagem. But they had scarcely more than turned when the surge of surf upon a beach rose directly before them. Both were nonplussed. What had happened? Where were they? They had been moving straight out to sea for some time, and yet there could be no mistaking that familiar sound -- land was directly ahead of them. To turn back now would mean to run straight into the arms of their pursuers -- which neither had the slightest desire to do. Had Nu been armed be would not have hesitated to grapple with the two occupants of the boat that had clung so tenaciously to their wake, but with only the woman"s knife and a couple of wooden paddles it would have been a fruitless thing to do.
Exerting all their strength the two drove the dug-out through the surf until its nose ran upon the sand.
Then they leaped out and dragged the boat still further up beyond the reach of the mightiest roller.
Where were they? Nu guessed a part of the truth. He reasoned that they had fallen upon the same island from which he had seen Nat-ul s.n.a.t.c.hed by the Boat Builder, and from which he himself had escaped so recently.
But he was not quite right. Their strenuous paddling during the hours of darkness had carried them to the north of the nearer island and beyond it. As a matter of fact they had been deposited upon the southern coast of the largest island of the group which lay several miles northeast of the one with which Nu had had acquaintance.
But what mattered it? One was as bad as another. Both belonged to the Mysterious Country. They were inhabited by hideous flying reptiles, and legend held that frightful men dwelt upon them. And Nu was without weapons of defense!
Who of us has not dreamed of going abroad upon the public streets in scant attire or in no attire whatever? What painful emotions we have suffered! Yet how insignificant our plight by comparison with that of the primeval troglodyte thrown into a strange country without his weapons - - without even a knife!
Nu was lost, but far from hopeless. He did not turn to the woman with the question: "What shall we do now?" If primeval man was anything he was self-reliant. Heredity, environment and all of Nature"s mightiest laws combined to make him so. Otherwise he would have perished off the face of the earth long before he had had an opportunity to transmit his image to posterity -- there would have been no posterity for him. Some other form than ours would have exhumed his bones from the drift of the ages and wondered upon the structure and habits of the extinct monstrosity whose hinder limbs were so much longer than his fore limbs that locomotion must have been a tiresome and painful process interrupted by many disastrous tumbles upon the prehistoric countenance.
But Nu, the son of Nu, was not of a race doomed to extinction. He knew when to fight and when to flee. At present there was nothing to flee from, but a place of safe hiding must be their first concern. He grasped Gron by the wrist.