THE BOWMEN
The sunlight was filtering down upon me through the broad foliage of a
tree of an unfamiliar kind. Birds with hooked bills, brilliant plumage,
and squalling voices were flitting among the branches all about. The
rank perfume of strange flowers was in my nostrils, and to my ears
came a pleasant, distant sound, the softened roar and lapping of waves
upon a beach. I was lying in a little glade, wood-surrounded on three
sides, but open to the southward. Through the space thus unobscured I
could see a blue expanse of sky but nothing more, prone as I was upon
the turf, my head resting on what was soft and furry, the folded skin
of some wild animal. I was faint and weak; my eyes were opened for a
moment only, and then once more I slept. An hour later I awoke again,
refreshed and stronger, and, with much difficulty, succeeded in raising
myself upon an elbow. My appreciation of things was returning slowly
and it seemed to me--I cannot tell why--that I was not alone, that
there must be another presence in the glade. I turned my head as well
as my position would allow, and looked about me.
Seated upon a little hummock was a woman and, even as I turned, she
saw the movement and ran toward me with a glad cry. She was a splendid
creature. Tall she was, and her long hair, thrown back uncombed and
tangled, swung down below her slender waist. There was down upon her
brown arms and her bare legs, and she moved with the swift grace of
the tiger or leopard kind. Her mouth was large, and her teeth gleamed
sharply, but it was a fair mouth nevertheless, and her eyes were dark
and deep. Her only garment was a soft robe of coney skin passing over
one shoulder, and leaving half the full bosom exposed. The robe was
held close to her body by a belt of some sort and extended to her
knees. Brown she was indeed, a creature of the sun and air and storm,
yet her skin was smooth and soft. But it was her eyes I saw. They spoke
to me.
The appearance of the woman did not surprise me. It seemed a matter of
course that she should be there, and my heart leaped as I looked upon
her. I was still dazed, but I knew that she belonged to me. There was a
sense of protective ownership of her and of a need of her, this savage
beauty whom I might smite if she displeased me, but for whom I would
battle to the death. She was beside me in a moment, kneeling with a
pitying look in her eyes and beginning at once to unwind the strings
of inner bark which held in place a huge bandage around my leg not
far above the knee. Very gently and carefully she removed the mass of
green, wet leaves covering others nearest the flesh. These macerated
into a sort of pulp. Cautiously she lifted the mass and there, in my
thigh, I saw a gash which had ceased to bleed but which was raw and
open. Nor deep nor dangerous was this wound, but evidently I had lost
much blood and so had fallen weak and senseless. As gently as she had
taken it away the woman renewed the bandages with new pulp and leaves
and, the binding finished, she looked at me happily.
“The Boar,” she said.
The boar, the savage boar! Yes, I dimly remembered now. There had
been a chase somewhere, and the wild boar had charged me, but where
were the rest of my tribe, those I had led away from the devouring
of the mammoth, to take up the desperate southward quest? Where were
the drifting snows and the fierce winds and bitter cold and awful
loneliness, the drowsiness and dream of death?
The bandage in its place, the woman sat beside me and stroked my face
softly, but only for a little time. She arose quietly, went a little
distance away, curled herself down upon the green turf, and seemed to
fall asleep on the instant. Then I realized what it meant. She must
have been alert and watching throughout the night, and how much longer
I could not tell, and so was wearied, if not near to exhaustion. My
own strength I felt returning to me, though when I sought to rise to
my feet I failed miserably because of the pain the effort brought to
my wounded leg. I crawled to the foot of the tree, and leaning my back
against the trunk, sought to collect my scattered senses and realize,
if I could, the situation. Where could I be? Who, indeed, was I?
As my glance wandered about it was drawn to certain objects upon the
ground not two yards away from me. Only one of them was familiar; it
was a stone axe, but the haft was of a different wood and colour from
that of the axe with which I had slain the great cave bear, and the
heavy blade was polished so that it shone in the sunlight. It was a
beautiful axe and I resolved that I must have it, if it were not mine
already. Beside the weapon lay something which greatly puzzled me at
first. It was a long shaft of some tough wood, but its head was of
stone like that of the axe, though of a different shape, long and sharp
and pointed and held in the shaft’s split end by knotted sinews. At
last I comprehended; it must be a spear, but the only spears we had
ever known in the land of cold were long sticks sharpened at the end
and charred and hardened in the fire. They were but trifling things
compared with what this must be in the fight or hunt.
But it was what remained that most aroused my curiosity and perplexed
me. There was a stout, springy length of ash, as long nearly as my own
height, with the ends bent toward each other and so held by a strong
sinewy cord which stretched between them. Lying beside this curious
thing was a number of very slender shafts, each notched at one end and
bearing at the other a little stone head shaped like that of the spear.
I could not understand them and finally gave up the problem. I crawled
back to the skin bundle and lay down and slept again.
It had been mid-forenoon when my latest sleep began; when I awoke
it was almost night. I was aroused by the call of a pleasant voice
beside me, “Scar! Scar!” and the continuous patting of a hand upon my
shoulder. I was wide awake and with my mind all restored in an instant.
“What is it, Otter?” I answered.
She laughed joyously. “You know again; you will soon be well. He struck
hard, but the cut is not deep. Soon you will run. Your arrows killed
him. We will go and eat.”
All this she said in short, chattering words and with much
gesticulation. It was an odd sort of incomplete speech. She helped me
to my feet and I found that I could stand without much difficulty. I
managed to hobble along by her side, leaning on her heavily. My wound
ceased to pain me and my strength was fast returning. As for my dreams
of cold and of other things, such as the great beast buried in the
snow, they were but dreams, assuredly.
We came out upon a far extending shore, and there, magnificently
coloured in blue and crimson by the sky and the setting sun, extending
beyond all vision, heaved the mighty sea. How great was then the later
named Mediterranean! Far back where now the desert is, lay its unseen
southern shores, and the strand upon which we stood lay farther to
the north than when existed kingdoms of later ages. The spectacle was
wonderful, but all familiar to me.
We passed slowly along the shore until we reached a rocky place wherein
was a little hollow in front of which was burning a fire replenished by
my anxious mate while I had slept. Brands for the fire had been brought
from our distant cave before my hurt had been received. Otter led me
into the little opening and brought flesh of a boar from a hiding place
in the rocks and roasted it in the fire and fed me to repletion. Then,
having eaten herself as eats a healthy, omnivorous animal of the wild,
she coiled down beside me in the little recess, after leaning logs and
driftwood against the opening, as some defence against all prowling
things. My weapons she placed at my hand.
I awoke in the morning astonishingly refreshed, and could limp about
without the assistance of Otter, and with little pain. We must go
inland to where were the ledges and where was our cave among the
others. There I could rest easily until all my strength returned. So
we took up the slow journey and entered the forest, plodding doggedly
along the paths within its depths. We had with us some of the roasted
boar’s flesh and ate of it when we were hungry.
On the journey we came upon a little open space where were great birds,
the bustards, moving about, and I killed one with an arrow, rejoicing
the while that I was so good a bowman. Otter carried the huge bird
lightly, saying we should have the best of food when we reached our
home. My dazedness of the day before, when I failed to recognize my
weapons, was all gone now. Was not I, Scar, the greatest archer among
my people? Was not Otter, my mate, the greatest in the water of them
all? Yet, as to Otter, it had been but a little time since the Cave
people had learned to swim. Like the monkeys, which we sometimes shot
with arrows in the woods, the Cave men had ever dreaded the water. It
was in the days of our great, great grandfathers, so the very old men
told us, that the change came, and then by accident.
There had been a wide and deep creek close beside the caves in which
our forefathers dwelt, and it had been a great barrier between the
rocky country and good hunting grounds on the other side. One day my
own great grandfather, when a young man, slipped upon a wet stone and
fell into the water and was swept away and they did not even look for
him, for in those days he who fell into deep water was drowned, and
what good to seek for that which was gone? But my great grandfather
caught hold of a piece of light driftwood, and though it would not
lift him entirely, yet, with his chin upon it, his head was sustained
above the water until he reached a shallow place where he could wade
ashore. He came back to the caves and beat my great grandmother sorely,
because she was eating when he returned. He brought back with him the
bit of driftwood and thenceforth played in the water with it, tying it
beneath his chin and making great strokes with his arms and legs until
there came a day when he found, to his wonder, that he did not need the
driftwood to sustain him, but could go about in the water as did the
otter and the beaver, though never in a way to equal them. And others
tried to do as he did, and, though some were drowned, in the end it
came that all the Cave people, even the children, could swim. A great
advantage was this in the hunt or on a journey of any kind. And among
us all, at this time, my mate, my slender Otter, was swiftest in the
water. So her name had come to her.
We travelled far this day and crossed many streams and I was nearly
spent, when after nightfall we came upon ledges of tumbled rocks
uprising near the river and in the midst of a dense wood, and there
entered our own cave without arousing any of the people in the other
caves. It was not a large cave, but was most comfortable. There was a
great bed of moss covered with skins beside one of the brown walls, and
from an ash-filled hollow at one side Otter uncovered still glowing
embers. In front of this hollow were a lot of stones laid carefully,
whereon meat could be roasted. Just inside the cave’s entrance, but not
large enough to entirely fill it, was a round rock of sandstone, not
too heavy, which Otter alone rolled into the opening. We sought the
couch of moss and skins and slept at once, for each of us was weary.
I awoke, it seemed to me, almost well, for from flesh wounds we Cave
men recovered swiftly. I awoke with a fragrance in my nostrils. Otter
had already risen, and the bustard, cleanly plucked, was roasting on
the stones before the fire my mate had built. We ate most of the big
bird at that one meal, for we had slept long and were hungry. Then,
with Otter beside me, I took my bow and bark quiver of arrows and
limped outside the cave. We had hardly come into the sunlight when
there came to our ears a shout and the twanging of a bowstring and, a
moment later, around a turn in the ravine, appeared the Climber, often
my companion in the hunt. He was shooting arrows upward and catching
them as they fell, in mere sport, shouting meanwhile to arouse me, for
he did not yet know that I had been lamed by the boar. We called to
him and he clambered up to us and heard the story of my hunt, laughing
only when he heard its issue, for we did not sympathize deeply in that
age, though we would sometimes fight for each other valiantly enough.
The Climber was armed as I with bow and spear and clad in the same
way, with only a clout of skin about his middle. Despite his careless
demeanour he had news to bring. Some of the Hill men had been seen
lurking about at the foot of the wooded mountain slopes to the westward!
The Hill men were our natural enemies and had been so since a time
beyond which none of the old men could remember. They were unlike us
in their ways, existing chiefly on fruit and nuts and roots, which
they stored in the mountain caves, where they lived, and they had no
bows, carrying only stone axes and long spears. They hunted less than
we, but were extremely strong and savage and their numbers made them
dangerous. Many a wanderer of the Cave men had disappeared when these
hairy savages of the hills had sometimes invaded our side of the river,
and word of a threatened raid by them was but a signal for more than
ordinary caution.
In a few days I was well again and the fight with the big boar
something almost forgotten. There came, for a time, no incident in the
life of our scattered group. We hunted and fished and fed well and
were warm, for it was a good country and the climate mild. But for old
Fang, the arrow-maker, there would have been a pleasant enough monotony
to our existence. Fang was more vicious than any of the beasts in the
wood; he seemed more like the Things we had never seen, but dreaded,
the Things which whispered strangely when the wind blew through the
forests at night and which roared and bellowed when the great storms
came. He was not like the rest of us. He was the first monopolist, too,
the world had ever known.
Our arrows were excellent, not rude chipped things such as our
ancestors had known, but smoothed and polished and keen-edged and
deadly when launched by a strong arm from a strong bow. A task it was
to make an arrow such as one of ours, for there was first the rude
chipping and then the weary polishing of the flint by rubbing it upon
wetted sandstone. Few of us had patience for all this, and old Fang,
who lived alone in a cave in a thicket close beside a little waterfall
of the brook running down to the river, was arrow-maker for most of
us. We paid him for the arrows by bringing him meat and skins and all
the means for living, and his wicked eyes would gleam when we brought
them to him.
He was a misshapen creature, with one leg so distorted that it made him
half a cripple, teeth which protruded viciously, and eyes like those of
the snakes which sunned themselves upon the clogged driftwood beside
the river banks. A great archer he was, but he seldom hunted, for he
could but limp, with his twisted leg. At last came a time when he never
went abroad at all. It came curiously and in a wicked way.
The fall in the little brook which ran beside the cave of Fang was
but three or four yards in height, but the water dropped sheerly and
strongly and had worn a little hollow in the stone beneath, a broad
bowl a yard across, in which, in a miniature whirlpool, the waters
swirled round and round as if aboil. One day a hunter who had brought
to Fang some arrow-heads to be polished, accidentally dropped one of
them in the water as he leaped the brook above the falls and, counting
it lost, paid no attention to it. The keen eye of the arrow-maker
had seen the thing and, knowing that the arrow-head could be easily
recovered, he said nothing. He would get it for himself.
The old man, busied at his work, forgot the arrow-head for a month,
then one day he remembered and found it at last amid the swirling
pebbles and looked upon it in astonishment as he drew it forth. Not
with all his labour of rubbing the flint heads upon coarse sandstone
could he polish an arrow like to this, The sand and pebbles in the
foaming bowl had done the work far better than could he. An idea came
to him. The pool should be his and his alone, and the water and the
little pebbles should do his polishing. So he put chipped arrow-heads
into the bowl and, after that, the hunters for a time wondered more
than ever at the perfection of his work.
One day an old woman leading a child and seeking nuts came close to
the edge of the falls and peered over the bank curiously. Her body was
found there later and it was plain that an arrow had passed through
it, though the shaft could not be found. The child, which had fled
shrieking back to the cave, could but tell what the old woman was doing
when she fell down. Later, a hunter who lingered carelessly near the
pool was shot as ruthlessly, but lived long enough to reach companions
to whom he could give no account as to whence the arrow came. But all
understood. There was little justice then, and there were no attempts
at punishment. The old demon owned the waterfall. As for me, I paid
slight heed to the matter. For that I nearly lost my Otter.
One day I had shot an arrow into a wild pig in a wooded height just
beyond the cave of Fang and, as I pursued it straightforwardly through
the bushes, Otter ran around through an open space to intercept its
flight and pierce it with another arrow, if she might, for she shot
almost as well as I, though far less strongly. She was near the pool
when the pig dashed from the thicket, and she shot at it as I broke
through. Then, of a sudden, she shrieked wildly and dropped her bow
and I saw her bravely plucking at an arrow which had pierced her arm.
It had come from the cave of Fang. I called to Otter, who had already
darted into the bushes, and she came running to me. I drew the arrow
forth with little difficulty, for it was not a dangerous wound, though
through no fault of the murderous archer. Only Otter’s swift step as
she shot at the pig had kept the arrow from her body.
We went back into the wood and there I left Otter while I circled about
to regain the cave of Fang. I saw him close beside the pool and shot,
though it required a long arrow-flight. The shaft lowered with the
distance, but pierced him slightly in the thigh, and, with a snarl, he
glided into the bushes and behind the trunk of a great tree. A moment
later an arrow tossed my hair, and then I, too, went into hiding. We
sought glimpses of each other as we circled about, but there was no
fair chance afforded until my quiver was emptied and then--for Fang
could not run as could I--I rejoined my mate in safety. I knew that
either Fang or I must die.
There was little thought of Fang after we had reached the cave. There
was heard all about us the cry: “The Hill men! The Hill men!” and
there was reason for the alarm. A great band of the mountain savages
had just been seen by a hunter, going up the river on the further
bank. Well we knew what that portended. They outnumbered us five to
one, but the Hill men could not swim and they were going up the river
to the first shallow where they could cross in safety. The fording
place was where a gorge entered the river through a rock which rose
in a long precipice on either side. Into and up this gorge, if they
could, must the Hill men come. All the Cave people were now together
and we held anxious consultation. It seemed to me that there was but
one thing to do, and in the end all our fighters agreed with me. We
must assemble at the mouth of the gorge before the Hill men reached the
place and there dispute the crossing to the end; there, with our bows
and upon firm ground, we might have some chance against them despite
their overpowering numbers. Soon all those capable of fight were on
the hurried march, including over half the women. Only the old men and
women and the children were left in the caves, since all lives were at
stake. Even the vengeful old Fang, who had been summoned, was limping
with us, for he was in equal danger with the rest. All night we wound
our way along the forest paths and by dawn were in the gorge, where we
rested and ate of the dried food brought with us. No Hill men appeared
in sight until a little after noon and then they came in what seemed
to us a host. There were of us Cave men and women some seventy-five,
of the Hill men at least four hundred, fierce looking creatures, armed
with spears and stone axes, and terrifying to look upon. Yet our
fathers had once beaten them and why should not we? We had a vast store
of arrows and good bows, and better spears and axes than had the foe.
They came, bellowing like wild beasts, and we went down the sloping
bank to meet them at the crossing. The leader, a huge creature, shaking
his spear threateningly, plunged in first and I yelled with delight as
I saw, when he reached the middle of the river, that the water rose
to his armpits. As he gained a shallower part and upreared his hairy
breast, I drove an arrow into it, and his spear fell and he toppled
over and was swept down stream. My comrades were doing as well, since
there was room for nearly all of us to shoot; and the slaughter was
fairly on! The Hill men seemingly knew no fear. They plunged in from
behind by scores and one or two had almost reached our banks when they
were speared, one after another, by Bull, the most gigantic of the Cave
men, who had rushed in to meet them. Still they came in a desperate,
roaring mass. So I have seen a herd of the great aurochs cross a stream
mightily. There were not enough of us to do the killing. The waters of
the river were red. More than half the Hill men had been slain, but the
pack came howling on, now, still more like monstrous wolves. We shot
until there was no more time to notch our arrows, and then we waded
in a little way and met them with our spears and axes. I had no fear;
I was but a raging, blood-thirsty, killing thing! We held them at bay
for a time, and so many of them were slain that now they did not more
than twice outnumber us, but those of us in front were exhausted by the
struggle, and the remnant of the Hill men were still fresh. I staggered
back, as another Cave man took my place, and went a little up the slope
and refilled my quiver and stood there breathing heavily for a moment
with others as spent as I. That breathing space did us good, and well
that it was so, for it saved the Cave men. There was a wild cry, a
yielding, and our comrades lower down came pressing back upon us. The
Hill men had gained the shore! We rallied to the fight, but there could
be no more arrow-shooting. It was spear and axe work now. Ever raging
in front, the leader of the remaining Hill men was a giant whose spear
seemed irresistible, and more than one of the Cave men fell before him.
The sight drove me into a still more murderous craze. I was rested
now. I leaped forward to meet the grisly savage and in a moment we were
facing, with spears clattering together. It was death for the Hill man!
He was stronger, but not so swift as I at this deadly fencing, and, as
I turned his spear aside, I leaped in and drove my own cleanly through
him. He toppled with a roaring growl, like that of a bear dying, and,
with that, a panic came upon the Hill men and they turned and fled,
pursued and speared as they floundered in the waters of the river. The
fight was over!
And then, just then, as I lifted my hand to my streaming face,
something smote me fiercely in the back and I looked dazedly at an
arrow-head which protruded from my breast. I turned, tottering, to see
the stone axe of the Climber crash down into the head of the glaring
Fang, who crumpled weakly to the ground, and to see Otter running
toward me, screaming and with arms outstretched. Then I pitched forward
upon my face.