THE DELUGE
Bees were humming in my head, and I did not like it. The humming hurt
me. I opened my eyes and passed my hand across my forehead and brought
it away with blood upon it. I began to understand now the humming of
the bees, for I remembered dimly having heard them hum in my head at
other times and of what hurt had been the cause. I must have struck
there heavily. Yet all seemed strange. I looked about me, and looked
upon what, assuredly, I had never seen before.
I was seated, I found, upon a thick cloak of bearskin, with my
back against a rock, apparently some distance up the slope of a
mountainside. This slope, which had a forest upon it here and there,
and areas of dense thickets, fell toward the south and west to a wide
lowland extending beyond the sight, and reaching, I thought, to the
great sea, for now, vaguely, there came a recollection of happenings
close at hand, all, as it seemed, of but an hour ago, or, it might be,
of yesterday. The sun was streaming upon me warmly and my strength was
coming to me slowly. I crawled to the side of the rock, where I could
have a view to the north and east, and saw what I had expected; the
ascent was steady though irregular and continued to a great height, the
forests gradually disappearing, while above, in the far distance, rose
bald ranges. All this I saw, and it had to me some slight familiarity,
as if I had looked upon it before for a little time. My effort in
moving had been a little too great for me, and I crept back to my
couch, where I rested with closed eyes. I would soon be myself again.
Already the bees were humming in my head less noisily.
I even slept for a time, and when I awoke I felt stronger. I raised
myself against the rock and looked more closely upon what was near me.
There were objects which for a little time I wondered at, but which, in
the end, aided my memory and, though for a time but partially, brought
back my understanding.
Almost within my reach lay a bow and a stone axe and spear. They were
faultless, and I laughed aloud when I saw them. They were wonderful
weapons. The bow especially was surprising. It was of some dark wood
such as I could not then remember to have seen before, and, though
shaped properly and with perfect symmetry, was so massive that it
seemed to me for the moment that only the arms of the great brown bear
might bend it. Unconsciously, I looked at my own arm and felt myself
comprehending a little more. Dressed in bearskin I was, but arms and
legs were bare, and it seemed to me that I was thewed like a bull of
the aurochs herd. Could that mighty weapon be my own bow? Oddly enough,
the powerful thing was strung, and that troubled me. A bow, weak or
strong, should not be left to strain itself, and surely such a good
bow as this should not be so neglected. It must have been dropped as
it was in the midst of a fight, but it was not good for it to lie thus
tautened, and all my instinct was to somehow release the weapon from
its strain. My strength, which had gone from me because of my hurt, was
fast returning now, and I reached out and grasped the thing which must
be so good in the hands of hunter or fighting man who had the power to
use it. I struggled to my feet and, with my knee upon the middle of
the bow and what was a great wrenching effort, managed to unstring it.
There was no doubt about it! The bow was surely mine! If, with only
a part of my strength, I could thus bend it, surely when all myself
I could draw an arrow to the head upon the mighty thing. What arrows
they were, too--one lying upon the ground beside me and others in a
great skin quiver, straight-shafted and with spearlike flint heads keen
of edge and polished so smoothly that they might, sent from that bow,
pass fairly through the body of wolf or man or reach the heart of bear
or urus. The axe and spear, too, were as fine in their way as was the
bow, and their heads were as keen of edge and smoothly finished as were
those of the arrows. There showed dried blood upon the edge of each, as
also, I found, upon the flint knife in my belt, hafted into the ribbed
part of a stag’s horn, and a weapon as perfect as the others. Surely I
was well equipped for facing beast or man!
As my strength came so also did a better perception and a sudden
compelling desire to learn who I was and where. I rose to my feet again
and walked about a little, albeit somewhat unsteadily at first. Then
what was lying beside a clump of bushes at a little distance attracted
my attention, and I moved toward it. Two dead men were sprawled out
there, one with his head crushed in, the other with an arrow driven
through his body so fiercely that its head stood forth. I drew out the
arrow, though it came hardly, and saw that it must be one of mine, a
mate to the one lying beside the rock and to those in the quiver. The
crushed head of the other body must also be my handiwork, for it was
cloven downward to between the eyes, and strong must have been the arm
and heavy the axe to shear through bone so deeply.
I considered the dead men more carefully. They were not men, one would
think, to greatly fear. Their arms and legs were not strong-muscled and
their faces were flat and ugly. Each was clad in a single garment of
goatskin, belted about the middle, and carrying a pouch, together with
a quiver at the hip. A broken spear lay beside one of the men, its head
unpolished and its size but puny compared with that which I now knew to
be mine. I wondered from what strange tribe these men had come?
But where was I? Who was I? The puzzle grew upon me. Surely I had seen
this land before, though it seemed to me I had never known it well.
I could have seen it only for a little time. Suddenly I turned. From
behind a huge group of rocks at a little distance, but farther up the
slope, rose the sound of voices, and it came to me that I had heard
those same voices before, though I could not remember where. The voice
of Black Bow was not among them. Then I thought of bushes and the
deadly little snakes, but here was no such country. I was lost again.
The blood was pulsing through my veins now; the buzzing of the bees in
my head had ceased entirely and I could walk more strongly and freely.
I put on my quiver with its few remaining arrows, thrust my axe into
my belt, restrung my bow, and with it in one hand and my spear in
the other, went toward the rocks from behind which came the hoarse
but, somehow, not unfamiliar voices. I need not have made ready for
fight. As I turned at the end of the rocks and came in sight of those
behind it there rose a shout which was not one of threatening, but
rather of rude welcome. The sight astonished me. There were at least
a hundred men there, some lying down, some wandering about or seated
upon the rocks, while a group of them, those whose voices I had heard,
were gathered together engaged in some debate. All were armed as I
was and clad in nearly the same manner. As I looked upon their faces
recollection came upon me swiftly. They were my comrades; they were
of the wanderers and raiders, my own restless, often marauding tribe,
who had come from afar, facing perils all unknown, of fighting men
or fighting beast, but led on ever by an instinct for plundering and
adventure. We knew, as yet, no other tribe like ours or one of which we
were afraid. They were brawny men, these brother tribesmen, but among
them all was none to boast a front so bull-like nor of such brawn and
strength as mine. They closed about me with hoarse shouts and much
laughter.
“We left you by the rock that you might sleep a little and be strong
again,” said one to me. It was Old Horn, our leader, who spoke, a man
huge and gray-headed and gray-bearded and rough of way and to whom I
was as his right hand in the fighting or the hunting.
“We knew that you were but stunned. No Goatskin may split such a head
as yours!”
I understood now; we had fought again with the Goatskins, as we called
them, from lack of any other name, and because they were clad in the
skins of goats, which creatures they must have grown and bred. They
were a tribe of the wide valley lying between the mountains and the
great sea, and they had assailed us promptly when we first entered
their borders, only a few days before the latest fight. They could
not match us and we slew many of them and drove them back. We had not
thought they would attack us again, and so had been somewhat careless
and were unprepared when they came upon us in the early morning. We had
beaten them back again only after a fierce struggle in which scores
of them had been slain as before. It was in the midst of the fight
that I had gone down under the blow delivered by a Goatskin who had
come upon me from behind and who was speared a moment later by one of
my companions. My comrades had seen that I was but stunned and so had
brought my cloak after the fight was over and left me lying upon it by
the rock, that I might recover in the warmth of the sun. Little knew we
of further help than this to the wounded in battle. They had done for
me the best they knew, and it was enough.
I had no trouble in remembering all now, of who we were and of our
adventures and our plans. Far had we fared from the shores of what
was called the Black Sea to the northwest, though why such name
had been given it I could never understand, for its waters were a
glittering blue, a blue like that of the sky, only a little deeper. Our
entire tribe had come to the sea from a country still farther to the
northwest, just as our great-grandfathers, so the elder men told us,
had come from a region many hundreds of leagues to the westward, where
was the mighty ocean. Our own tribe had come to the southern shores of
the Black Sea, seeking what might be better hunting and seeding grounds
and, assuredly, a warmer and more pleasant climate. Not that it was
very cold where the stream, later called the Danube, had its source
far, far to the north and west, and following the banks of which we had
taken our way, but our tribe was ever restless and followed its own
fancies as to its abode. So we had wandered until we reached the sea
and had drifted southward along its shores until we found its southern
shore, crossing a deep but narrow strait which we thought must connect
it with another larger sea, which we learned from tribes we had met lay
still farther to the south. This strait we had crossed easily in boats
we made and then were fairly on the southern shore of this sea called
Black. Here was our place; here should our village be! The climate was
warm, there were broad seeding grounds and much game in the forests
and on the plains. Here we established ourselves, and the women sowed
and reaped and there was much fishing, and the men hunted or went on
expeditions of venture, for we were sometimes raiders.
There was excitement in the hunting. The huge and dangerous beasts of
the past of which the old men prattled in the legends they related
were now gone, but in this new land to which this vanguard of our race
had come were others which did not exist in the region from which we
had come, and which we soon learned to regard with caution. There was
a monster, maned yellow beast called the lion, as large almost as
the brown bear we feared in the country from which we had come, and
there were leopards and bears of a kind new to us, and other beasts
of prey not to be faced wisely single-handed. But there were deer in
abundance, and the wild ox, the urus, and the aurochs, and we did not
lack for meat. From such a village in such a region had come our party
which had battled with the Goatskins.
We were but warriors, dangerous raiders, perhaps the first among the
Cave and Hut men, and this long march of ours was the greatest we had
ever undertaken. Much we longed now for the women and the cakes made
from the crushed grain, for now we must subsist on flesh alone, and
such nuts and fruits as we might find upon our way, but we sought more
plunder before returning. Fine skins we had taken and many trinkets
such as women delight in, and such as were sometimes worn by the
fighting men, but nowhere had we taken prizes of fine axes or spears or
arrow-heads, for nowhere had we found weapons to compare with our own.
We had met no force to equal us in any village we had found, and the
word of our advance must have travelled fast and far, for many places
where men lived, some in caves and some in huts of bark, we found
abandoned, the people having fled into hiding in the forests. Only
these puny creatures of the valley before us had assailed us fairly,
relying upon their numbers, which were great. Weak as they were, they
had beset us somewhat sorely and in the two fights ten of us had been
killed and many others hurt. But we had killed scores of the Goatskins
and we did not think they would dare to face us again. After a little
rest we were to go down into the valley and ravage it, and then, with
what we might find worth taking, we would return to our own people by
the sea and have again the women and the grain cakes. We were joyous
and boisterous of mood that day, feasting upon venison and lying idly
about where the sun shone upon the mountainside. As for me, my strength
had all returned.
We slept well that night, wrapped in our coats of bearskin, while
sentinels watched lest the Goatskins, despite their losses, might come
upon us suddenly, and woke to a morning as bright as I had ever seen.
The sun blazed fiercely down and by noontime it became so hot that we
sought the shade of the rocks, where we lay panting. There had been a
little wind in the morning, but this had died away and the leaves upon
the bushes did not move. All the world was still as the dead, and, as
the sun dropped toward the west, it seemed to change from golden to
almost red. The air became strangely heavy and was hard to breathe. The
sky was clear, save where, far to the south and west, a cloud hung low
on the horizon. It was lighted from above; but low down, close to what
were the waters of the sea, there ran along it a strip of darkness.
All was strange and it affected our minds, though very great must be
the real danger to alarm such reckless men as we. We had never felt
such curious dread before, and became the more fearful because we could
not tell the reason of it to ourselves. Then followed what was more
alarming. There came a tremor to the ground beneath our feet, as if
it were alive, then suddenly it heaved and rocked. Three times this
happened swiftly, as we leaped for our weapons and other gear and ran
together out into a great open space, to await whatever might come to
us, and it was well that we did so! The whole earth suddenly lifted and
sank again and the huge rocks beside which we had rested and those
above them were heaved upward from their beds and went crashing down
the slope of the mountainside, though we escaped them all. At the same
time, from the westward, came the sound of such bursting explosion and
such thundering and appalling roar as surely man had never heard before!
The world above was changing. In a moment, as it seemed, the white
cloud in the sky low down to the westward had climbed halfway up the
heavens, shining gloriously at its crest, while from its base, climbing
even more swiftly and eating up the whiteness as some monster might
devour its prey, the black cloud followed. Upward it rushed until
it hid the sun, and deep gloom followed the brightness. There came
another awful roar to the westward and then another, and then the
rocking of the earth grew less. Still the black cloud kept towering and
climbing until it overhung us and still rushed on until all the sky was
blotted out and we were left in almost utter darkness. Then came what
threatened us with sudden death!
The heavy air had been given a new quality, a surcharge of sulphurous
fumes in which we gasped for life, hiding our heads in our skin cloaks.
For some time this lasted, but finally there came some abatement to the
suffocation and we breathed more freely.
The ominous darkness continued, but, though we could not see, we knew
that something was happening all around us. There were fearsome cries
and a thousand strange sounds which were frightening because we could
not understand them. Then came a sudden opening in the gray pall above
us--caused, it may be, by some whirlwind of the sky--and the sunlight
streamed down for a few moments. We saw now whence came the sounds!
The world seemed full of living things fleeing in wild terror before
approaching evil. The earth was crowded with the desperate fugitives;
the sky above was filled with thousands of them. Showing against the
briefly lightened clouds, screaming their different cries, were an
innumerable host of seafowl sweeping over us in whirling flight, and,
as they neared the mountain, streaming away by some common instinct in
a great mass toward the northwest, seeking, it might be, the shores
of the sea from which we had come. There were vultures and eagles
among them, but these seemed to be flying straight ahead toward the
mountain-tops. It was a marvellous and dreadful flight.
But strange, impressive and alarming as was the flight of the birds,
it was nothing to what was happening on the earth beneath. Here was
an exhibition of mortal terror close at hand. There was no limit to
it. All the beasts of the region, great and small, were coming toward
us in a wild and senseless tide. A great stag, with his does, swept
by us like the wind, and next a thundering urus; then, strangest of
all, came four lions together in long leaps--the country was full of
them--straight toward us and regarding us not at all! Over the heads
of some of us they leaped and were gone in a moment. It was this
happening, I think, which most affected us and gave us a greater sense
of fear for ourselves. And so the terrible flight continued. Leopards,
wild-cats, all the beasts of prey, and all the harmless animals, they
came in a rushing army, whole herds of deer and flocks of goats, and
all the grazing things, and the little creatures of the wood and
plain. But among all this horde of fugitives there were no men. Where
were the Goatskins? I could not understand it, until I remembered that,
perhaps a league to the south of us, there rose in the plain a solitary
high mountain. To this must have fled such of the tribe as perceived
their danger in time. It was a cone-shaped mountain with no great area
at its summit. What scenes, I thought, must be there now!
And then, even while the sun still shone through the cloud-rift, came
something which made this flight of bird and beast as nothing, for
swift death seemed certain for us. From the south came such a roar of
waters as never could have been heard before or since, a roar which did
not cease and but grew louder and more full of dreadful menace every
moment. Then we saw! Looming almost mountain high, raging white at its
top, a mountainous wave reaching across the whole valley and appearing
certain to engulf us! It came toweringly and roaringly. It broke upon
the mountainside with such stunning thunder as I may not describe, and
swept upward, carrying back with its terrific force even some of the
rocks the earthquake had cast downward.
Then, after a few moments, the waters receded somewhat, but not
greatly, for another vast wave loomed in the far distance. And then,
as suddenly as it had come, the opening in the sky was closed, and we
were again in darkness. But no longer about us was the sound of fleeing
things.
We had sped upward when we saw the coming of the monster wave, but it
did not quite reach, even with its surging wash, the spot where we
had been, for we were well up the mountain, and now we returned and
gathered together all we had and carried it a long way higher. Then
came the thundering of wave after wave against the mountainside, but
none so terrifying as the first, and, finally, these ceased and we
concluded they were done; there was only the roaring and washing of
a turbulent sea upon the steep and rocky shore. Leaving a few men on
guard to rouse us if need be we lay down and tried to sleep. Rain fell
in torrents, but to us, hardened as we were, that was nothing. It was
what had come with the dreadful day that had shaken all of us. Fearless
or dull and stupid must have been the man among us who slept well that
night!
Morning came, but with it little of the light of day, though, as
our eyes became accustomed to the gloom, we could make out objects
indistinctly. The rain continued to fall in a torrent, and this made
seeing things still more difficult. All was nearly still on land;
there was no sound save that of the lashing waters of the new sea and
the splashing of the rain. I stumbled down to the shore, as commanded
by Old Horn, and looked about me as well as I could. There was little
to see or learn except that the waters had risen steadily during the
night. There were bodies of drowned creatures left by the first great
wave, lying about here and there, and that was all. The day passed in
dread discomfort.
The next morning showed the water still rising, while there was no
abatement of the tremendous rain, and so with the day succeeding.
The fearful downpour continued and the waters still rose. Then came
something like a panic among men as fearless as any upon earth. The
dark waters beneath which lay such multitudes of drowned, of man and
beast, came ever lapping upward hungrily toward us, and none could tell
when the rising would cease. How we longed for boats, we who could
handle boats so well! Then, in our desperation, we would make rafts!
The work was begun at once. Driftwood tossed up by the great tidal wave
was dragged together, dead trunks lying further up the mountainside
were hacked into lengths and bound side by side with withes and
strips of skin, and the work went forward feverishly. We had made
rafts before. It was good for us, this work with its faint promise,
distracting our minds somewhat from the perils we were in.
As for myself I was but a poor workman that day, despite my strength.
All appeared so dismal and so hopeless. The whole world seemed like a
bad dream and I had many thoughts such as had never come to me before.
No longer did I care what might be our plunder from this raiding
journey of the band into unknown regions. I thought of the clean
sandy beaches and the pleasant huts by the distant great sea and of
the people we had left there, and a great desire came upon me to be
with them again. Would the waters never cease rising until even the
mountain was overwhelmed and we would have no further refuge and must
die strangling at its top? It seemed to me then as if it might be so,
though of course the thought was foolish. Then there came before my
eyes the face of a girl with a leaf of scarlet in her hair. The face
would not go away from me, the face of Red Leaf, as she had come to be
called, because in the autumn, when the colours of the leaves changed,
she always gathered many of the brightest and kept them in a skin
bag in the hut of her father and mother and always wore one braided
somewhere in her hair, which was as black as the wing of the raven or
the black panther of the woods, and against which the scarlet ever
shone out brightly.
She was not tall, this girl of my tribe, not like many of the others,
great-limbed and full-bosomed and strong of arm in pulling at the nets
we had learned to make from the tough inner bark of certain trees and
with which we caught abundance of the seashore fishes, nor was she
as deft at the trapping of small things, or in the gathering of nuts
and fruits, and, surely, she was not a fitting mate for such a strong
fighting man as I, but--I could not help it--she of the red leaf had
long been more to me than any other of the young women of my clan. Men
are but foolish with women and unreasoning as the queer brown bird
which lines its nest with glittering things. But she always smiled,
this Red Leaf, and she was so small and slender and had such eyes,
asking so much and telling so much, that the fancy ever grew upon me
that I wanted her in a hut of my own that I might but play with her and
bring her warm furs and feed her well. What need had I, Scar, of one
of the great woman creatures of my tribe save for the cooking and the
making of skin garments? And for these things Red Leaf would suffice,
for, within the hut, though laughing, she was most diligent. It was odd
that my heart should be bigger within me for her than for the others,
yet it may be that it was best. So have I seen the grisly leader of the
wolf pack have ever at his side in the running some light-hued, slender
she wolf, the slightest of the yelping lot. That I cannot understand; I
know but that the only face of woman I saw upon the mountainside was
the face of Red Leaf. But even this face I saw not all the time, for
there were the waters and we must needs look to ourselves.
Night found the rafts well advanced in the building and we all felt
more hopeful. When morning came it seemed more like a real daybreak.
I can hardly describe it, but there was an indefinable something, a
feeling in the air as if a change had come, a change for the better,
though the rain still fell in floods. Work was eagerly resumed, and as
I had been told to do, I went down the mountain to the shore of the
sea, to note whatever the rise might be and went to a great rock where
had been the water’s limit yesterday, the waves barely washing its
base. I could not believe my eyes! the waters were receding! Between
the rock and the waves was now a space of yards!
I bounded up the mountainside to where the band were at work upon the
rafts, and yelled out what I had seen. There was a joyous answering
roar, the stone axes, the thongs and withes, all things in use, were
cast aside, and the band streamed down together to the shore to assure
themselves that I was not mistaken. Scarcely had we regained the camp
when came another heartening thing. The rain, which had fallen in
such torrents unceasingly for days and nights, began to slacken and
in a little time had ceased entirely. The vast leaden pall which had
hung over the world began to lighten somewhat, as well, and again we
felt that there was a sun beyond it. It was a new world, and to us a
glorious one!
We could see things far away again, and we looked for the lone mountain
to the south where must be huddled what few might remain alive of the
Goatskins. It was nearly submerged. Its peak stood out merely a little
dot on the wide expanse of water. Those clustered upon it must be
assured that they were the only human beings left alive. How the legend
of destruction of all other mankind would go down among them! How their
children and their children’s children would transmit the story, and
how the old men of many scores of centuries later would repeat it to
the youth! How it would pass in the fullness of time, to generations
more civilized, how the Chaldean priests would make of it a story of
supernatural significance, to be enlarged by those teachings in the
cities of clustered splendour where the Tigris and Euphrates join,
and how, finally, it would be accepted and adapted by the prophets of
a great tribe of shepherd kings, whose petty battles would, perhaps,
become a credited part of the world’s history. How, too, might it
become part of a mighty faith--a faith encompassing the world!
There was a great blasted tree, not very high but with enormous
outspreading limbs extending dead and bare, which stood not far from
the utmost limit of the waters, and which had become strangely peopled
on the day of the earthquake and first tidal wave, as I had noticed
dimly on my visits to the shore. Tired in their flight or seeking
the tree but as a place of refuge, creatures of earth and air had
peopled it and even sought shelter at its base, unmoving and stupefied
throughout the days and nights of ceaseless rain and darkness. There
stood together a stag and a great brown bear each mindless of the
other. Upon the huge outspreading lower limbs crouched half a dozen
more of the leopard cats of the region and as many of the sort of
smaller bears which climb, and, above them scores of the lesser
climbing things, while above them still perched wearied birds of many
kinds, from those of the woods and fields to vultures and croaking
ravens. Bats from the flooded caves hung dangling by hundreds from the
smaller branches. It was a black dream of a tree, a tree of life in
death. And now, it suddenly awoke to life! The stag raised its head
snortingly and went leaping up the mountain, and the bear followed him
shufflingly, followed in turn by all the other animals. The birds took
flight; and I watched this departure gladly, for it seemed a proof that
our sufferings were really ended. The birds and beasts know many things
unknown to man.
But whence had come this awful catastrophe which had brought such
tremendous death and changed a part of the face of the earth? Much I
thought upon it. Had the fearful earthquake, such as never was before,
but rent apart the mountain chain between the lower inland sea and the
great ocean to the westward and so let in the mighty rush of water,
raising the level of the sea to that of the ocean itself, the ocean no
man had ever passed and the awful limit of which no man could tell?
This seemed to me the reason of all that had come, but who could tell
assuredly? The water kept at an even level now. It had become as it
would stay. The land of the Goatskins lay deep beneath its waters, and
life in this part of the world must subsist only upon the higher plains
to the south and east, the curtailed land of future Palestine.
The gray of the sky became lighter, the vast curtain parted into
floating clouds, and the radiance of the sun burst upon the world
again. But upon what a scene that radiance fell!
The sea was giving up its dead, and upon its surface everywhere their
bloated bodies rocked and swung. There was not a beast of all the
region whose carcass was not a part of the water’s ghastly burden, nor
were there the bodies of beasts alone! The Goatskins, hundreds of them,
were coming to us again! But the horror of it all was not in the sight
of the bodies alone. Thousands of ravens and vultures had come to the
tremendous feast and the air was vibrant with the beating of the wings
of myriads more still flocking from all directions save that of the sea
itself. They were riding on the bodies and tearing at them, gorging
themselves. The clamour and their croaking drowned out all other
sounds. Close to the shore where I stood watching, a huge vulture rode
on the body of a man, a Goatskin, devouring at its leisure, and so the
horrible scene extended everywhere. It was a carnival of unclean birds!
The sight before us was one not long to be endured, even by men of
such hardihood as made up our wandering band. The limbs of the lately
beast and bird burdened tree were now bare and white, and as its
inhabitants had fled, so would we from this dread region. We gathered
our belongings together as swiftly as we might and took up our long
march, eager to leave such land of death and desolation.
Easily did we live as to food, for the forests teemed with game because
of the multitude of creatures driven from the valley. There were
dangers, too. I have said that it was a region of lions. Now we came
upon them everywhere, restless and savage, so that none of us wandered
far from the band alone. Yet one day, near nightfall, just after we
had encamped at the foot of a great barren boulder-strewn slope, I
ventured up among the rocks alone. Surely there could be no lions
there. Then, just as I turned about a huge boulder, I came upon a great
maned monster face to face! I could not fly, for should I attempt it,
I knew he would be upon me in an instant. There was nothing left to me
but to face him as I might. I could crouch with the butt of my spear
planted in the ground and await the spring of the monster. He crept a
little nearer, his eyes blazing like coals, and his body held close to
the ground taut as the string of a bow. He was within three yards of
me now. I braced myself for the coming shock, hopeless, indeed, but
desperately resolved to make all of my one slight chance. Fear seemed
to have left me. I counted myself as already dead, and I was filled
with a great rage. Could I hold the spear so firmly and move it with
even eye so well that it would impale him at the climax of his leap,
his own weight doing all the work of a mighty thrust? Calm, as fiercely
strained as the lion himself, I was now. Closer to the ground he
crouched, and then, with a hideous roar, he sprang.
I did not fail myself! Like a rock I knelt; braced and with certain
eye I aimed the spear between the huge forelegs and on the broad tawny
breast, even in that fraction of a moment when the beast was in the air
almost above me. Fairly in the breast the spear-head struck and, with
a roar of beastly suffering, the lion, impaled, came down upon me. I
was borne to earth and, even as he turned in his agony, a stroke from
his mighty paw crushed my right arm at the elbow, the bones cracking
sickeningly. Then his great jaws sought my throat to tear it. Never
again should I gaze across our Northern Sea; never again should I look
upon the face of the slender Red Leaf.