_Ru the Sparrow-Hearted_
The first gray of dawn had barely begun to widen above the eastern
ridges when the people of Umbaddu were once more astir. Great brawny
hands applied themselves again to the boulder at the cavern entrance;
and, through an aperture barely large enough to admit a man, the
inhabitants emerged one by one, each armed with a club, yet each making
his way with apparent ease down the perilous slopes to the river.
Reaching the bank, they flung themselves down at full-length and sucked
in long draughts after the manner of thirsting beasts; following this
they fumbled about among the brush for roots and berries, and at
length, having satisfied their appetites, pulled themselves once more
up the precipitous stairway of the cliff.
Meanwhile, within the cavern, all was activity and life. Several of the
younger men were strenuously hauling in great dead logs through a rear
entrance, which gave directly upon the forest; several half-grown lads
were disposing of the refuse of yesterday's meals by the simple process
of casting it outside the cave door; and scores of the women--who were
clad precisely like the men, and were most easily distinguishable by
their smaller stature and relatively hairless faces--were absorbed
in what might be termed the household pursuits of the time. A few
sat sprawled about nursing hairy infants in full view of all the
tribe; a few were undertaking the vigorous chastisement of unclad
urchins of five or six, who seemed too energetic in flinging flint
chips about the cavern; one or two were casting fagots upon the great
roaring fire, which had to be kept alive both night and day; while a
majority were engaged in culinary duties. One, holding the flayed body
of a rabbit above the flames on a long sharpened stick, was cooking
according to the conventional method; another, busily grinding up nuts
between two flat unpolished pieces of stone, was preparing a sort
of gruel which, when seasoned with crushed grasshoppers and grubs,
was regarded as delicious; still others, equipped with rude mallets,
cleavers, scrapers, and knives of flint, were ripping off the skins
of slaughtered deer, or pounding various edible herbs into a pulp, or
smashing and softening a certain small beanlike seed until it came
within the range of a hardy digestion.
For more than an hour these activities continued without interruption
save for the snorts and snarls which marked the not infrequent
disagreements between tribesmen. Then suddenly, as on the preceding
evening, a portentous hush, almost a paralysis, came over the people;
and out of some hidden recess stalked the great glowering figure
of Grumgra, his club swinging menacingly, his shrewd little eyes
glittering and sparkling like an evil threat.
"Let all our people come here!" he roared, in tones that rang and
echoed angrily in those narrow corridors. "Let them stop whatever they
are doing, and come! Go, call those that are outside! And if anyone
wants to stay away, let him do so--if he dares!"
Here Grumgra twirled the club above his head as if to acquire practice
in swinging it; and his people, needing no second warning, hastily
abandoned their various tasks, and scurried in all directions in
loud-voiced haste. It was not fifteen minutes before the stragglers
had all been called back from the river bank and the entire tribe had
gathered in a semi-circle about the fire.
A weird assemblage they made, those two hundred men, women, and
children, with their heavy-featured, bestial faces, their sinewy,
hide-mantled bodies, and alert, staring black eyes; while the firelight
cast fantastic wavering shadows about them, and in their midst,
dominating them as a cock dominates a flock of hens, a great apelike
figure stood with battered club uplifted in command.
With the abruptness of a thunderclap, the deep bellowing voice burst
forth: "Listen with careful ears to what I say, my people! Many days
ago--more days than the fingers on the hands of three men--I sent Mumlo
the Trail-Finder to the country of the noonday sun. I told him, and
also Grop the Tree-Climber and Wamwa the Snake-Eyed, to look for a
better cave for our tribe. Now he has come back, and we will hear what
he has to tell us."
While the voice of the chieftain still roared and echoed through the
cave, several stout hands seized the unwilling Mumlo and thrust him
toward the firelight.
Standing in front of all his tribesmen, his face illuminated fitfully
by the flames, while two hundred pairs of eyes regarded him solemnly,
he had no choice but to obey Grumgra's command, "Speak, Mumlo! Speak!"
"What would you have me speak of?" he pleaded, gazing with fascinated
interest at the chieftain's club. "There is too much to tell! Wamwa and
Grop and I traveled for days and days through dark forest, and along
green river cañons and over rocky hills. Sometimes we came out upon
wide meadows, and sometimes the land was covered with brush and stones
and was very hard to pass. But we kept on and on, and lived mostly on
roots and berries and the bark of trees, though now and then we feasted
on some small creature we slew with stones or clubs. At night we lit a
fire with our flints to keep the wolves away, and in the day we watched
and watched for wild things, since great and terrible animals filled
the forest, and often we had to climb the trees in a great hurry. And
it was a huge animal that took Grop away from us, for once we came upon
a herd of buffaloes in an open field, and before we could get back to
the woods a mad bull had rushed upon him, and--"
Horrified exclamations interrupted the speaker; but Grumgra, apparently
unaffected, brought his club down warningly upon the floor.
"We are not here to learn what happened to Grop!" he grumbled, with a
foreboding scowl. "We are here to learn about the country you found.
Tell us that, and nothing more!"
"The country that we found," resumed the Trail-Finder, taking care to
put a few additional inches between himself and Grumgra's club, "was
all overgrown with grass and deep forests. It was much warmer than our
own land, and even on the tops of the mountains there was no snow. But
deer and bison and wild boars and horses and cattle browsed there in
large herds; and there were many berries and fruits and nut-bearing
trees. And up among the cliffs above a great river I thought I saw the
entrance to a cave like ours. In crossing this river, Wamwa slipped and
was taken by the bad spirits--"
Again the great club was lifted in a silent threat; and the angry eyes
of Grumgra warned the speaker to keep to his story.
"It would be a very good land for us to live in, O great chief," Mumlo
hastened to add. "When the cold days came, we would not find it so hard
to kill game enough to keep us strong. We would not have to shiver all
the long winter moons, not having fires or furs to make us warm. Our
babes would not die, and our women would not moan and cry for meat we
could not give them; but it would be summer always, and there would
always be warmth and plenty for us all."
And into the eyes of Mumlo for an instant came a contemplative glow,
a half-dreamy light that seemed to belie the heavy jowls and brutish
features, and to foretell the visionary who--a hundred thousand years
later--would still be conjuring up Utopia.
But almost instantly that light died out; the thick lips were curled
into a snarl, and a hoarse growl rumbled from the speaker's throat.
Across from him, in the further rim of the firelight, a bull-like
shaggy form had sprung up with menacing fists upraised, and there came
the muttered challenge: "You lie! You lie! There can be no such land!"
"Quiet, Woonoo!" yelled the chieftain, with an oath. And the club
swung in such deadly earnest that only the extreme agility of Woonoo
saved him from being mangled. As it was, the crash with which the club
struck the cavern floor served as a warning to the overdaring; and the
attempted chastisement was followed by an appalled silence, broken
only by the murmurs of the more audacious: "Just what Woonoo deserved!
Woonoo the Hot-Blooded always is getting into trouble!"
Meanwhile the offender had slunk away into the shadows to the rear,
and, having once tempted destiny, was apparently resolved to take no
further chance.
"Tell us more, Mumlo," encouraged Grumgra, in milder tones than before.
"Tell us more. You think--you think we should all go to the land of the
noonday sun?"
"O great chief, I think we should all go," pleaded the Trail-Finder.
"We hear nothing now but the cries of the hungry, and the groans of
those whom the demons of sickness have taken. You know how our people
are growing fewer and fewer each year. Our old men can tell of a time
when we were many as the days from one spring season till the next;
but for every two that walked in our cave then, there is only one that
walks in it now. And you know, O chief, where the rest are--how many
are sleeping with their women and babes in the burial grotto at the
cavern's end--and how many have left their bones to the cave-bear and
the hyena. You know, O chief, so why should I try to tell you? A few
more ice-cold winters, and the wolves will be crunching the ribs of the
last of our tribe!"
The speaker stopped short, and a horrified silence--broken only by the
crackling logs in the great fire--settled over the entire assemblage.
It was Grumgra's voice that next made itself heard. "Mumlo speaks
well," the leader acknowledged, leaning meditatively upon his club, as
though he had forgotten its aggressive purposes. "Mumlo speaks well--it
is true that we are getting fewer and fewer, for the great frosts are
more than our people can stand, and when the winter comes the wild
beasts seize us, or else some evil spirit creeps near, and we sicken
and die. We do not wish to leave this cave, where our fathers and their
fathers and their fathers before them have lived--but is it not better
to go from our home than to perish?"
Having reached a bellowing climax, Grumgra paused as if to allow his
words time to penetrate. There followed a frightened silence, broken
now by a whispered exclamation of dread, now by a muttered oath of
horror; and this awed speechlessness continued even after Grumgra had
shouted his last words, "What do you say, my people? Tell me, what do
you say?"
For a moment no one said anything at all. And, after a few seconds'
silence, Grumgra lifted his club in a fresh gesture of command.
But at this point, interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Out
of the shadows to the rear a slender form drew forward; and one of the
younger tribesmen--scarcely more than a boy, he seemed--raised his
voice in a manner that compelled attention.
"Let me speak, O chief," he cried, in deep tones almost musical beside
those of his fellows. "Let me speak a very little!"
A scowl came over the dark face of the leader. His right arm drew back
as if to wield the club and crush the intruder.
"What? You speak, Ru?" he roared, derisively. "You, Ru the
Sparrow-Hearted?" And into the jet-like eyes came a hard light as of
disdain tinged with anger and hatred.
"Yes, O chief, I ask to speak," affirmed Ru, coming forward with a
boldness that seemed to belie his name. And placing himself directly
before the chieftain, well within range of the club, he stood like a
deliberate challenge between Grumgra and the people.
A greater contrast than the two men presented could hardly have been
imagined--at least, not in those primeval days. Physically Ru was
slight as his opponent was gigantic; he stood scarcely over five feet
in height; and his frame, while well knit and evidently equipped
with strong and flexible muscles, had none of Grumgra's gorilla-like
amplitude, but was slender as a sapling and had apparently been
designed for grace rather than for power. At a single stroke, Grumgra
might have crushed and mangled him like a fly--yet the difference
between the two men was not wholly physical. For there was something
about Ru's face which seemed to atone for that which his body
lacked. Like Grumgra, he had the characteristic hairy features, the
characteristic eyebrow ridge, tapering cheek-bones and massive jaws of
his tribe; but, unlike Grumgra, he seemed to possess some indefinable
quality that tempered his inherent brutishness. His forehead did not
recede like those of his tribesmen, but was straight and high as
that of a modern; his face was long and sagacious-looking, and his
head unusually capacious; while his eyes--queer anomaly among that
dark-pigmented race!--were not black like those of all the other
Umbaddu, but gleamed shrewdly with a steel-gray glint!
And with a courage unique among the Umbaddu, those gray eyes firmly met
the black ones of the chieftain. Perhaps it was the very audaciousness
of their gaze that restrained Grumgra, for his club, though half
uplifted, did not descend upon the daring one; but in tones of
irritation and contempt he muttered: "Then tell us, Ru! Tell us what
you have to say! But tell us very quickly!"
And while Ru turned to address the multitude, derisive hisses sounded
from dozens of voices; and in tones half of laughter, half of mockery,
some of the more garrulous murmured: "Ru is going to speak! The
Sparrow-Hearted is going to speak! Listen to the Sparrow-Hearted give
advice!"
But above the cackling of the audience rose the clear voice of Ru:
"It is true, my people, that we must leave this cave, where our tribe
has lived since the beginning of things. But it is not true that we
must leave without knowing where we are going. Mumlo the Trail-Finder
has been to a land which he says is fairer than this--but that does not
show us that our whole tribe can follow. Two of our companions have
already been lost, and many more may go the same way unless we are
careful. For we are not very strong after all, my people. Remember the
huge mammoths and the bears that roam the land; the storms that beat
about us with cruel clubs; the torrents that race down upon us and bear
us away; the great cold of winter, and the famine that is worse than
the cold. If we are to live at all, we must be wiser than our foes. We
must--"
At this point a low undercurrent of hissing, gradually becoming louder,
compelled the speaker to pause. And a score of hostile, curling lips
snarled the question: "What are we to do? Tell us, Ru, what are we to
do? Shall we stay here and starve?"
Simultaneously, a half-suppressed, contemptuous laughter broke from
some unseen spectator. And it was with difficulty that Ru could lift
his voice above that of the gibbering, chuckling mob, and continue:
"It may be that Mumlo has not seen all the land he has visited, or that
he would not know how to find his way back there again. Or it may be
that there is some other land much fairer--some land where we could all
grow strong and happy. And why should we not do everything we can to
find out?"
Then, turning to Grumgra, who loomed before him with a hostile frown,
Ru pleaded: "Let us not act like foolish children, O chief. Send out
some other men--as many as the fingers of one of my hands. Let them
look at the country Mumlo saw, or try to find some better place. I
myself will go gladly, if only you will say yes."
"No!" thundered the chieftain. "I say no!" And the great club came down
with an echoing thud, and sent the dust of the cave floor flying.
Hastily Ru withdrew, lest a second blow wreak greater havoc. And as he
pressed back into the shadows, derisive murmurs filled the air; and
many a pair of black eyes, glistening in malice and scorn, followed him
with proud, superior gaze.
"The Sparrow-Hearted has had his say!" came the amused roar of Grumgra.
"Now let me have my say. We will not let the bad spirits take any more
lives on foolish journeys. And we will not waste any more time--the
gods of the spring season have been here a whole moon already. After
the sun has come up and gone down and then come up once more, we will
all set forth into the land of the noonday sun. What do you say, my
people?"
Since there was none that dared to say a word, but all merely gaped
and gaped in stupid bewilderment, the most momentous question in the
history of the Umbaddu had apparently been decided.