_The Migration Begins_
The day of the migration had dawned. The last rites had been performed;
the Umbaddu people were leaving their ancestral dwelling-place. Some
among the tribesmen had paused to look with sadness at those dark and
picture-littered walls that they should never see again; some had
gone to place flint weapons and chunks of meat in the burial grotto
at the cavern's end, where lay the bones of loved ones; some had cast
the horns of bison, the teeth of bears and patches of bearskin about
the cavern floor, as an offering to the cave-gods whom they were
deserting; some--and these were all members of the milder sex--had made
themselves objects of ridicule by indulging in orgies of tears; while
a majority--particularly of the younger tribesmen--shouted in sheer
exultation, since before them lay the open world, the unknown, and
adventure.
It was a curious procession that made its way down from the
cliff-dwelling and out along the wilderness trail. Women with babes in
arms and tenacious two-year-olds clinging to their shoulders; men laden
with trailing limbs of deer and cattle, and with pouches bulging with
roots, herbs, and berries; scrawny children that released themselves
like acrobats from rock to rock, and from time to time screamed and
howled as they slipped upon the boulders--such were the leading members
of that little army of migrants. Owing to the mass of provisions, of
weapons and flint implements that had to be transported, many of the
men and women had to ascend and descend the cliff three or four times;
and so many were the delays, the minor mishaps and altercations, that
the morning was half done before the tribe was actually on its way.
Led by Grumgra, who wielded his club imperiously, the people straggled
in single file on a little trail made long before by huntsmen along the
cañon of the Harr-Sizz River. Like their leader, all the men carried
clubs, though Grumgra's was by far the largest; and not a few of the
women likewise bore clubs, and moreover swung them in a manner that
indicated some proficiency in the art of self-defense. But the women,
for the most part, were impeded by the weight of the heavy tools and
provisions, which the men had thrust upon them following the descent
of the precipice; and these were slung in great masses about their
shoulders, exaggerating their natural stoop and making their gait
slow and laborious. Only a few of the younger women--such as Yonyo
the Smiling-Eyed and Lum the Twittering Bird--were exempted from such
duties; and this was because, not being subject as yet to any man, they
were not compelled to share any man's exertions.
But in spite of the burdens that weighed them down, most of the people
were in a merry mood. Some, in voices deep-toned and rude and yet
with the trace of a pleasing rhythm, improvised snatches of song,
which their comrades caught up in a riotous chorus; others would go
meandering carelessly away from the trail to examine any curious
insect, rock, or weed; and a few of the younger tribesmen engaged in
uproarious games of hide-and-seek, and even in good-natured but quite
energetic scuffles and wrestling bouts.
Meanwhile several men designated by Grumgra went scouting ahead of
the party, to both sides of it, and behind it, to discover if there
was any sign of dangerous beasts. With a keenness of eyesight rivaled
only by the savages of a later day, they would scan the river bank
and the underbrush for the footprints of wolf and bear; and with a
keenness of scent that their successors might have marveled at and
admired, they would occasionally put their nostrils close to earth
and sniff appraisingly. Only once--when the alert senses of Mumlo the
Trail-Finder told of the recent passage of the woolly rhinoceros--was a
word of alarm flashed to the tribe; but the beasts had evidently gone
their way in peace, and before many minutes the people had entirely
forgotten the danger.
[Illustration: _The migration_]
Mile on mile they plodded, on and on with scarcely a stop, in and
out and in and out along the bank of the deviously winding Harr-Sizz
River. In places the cliffs shot perpendicularly above them to an
unscalable height; in places the hills rolled toward them in a long
graceful grade, dark-green with an impenetrable growth of pine or
spruce; in places they lost sight of the river and the river bluffs
in forcing their way through thorny thickets of the wild rose, or
in hewing a path through an enveloping wilderness of creepers and
vines. Now and then, through some cleft in the hills, they would catch
glimpses of far-flung and majestic panoramas, with chiseled snow-peaks
jutting in the distance; and once, when an entire mountain stood
unbared at the far end of a long, deep-cloven ravine, they could see
that the ranges were more than half cloaked in glittering bands of
white.
Yet such spectacles had small effect on the minds of the migrants. All
their lives they had known these scenes--and they thought no more about
them than about the blue of the skies or the white of foaming waters.
Only one of their number--Ru the Sparrow-Hearted--peered at those snowy
summits with contemplative eyes; and into the mind of Ru came strange
and perplexing thoughts. He wondered whether the spirits worshiped by
his tribe were big enough to rule this world of wind and cloud and
crag; somehow, in those gigantic slopes and forest-draped solitudes,
he felt vaguely the workings of forces vaster than he, and recognized
hazily the presence of a Mystery he could never explain, a Glory of
which he was part and which enveloped him.
For many minutes he had been walking soberly by himself, not taking
notice of his tribesmen that trailed ahead of him and behind, not
taking notice even of his own club that dragged in the dust, nor of
the gap in his rabbit-skin pouch, through which from time to time some
implement would drop noiselessly to the soft grass and be lost. He
had forgotten for the time about the migration, forgotten that he was
following a perilous trail; into his mind had come faint glimmerings of
enigmas that would still be vexing his kind a hundred thousand years to
come....
A sharp prodding in the neck aroused him abruptly to an awareness of
himself. And, wheeling about in anger as fierce as it was sudden, he
was confronted by the sparkling, roguish glance of Yonyo.
Then, while he stood glaring at her in speechless rage, she
waved a pointed twig derisively in his face, and exclaimed: "The
Sparrow-Hearted has need of something to wake him up! What was the
Sparrow-Hearted dreaming about?"
For a moment he did not reply. His impulse was to strike back as one
strikes back when dealt a brutal blow--to seize her in furious arms,
and crush her till she begged for mercy. And no doubt it was thus that
Kuff the Bear-Hunter or Woonoo the Hot-Blooded would have disposed of
her; but Ru, alas! was not Kuff or Woonoo, and could do no more than
glower ineffectively at her.
"What was the Sparrow-Hearted dreaming about?" she repeated, growing
impatient at his silence.
"About things you could never understand!" he declared, fiercely.
"What is there I could not understand?" demanded the incredulous
Yonyo. And seeing those large black eyes bent upon him half laughingly
and half inquiringly, he felt his wrath slipping from him and an old
strange emotion returning.
As his anger died away, it occurred to him to try to make her share
that which he felt.
"Shall I tell you, Yonyo?" he asked, while side by side they began to
jog along the forest path, their feet noiselessly pressing the carpet
of dead leaves. "Shall I tell you?"
Receiving a mumbled affirmative in reply, he launched straightway into
his explanation.
"I was wondering," he continued, slowly, while reflecting how marvelous
was the light in the gaze of the Smiling-Eyed, "whether, after all, the
wise men of our tribe can know all things. I was wondering whether the
world was really made by the magic of a fire-god that lived in a cave
as big as a whole mountain, as the old stories tell us; and whether
there may not be other gods than the fire-god and the sun-god and the
gods of the caves and woods and winds. Why were we born, Yonyo, and why
do we live, and why--"
"And why ask foolish questions?" broke in the puzzled Yonyo. "What are
you thinking about, Ru? Why worry about such things?--Let the wise men
settle them for us!"
Then, seeing that Ru remained sullen and silent, she bent down and
plucked a weed from the wayside, and began to prick him prankishly upon
the cheek. And when, annoyed, he tried to snatch the weed from her, she
eluded his grasp and darted away with eyes that flashed a challenge to
follow.
Without knowing why, except that she drew him on irresistibly, Ru let
his club slip to the ground and dashed after her.
Strangely enough, she was not hard to overtake. In a very few seconds,
he had come up to her, and had flung his arms about her in a crushing
grip.
"Yonyo! Yonyo!" he murmured, with a boldness that surprised himself not
less than her. "I want you! I want you! Oh, will you not be my woman,
and share my fire with me, and--"
But, with the agility of a young leopard, she had struggled free of his
embrace.
"I?--be your woman?" she demanded, standing proudly before him, her
nostrils distended with anger. "Who are you--Ru the Sparrow-Hearted?
Who are you? The man whose woman I am must be a real man! He must be a
hunter of wolves!--not of earthworms! He must have slain his bears, his
wild boars, his aurochs! And he must not be a dreamer of silly dreams!"
And, with a scornful laugh, Yonyo started away again.
Stung to fury, Ru raced after her once more--but he had gone scarcely
ten paces when there came a warning rustling through the bushes ahead,
and a massive hairy figure burst menacingly upon him.
It was Kuff the Bear-Hunter, who, even with his wounded shoulder, made
a formidable antagonist. His little black eyes gleamed with evil wrath;
his enormous thick lips were curled into a snarl that displayed the
white glistening teeth; his great arms were outspread as if to mangle
and destroy.
With a hasty glance at his onrushing foe, Ru turned and fled. And, as
he scurried into the shelter of a thicket of reeds, the laughter of
Yonyo was flung after him like a blow.
For the rest of that day, Ru kept to himself. He did not seek to join
the chattering, frolicsome groups of young folk; he did not trudge
side by side with any of his elder tribesmen in amiable fellowship;
he plodded in morose silence along those gaily echoing forest lanes.
Only now and then, when some small boy or girl would approach and coax
him to some playful tussle, would his intense gravity relax; but it
would relax only partially, and after a minute he would again succumb
to gloomy reveries. Why had he been made so small of stature, so frail
of limb? he asked himself over and over again, as he had asked time
on time before. Why could he not stand face to face with his rivals,
and fight them as any but himself would have done? Must he always be
like the slinking hyena, which keeps at a distance and disdains equal
combat? Must he be powerless to control even his own will? and, having
decided to face his persecutors, must he find himself racing away
ratlike at the first hostile scowl?
Such thoughts were still filling Ru's mind when at length the day's
march ended. The sun was just beginning to dip its head beyond a dark,
distant ridge of forest when Grumgra, bellowing at the top of his
voice, gave the order to halt. At first he did not seem certain what
camping-place to choose; and there was manifest indecision in his tiny
black eyes as he scanned the broken line of woods that paralleled the
stream, the green flowery meadow that stretched between the forest and
the river bank, and the jutting cliffs perhaps half a mile down-stream,
where forest and meadow gave place to a rocky cañon through which the
waters foamed tumultuously.
Then, while scores of his kinsmen stood regarding him speechlessly but
with anxious eyes, the chieftain suddenly decided: "We shall camp here
in the open fields. And build a ring of fire to keep away the wild
beasts."
In silence the people received this command--in silence, with only one
exception. For while Woonoo and Kuff and the others heard and prepared
to obey, he who was known as the Sparrow-Hearted strode forward, and in
loud tones requested, "O chief, may I speak a little?"
For reply, Grumgra merely snarled. His little eyes gleamed with angry
fires; he grasped his club with ominous firmness.
Although the distance between them was hazardously narrow, Ru seemed
to assume that the Growling Wolf's snarl was consent. In a voice loud
enough for all the tribe to hear, he demanded: "Are the fields safe, O
chief? Would it not be wiser to camp under the cliffs? Then it would be
easier to keep the wild beasts off--"
But he could proceed no further. Howling with rage and swinging the
club as if to do instant murder, Grumgra strode toward the impudent
one. And once again Ru had to save himself by means of his feet. And
once again the tribe laughed loud and merrily.
Now came the most trying of all the day's exertions. While the men went
off into the forest in groups of three and four to gather firewood,
the women busied themselves with pieces of flint which they hammered
laboriously together time after time until at last the eagerly awaited
spark kindled a pile of dead leaves. Many minutes were passed in this
pursuit, and twilight was settling down, before at last half a dozen
fires, fed from the limbs of fallen trees, were blazing with bright and
heartening gusto.
Within the line of the fires--which were arranged in a rude
circle--were assembled all the men and women of the tribe, who lay
sprawled on their robes of bison and deerskin, chattering contentedly
and noisily consuming huge chunks of smoked venison or newly roasted
morsels of boar's flesh. Now and then one would leave to go down to
the river bank for a long draft of water, which he would suck in
animal-like; but as the darkness deepened, such departures became less
frequent, and at length ended entirely, for all knew better than to
venture away from the fire into the perils of the night.
Twilight had not yet fallen when a loud sobbing, from the extreme end
of the encampment, aroused the attention of the curious. One of the
younger women was weeping as women in those days seldom wept, her whole
frame shaking convulsively, her dark eyes a blur of tears. And to those
who questioned her she could not give coherent reply. She could only
blurt out disconsolately, "My Malgu! My Malgu!" and return at once to
her stormy grieving.
But there was little need to explain. It was known that Malgu was her
three-year-old son; and as there was no sign of him now, it was assumed
that he had been lost on the way to camp. And this could mean but one
thing. Considering the wolves, bears, hyenas, and other carnivores that
infested the woods, there was little chance that anyone would see Malgu
again.
So the people merely shrugged their shoulders, as sensible people do
when told of some regrettable incident. And since there was nothing to
be gained by lamentations, they turned straightway to more pressing
affairs. After a few minutes, only a low, half-stifled moaning told of
the bereaved mother's grief; and two hundred voices were prattling as
gaily as though Malgu had never been.
As night settled down, a great weariness overcame the people. One by
one they wrapped themselves in their furs and hides, placed themselves
as near as possible to the fire, curled up snail-like so as to retain
all possible warmth, and surrendered themselves to slumber. And it was
not long before a series of hearty snores replaced the garrulous voices
of the early evening.
But there were some who were not permitted to sleep. Six men,
designated by Grumgra to keep the fires alive and at the same time
watch for prowling beasts, were to do duty until midnight, when they
would be replaced by six of their kindred.
Among the earlier group of sentinels, the first to be named was Ru--who
clearly owed his choice to his presumption in questioning Grumgra's
wisdom. There had been a howl of derision when, in the presence of the
entire tribe, the chieftain had assigned him to the hated duty; and it
was the knowledge of his comrades' mockery and chuckling glee, far more
than regret at the loss of dearly needed repose, that angered Ru when
he took his place beside one of the fires and prepared for the long,
lonely watch.
Certainly, his task was not an enviable one, for he had to keep close
to his own particular fire, and there could be no communion between
him and his fellow sentinels. Through the intervening shadows, he
could hardly recognize them as human at all; they looked like ghosts
as they watched beside the uncanny yellow fires at distant ends of the
encampment; and, like ghosts, they kept elusively away from him.
As though to make his vigil more difficult, Nature as well as man
seemed to be conspiring against him. While the day had been blue
and clear, the night turned out to be dark and starless; and a cold
wind, which came howling out of the north, had shoved a black mantle
of clouds across the sky. Not often had Ru seen so wild and bleak a
night. Except for the light of the fires, which quivered and tossed and
darted out lean orange lips like distracted things, there appeared to
be no illumination in the world; and, except for the dark, slumbering
camp and a narrow and fitfully lighted circle of the fields, he seemed
to be standing in the midst of a gigantic void. Yet from that void
there issued strange and disquieting sounds--not only the moaning and
soughing of the gale as it plunged through the limbs of unseen trees,
but the voices of night prowlers occasionally lifted in growls and
grumblings and long-drawn wails that brought no consolation to the
heart of Ru. Once, indeed, the void did seem to be pierced by something
other than sound, for out of the distance he could distinguish
two close-set phosphorescent orbs staring at him like menacing
phantoms--then, in an instant, they were gone, and there was only the
darkness again, and the chilly wind whirling and sobbing past.
"Evil spirits are abroad in the world!" thought Ru, as he piled fresh
logs upon the fire; and he pictured the streams and the air and the
clouds as alive with savage monsters and still more savage men, some
of them made in the image of Grumgra, though scowling even more
ferociously than he, and with clubs ten times as long; and some of
them in the likeness of the wolves and hyenas that might even now be
prowling within a stone's throw of the camp.
He was occupied with such gruesome thoughts, and was wondering whether
the wicked spirits might not be tempted to leap in a plundering band
upon his people and smite them with bearlike teeth and claws, when
his attention was distracted by something moist and cool settling
upon his palm. It was only a drop, but after a second it was followed
by another, and then by another still--and with a sinking of the
heart Ru realized that it was raining. This in itself would have been
no occasion for alarm, since the people were used to getting wet,
and moreover were protected by their thick, hairy manes--but as the
downpour began to come faster and faster and the wind began to screech
and scream like some triumphant marauder, Ru glanced with growing
anxiety at the fires, and piled on the fagots with desperate speed in
the hope of reviving the flagging flames.
But the wood was wet, and would burn but poorly; and the shower waxed
heavier and heavier until it came down in torrents, and Ru, dripping
from head to foot, could make out the lively little streams that
rippled everywhere through the camping-place. Then once again he caught
a glimpse of phosphorescent eyes through the howling gloom; and amid
the roaring of the plunging, falling waters he could distinguish now
and then another roaring that was still more sinister.
By this time all the camp was awake. Aroused abruptly from their
slumbers, men, women and children came surging in all directions like a
rout of distracted shadows; and, literally tripping and plunging over
one another in their frenzy, they clamored and yelled as if to match
the tumult of the elements. Suddenly, amid the rushing and rioting of
that panic-stricken mob, Ru felt himself being pounced upon, shoved
aside and trampled; and as, in confusion, he picked up his bruised body
and slipped hurriedly away, he saw that the multitude, in its terror,
was heaping log after log with insane haste upon all six fires--with
the result that all, already sputtering feebly, were stifled utterly
by the excess fuel, and after a last weak flutter or two, gave up the
struggle and delivered the camp to darkness.
It would be impossible to picture the confusion that now reigned.
Women were shrieking, babes screaming, men pleading and praying to the
fire-god or bawling terrified, panicky orders that no one heeded. One,
in a trembling voice, would beg all to be calm; another, in piercing,
blood-curdling tones, would call out that he saw a wolf, a bear, a
mammoth; now and then there rang forth a wail as of the most terrible
anguish; and once, after a particularly hair-raising cry, there came
the grumbling of some predatory beast, followed by a rending and a
crunching of bones.
And all the while the whole world remained black, deathly black as
though there could be no such thing as light. And all the while
the rain came down in drenching sheets, and the wind snarled and
blustered, and ominous growling things were sneaking through the gloom.
Every man stood with club poised, ready to strike--though who, if need
be, could strike fast enough?--and thus the long weary hours of the
night dragged by, until at length the rain ceased, and the wind, like
a weary beast, subsided, and a faint glow came into the sky and showed
the hills and woods in shadowy outline, and then at last, after agonies
and agonies of waiting, a pale gray streak above the eastern bluffs
gave promise of another dawn.