The shock that had been felt so plainly in the valley had been much
more severe in the mountains to the south. In one place an overhanging
cliff had split and fallen away from the face of the mountain, bumbling
with a mighty roar into the valley below. As it hurtled down the
mountain side the moonlight shining upon the fresh scar that it had
left behind it upon the hill's face revealed the mouth of a gloomy
cave from which there tumbled the inert figure of an animal which
rolled down the steep declivity in the wake of the mass of rock that
had preceded it--the tearing away of which had opened up the cavern in
which it had lain.
For a hundred feet perhaps the body rolled, coming to a stop upon a
broad ledge. For some time it lay perfectly motionless, but at last a
feeble movement of the limbs was discernible. Then for another long
period it was quiet. Minutes dragged into hours and still the lonely
thing lay upon the mountain side, while upon the plain below it hungry
lions moaned and roared, and all the teeming life of the savage wilds
took up their search for food, their sleeping and their love-making
where they had dropped them in the fright of the earthquake.
At last the stars paled and the eastern horizon glowed to a new
day, and then the thing upon the ledge sat up. It was a man. Still
partially dazed he drew his hand across his eyes and looked about him
in bewilderment. Then, staggering a little, he rose to his feet, and as
he came erect, the new sun shining on his bronzed limbs and his shock
of black hair, roughly cropped between sharpened stones, his youth and
beauty became startlingly apparent.
He looked about him upon the ground, and not finding that which he
sought turned his eyes upward toward the mountain until they fell
upon the cave mouth he had just quitted so precipitately. Quickly he
clambered back to the cavern, his stone hatchet and knife beating
against his bare hips as he climbed. For a moment he was lost to view
within the cave, but presently he emerged, in one hand a stone-tipped
spear, which seemed recently to have been broken and roughly spliced
with raw tendons, and in the other the severed head of an enormous
beast, which more nearly resembled the royal tiger of Asia than it did
any other beast, though that resemblance was little closer than is the
resemblance of the Royal Bengal to a house kitten.
The young man was Nu, the son of Nu. For a hundred thousand years he
had lain hermetically sealed in his rocky tomb, as toads remain in
suspended animation for similar periods of time. The earthquake had
unsealed his sepulcher, and the rough tumble down the mountainside had
induced respiration. His heart had responded to the pumping of his
lungs, and simultaneously the other organs of his body had taken up
their various functions as though they had never ceased functioning.
As he stood upon the threshold of the cave of Oo, the man hunter, the
look of bewilderment grew upon his features as his eyes roved over the
panorama of the unfamiliar world which lay spread below him. There was
scarce an object to remind him of the world that had been but a brief
instant before, for Nu could not know that ages had rolled by since he
took hasty refuge in the lair of the great beast he had slain.
He thought that he might be dreaming, and so he rubbed his eyes and
looked again; but still he saw the unfamiliar trees and bushes about
him and further down in the valley the odd appearing vegetation of
the jungle. Nu could not fathom the mystery of it. Slowly he stepped
from the cave and began the descent toward the valley, for he was very
thirsty and very hungry. Below him he saw animals grazing upon the
broad plain, but even at that distance he realized that they were such
as no mortal eye had ever before rested upon.
Warily he advanced, every sense alert against whatever new form of
danger might lurk in this strange, new world. Had he had any conception
of a life after death he would doubtless have felt assured that the
earthquake had killed him and that he was now wandering through the
heavenly vale; but the men of Nu's age had not yet conceived any sort
of religion, other than a vague fear of certain natural phenomena such
as storms and earthquakes, the movements of the sun and moon, and those
familiar happenings which first awake the questionings of the primitive.
He saw the sun; but to him it was a different sun from the great,
swollen orb that had shone through the thick, humid atmosphere of
the Niocene. From Oo's lair only the day before he had been able to
see in the distance the shimmering surface of the restless sea; but
now as far as eye could reach there stretched an interminable jungle
of gently waving tree tops, except for the rolling plain at his feet
where yesterday the black jungle of the ape-people had reared its lofty
fronds.
Nu shook his head. It was all quite beyond him; but there were certain
things which he could comprehend, and so, after the manner of the
self-reliant, he set about to wrest his livelihood from nature under
the new conditions which had been imposed upon him while he slept.
First of all his spear must be attended to. It would never do to trust
to that crude patch longer than it would take him to find and fit a
new haft. His meat must wait until that thing was accomplished. In the
meantime he might pick up what fruit was available in the forest toward
which he was bending his steps in search of a long, straight shoot of
the hard wood which alone would meet his requirements. In the days that
had been Nu's there had grown in isolated patches a few lone clumps of
very straight, hard-wood trees. The smaller of these the men of the
tribe would cut down and split lengthways with stone wedges until from
a single tree they might have produced material for a score or more
spear shafts; but now Nu must see the very smallest of saplings, for he
had no time to waste in splitting a larger tree, even had he had the
necessary wedges and hammers.
Into the forest the youth crept, for though a hundred thousand years
had elapsed since his birth he was still to all intent and purpose a
youth. Upon all sides he saw strange and wonderful trees, the likes of
which had never been in the forests of yesterday. The growths were not
so luxuriant or prodigious, but for the most part the trees offered
suggestions of alluring possibilities to the semiarboreal Nu, for the
branches were much heavier and more solid than those of the great
tree-ferns of his own epoch, and commenced much nearer the ground.
Cat-like he leaped into the lower branches of them, revelling in the
ease with which he could travel from tree to tree.
Gay colored birds of strange appearance screamed and scolded at him.
Little monkeys hurried, chattering, from his path. Nu laughed. What a
quaint, diminutive world it was indeed! Nowhere had he yet seen a tree
or creature that might compare in size to the monsters among which he
had traveled the preceding day.
The fruits, too, were small and strange. He scarcely dared venture to
eat of them lest they be poisonous. If the lesser ape-folk would only
let him come close enough to speak with them he might ascertain from
them which were safe, but for some unaccountable reason they seemed to
fear and mistrust him. This above all other considerations argued to Nu
that he had come in some mysterious way into another world.
Presently the troglodyte discovered a slender, straight young sapling.
He came to the ground and tested its strength by bending it back and
forth. Apparently it met the requirements of a new shaft. With his
stone hatchet he hewed it off close to the ground, stripped it of
branches, and climbing to the safety of the trees again, where he need
fear no interruption from the huge monsters of the world he knew, set
to work with his stone knife to remove the bark and shape the end to
receive his spear head. First he split it down the center for four or
five inches, and then he cut notches in the surface upon either side of
the split portion. Now he carefully unwraps the rawhide that binds the
spear head into his old haft, and for want of water to moisten it crams
the whole unfragrant mass into his mouth that it may be softened by
warmth and saliva. For several minutes he busies himself in shaping the
point of the new shaft that it may exactly fit the inequalities in the
shank of the spear head. By the time this is done the rawhide has been
sufficiently moistened to permit him to wind it tightly about the new
haft into which he has set the spear head.
As he works he hears the noises of the jungle about him. There are
many familiar voices, but more strange ones. Not once has the cave
bear spoken; nor Zor, the mighty lion of the Niocene; nor Oo, the
saber-toothed tiger. He misses the bellowing of the bull bos, and the
hissing and whistling of monster saurian and amphibian. To Nu it seems
a silent world. Propped against the bole of the tree before him grins
the hideous head of the man hunter, the only familiar object in all
this strange, curiously changed world about him.
Presently he becomes aware that the lesser apes are creeping warily
closer to have a better look at him. He waits silently until from the
tail of his eye he glimpses one quite near, and then in a low voice he
speaks in the language that his allies of yesterday understood, and
though ages had elapsed since that long gone day the little monkey
above him understood, for the language of the apes can never change.
"Why do you fear Nu, the son of Nu?" asked the man. "When has he ever
harmed the ape-people?"
"The hairless ones kill us with sharp sticks that fly through the air,"
replied the monkey; "or with little sticks that make a great noise and
kill us from afar; but you seem not to be of these. We have never seen
one like you until now. Do you not wish to kill us?"
"Why should I?" replied Nu, "It is better that we be friends. All that
I wish of you is that you tell me which of the fruits that grow here be
safe for me to eat, and then direct me to the sea beside which dwell
the tribe of Nu, my father."
The monkeys had gathered in force by this time, seeing that the strange
white ape offered no harm to their fellows and when they learned his
wants they scampered about in all directions to gather nuts and fruits
and berries for him. It is true that some of them forgot what they had
intended doing before the task was half completed, and ended by pulling
one another's tails and frolicking among the higher branches, or else
ate the fruit they had gone to gather for their new friend; but a few
there were with greater powers of concentration than their fellows
who returned with fruit and berries and caterpillars, all of which Nu
devoured with the avidity of the half-famished.
Of the whereabouts of the tribe of his father they could tell him
nothing, for they had never heard of such a people, or of the great sea
beside which he told them that his people dwelt.
His breakfast finished, and his spear repaired Nu set out toward the
plain to bring down one of the beasts he had seen grazing there, for
his stomach called aloud for flesh. Fruit and bugs might be all right
for children and ape-people; but a full grown man must have meat, warm
and red and dripping.
Closest to him as he emerged from the jungle browsed a small herd
of zebra. They were directly up wind, and between him and them were
patches of tall grass and clumps of trees scattered about the surface
of the plain. Nu wondered at the strange beasts, admiring their gaudy
markings as he came closer to them. Upon the edge of the herd nearest
him a plump stallion stood switching his tail against the annoying
flies, occasionally raising his head from his feeding to search the
horizon for signs of danger, sniffing the air for the tell-tale scent
of an enemy. It was he that Nu selected for his prey.
Stealthily the cave man crept through the tall grass, scarce a blade
moving to the sinuous advance of his sleek body. Within fifty feet
of the zebra Nu stopped, for the stallion was giving evidence of
restlessness, as though sensing intuitively the near approach of a foe
he could neither see, nor hear, nor smell.
The man, still prone upon his belly, drew his spear into the throwing
grasp. With utmost caution he wormed his legs beneath him, and then,
like lightning and all with a single movement, he leaped to his feet
and cast the stone-tipped weapon at his quarry.
With a snort of terror the stallion reared to plunge away, but the
spear had found the point behind his shoulder even as he saw the figure
of the man arise from the tall grasses, and as the balance of the herd
galloped madly off, their leader pitched headlong to the earth.
Nu ran forward with ready knife, but the animal was dead before he
reached its side--the great spear had passed through its heart and was
protruding upon the opposite side of the body. The man removed the
weapon, and with his knife cut several long strips of meat from the
plump haunches.
Ever and anon he raised his head to scan the plain and jungle for
evidences of danger, sniffing the breeze just as had the stallion he
had killed. His work was but partially completed when he caught the
scent of man yet a long way off. He knew that he could not be mistaken,
yet never had he sensed so strange an odor. There were men coming,
he knew, but of the other odors that accompanied them he could make
nothing, for khaki and guns and sweaty saddle blankets and the stench
of tanned leather were to Nu's nostrils as Greek would have been to his
ears.
It would be best thought Nu to retreat to the safety of the forest
until he could ascertain the number and kind of beings that were
approaching, and so, taking but careless advantage of the handier
shelter, the cave man sauntered toward the forest, for now he was not
stalking game, and never yet had he shown fear in the presence of an
enemy. If their numbers were too great for him to cope with single
handed he would not show himself; but none might ever say that he had
seen Nu, the son of Nu, run away from danger.
In his hand still swung the head of Oo, and as the man leaped to the
low branches of a tree at the jungle's edge to spy upon the men he knew
to be advancing from the far side of the plain, he fell to wondering
how he was to find his way back to Nat-ul that he might place the
trophy at her feet and claim her as his mate.
Only the previous evening they had walked together hand in hand along
the beach, and now he had not the remotest conception of where that
beach lay. Straight across the plain should be the direction of it, for
from that direction had he come to find the lair of Oo! But now all was
changed. There was no single familiar landmark to guide him, not even
the ape-people knew of any sea nearby, and he himself had no conception
as to whether he was in the same world that he had traversed when last
the sun shone upon him.