As the party remounted and rode away toward the foothills two wondering
black eyes watched them from the safety of the jungle. Nu was utterly
non-plussed. What sort of men were these who rode upon beasts the like
of which Nu had never dreamed? At first he thought their pith helmets
and khaki clothing a part of them; but when one of them removed his
helmet and another unbuttoned his jacket Nu saw that they were merely
coverings for the head and body, though why men should wish to hamper
themselves with such foolish and cumbersome contraptions the troglodyte
could not imagine.
As the party rode toward the foothills Nu paralleled them, keeping
always down wind from them. He followed them all day during their
fruitless search for the lion that had been entering Greystoke's
compound and stealing his sheep, and as they retraced their way toward
the bungalow late in the afternoon Nu followed after them.
Never in his life had he been so deeply interested in anything as he
was in these strange creatures, and when, half way across the plain,
the party came unexpectedly upon a band of antelope grazing in a
little hollow and Nu heard the voice of one of the little black sticks
the men carried and saw a buck leap into the air and then come heavily
to the ground quite dead, deep respect was added to his interest, and
possibly a trace of awe as well--fear he knew not.
In a clump of bushes a quarter of a mile from the bungalow Nu came to
a halt. The strange odors that assailed his nostrils as he approached
the ranch warned him to caution. The black servants and the Waziri
warriors, some of whom were always visiting their former chief,
presented to Nu's nostrils an unfamiliar scent--one which made the
black shock upon his head stiffen as you have seen the hair upon the
neck of a white man's hound stiffen when for the first time his nose
detects the odor of an Indian. And, half smothered in the riot of more
powerful odors, there came to Nu's nostrils now and then a tantalizing
suggestion of a faint aroma that set his heart to pounding and the red
blood coursing through his veins.
Never did it abide for a sufficient time to make Nu quite sure that it
was more than a wanton trick of his senses--the result of the great
longing that was in his lonely heart for her whom this ephemeral and
elusive effluvium proclaimed. As darkness came he approached closer to
the bungalow, always careful, however, to keep down wind from it.
Through the windows he could see people moving about within the lighted
interior, but he was not close enough to distinguish features. He saw
men and women sitting about a long table, eating with strange weapons
upon which they impaled tiny morsels of food which lay upon round, flat
stones before them.
There was much laughter and talking, which floated through the open
windows to the cave man's eager ears; but throughout it all there
came to him no single word which he could interpret. After these
men and women had eaten they came out and sat in the shadows before
the entrance to their strange cave, and here again they laughed and
chattered, for all the world, thought Nu, like the ape-people; and yet,
though it was different from the ways of his own people the troglodyte
could not help but note within his own breast a strange yearning to
take part in it--a longing for the company of these strange, new people.
He had crept quite close to the veranda now, and presently there
floated down to him upon the almost stagnant air a subtle exhalation
that is not precisely scent, and for which the languages of modern men
have no expression since men themselves have no powers of perception
which may grasp it; but to Nu of the Niocene it carried as clear and
unmistakable a message as could word of mouth, and it told him that
Nat-ul, the daughter of Tha, sat among these strange people before the
entrance to their wonderful cave.
And yet Nu could not believe the evidence of his own senses. What could
Nat-ul be doing among such as these? How, between two suns, could she
have learned the language and the ways of these strangers? It was
impossible; and then a man upon the veranda, who sat close beside
Victoria Custer, struck a match to light a cigarette, and the flare of
the blaze lit up the girl's features. At the sight of them the cave man
involuntarily sprang to his feet. A half smothered exclamation broke
from his lips: "Nat-ul!"
"What was that?" exclaimed Barney Custer. "I thought I heard some one
speak out there near the rose bushes."
He rose as though to investigate, but his sister laid her hand upon his
arm.
"Don't go, Barney," she whispered.
He turned toward her with a questioning look.
"Why?" he asked. "There is no danger. Did you not hear it, too?"
"Yes," she answered in a low voice, "I heard it, Barney--please don't
leave me."
He felt the trembling of her hand where it rested upon his sleeve.
One of the other men heard the conversation, but of course he could
not guess that it carried any peculiar significance--it was merely an
expression of the natural timidity of the civilized white woman in the
midst of the savage African night.
"It's nothing, Miss Custer," he said. "I'll just walk down there to
reassure you--a prowling hyena, perhaps, but nothing more."
The girl would have been glad to deter him, but she felt that she had
already evinced more perturbation than the occasion warranted, and so
she but forced a laugh, remarking that it was not at all worth while,
yet in her ears rang the familiar name that had so often fallen from
the lips of her dream-man.
When one of the others suggested that the investigator had better take
an express rifle with him on the chance that the intruder might be "old
Raffles," the sheep thief, the girl started up as though to object but
realizing how ridiculous such an attitude would be, and how impossible
to explain, she turned instead and entered the house.
Several of the men walked down into the garden, but though they
searched for the better part of half an hour they came upon no
indication that any savage beast was nearby. Always in front of them a
silent figure moved just outside the range of their vision, and when
they returned again to the veranda it took up its position once more
behind the rose bushes, nor until all had entered the bungalow and
sought their beds did the figure stir.
Nu was hungry again, and knowing no law of property rights he found
the odor of the Greystoke sheep as appetizing as that of any other of
the numerous creatures that were penned within their compounds for the
night. Like a supple panther the man scaled the high fence that guarded
the imported, pedigreed stock in which Lord Greystoke took such just
pride. A moment later there was the frightened rush of animals to the
far side of the enclosure, where they halted to turn fear filled eyes
back toward the silent beast of prey that crouched over the carcass
of a plump ewe. Within the pen Nu ate his fill, and then, cat-like as
he had come, he glided back stealthily toward the garden before the
darkened bungalow.
Out across the plain, down wind from Nu, another silent figure moved
stealthily toward the ranch. It was a huge, maned lion. Every now and
then he would halt and lift his sniffing nose to the gentle breeze,
and his lips would lift baring the mighty fangs beneath, but no sound
came from his deep throat, for he was old, and his wisdom was as the
wisdom of the fox.
Once upon a time he would have coughed and moaned and roared after the
manner of his hungry brethren, but much experience with men-people and
their deafening thunder sticks had taught him that he hunted longest
who hunted in silence.