As Nu led Gron through the dark night amidst the blackness of the
tropical forest that clothed the gentle ascent leading inland from the
beach he grinned at the thought of Tur's discomfiture, as well as the
candor of his rescuer.
But now Nu was the protector. He might have left the woman to shift for
herself. She had made it quite plain that she had no love for him--as
plain as words could convey the idea: "I hate you, but not quite so
much as I hate Tur." But the idea of deserting Gron never occurred
to him. She was a woman. She had saved Nu's life. Her motive was of
negligible import.
In the darkness Nu found a large tree. He entered the lower branches to
reconnoiter. There were no dangerous foes lurking there, so he reached
down and assisted Gron to his side. There they must make the best of it
until daylight returned--it would never do to roam through the woods
unarmed at night longer than was absolutely necessary.
Nu was accustomed to sleeping in trees. His people often did so when on
the march, or when the quarry of the chase led them overfar from their
caves by day, necessitating the spending of the night abroad; but Gron
was not so familiar with life arboreal. She clung, fearful, to the bole
of the tree in a position that precluded sleep.
Nu showed her how to compose herself upon a limb with her back to the
tree stem, but even then she was afraid of falling should she chance to
doze. At last Nu placed an arm about her to support her, and thus she
slept, her head pillowed upon the shoulder of her enemy.
The sun was high when the sleepers awoke. Gron was the first to open
her eyes. For a moment she was bewildered by the strangeness of her
surroundings. Where was she? Upon what was her head pillowed? She
raised her eyes. They fell upon the sun-tanned, regular features of
the god-like Nu. Slowly recollection forced its way through the misty
pall of somnolence. She felt the arm of the man about her, still firmly
flexed in protective support.
This was her enemy--the enemy of her people. She looked at Nu through
new eyes. It was as though the awakening day had brought an awakening
of her soul. The man was undeniably beautiful--of a masculine beauty
that was all strength. Gron closed her eyes again dreamily and let
her head sink closer to the strong, brown shoulder. But presently came
entire wakefulness, and with it a full return of actively functioning
recollection. She saw the pitiful bundle lying among the fox and otter
skins upon the floor of the distant shelter.
With a sudden intaking of her breath that was almost a scream, Gron
sat erect. The movement awakened Nu. He opened his eyes, looked at the
woman, and removing his arm from about her stood upright upon the tree
branch.
"First we must seek food and weapons," he said, "and then return to the
land that holds my country. Come."
His quick eyes had scanned the ground below. There were no beasts of
prey in sight. Nu lowered the woman to the base of the tree, leaping
lightly to her side. Fruits, growing in plenitude, assuaged the keenest
pangs of hunger. This accomplished, Nu led the way inland toward higher
ground where he might find growing the harder wood necessary for a
spear shaft. A fire-hardened point was the best that he might hope
for temporarily unless chance should direct him upon a fragment of
leek-green nephrite, or a piece of flint.
Onward and upward toiled the searchers, but though they scaled the low
and rugged mountains that paralleled the coast they came upon neither
the straight hard wood that Nu sought, nor any sign of the prized
minerals from which he might fashion a spear head, an ax, or a knife.
Down the further slopes of the mountains they made their way, glimpsing
at times through the break of a gorge a forest in a valley far below.
Toward this Nu bent his steps. There might grow the wood he sought. At
last they reached the last steep declivity, a sheer drop of two hundred
feet to the leveler slopes whereon the forest grew almost to the base
of the cliff.
For a moment the two stood gazing out over the unfamiliar scene--a
rather open woodland that seemed to fringe the shoulder of a plateau,
dropping from sight a mile or so beyond them into an invisible valley
above which hung a soft, warm haze. Far beyond all this, dimly rose
the outlines of far-off mountains, their serrated crests seemingly
floating upon the haze that obscured their bases.
"Let us descend," said Nu, and started to lower his legs over the edge
of the precipice.
Gron drew back with a little exclamation of terror.
"You will fall!" she cried. "Let us search out an easier way."
Nu looked up and laughed.
"What could be easier than this?" he asked.
Gron peered over the edge. She saw the face of a rocky wall, broken
here and there by protruding boulders, and again by narrow ledges where
a harder stratum had better withstood the ravages of the elements. In
occasional spots where lodgment had been afforded lay accumulations of
loose rock, ready to trip the unwary foot, and below all a tumbled mass
of jagged pieces waiting to receive the bruised and mangled body of
whomever might be so foolhardy as to choose this way to the forest. Nu
saw that Gron was but little reassured by her inspection.
"Come!" he said. "There is no danger--with me."
Gron looked at him, conscious of an admiration for his courage
and prowess--an admiration for an enemy that she would rather not
have felt. Yet she did feel the truth of his words: "There is no
danger--with me." She sat down upon the edge of the cliff, letting her
legs dangle over the abyss. Nu reached up and grasped her arm, drawing
her down to his side. How he clung there she could not guess, but
somehow, as he supported her in the descent, he found handholds and
stepping stones that made the path seem a miracle of ease. Long before
they reached the bottom Gron ceased to be afraid and even found herself
discovering ledges and outcroppings that made the journey easier for
them both. And when they stood safely amid the clutter of debris at the
base she threw a glance of ill-concealed admiration upon her enemy.
Mentally she compared him with Tur and Scarb and the other males of the
Boat Builders, nor would the comparison have swelled the manly chests
of the latter could they have had knowledge of it.
"Those who follow us will stop here," she said, "nor do I see any break
in the cliff as far as my eye can travel," and she looked to right and
left along the rocky escarpment.
"I had forgotten that we might be followed," said Nu; "but when we have
found wherewith to fashion a spear and an ax, let them come--Nu, the
son of Nu, will welcome them."
From the base of the cliff they crossed the rubble and stepped out into
the grassy clearing that reached to the forest's edge. They had crossed
but half way to the wood when they heard the crashing of great bodies
ahead of them, and as they paused the head of a bull aurochs appeared
among the trees before them. Another and another came into sight, and
as the animals saw the couple they halted, the bulls bellowing, the
cows peering wide eyed across the shaggy backs of their lords.
Here was meat and only the knife of the woman to bring it down. Nu
reached for Gron's weapon.
"Go back to the cliff," he said, "lest they charge. I will bring down a
young she."
Gron was about to turn back as Nu had bid her, and the man was on the
point of circling toward the right when there appeared on either side
of the aurochs several men. They were clothed in the skins of the
species they accompanied, and were armed with spears and axes. At sight
of Nu and Gron they raised a great shout and dashed forward toward the
two. Nu, unarmed, perceived the futility of accepting battle. Instead
he grasped Gron's hand and with her fled back toward the cliffs. Close
upon their heels came the herders, shouting savage cries of carnage and
victory. They had their quarry cornered. The cliff would stop them,
and then, with their backs against the wall, the man would be quickly
killed and the woman captured.
But these were not cliff dwellers--they knew nothing of the agility of
Nu. Otherwise they would not have slowed up, as they did, nor spread
out to right and left for the purpose of preventing a flank escape by
the fugitives. Across the rubble ran Nu and Gron, and at the foot of
the cliff where they should have stopped, according to the reasoning
of the herders, they did not even hesitate. Straight up the sheer wall
sprang Nu, dragging the woman after him. Now the aurochs herders raised
a mighty shout of anger and dismay. Who had ever seen such a thing! It
was impossible, and yet there before their very eyes they beheld a man,
encumbered by a woman, scaling the unscalable heights.
With renewed speed the herders dashed straight toward the foot of the
cliff, but Nu and Gron were beyond the reach of their hands before ever
they arrived. Turning for an instant, Nu saw they were not yet out of
reach of the weapons. He reached down with his right hand and picked
up a loose bit of rock, hurling it toward the nearest spearman. The
missile struck its target full upon the forehead, crumpling him to an
inert mass.
Then Nu scrambled upward again, and before the herders could recover
from their surprise he had dragged Gron out of range of the spears.
Squatting upon a narrow ledge, the woman at his side, Nu hurled
insulting epithets at their pursuers. These he punctuated with
well-timed and equally well-aimed rocks, until the yelling herders were
glad to retreat to a safer distance.
The enemy did not even venture the attempt to follow the fugitives.
It was evident that they were no better climbers than Gron. Nu held
them in supreme contempt. Had he but a good ax he would descend and
annihilate the whole crew!
Gron, sitting close beside Nu, was filled with wonder and something
more than wonder that this enemy should have risked so much to save
her, for at the bottom of the cliff Nu had evidently forgotten for
the instant that the woman was not of his own breed, able to climb
equally as well as he, and had ascended a short distance before he had
discovered that Gron was scrambling futilely for a foothold at the
bottom. Then, in the face of the advancing foemen, he had descended to
her side, risking capture and death in the act, and had hoisted her to
a point of safety far up the cliff face. Tur would never have done so
much.
The woman, stealing stealthy glances at the profile of the young giant
beside her, felt her sentiments undergoing a strange metamorphosis. Nu
was no longer her enemy. He protected her, and now she looked to him
for protection with greater assurance of receiving it than ever she
had looked to Tur for the same thing. She knew that Nu would forage
for her--upon him she depended for food as well as protection. She had
never looked for more from her mate. Her mate! She stole another half
shy glance at Nu. Ah, what a mate he would have been! And why not?
They were alone in the world, separated from their people, doubtless
forever. Gron suddenly realized that she hoped that it was forever. She
wondered what was passing in Nu's mind.
Apparently the man was wholly occupied with the joys of insulting the
threatening savages beneath him; but yet his thoughts were busy with
plans for escape. And why? Solely because he yearned for his own land
and his father's people? Far from it. Nu might have been happy upon
this island forever had there been another there in place of Gron. He
thought of Nat-ul--no other woman occupied his mind, and his plans for
escape were solely a means for returning to the mainland and again
taking up his search for the daughter of Tha.
For an hour the herders remained in the clearing near the foot of the
cliff, then, evidently tiring of the fruitless sport, they collected
their scattered herd and disappeared in the wood toward the direction
from which they had come. A half hour later Nu ventured down. He had
discovered a cave in the face of the cliff and there he left Gron,
telling her that he would fetch food to her, since in case of pursuit
he could escape more easily alone than when burdened with her.
After a short absence he returned with both food and drink, the
latter carried in the bladder that always hung from his gee-string.
He had seen nothing of the herders and naught of the hard wood or the
materials for spear and ax heads that he had desired.
"There is an easier way, however," he confided to the woman, as they
squatted at the mouth of the cave and ate. "The drivers of aurochs bore
spears and axes and knives. It will be easier to follow them and take
theirs than to make weapons of my own. Stay here, Gron, in safety, and
Nu will follow the strangers, returning shortly with weapons and the
flesh of the fattest of the she aurochs. Then we will return to the
coast, fearless of enemies, find the boat and go back to Nu's country.
There you will be well received, for Nu, my father, is chief, and when
he learns that you have saved my life he will treat you well."
So Nu dropped quickly down to the foot of the cliff, crossed the
clearing, and a moment later disappeared from the eyes of Gron into the
shadows of the wood.
For a while he could make neither head nor tail to the tangled spoor of
the herd, but at last he found the point where the herders evidently
had collected their charges and driven them in a more or less compact
formation toward the opposite side of the forest. Nu went warily,
keeping every sense alert against surprise by savage beast or man.
Every living thing that he might encounter could be nothing other than
an enemy. He stopped often, listening and sniffing the air. Twice he
was compelled to take to the trees upon the approach of wandering
beasts of prey; but when they had passed on Nu descended and resumed
his trailing.
The trampled path of the herd led to the further edge of the forest,
and there Nu saw unfolded below him as beautiful a scene as had ever
broken upon his vision. The western sun hung low over a broad valley
that stretched below him, for the wood ended upon the brow of a gentle
slope that dropped downward to a blue lake sparkling in the midst of
green meadows a couple of miles away.
Upon the surface of the lake, apparently floating, were a score or more
strange structures. That they were man-built Nu was certain, though
he never had seen nor dreamed of their like. To himself he thought of
them as "caves," just as he had mentally described the shelters of the
Boat Builders, for to Nu any human habitation was a "cave," and that
they were the dwellings of men he had no doubt since he could see
human figures passing back and forth along the narrow causeways that
connected the thatched structures with the shore of the lake. Across
these long bridges they were driving aurochs, too, evidently to pen
them safely for the night against the night prowlers of the forest and
the plain.
Until darkness settled Nu watched with unflagging interest the
activities of the floating village. Then in the comparative safety of
the darkness he crept down close to the water's edge. He took advantage
of every tree and bush, of every rock and hollow that intervened
between himself and the enemy to shelter and hide his advance. At last
he lay concealed in a heavy growth of reeds upon the bank of the lake.
By separating them before his eyes he could obtain an excellent view
of the village without himself being discovered. The moon had risen,
brilliantly flooding the unusual scene. Now Nu saw that the dwellings
did not really float upon the surface. He discovered the ends of piles
that disappeared beneath the surface of the water. The habitations
stood upon these. He saw men and women and little children gathered
upon the open platforms that encircled many of the structures, and
upon the narrow bridges that spanned the water between the dwellings
and the shore. Fires burned before many of the huts, blazing upon
little hearths of clay that protected the planking beneath them from
combustion. Nu could smell the savory aroma of cooking fish, and his
mouth watered as he saw the teeth of the Lake Dwellers close upon
juicy aurochs steaks, while others opened shellfish and devoured their
contents raw, throwing the shells into the water below them.
But, hungry though he was for meat, the objects of his particular
desire were the long spear, the heavy ax and the sharp knife of the
hairy giant standing guard upon the nearest causeway. Upon him Nu's
eyes rested the oftenest. He saw the villagers, the evening meal
consumed and the scraps tossed into the water beneath their dwellings,
engaged in noisy gossip about their fires. Children romped and tumbled
perilously close to the edges of the platforms. Youths and maidens
strolled to the darker corners of the village, and leaning over the
low rails above the water conversed in whispers. Loud voiced warriors
recounted for the thousandth time the details of past valorous deeds.
The younger mothers, in little circles, gossiped with much nodding of
heads, the while they suckled their babes. The old women, toothless and
white-haired, but still erect and agile in token of the rigid primitive
laws which governed the survival of the fit alone, busied themselves
with the care of the older children and various phases of the simple
household economy which devolved upon them.
The evening drew on into darkness. The children had been posted off to
their skin covered, grass pallets. For another half hour the elders
remained about the fires, then, by twos and threes, they also sought
the interiors of the huts, and sleep. Quiet settled upon the village,
and still Nu, hidden in the reeds beside the lake, watched the nearest
guardsman. Now and then the fellow would leave his post to replenish
a watch fire that blazed close to the shore end of his causeway. Past
this no ordinary beast of prey would dare venture, nor could any do
so without detection, for its light illumined brightly the end of the
narrow bridge.
Nu found himself wondering how he was to reach the sentry unseen.
To rush past the watch fire would have been madness, for the guard
then would have ample time to raise an alarm that would call forth
the entire population of the village before ever Nu could reach the
fellow's side.
There was the water, of course, but even there there was an excellent
chance of detection, since upon the mirrorlike surface of the moonlit
lake the swimmer would be all too apparent from the village. A shadow
fell directly along the side of the causeway. Could he reach that he
might make his way to a point near the sentry and then clamber to close
quarters before the man realized that a foe was upon him. However, the
chance was slight at best, and so Nu waited hoping for some fortuitous
circumstance to offer him a happier solution of his problem.
As a matter of fact he rather shrank from the unknown dangers of the
strange waters in which might lurk countless creatures of destruction;
but there was that brewing close at hand that was to force a decision
quickly upon the troglodyte, leaving but an immediate choice between
two horns of a dilemma, one carrying a known death and the other a
precarious problematical fate.
It was Nu's quick ears that first detected the stealthy movement in the
reeds behind him, down wind, where his scent must have been carrying
tidings of his presence to whatever roamed abroad in that locality.
Now the passing of a great beast of prey upon its way through the
grasses or the jungle is almost noiseless, and more so are his stealthy
footfalls when he stalks his quarry. You or I could not detect them
with our dull ears amid the myriad sounds of a primeval night--the
coughing and the moaning of the great cats punctuated by deafening
roars, the lowing and bellowing and grunting of the herds--the shrill
scream of pain and terror as a hunter lands upon the neck or rump of
his prey--the hum of insects--the hissing of reptiles--the rustling
and soughing of the night wind among the grasses and the trees. But
Nu's ears were not as ours. Not only had he been aware of the passing
and repassing of great beasts through the reeds behind him, but, so
quick his perceptive faculties, he immediately caught the change
from mere careless passage to that of stealthy stalking on the part
of the creature in his rear. The beast had caught his scent and now,
cautiously, he was moving straight toward the watcher upon the shore.
Nu did not need the evidence of his eyes to picture the great pads
carefully raised and cautiously placed so that not a bent grass might
give out its faint alarm, the lowered and flattened head, the forward
tilted ears, the gentle undulations of the swaying tail, lashing a
little at the tufted tip. He saw it all, realizing too all that it
meant to him. There was no escape to right or left, and before him lay
the waters of the unknown lake. He was all unarmed, and the mighty cat
was now almost within its leap.
Nu looked toward the sentry. The fellow had just returned from
replenishing his watch fire. He stood leaning over the railing gazing
into the water. What was that? Nu's eyes strained through the darkness
toward the platform where the warrior stood. Just behind him was
another figure. Ah! the figure of a woman. Stealthily, with many a
backward glance, she approached the sentinel. There was a low word.
The man turned, and at sight of the figure so close beside him now he
opened his arms and crushed the woman to him.
Her face was buried on his shoulder, his head turned from Nu and
doubtless his eyes hidden in the red-brown hair that fell, unconfined,
almost to the woman's waist.
And then the great carnivore at Nu's back sprang.