astonishment went over her face. Gorgeously attired, in an iridescent
cloak from the whole wing of a great moth, with a strip of softest fur
from a night-flying creature about his middle, with golden, feathery
antennae bound upon his forehead, and a fierce spear in his hands--this
was not the Burl she had known.
But then he moved slowly toward her, filled with a fierce delight at
seeing her again, thrilling with joy at the slender gracefulness of her
form and the dark richness of her tangled hair. He held out his hands
and touched her shyly. Then, manlike, he began to babble excitedly of
the things that had happened to him, and dragged her toward his great
victim, the gray-bellied spider.
Saya trembled when she saw the furry bulk lying upon the ground, and
would have fled when Burl advanced and took it upon his back. Then
something of the pride that filled him came vicariously to her. She
smiled a flashing smile, and Burl stopped short in his excited
explanation. He was suddenly tongue-tied. His eyes became pleading and
soft. He laid the huge spider at her feet and spread out his hands
imploringly.
Thirty thousand years of savagery had not lessened the femininity in
Saya. She became aware that Burl was her slave, that these wonderful
things he wore and had done were as nothing if she did not approve. She
drew away--saw the misery in Burl's face--and abruptly ran into his arms
and clung to him, laughing happily. And quite suddenly Burl saw with
extreme clarity that all these things he had done, even the slaying of a
great spider, were of no importance whatever beside this most wonderful
thing that had just happened, and told Saya so quite humbly, but holding
her very close to him as he did so.
And so Burl came back to his tribe. He had left it nearly naked, with
but a wisp of moth-wing twisted about his middle, a timid, fearful,
trembling creature. He returned in triumph, walking slowly and
fearlessly down a broad lane of golden mushrooms toward the hiding place
of his people.
Upon his shoulders was draped a great and many-colored cloak made from
the whole of a moth's wing. Soft fur was about his middle. A spear was
in his hand and a fierce club at his waist. He and Saya bore between
them the dead body of a huge spider--aforetime the dread of the
pink-skinned, naked men. But to Burl the most important thing of all was
that Saya walked beside him openly, acknowledging him before all the
tribe.