and so many grew rapidly upon him. What had he had? What all had he
not missed? Dismally he stared first at his dark wrinkled skin; the
crow’s-feet at the sides of his eyes; the wrinkles across his forehead
and between the eyes; his long, dark, wrinkled hands--handsome hands
they once were, he thought; his angular, stiff body. Once he had been
very much of a personage, he thought, striking, forceful, dynamic--but
now! He turned and looked out over the park where the young trees were,
and the lake, to the pinking dawn--just a trace now--a significant
thing in itself at this hour surely--the new dawn, so wondrously new
for younger people--then back at himself. What could he wish for
now--what hope for?
As he did so his dream came back to him--that strange dream of seeking
and being led and promised and yet always being led forward into a
dimmer, darker land. What did that mean? Had it any real significance?
Was it all to be dimmer, darker still? Was it typical of his life? He
pondered.
“Free!” he said after a time. “Free! I know now how that is. I am free
now, at last! Free!... Free!... Yes--free ... to die!”
So he stood there ruminating and smoothing his hair and his beard.
McEWEN OF THE SHINING SLAVE MAKERS
It was a hot day in August. The parching rays of a summer sun had faded
the once sappy green leaves of the trees to a dull and dusty hue. The
grass, still good to look upon in shady places, spread sere and dry
where the light had fallen unbroken. The roads were hot with thick
dust, and wherever a stone path led, it reflected heat to weary body
and soul.
Robert McEwen had taken a seat under a fine old beech tree whose broad
arms cast a welcome shade. He had come here out of the toil of the busy
streets.
For a time he gave himself over to blank contemplation of the broad
park and the occasional carriages that jingled by. Presently his
meditation was broken by an ant on his trousers, which he flipped away
with his finger. This awoke him to the thought that there might be more
upon him. He stood up, shaking and brushing himself. Then he noticed an
ant running along the walk in front of him. He stamped on it.
“I guess that will do for you,” he said, half aloud, and sat down again.
Now only did he really notice the walk. It was wide and hard and hot.
Many ants were hurrying about, and now he saw that they were black. At
last, one more active than the others fixed his eye. He followed it
with his glance for more than a score of feet.
This particular ant was progressing urgently, now to the right, now to
the left, stopping here and there, but never for more than a second.
Its energy, the zig-zag course it pursued, the frequency with which it
halted to examine something, enlisted his interest. As he gazed, the
path grew in imagination until it assumed immense proportions.
Suddenly he bestirred himself, took a single glance and then jumped,
rubbing his eyes. He was in an unknown world, strange in every detail.
The branched and many-limbed trees had disappeared. A forest of immense
flat swords of green swayed in the air above him. The ground between
lacked its carpet of green and was roughly strewn with immense boulders
of clay. The air was strong with an odor which seemed strange and yet
familiar. Only the hot sun streaming down and a sky of faultless blue
betokened a familiar world. In regard to himself McEwen felt peculiar
and yet familiar. What was it that made these surroundings and himself
seem odd and yet usual? He could not tell. His three pairs of limbs
and his vigorous mandibles seemed natural enough. The fact that he
sensed rather than saw things was natural and yet odd. Forthwith moved
by a sense of duty, necessity, and a kind of tribal obligation which
he more felt than understood, he set out in search of food and prey
and presently came to a broad plain, so wide that his eye could scarce
command more than what seemed an immediate portion of it. He halted and
breathed with a feeling of relief. Just then a voice startled him.
“Anything to eat hereabout?” questioned the newcomer in a friendly and
yet self-interested tone.
McEwen drew back.
“I do not know,” he said, “I have just----”
“Terrible,” said the stranger, not waiting to hear his answer. “It
looks like famine. You know the Sanguineæ have gone to war.”
“No,” answered McEwen mechanically.
“Yes,” said the other, “they raided the Fuscæ yesterday. They’ll be
down on us next.”
With that the stranger made off. McEwen was about to exclaim at the use
of the word _us_ when a ravenous craving for food, brought now forcibly
to his mind by the words of the other, made him start in haste after
him.
Then came another who bespoke him in passing.
“I haven’t found a thing to-day, and I’ve been all the way to the
Pratensis region. I didn’t dare go any further without having some
others with me. They’re hungry, too, up there, though they’ve just made
a raid. You heard the Sanguineæ went to war, didn’t you?”
“Yes, he told me,” said McEwen, indicating the retreating figure of the
stranger.
“Oh, Ermi. Yes, he’s been over in their territory. Well, I’ll be going
now.”
McEwen hastened after Ermi at a good pace, and soon overtook him. The
latter had stopped and was gathering in his mandibles a jagged crumb,
almost as large as himself.
“Oh!” exclaimed McEwen eagerly, “where did you get that?”
“Here,” said Ermi.
“Will you give me a little?”
“I will not,” said the other, and a light came in his eye that was
almost evil.
“All right,” said McEwen, made bold by hunger and yet cautious by
danger, “which way would you advise me to look?”
“Wherever you please,” said Ermi, “why ask me? You are not new at
seeking,” and strode off.
“The forest was better than this,” thought McEwen; “there I would not
die of the heat, anyhow, and I might find food. Here is nothing,” and
he turned and glanced about for a sight of the jungle whence he had
come.
Far to the left and rear of him he saw it, those great up-standing
swords. As he gazed, revolving in his troubled mind whether he should
return or not, he saw another like himself hurrying toward him out of
the distance.
He eagerly hailed the newcomer, who was yet a long way off.
“What is it?” asked the other, coming up rapidly.
“Do you know where I can get something to eat?”
“Is that why you called me?” he answered, eyeing him angrily. “Do you
ask in time of famine? Certainly not. If I had anything for myself,
I would not be out here. Go and hunt for it like the rest of us. Why
should you be asking?”
“I have been hunting,” cried McEwen, his anger rising. “I have searched
here until I am almost starved.”
“No worse off than any of us, are you?” said the other. “Look at me. Do
you suppose I am feasting?”
He went off in high dudgeon, and McEwen gazed after him in
astonishment. The indifference and sufficiency were at once surprising
and yet familiar. Later he found himself falling rapidly into helpless
lassitude from both hunger and heat, when a voice, as of one in pain,
hailed him.
“Ho!” it cried.
“Hello!” he answered.
“Come, come!” was the feeble reply.
McEwen started forward at once. When he was still many times his own
length away he recognized the voice as that of his testy friend of a
little while before, but now sadly changed. He was stretched upon the
earth, working his mandibles feebly.
“What is it?” asked McEwen solicitously. “What ails you? How did this
happen?”
“I don’t know,” said the other. “I was passing along here when that
struck me,” indicating a huge boulder. “I am done for, though. You may
as well have this food now, since you are one of us. The tribe can use
what you do not eat,” he sighed.
“Oh, nothing of the sort,” said McEwen solicitously, the while he
viewed the crushed limbs and side of the sufferer. “You’ll be all
right. Why do you speak of death? Just tell me where to take you, or
whom to go for.”
“No,” said the other, “it would be no use. You see how it is. They
could do nothing for me. I did not want your aid. I merely wanted you
to have this food here. I shall not want it now.”
“Don’t say that,” returned McEwen. “You mustn’t talk about dying. There
must be something I can do. Tell me. I don’t want your food.”
“No, there isn’t anything you could do. There isn’t any cure, you know
that. Report, when you return, how I was killed. Just leave me now and
take that with you. They need it, if you do not.”
McEwen viewed him silently. This reference to a colony or tribe or home
seemed to clarify many things for him. He remembered now apparently the
long road he had come, the immense galleries of the colony to which he
belonged under the earth, the passages by which he had made his way
in and out, the powerful and revered ant mother, various larvæ to be
fed and eggs to be tended. To be sure. That was it. He was a part of
this immense colony or group. The heat must have affected his sensory
powers. He must gather food and return there--kill spiders, beetles,
grubs, and bring them back to help provision the colony. That was it.
Only there were so few to be found here, for some reason.
The sufferer closed his eyes in evident pain, and trembled
convulsively. Then he fell back and died.
McEwen gazed upon the now fast stiffening body, with all but
indifference, and wondered. The spectacle seemed so familiar as to be
all but commonplace. Apparently he had seen so many die that way. Had
he not, in times past, reported the deaths of hundreds?
“Is he dead?” asked a voice at his side.
“Yes,” said McEwen, scarcely bringing himself out of his meditation
sufficiently to observe the newcomer.
“Well, then, he will not need this, I guess,” said the other, and he
seized upon the huge lump with his mandibles, but McEwen was on the
alert and savage into the bargain, on the instant. He, too, gripped his
mandibles upon it.
“I was called by him to have this, before he died,” he shouted “and I
propose to have it. Let go.”
“That I will not,” said the other with great vigor and energy. “I’ll
have some of it, at least,” and, giving a mighty wrench, which sent
both himself and McEwen sprawling, he tore off a goodly portion of it
and ran, gaining his feet so quickly that he was a good length off
before McEwen arose. The latter was too hungry, however, to linger
in useless rage, and now fell to and ate before any other should
disturb him. Then, feeling partially satisfied, he stretched himself
languorously and continued more at his leisure. After a time he shook
himself out of his torpor which had seized on him with his eating, and
made off for the distant jungle, in which direction, as he now felt,
lay the colony home.
He was in one of the darkest and thickest portions of the route thither
when there was borne to him from afar the sound of feet in marching
time, and a murmuring as of distant voices. He stopped and listened.
Presently the sounds grew louder and more individual. He could now tell
that a great company was nearing him. The narrow path which he followed
was clear for some distance, and open to observation. Not knowing what
creatures he was about to meet, he stepped out of it into a thicket,
at one side and took up a position behind a great boulder. The tramp
of many feet was now so close as to bode contact and discovery, and he
saw, through the interstices of green stalks, a strange column filing
along the path he had left. They were no other than a company of red
warriors--slave makers like himself, only of a different species, the
fierce Sanguineæ that Ermi had spoken of as having gone to war.
To war they certainly had been, and no doubt were going again. Nearly
every warrior carried with him some mark of plunder or of death. Many
bore in their mandibles dead bodies of the enemy or their larvæ
captured from a Fuscan colony. Others bore upon their legs the severed
heads of the poor blacks who had been slain in the defense of their
home, and whose jaws still clung to their foes, fixed in the rigor of
death. Still others dragged the bodies of their victims, and shouted as
they went, making the long, lonely path to ring with uncanny sounds as
they disappeared in the distance.
McEwen came furtively out after a time and looked after them. He had
gotten far to the left of the warriors and somewhat to the front
of them, and was just about to leave the shadow of one clump of
bushes to hurry to a neighboring stone, when there filed out from
the very shelter upon which he had his eye fixed, the figure of one
whom he immediately recognized as Ermi. The latter seemed to await a
favorable opportunity when he should not be observed, and then started
running. McEwen followed. In the distance could be seen a group of the
Sanguineæ, who had evidently paused for something, moving about in
great excitement, in groups of two or three, gesticulating and talking.
Some of those not otherwise engaged displayed a sensibility of danger
or a lust of war by working their jaws and sawing at heavy stones with
their mandibles. Presently one gazed in the direction of Ermi, and
shouted to the others.
Immediately four warriors set out in pursuit. McEwen hastened after
Ermi, to see what would become of him. Discreetly hidden himself, he
could do this with considerable equanimity. As he approached, he saw
Ermi moving backward and forward, endeavoring to close the entrance
to a cave in which he had now taken refuge. Apparently that warrior
had become aware that no time was to be lost, since he also could see
the pursuing Sanguineæ. With a swiftness born of daring and a keen
realization of danger, he arranged a large boulder at the very edge of
the portal as a key, and then others in such position that when the
first should topple in the others would follow. Then he crawled deftly
inside the portal, and pulling the keystone, toppled the whole mass in
after him.
This was hardly done when the Sanguineæ were upon him. They were four
cruel, murderous fighters, deeply scarred. One, called by the others
Og, had a black’s head at his thigh. One of his temples bore a scar,
and the tip of his left antenna was broken. He was a keen old warrior,
however, and scented the prey at once.
“Hi, you!” he shouted to the others. “Here’s the place.”
Just then another drew near to the portal which Ermi had barricaded.
He looked at it closely, walked about several times, sounded with his
antennæ and then listened. There was no answer.
“Hist!” he exclaimed to the others.
Now they came up. They also looked, but so well had Ermi done his work
that they were puzzled.
“I’m not sure,” said Og, “it looks to me more like an abandoned cave
than an entrance.”
“Tear it open, anyway,” advocated Ponan, the second of the quartette,
speaking for the first time.
“There may be no other exit.”
“Aha!” cried Og, “Good! We will see anyhow.”
“Come on!” yelled Maru, a third, seizing the largest boulder,
“Mandibles to!”
“Out with him!” cried Om, jumping eagerly to work. “We will have him
out in a jiffy!”
It was not an easy task, as the boulders were heavy and deep, but they
tore them out. Later they dragged forth Ermi, who, finding himself
captured, seized the head of Maru with his mandibles. Og, on the other
hand, seized one of Ermi’s legs in his powerful jaws. The others also
had taken hold. The antennæ of all were thrown back, and the entire
mass went pushing and shoving, turning and tumbling in a whirl.
McEwen gazed, excited and sympathetic. At first he thought to avoid
it all, having a horror of death, but a moment later decided to come
to his friend’s rescue, a feeling of tribal relationship which was
overwhelming coming over him. Springing forward, he clambered upon the
back of Og, at whose neck he began to saw with his powerful teeth.
Og, realizing a new adversary, released his hold upon Ermi’s limb and
endeavored to shake off his new enemy. McEwen held tight, however. The
others, however, too excited to observe the newcomer, still struggled
to destroy Ermi. The latter had stuck steadily to his labor of killing
Maru, and now, when Og’s hold was loosened, he gave a powerful crush
and Maru breathed his last. This advantaged him little, however, for
both Ponan and Om were attacking his sides.
“Take that!” shouted Om, throwing himself violently upon Ermi and
turning him over. “Saw off his head, Ponan.”
Ponan released his hold and sprang for Ermi’s head. There was a
kicking and crushing of jaws, and Ponan secured his grip.
“Kill him!” yelled Om. “Come, Og! Come!”
At this very moment Og’s severed head fell to the ground, and McEwen
leaping from his back, sprang to the aid of Ermi.
“Come!” he shouted at Ponan, who was sawing at Ermi’s head. “It’s two
to two now,” and McEwen gave such a wrench to Ponan’s side that he
writhed in pain, and released his hold on Ermi.
But recovering himself he leaped upon McEwen, and bore him down,
sprawling.
The fight was now more desperate than ever. The combatants rolled and
tossed. McEwen’s right antenna was broken by his fall, and one of his
legs was injured. He could seem to get no hold upon his adversary, whom
he now felt to be working toward his neck.
“Let go!” he yelled, gnashing at him with his mandibles, but Ponan only
tightened his murderous jaws.
Better fortune was now with Ermi, however, who was a more experienced
fighter. Getting a grip upon Om’s body, he hurled him to the ground and
left him stunned and senseless.
Seeing McEwen’s predicament, he now sprang to his aid. The latter was
being sadly worsted and but for the generous aid of Ermi, would have
been killed. The latter struck Ponan a terrific blow with his head and
having stunned him, dragged him off. The two, though much injured, now
seized upon the unfortunate Sanguinea and tore him in two, and would
have done as much for Om, had they not discovered that that bedraggled
warrior had recovered sufficiently to crawl away and hide.
McEwen and Ermi now drew near to each other in warm admiration.
“Come with me,” said Ermi. “They are all about here now and that coward
who escaped will have them upon us. There is a corridor into our home
from here, only I was not able to reach it before they caught me. Help
me barricade this entrance.”
Together they built up the stones more effectually than before, and
then entered, toppling the mass in behind them. With considerable
labor, they built up another barricade below.
“You watch a moment, now,” said Ermi to McEwen, and then hurried
down a long passage through which he soon returned bringing with him
a sentinel, who took up guard duty at the point where the fight had
occurred. “He will stay here and give the alarm in case another attack
is made,” he commented.
“Come now,” he added, touching McEwen affectionately with his antennæ.
Leading the way, Ermi took him along a long winding corridor with
which, somehow, he seemed to be familiar, and through various secret
passages into the colony house.
“You see,” he said to McEwen familiarly, as they went, “they could not
have gotten in here, even if they had killed me, without knowing the
way. Our passageways are too intricate. But it is as well to keep a
picket there, now that they are about. Where have you been? You do not
belong to our colony, do you?”
McEwen related his experiences since their meeting in the desert,
without explaining where he came from. He knew that he was a member of
some other colony of this same tribe without being sure of which one. A
strange feeling of wandering confusion possessed him, as though he had
been injured in some way, somewhere, and was lost for the moment.
“Well, you might as well stay with us, now,” said Ermi. “Are you
hungry?”
“Very,” said McEwen.
“Then we will eat at once.”
McEwen now gazed upon a domed chamber of vast proportions, with which,
also, he seemed familiar, an old inhabitant of one such, no less. It
had several doors that opened out into galleries, and corridors leading
to other chambers and store rooms, a home for thousands.
Many members of this allied family now hurried to meet them, all
genially enough.
“You have had an encounter with them?” asked several at once.
“Nothing to speak of,” said Ermi, who, fighter that he was, had also a
touch of vanity. “Look after my friend here, who has saved my life.”
“Not I!” cried McEwen warmly.
They could not explain, however, before they were seized by their
admirers and carried into a chamber where none of the din of
preparation penetrated, and where was a carpet of soft grass threads
upon which they might lie.
Injured though they were, neither could endure lying still for long,
and were soon poking about, though unable to do anything. McEwen was
privileged to idle and listlessly watch an attack on one portal of
the cave which lasted an entire day, resulting in failure for the
invaders. It was a rather broken affair, the principal excitement
occurring about the barricaded portals and secret exits at the end of
the long corridors, where McEwen often found himself in the way. The
story of his prowess had been well told by Ermi, and he was a friend
and hero whom many served. A sort of ambulance service was established
which not only looked to the bringing in of the injured, but also to
the removal of the dead. A graveyard was prepared just outside one of
the secret entrances, far from the scene of the siege, and here the
dead were laid in orderly rows.
The siege having ended temporarily the same day it began, the household
resumed its old order. Those who had remained within went forth for
forage. The care of the communal young, which had been somewhat
interrupted, was now resumed. Larvæ and chrysalises, which had been left
almost unattended in the vast nurseries, were moved to and fro between
the rooms where the broken sunlight warmed, and the shadow gave them
rest.
“There is war ahead,” said Ermi to McEwen one day not long after this.
“These Sanguineæ will never let us alone until we give them battle. We
shall have to stir up the whole race of Shining Slave Makers and fight
all the Sanguineæ before we have peace again.”
“Good,” said McEwen. “I am ready.”
“So am I,” answered Ermi, “but it is no light matter. They are our
ancient enemy and as powerful as we. If we meet again you will see war
that is war.”
Not long after this McEwen and Ermi, foraging together, encountered a
Sanguinea, who fought with them and was slain. Numerous Lucidi, of
which tribe he found himself to be a member, left the community of a
morning to labor and were never heard of again. Encounters between
parties of both camps were frequent, and orderly living ceased.
At last the entire community was in a ferment, and a council was
called. It was held in the main saloon of the formicary, a vast chamber
whose hollowed dome rose like the open sky above them. The queen of the
community was present, and all the chief warriors, including Ermi and
McEwen. Loud talking and fierce comment were indulged in to no point,
until Yumi, long a light in the councils of the Lucidi, spoke. He was
short and sharp of speech.
“We must go to war,” he said. “Our old enemies will give us no peace.
Send couriers to all the colonies of the Shining Slave Makers. We will
meet the Red Slave Makers as we did before.”
“Ah,” said an old Lucidi, who stood at McEwen’s side, “that was a great
battle. You don’t remember. You were too young. There were thousands
and thousands in that. I could not walk for the dead.”
“Are we to have another such?” asked McEwen.
“If the rest of us come. We are a great people. The Shining Slave
Makers are numberless.”
Just then another voice spoke, and Ermi listened.
“Let us send for them to come here. When the Sanguineæ again lay siege
let us pour out and destroy them. Let none escape.”
“Let us first send couriers and hear what our people say,” broke in
Ermi loudly. “The Sanguineæ are a vast people also. We must have
numbers. It must be a decisive battle.”
“Ay, ay,” answered many. “Send the couriers!”
Forthwith messengers were dispatched to all parts, calling the hordes
of the Shining Slave Makers to war. In due course they returned,
bringing information that they were coming. Their colonies also had
been attacked. Later the warriors of the allied tribes began to put in
an appearance.
It was a gathering of legions. The paths in the forests about resounded
with their halloos. With the arrival of the first cohorts of these
friendly colonies, there was a minor encounter with an irritant host of
the Sanguineæ foraging hereabout, who were driven back and destroyed.
Later there were many minor encounters and deaths before the hosts were
fully assembled, but the end was not yet. All knew that. The Sanguineæ
had fled, but not in cowardice. They would return.