THE FEASTING OF THE CAVE FOLK
I
At last, and reluctantly, the Folk of the Caves had withdrawn from
their earthquake-harassed valley and betaken themselves to the new
dwelling-place which Grom had found for them, on the green hill-slope
beside the Bitter Waters. They had lost no time, however, in accepting
the new conditions; for these caves in the limestone were ample and
secure--it was hard for any invader to come at them save by way of the
long, bare ridge of the downs running westward behind the caves; a
sweet-water brook ran almost past their threshold to fall with a
pleasant clamor into the bay,--and the surrounding country was rich in
game. The vast basin of marshy plain and colossal jungle, to be sure,
which stretched and steamed below the downs to southward, was the
habitation of strange monsters; but these, apparently, had no taste
for exploring the high, clean, windy downs.
On a certain golden morning it chanced that the caves were well-nigh
deserted. The men of the tribe, including the chiefs themselves, Bawr
and Grom, together with most of the women and the half-grown children,
had gone off down the shore to a shallow inlet five or six miles
distant to gather shell-fish--great luscious mussels and peculiarly
plump and savory whelks. The girl A-ya, absorbed in her special
occupation of fashioning bows and arrows for the tribe, had remained,
with a half-score of old men and women and Grom's giant slave, the
lame Bow-leg, Ook-ootsk, to guard the little children and the tribal
fires. As Grom's mate, and his confidential associate in all his
greatest ventures, A-ya's prestige in the tribe had come to be only
less than that of Bawr and Grom themselves.
On the open, grassy level before the cave mouth, the two great fires
burned steadily in the sun. The giant Ook-ootsk, hideous with his
ape-like forehead, his upturned, flaring nostrils, his protruding jaw,
his shaggy, clay-colored torso, and his short, massive, grotesquely
bowed legs--of which one was twisted so that the toes pointed almost
backwards--lay sprawling and chuckling benevolently near the entrance,
while a swarm of little ones, A-ya's two among them, clambered over
him. The old men and the old women most of them dozed in the shade,
save two or three of the most diligent, who occupied their gnarled
fingers in twisting thin strips of hide into bow-strings, or lashing
slivers of stone into the heads of spears. A-ya sat cross-legged a
little apart, beside a tiny fire, laboriously fashioning her bows and
arrows by charring the wood in the embers and then rubbing it between
two rough stones. With her head bent low over her work, the heavy,
tangled masses of her hair fell upon it and got in her way, and from
time to time she shook them aside impatiently. It was a picture of
primeval peace.
But peace, in the days when earth was young, was something more
precarious than a bubble.
From around the green shoulder of the hill came a sound of trampling
hooves and labored breathing. A-ya sprang to her feet, snatching up
her own well-tried bow and fitting an arrow to the string. At the same
time she gave a sharp alarm-cry, at which the lame slave, Ook-ootsk,
arose, shaking off the swarm of children, and came hobbling towards
her with his weapons in both hands. An old woman pounced upon the
startled, wide-eyed children, and in a twinkling had them shepherded
into the cave-mouth, out of sight. The old men, springing from their
sleep, and blinking, hurried forth into the sunlight, with such spears
or clubs as they could lay instant hand upon.
A breathless moment, while all stood waiting for they knew not what.
Then around the corner appeared a tall, wide-antlered elk, its eyes
showing the whites with terror, its dilated nostrils spattering bloody
froth. A long, raking wound ran scarlet down one flank. Staggering
from weariness or loss of blood, it came on straight toward the
cave-mouth, so blinded by its terror that it seemed not to see the
human creatures awaiting it, or even the fires before them.
A-ya fetched a deep breath of relief when she saw that this was no
ravening monster. Her immediate thought was the hunter's thought. She
drew her bow to the full length of her shaft, and as the panting beast
went by she let drive. The arrow pierced to half its span, just behind
the straining fore-shoulder. Blood burst from the animal's nostrils.
It fell on its knees, struggled up again, blundered on for half a
dozen strides, and dropped half-way across the second fire.
There was a chorus of triumphant shouts from the old men and women;
and A-ya started forward with the intention of dragging her prize from
the fire. But a look of apprehension and warning in the keen little
eyes of Ook-ootsk, who had by this time hobbled to her side, checked
her. In a flash the meaning of it came to her.
"What do you suppose was chasing it, Ook-ootsk?" she queried; and
whipped about, without waiting for his answer, to stare anxiously at
the green shoulder of the hillside.
"Black lion, maybe," said Ook-ootsk, in his harsh, clucking voice,
dropping his spear and club beside him and setting a long arrow to the
string of his massive bow.
But the words were hardly out of his throat, when his guess was proved
wrong. Around the turn came lumbering, with huge heads hung low and
slavering, half-open jaws a pair of those colossal red bears of the
caves which had always been A-ya's peculiar terror.
"Hide the children!" she yelled, and then let fly an arrow, almost
without aim, at the foremost of the monsters. She was the best shot in
the tribe, and the shaft sped even too true. It struck the bear full
in the snout, and pierced through the palate and into the throat--a
wound which, though likely to prove mortal after a time, only made the
beast more dangerous for the moment. It paused, coughing, and tried to
paw the torment from its jaws, and then rushed forward, screaming
hideously.
In that pause, however, though it was but for a second or two, the
second bear had forged ahead of its companion. It was greeted
instantly by an arrow from the massive bow of Ook-ootsk, aimed with
cool deliberation. The long shaft of hickory, delivered thus at close
range, caught the enemy in the front of the right shoulder and drove
clean in to the joint, so that the leg gave way and the gigantic brute
almost fell upon its side. With a roar, it bit off the protruding half
of the tough hickory, and then came on again, on three legs. From
A-ya's nimble bow it got another arrow, which went half-way through
its neck; but to this deadly wound, which sent the blood gushing from
its mouth, it seemed to pay no heed whatever. A-ya's next shot missed;
and then, screaming for the old men to come into the fray, she
snatched up her stone-headed spear and ran around behind the nearest
fire, expecting the bears to follow her and be led away from the
hiding-place of the children.
But she had forgotten that the slave, Ook-ootsk, with his twisted and
shrunken leg, could not run. That valiant savage, blinking his little
eyes rapidly and blowing defiantly through his upturned nostrils as he
saw his doom rushing upon him, let drive one more of his long shafts
into the red, towering bulk, then dropped his bow, sank upon one knee,
and held up his spear slantingly before him, with its butt firmly
braced upon the ground. As the monster reared itself and fell upon
him, the jagged point of the spear was forced deep into its belly,
straight up till it reached the backbone. Then the shaft snapped,
Ook-ootsk sprawled forward upon his face, and the monster, in the
paroxysm of its amazement and agony, leapt onward and plunged right
over him, involuntarily hurling him aside and clawing most of the
flesh off his back with a kick of one gigantic hind paw.
He clenched his teeth stoically, shut his eyes, folded his long, hairy
arms about his head, and rolled himself into a ball, confidently
expecting in the next moment to feel the life crunched out of him.
But just as the monster, recovering itself, was turning madly to
finish off its insignificant but torturing opponent, A-ya came leaping
back to the rescue, with a blazing and sparkling faggot in each hand,
and the old men, some with fire-brands, some with spears, clamoring
resolutely behind her. With fearless dexterity, she thrust the fire
straight into the monster's eyeballs, totally blinding him. As he
wheeled to strike her down, she slipped aside with a mocking laugh,
and threw one of the brands between his jaws, where he crunched upon
it savagely before he felt the torment of it and spat it out.
Depending now upon his ears, the monster blundered straight forward in
the direction of the shouting voices. He had quite forgotten
Ook-ootsk. He raged to come at this last intolerable foe, who had
scorched the light from his eyes. He made for her voice straight
enough; but it chanced that exactly in his path lay the second
fire--that into which the body of the elk had fallen. Already too
maddened with the anguish of his wounds to notice the fire at
once, he stumbled upon the body. Here, surely, was one of his foes.
He fell to rending the carcase with his claws, and biting it,
crawling forward upon it to reach its throat with the fire licking up
derisively about his head; till at length the flames were drawn deep
into his laboring lungs, searing them and sealing them so that they
could no more perform their office. With a shallow, screeching gasp he
threw himself backwards out of the fire, rolled upon the turf, and
lay there fighting the air with his paws as he strangled swiftly and
convulsively.
The second bear, meanwhile, wallowing with astonishing nimbleness on
three legs, had charged roaring into the group of old men. In a
twinkling he had three or four spears sticking into him; but the arms
that hurled the spears were weak, and the monster ramped on unheeding.
Several fire-brands fell upon him, scorching his long, red fur, but he
shook them off, too maddened to remember his natural dread of the
flames.
The group scattered in all directions. But one brave old gray-beard,
who had marked A-ya's success, lingered in the path, and tried to
thrust his blazing faggot into the monster's eyes, as she had done. He
was not quick enough. The monster threw up its muzzle, dodging the
stroke, and the next moment it had struck down its feeble adversary
and crushed his head between its tremendous jaws.
In its folly, it now forgot its other enemies, and fell to wreaking
its madness on the lifeless victim. But in another second or two it
was fairly overwhelmed with the red brands descending upon its head.
A-ya, with all the force of her strong young arms, drove her short
spear half-way through its loins. Then, with one eye blinded and its
long fur smouldering, its rage gave way suddenly into panic. Lifting
its giant head high into the air, as if thus to escape its fiery
assailants, it turned and scuttled back the way it had come, while the
old men swarmed after it, belaboring and jabbing its elephantine rump
with their live brands.
A-ya, racing like a deer and screaming with exultation, ran round the
pack of old men and stabbed the frantic brute in the neck, with her
spear held short in both hands. Shrinking abjectly from this attack,
he swerved off toward the left. It was his left eye that was blinded,
and the other was full of smoke and ashes. He missed the path,
therefore, and plunged squalling over the edge of the bluff, which at
this point dropped about a hundred feet, almost perpendicularly, to
the beach. Rolling over and over, and bouncing out into space every
time he struck the cliff face he fell to the bottom amid a shower of
stones and dust, and lay there as shapeless as a fur rug dropped from
an upper window.
The old men, jabbering in triumph, craned their shaggy gray heads out
over the brink to grin down upon him, while A-ya, with a wild light in
her eyes and her strong white teeth gleaming savagely, turned back to
tend the wounds of her slave, Ook-ootsk.
II
Having assured herself that the hurts of Ook-ootsk, dreadful though
they were, were yet not mortal (our sires of Cave and Tree took a lot
of killing!), A-ya stepped over to the further fire to see about
rescuing the carcase of the slain elk before it should be quite burned
up. As a matter of fact, there was little of it actually consumed by
the fire, but it was amazingly shredded by the clawing of the blinded
bear; and an odor of roasted venison steamed up from it, which seemed
rather pleasant to A-ya's nostrils. Under her direction, the old men
hauled the body from the fire by the hind-legs, and dragged it over to
the edge of the bluff before cutting it up, for convenience in getting
rid of the offal. Every one followed, to secure their due share of the
tit-bits, except Ook-ootsk and one old woman. This old woman sat
rocking and keening beside the body of her mate whom the bear had
slain; while Ook-ootsk crawled off into a neighboring hollow to look
for certain healing herbs which should cleanse and astringe his
wounds.
The hide of the elk was too much burnt, too ripped and torn by the
claws of the bear, to be of any use except for thongs; but the old men
skinned it off expertly before dividing the flesh. Though their
gnarled fingers were feeble, they were amazingly clever in the use of
the sharp-edged flakes of stone which served them as knives. A-ya
stood by them, watching closely, to see that none of the specially
dainty cuts were appropriated. These delicacies were reserved for
herself and her two children, and for Grom when he should return. She
had the right to them, not only because she was the mate of Grom, but
because the kill was hers.
As she stood over the carcase--the fore-part of which had been
superficially barbecued in the fire--the smell of the roasted flesh
began to appeal to her even more strongly than at first. As she
sniffed it, curiously, it began to entice her appetite as nothing had
ever tempted it before. She touched a well-browned, fatty morsel, and
then put her fingers into her mouth. The flavor seemed to her as
delightful as the smell. She cast about for a suitable morsel on which
to experiment.
Now it chanced that the elk's tongue, having lain in the heart of the
fire, but enclosed within the half-open jaws, had been cooked to a
turn. A-ya possessed herself of this ever-coveted delicacy. It looked
so queer, in its cooked state, charred black along the lower edge,
that she hesitated to taste it. At last, persuaded by its fragrance,
she brought herself to nibble at it.
A moment more and she was devouring it with a gusto which, had manners
been greatly considered in the days when the earth was young, might
have seemed unbecoming in the wife of a great chief. Never before had
she eaten anything that seemed to her half so delicious. It was the
food she had all her life been craving. Her two little boys, pulling
at her, aroused her from her ecstasy. She gave them each a fragment,
which they swallowed greedily, demanding more; and between the three
of them the great lump of roast tongue quickly vanished.
The rest of the crowd meanwhile had been looking on with instinctive
disapproval. The portions of the meat which the fire had cooked, or
partly cooked, seemed to them spoiled. A-ya might, indeed, like the
strange food; but she was different from the rest of them in so many
ways! When, however, they saw her two boys follow her example, and
noted their enthusiasm, several of the old men ventured to try for
themselves. They were instant converts. Last of all, the old women and
the children--always the most conservative in such matters, took the
notion that they were losing something, and dared to essay the novel
diet. One taste, as a rule, proved enough to vanquish their
prejudices. In a very few minutes every shred of the carcase that
could claim acquaintance with the fire had been eaten, and all were
clamoring for more. Fully three-parts of the carcase remained, indeed,
but it was all raw flesh. A-ya looked down upon it with disdain.
"Take it back and throw it on the fire again!" she ordered angrily.
The generous lump of steak, which she had hacked off for herself from
the loin, had proved to be merely scorched on the outside, and she was
disappointed. She stood fingering the raw mass with resentful
aversion, while the old men and women, chattering gleefully and
followed by the horde of children dragged the mangled carcase back to
the fire, lifted it laboriously by all four legs, and managed to
deposit it in the very midst of the flames. A shrill shout of triumph
went up from the withered old throats at this achievement, and they
all drew back to wait for the fire to do its wonderful work.
But A-ya was impatient, and vaguely dissatisfied as she watched that
crude roasting in the process. She stood brooding, eyeing the fire and
turning her lump of raw flesh over and over in her hands. The attitude
of body was one she had caught from Grom, when he was groping for a
solution to some problem. And now it seemed as if she had caught his
attitude of mind as well. Into her brain, for the moment passive and
receptive, flashed an idea, she knew not whence. It was as if it had
been whispered to her. She picked up a spear, jabbed its stone head
firmly into the lump of meat, and thrust the meat into the edge of the
fire, as far as it could go without burning the wood of the spear
shaft.
It took her a very few minutes to realize that her idea was nothing
less than an inspiration. Moving the morsel backwards and forwards to
keep it from charring, she found that it seemed to do best over a mass
of hot coals rather than in a flame; and being a thin cut, it cooked
quickly. When it was done she burnt her fingers with it, and her big
red mouth as well; and her two boys, for whom she had torn off shreds
too hot for herself to hold, danced up and down and wept loudly with
the smart of it, to be instantly consoled by the savor.
Noting the supreme success of A-ya's experiment, the spectators rushed
in, dragged the carcase once more from the fire, and fell to hacking
off suitable morsels, each for himself. In a few minutes every one who
could get hold of a long arrow, or a spear, or a pointed stick, was
busy learning to cook. Even the wailing old mourner, finding the
excitement irresistible, forsook the body of her slain mate and came
forward to take her share. Only the dead man, lying outstretched in
the sun by the cave-door, and the crippled giant Ook-ootsk, away in
the green hollow nursing his honorable wounds, had no part in the
rejoicing, in this revel of the First Cooked Food. The hot meat
juices, modified by the action of the fire, were almost as stimulating
as alcohol in the veins of these simple livers, and the revel grew to
something like an orgie as the shriveled nerves of the elders began to
thrill with new life. A-ya, seeing the carcase of the elk melt away
like new snow under a spring sun, gave orders to skin and cut up the
body of the first bear.
But the old men were too absorbed in their feasting to pay any
attention to her orders; and she herself was too exhilarated and
content to make any serious effort to enforce them. Every one, old and
young alike, was sucking burnt fingers and radiating greasy, happy
smiles, and she felt dimly that anything like discipline would be
unpopular at such a moment.
During all this excitement the main body of the tribe came straggling
back along the beach from their hunting of whelks and mussels. At the
foot of the bluff below the cave they found the body of the second
bear, and gathered anxiously about it, clamoring over its spear-wounds
and the arrows sticking in it, till Bawr and Grom, who were in the
rear, came up. It was plain there had been a terrific battle at the
Cave. With most of the warriors the two Chiefs dashed on and up the
path, to find out how things had gone, while a handful remained behind
to skin the bear and cut up the meat.
When the anxious warriors arrived before the cave, they were amazed at
the hilarity which they found there--and inclined, at first, to resent
it, being something to which they had no clue. What were all the old
fools doing, dancing and cackling about the fire, and wasting good
meat by poking it into the fire on the ends of sticks and spears and
arrows?
The younger women, coming up behind the warriors, were derisive. They
were always critical in their attitude towards A-ya--so far as they
dared to be--and now they ran forward to scold and slap their
respective children for putting this disgusting burnt meat into their
mouths.
To Grom and Bawr, however, A-ya explained the whole situation in a few
pertinent phrases, and followed up her explanation by proffering them
each a well-cooked morsel. They both smelled it doubtfully, tasted it,
broke into smiles, and devoured it, smacking their bearded lips.
"Did _you_ do this, girl?" demanded Grom, beaming upon her proudly and
holding out his great hairy hand for another sample. But Bawr strode
forward, thrust the old men aside, hacked himself off a generous
collop, stuck it on his spear-head, and thrust it into the fire.
In his impatience, Bawr kept pulling the roast out every minute or
two, to taste it and see if it was done enough. His enthusiasm--and
that of Grom, who was now following his example--cured the rest of the
warriors of their hesitation, so effectually that in five minutes
there was nothing more left of the great elk's carcase but antlers,
bone and offal. Those who had got nothing fell upon the body of the
bear, skinning it and hacking it in greedy haste. The young women,
having satisfied convention by slapping their bewildered and
protesting brats, soon yielded to curiosity and began surreptitiously
to nibble at the greasy cooked morsels which they had confiscated.
Then they, too, grabbed up spears and sticks for toasting-forks and
came clamoring shrilly for their portions. And A-ya, standing a little
apart with Grom, smiled with comprehending sarcasm at their
conversion.
For the next few hours the fires were surrounded each by a seething
and squabbling mob, the innermost rings engaged in toasting their
collops with one hand, while with the other they tried to shield their
faces from the heat. As fast as those in the front rank wriggled out
with their browned and juicy tit-bits, others battled in to take their
places; and the Tribe of the Cave Men, mindful of nothing but the
gratification of this new taste, feasted away the afternoon with such
unanimous and improvident rejoicing as they had never known before. At
last, radiant with gravy and repletion, they flung themselves down
where they would and went to sleep, Bawr and Grom, and two or three
others of the older warriors, who had been wise enough to banquet
without gorging themselves, thought with some misgiving of what might
happen if an enemy should steal upon them at such an hour of torpor.
But no enemy approached. With the fall of the dew the moon arose over
the bay, honey-colored in a violet sky, and played fantastic tricks
with the shifting light of the fires. And from within the cave came
softly the voice of A-ya, soothing a restless child.