ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS
I
The People of the Cave were running short of arrows. The supply of
young hickory sprouts, on which they had depended for their shafts,
was almost exhausted. And within a two days' journey of the Caves
there was nothing to be found that would quite take the place of those
hickory sprouts. Neither Grom himself nor any other member of his
tribe had as yet succeeded in so fixing a tip of bone or flint to a
shaft of cane as not to interfere with its penetration. Some growth
must be found that was tough, perfectly straight, and tapering, while
at the same time so solid and hard of grain that it would take and
hold a point, and heavy enough for driving power. All this was
difficult to find, and Grom was convinced that it must be sought for
far afield. Life had been running uneventfully for months at the Great
Caves, and Grom's restless spirit was craving new knowledge, new
adventure.
On this quest of the arrow Grom took with him only two companions--his
slim, swift-footed mate, A-ya and that cunning little scout, Loob, the
Hairy One.
For the space of three days they journeyed due west from the Caves.
Then the range of downland which they had been following swept off
sharply to the south.
Being bent upon exploring to the westward--though he was not very
clear as to his reasons for his preference--Grom led the way down from
the hills into the rankly wooded plain. For two days more they pushed
on through incessant perils, the country swarming with black lions,
saber-tooth, and woolly rhinoceros. As they were not fighting, but
exploring, the price of safety was a vigilance so unremitting that it
soon began to get on their nerves, and they were glad to take a whole
day's rest in the spacious security of a banyan top, where nothing
could come at them but leopards or pythons. Neither leopards nor
pythons gave them any great concern.
On the second day after quitting their refuge in the banyan top, they
emerged from the jungle so suddenly that they nearly fell into a
river, whose whitish, turbid flood ran swirling heavily before their
feet. It was a mighty stream, a good half-mile in width, and at this
point the current was eating away the bank so hungrily that whole
ranks of tree and bush had toppled over into the tide.
The great river barred their way, flowing as it did toward the
north-east, and Grom reluctantly turned the course of the expedition
southward, following up the shore. Swift as was the current, these
folk of the Caves might have crossed it by swimming; but Grom knew
that such waters were apt to swarm with giant crocodiles of varying
type and unvarying ferocity, as well as with ferocious flesh-eating
fish that swarmed in wolfish packs, and were able to tear an aurochs
or a mastodon in pieces with their razor-edged teeth. He gazed
desirously at the opposite shore, however--which looked to him much
more beautiful and more interesting than that on which he stood--and
wondered if he should ever be able to devise some way of reaching it
other than by swimming.
Along the river shore the travelers had endless variety to keep them
interested, with a less exhausting imminence of peril than in the
depths of the jungle. Sometimes great branches, draped and festooned
with gorgeous-flowered lianas, thrust themselves far out over the
water, affording easy refuge. Sometimes the river was bordered by a
strip of grassy level, behind which ran the edge of the jungle in the
form of a steep bank of violent green, with here and there a broad
splotch of magenta or violet or orange bloom flung over it like a
curtain. At times, again, it was necessary to plunge back into the
humming and steaming gloom behind this resplendent screen, in order to
make a detour around some swampy cove, whose dense growth of sedge,
fifteen to twenty feet in height, was traversed by wide trails which
showed it to be the abode of unfamiliar monsters. The travelers were
curious as to the makers of such colossal trails, but were not tempted
to gratify this curiosity by invading their lairs.
In all this time, and through all difficulties and dangers, neither
Grom nor A-ya, nor the unsleeping Loob had lost sight of the object of
their journey. Every straight and slender sapling and seedling of hard
grain they tested, but hitherto they had found nothing that came
within measurable distance of their requirements.
In the customary order of their going, Grom went first, peering ahead,
ever studying, pondering, observing, with his bow and his club swung
from his shoulder, his heavy, flint-headed spear always in readiness
for use at close quarters. Loob the scout, little and dark and hairy,
with the eyes of a weasel and the heart of a bull buffalo, went
darting and gliding soundlessly through the undergrowth a few paces to
the left, guarding against the approach of any attack from the
jungle-depths. While A-ya, whose quickness and precision with the bow,
her darling weapon, were nothing less than a miracle to all the tribe,
covered the rear, lest any prowling monster should be following on
their trail.
It chanced that A-ya dropped back some paces further, without saying
anything to Grom. She had marked a slim shaft of a seedling which
looked suitable for an arrow; and in case the discovery should prove a
good one, she wanted the credit of it to herself. She stooped to pull
the seedling up by the roots, since it seemed too tough to break. It
was obstinate. In the effort her naked side and shoulder leaned fully
against the trunk of a small tree of which she had taken no notice. In
a second it seemed to her as if the tree trunk were made of red-hot
coals. The stinging fire of it ran like lightning all over her arms
and body. With a piercing scream she sprang away from the tree, and
began tearing and beating frantically at her body with both hands. She
was covered with furious ants--the great, red, stinging ants whose
venom is like drops of liquid flame.
At the sound of her scream, Grom was back at her side in two leaps,
his hair and beard bristling stiffly, his eyes blazing with rage. But
there was no assailant in sight on whom to hurl himself. For a second
or two he glared about him wildly, with Loob crouched beside him,
snarling for vengeance. Then, perceiving the woman's plight, he flung
himself upon her, trying to envelop her in one sweeping embrace that
should crush all the virulent pests at once. In this he failed
signally; and in an instant the liquid fire was running over his own
body. The torture of it, however, was a small thing to him compared
with the torture of seeing them sting the woman, and feeling himself
impotent to effect her instant succor. He slapped and beat at her with
his great hands, while she covered her face with her own hands to
protect it from disfigurement.
Loob came to help, but Grom, his brain keen in every emergency,
stopped him.
"Keep off!" he ordered. "Keep off! and keep watch!"
Then he seized A-ya by one arm, rushed her to the edge of the bank,
and dragged her with him into the water.
At this point the water was not much more than three feet deep. They
crouched down in it, heads under, for nearly a minute; while Loob,
spear in hand, stood over them, his wild little eyes scanning the
water depths in front and the jungle depths behind for the approach of
any foe.
When they could hold their breath no longer, they stood up. Their red
assailants were floating off on the current; but the fiery poison
remained, and they bathed each other's scarlet and scorched shoulders
assiduously, forgetful for the moment of everything besides. At this
moment a gigantic water python reared its head from the leafage close
by, fixed its flat, lidless, glittering eyes upon them, and drew back
to strike. But in the next second Loob's ready spear was thrust clean
through its throat, and his yell of warning tore the air. Grom and
A-ya whipped up onto the bank like a pair of otters: and the python,
mortally stricken, shot out into the water over their heads, carrying
Loob's spear with it, gripped tight in the constriction of its throat
muscles.
As the lashing body struck the surface the water boiled about it,
suddenly alive with crocodiles. Balked of their human prey, they fell
upon the python. One of the monsters shot straight up, half-way out of
the water, with two convulsive coils of the python's tail wrapped
crushingly about its jaws; but the python, with Loob's spear through
its throat, could only struggle blindly. A moment more and it was
bitten in two, and the crocodiles were fighting monstrously among
themselves for the writhing fragments.
"You got us out of that just in time," said Grom, grinning upon the
little scout with approval.
A-ya wrung the water out of her heavy hair with both hands, and threw
the masses back with an upward toss of her head.
"I hate ants," she said, shuddering. "Let's get away from here."
II
Some two hours after sunrise of the following day they came to a place
where a belt of woods, perhaps a hundred to two hundred yards in
depth, ran bordering the river, while behind it a broad stretch of
grassy plain thrust back the jungle. Along the edge of the plain,
skirting the belt of woods, the grass was short and the traveling was
easy; but off to the left the growth was ranker, and interspersed with
thickets such as Grom always regarded with suspicion. He had learned
by experience that these dense thickets in the grass-land were a
favorite lurking-place of the unexpected--and that the unexpected was
almost always perilous.
Suddenly from the deeper grass a couple of hundred yards or so to the
left rose heavily the menacing bulk of a red Siva moose bull, and
stood staring at them with mingled wonder and malevolence in his
cruelly vindictive eyes. In stature surpassing the biggest rhinoceros
that Grom had ever seen, he gave the impression of combining the
terrific power of the rhinoceros with the agile speed and devilish
cunning of the buffalo. His ponderous head, with its high-arched
eagle-hooked snout, was armed with two pairs of massive, keen-tipped,
broad-bladed horns, that seemed to be a deadly-efficient compromise
between the horns of a buffalo and the palmated antlers of a moose.
This alarming apparition snorted loudly, and at once from behind him
lurched to their feet some two score more of his like, and all stood
with their eyes fixed upon the little group of travelers by the edge
of the wood.
Grom had heard vague traditions of the implacable ferocity of these
red monsters, but having before never come across them he answered
their stare with keen interest. At the same time, edging in closer to
the wood, he whispered:
"Don't run. But if they come we must go up the first tree. They are
swift as the wind, these great beasts, and more terrible than the
saber-tooth."
"Can't go in _these_ trees!" said Loob, whose piercing eyes had
investigated them minutely at the first glimpse of the monsters in the
grass.
"Why not?" demanded Grom, his eyes still fixed upon the monsters.
"Oh! The bees! The terrible bees!" whispered A-ya. "Where can we go?"
Grom turned his head and scanned the belt of woodland, his ears now
suddenly comprehending a deep, humming sound which he had hitherto
referred solely to the winged foragers in the grass-tops. Scattered at
intervals from the branches, in the shadowy green gloom, hung a number
of immense, dark, semi-pear-shaped globes. They looked harmless
enough, but Grom knew that their inhabitants, the great jungle-bees,
were more to be dreaded than saber-tooth or crocodile. To disturb, or
seem to threaten to disturb, one of their nests, meant sure and
instant doom.
"No, we must trust to our running--and they are very swift," said
Grom. "But let us go softly now, and perhaps they will not charge upon
us."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the giant red bull, with a
grunt of wrath, lurched forward and charged down at them. And
instantly the whole herd, with their ridiculous little tails stuck up
stiffly in the air, charged after him. Swift as thought A-ya drew her
bow. The arrow buried itself deep in the red giant's muzzle. With a
bawl of fury, he paused, to try and root the burning torment out of
his nose. The whole herd paused behind him. It was only for a few
seconds, and then he came on again, blowing blood and foam from his
nostrils; but they were precious seconds, and the fugitives, running
lightly, and stooping low for fear of offending the bees, had gained a
start of a hundred yards or more.
The three were among the swiftest runners of the tribe; but Grom soon
saw that the utmost they could hope was to maintain their distance.
And there was the imminent risk that the bees, disturbed by the noise
of flight and pursuit, might take umbrage. To lessen this frightful
risk, he swerved out till he was some thirty or forty paces distant
from the belt of woods. And he noticed, too, that the pursuing herd
seemed to have no great anxiety to approach the frontiers of the Bee
People. They were following on a slant that gave the woods a wide
berth.
About a mile further on the woods came to an end, and Grom, though he
feared the pace might be beginning to tell on A-ya, and though there
was no refuge in sight, breathed more freely. He feared the bees more
than the yellow monsters, because they were something he could not
fight. The grass-land now ran clear to the river's edge, and gave firm
footing; and the fugitives raced on, breathing carefully, and trusting
to come to trees again before they should be spent.
At last a curve of the bank showed them the woods sweeping down again
to the water, but three or four miles ahead! Grom, looking back over
his shoulder, realized that their pursuers were now gaining upon them
appreciably. With an effort he quickened his pace still further. Loob
responded without difficulty. But A-ya's face showed signs of
distress, and at this Grom's heart sank. He began to scan the water,
weighing the chances of the crocodiles. It looked as if they were
trapped beyond escape.
Perhaps half a mile up the shore a spit of land ran out against the
current, and behind its shelter an eddy had collected a mass of
uprooted trees and other flood refuse, all matted with green from the
growth of wind-borne seeds. It was in reality a great natural raft,
built by the eddy and anchored behind the little point. For this Grom
headed with new hope. It might be strong enough--parts of it at
least--to bear up the three fugitives. But their furious pursuers
would surely not venture their giant bulks upon it.
Approaching the point he slackened his pace, and steadied A-ya with
one hand. At the edge of the eddy he stopped, casting an appraising
eye over the collection of debris, in order to pick out a stable
retreat and also the most secure path to it. In this pause the
monsters swept up with a thunder of trampling hooves and windy
snortings. They had their victims at last where there was no escape.
The raging brutes were not more than a dozen paces behind, when Grom
led the way out upon the floating mass, picking his steps warily and
leaping from trunk to trunk. Loob and A-ya followed with like care.
Certain of the trunks gave and sank beneath their feet, but their feet
were already away to surer footing. And at the very outermost point of
that old collection of debris, where the current and the eddy wavered
for mastery, on a toughly interwoven tangle of uprooted trunks and
half-dead vines, they found a refuge which did not yield beneath them.
Here, steadying themselves by upthrust branches, they turned and
looked back, half apprehensive and half defiant, at their mighty
pursuers.
"They'll never dare to try to follow us here," gasped A-ya.
But she was wrong. Quite blind with rage through that galling shaft in
his muzzle, the giant bull came plunging on, and half a dozen of his
closest followers, infected with his madness, came with him. The inner
edge of the mass gave way at once beneath them--and the bank at this
point was straight up and down. The monsters floundered in deep water,
snorting and spluttering, while their fellows on the shore checked
themselves violently and drew back bawling with bewilderment. As the
drowning monsters battled to get their front legs up upon the raft,
the edges gave way continually beneath them, plunging them again and
again beneath the surface, while A-ya stabbed at them vengefully with
her spear, and Loob shot arrows into them till Grom stopped him,
saying that the arrows were too precious to waste. Thereupon Loob
tripped delicately over the surging trunks and smote at the struggling
monsters' heads with his light club.
The anchorage of this natural raft having been broken, the weight of
the monsters striving to gain a foothold upon it soon thrust its firm
outer portion forth into the grip of the current. In a minute or two
more this solid portion was torn away from the rest, and went sailing
off slowly down stream with its living freight. The incoherent remnant
was left in the eddy, where the snorting monsters struggled and
threshed about amongst it, now climbing half-way out upon some great
trunk, which forthwith reared on end and slid them off, now vanishing
for a moment beneath the beaten stew of leaves and vines.
A couple of the horned giants, being close to the bank, now seemed to
recover their wits sufficiently to turn and clamber ashore. But the
others were mad with terror. And in a moment more the fascinated
watchers on the raft perceived the cause of this madness. All round
the scene of the turmoil the water seethed with lashing tails and
snapping jaws; and then one of the monsters, which had struggled out
into clear water, was dragged down in a boiling vortex of jaws and
bloody foam. A few moments more and the whole eddy became a bubbling
hell of slaughter, and great broad washes of crimson streamed out upon
the current. The monsters, for all their giant strength, and the
pile-driving blows of their huge hoofs, were as helpless as rabbits
against their swarming and ravenous assailants; and the battle--which
indeed was no battle at all--soon was over. The eddy had become but a
writhing nest of crocodiles.
"It was hardly worth while wasting arrows, you see?" said Grom,
standing erect on the raft and watching the scene with brooding
interest.
"Do you suppose those swimming beasts with the great jaws can get at
us here?" demanded A-ya with a shudder.
"While this thing that carries us holds together, I think we can fight
them off," replied Grom. And straightway he set himself to examine how
securely the trees were interknit. The trunks had been piled by flood
one upon another, and the structure seemed substantial; but to further
strengthen it he set all to work interweaving the free branches and
such creepers as the mass contained, with the skill that came of much
practice in the weaving of tree-top nests.
When all was done that could be done, the voyagers took time to look
about them. They had by now been swept far out into the river, and the
shores on either side seemed low and remote. A-ya felt oppressed, the
face of the waters seeming to her so vast, inscrutable and menacing.
She stole close up to Grom and edged herself under his massive arm for
reassurance. The little scout sat like a monkey between two branches,
and scratched his hairy arms, and, with an expression of pleased
interest, scanned the water for the approach of new foes. As for Grom,
he was entranced. This, at last, was what he had really come in search
of, the stuff for arrows being merely his excuse to himself. This was
the utterly new experience, the new achievement. He was traveling by
water, not in it, but upon it--upborne, dry and without discomfort,
upon its surface.
For a little while he did not ask whither he was being borne. To his
surprise the crocodiles and other formidable water-dwellers, which
were quite unknown to him, paid them no attention whatever; and he
concluded that they looked upon the raft as nothing more than a mass
of floating driftwood containing nothing for them to eat. He could see
them everywhere about, swimming with brute snouts half above water or
basking on sandy spits of shore. Then he observed that the current was
bearing them gradually towards that further shore which he so longed
to visit, and he thrilled with new anticipation. But when, after
perhaps an hour, the capricious tide blew them again to mid-stream, a
new idea took possession of him. He must find some way of influencing
the direction of their voyage. He could not long relinquish himself to
the blind whim and chance of the current.
Just as he was beginning to grapple with this problem, A-ya
anticipated his thought--as he had noticed that she often did. Looking
up at him through her tossed hair, she enquired where they were
going.
"I am just trying to think," he answered, "how to make this thing take
us where we want to go."
"If the water is not too deep, couldn't you push with your long
spear?" suggested the girl.
Acting at once on the suggestion, Grom leaned over the edge and thrust
the spear straight downwards. But he could find no bottom.
"It is too deep," said he, "but I'll find a way."
As he stood near the forward end of the raft he began sweeping the
spear in a wide arc through the water, as if it were a paddle, but
with the idea merely of testing the resistance of the water. Poor
substitute as the spear was for a paddle or an oar, his great strength
made up for its inefficiency, and after a few sweeps he was astonished
and delighted to notice that the head of the raft had swung away from
him, so that it was heading for the shore from which they had come.
He pondered this in silence for a little, then stepped over to the
other side and repeated the experiment. After several vigorous efforts
the unwieldy craft yielded. Its head swung straight, and then, very
gradually, toward the other side. Yes, there was no doubt about it. He
had found a way of influencing their direction.
"I am going to take you over to the other shore," he announced
proudly.
And now, laboring in a keen excitement, he set himself to carry out
his boast. First he so overdid it that he made the raft turn clean
about and head upstream. He puzzled over this for a time, but at
length got it once more headed in the direction which he wished it to
take. Then he found that he could keep it to this direction--more or
less--by taking a few strokes on one side, then hurriedly crossing to
take a few strokes on the other. And in this way they began once more
to approach the other bank. The process, however, was slow; and Grom
presently concluded that it was wasteful. He hit upon the idea of
setting A-ya and Loob together to stroking with their spears on one
side, while he, with his great strength, balanced their effort on the
other. Whereupon the sluggish craft woke up a little and began to make
perceptible progress, on a slant across the current toward shore.
"I have found it!" he exclaimed in exultation. "On this thing we can
travel over the water where we will."
"But not against the current," objected A-ya, whose enthusiasm was a
little damped by the fact that she did not like the look of that
further shore.
"That will come in time," declared Grom confidently.
"Here's something coming now," announced Loob, springing to his feet
and grabbing his bow. At the same moment the flat, villainous head of
a big crocodile shot up over the edge of the raft, and its owner, with
enormous jaws half open, started to scramble aboard.
A-ya's bow was bent as swiftly as Loob's, and the two arrows sped
together, both into the monster's gaping gullet. Amazed at this
reception it shut its jaws with a loud snap, halted and came on again.
Then a stab of Grom's great spear caught it full in the eye, and this
wound struck fear into its dull mind. It rolled back hastily into the
water and sank, leaving a foamy wake of blood behind it.
By this time they were getting nearer the other shore. But on close
view, Grom was bound to admit that it was not alluring. It was so low
as to be all awash, and fringed deep with towering reeds, which were
traversed by narrow lanes of water. Of dry land there was none to be
seen.
"Oh, we don't want to go ashore there!" protested A-ya fervently. As
she spoke a hideous head, with immense, round, bulging eyes and long,
beak-like mouth arose over the sedge tops on a long, swaying neck and
stared at them fixedly.
"No, we don't," said Grom, with decision, making haste to swing the
head of the raft once more out into the channel. They were pursued by
a dense crowd of mosquitoes, voracious and venomous, which followed
them to mid-stream and kept tormenting them till an up-river gust blew
them off.
Grom made up his mind that the exploration of that unknown shore could
wait a more convenient season. He was now deeply absorbed in the
complex problem of directing and managing his raft. As he pulled his
spear through the water, and noted the additional effect of its flat
head, the conception came to him of something that would get a more
propulsive grip upon the water than was possible to a round pole.
Furthermore, he was quick to realize that the immense, shapeless mass
of debris on which they were traveling might be replaced by something
light and manageable which he would make by lashing some trimmed
trunks together with lengths of bamboo to give additional buoyancy. As
he brooded this in silence, with that deep, inward look in his eyes
which always kept A-ya from breaking in upon his vision, he came to
the idea of a formal raft, and a formal paddle. And to this he added,
with a full sense of its value, A-ya's suggestion that this new
structure might very well be pushed along, in shallow water, with a
pole. Having thought this out, he drew a deep breath, looked up, and
met A-ya's eyes with a smile. His eager desire now was to get back
home and put his new scheme into execution.
"Where are we going now?" asked A-ya.
Grom looked about him wildly--at the sky, at the far-off hills on
their right, at the course of the stream, which had changed within the
past few miles. His sense of direction was unerring.
"This river," he answered, "flows towards the rising sun, and must
empty into the bitter waters not more than a day or a half day from
the Caves. We are going home. We will come again to look for arrows in
a new raft which I will make."
As he spoke, Loob's spear darted down beside the raft, and came up
with a big, silvery fish writhing upon it. He broke its neck with a
blow and laid the prize at A-ya's feet.
"I wish we had fire with us, to cook it with," said she.
"On the new raft, as I will make it," said Grom, "that may very well
be. Our journey will be safe and easy, and the good fire we will have
always with us."