[Illustration]
The morning after the quarrel and make-up between Koree and Sosee, these
two lovers started out to rescue Orlee from the captivity just mentioned.
They tried in vain to induce the Ammi to go out as a body to recapture
her, but nearly all except these two had exhausted their strength and
their interest the day before. An excitement did not last as long with
the Ammi as with their present descendants, and when they were not all
interested they were quickly reconciled to an outrage. Koree and Sosee,
however, in their first ardor of love, knew no rest, and had not yet
learned to despair.
Arming themselves, therefore, with clubs and sharp stones, they started
around the Swamp, intending to travel by day and at night to steal upon
the camp of the Lali and take the child by some artifice. They kept
along the border of the Swamp, and where it was not too deep to wade,
cut across its waters. The danger of neither wild beasts nor serpents
terrified them. They were together, and were fixed on one purpose. Koree
was willing to die with his Sosee, and Sosee believed she was in no
danger with her Koree. So with resignation or confidence they marched on,
heedless of a plunging alligator or swinging python which occasionally
disturbed the stillness of the Swamp. Occasionally they stopped to gather
mussels or climb after nuts; for they did not think it necessary to take
provisions with them. The supplies of scouts and armies in those days
were light—they foraged on the country. They marched without chart or
compass, and yet rarely missed their way; for they had learned to guide
themselves by the sun and the lay of the land. If occasionally, in the
thick of the forest, they could not get their bearings, they emerged from
the swamp to look at the mountains with whose ranges they were familiar.
It was not easy for primitive man to get lost, and it did not much matter
if he was lost. Wherever he placed his foot he was at home, carrying
his citizenship with him. Everywhere around were his possessions—the
ungathered fruits and fish and game. Everywhere were his friends—the
chance baboon or man that he might meet. Only recently, with the
association which we mentioned, had there sprung up attachments for
individuals. Before that their love was for the race, and anyone
represented that race about equally well, as in the case of dogs. Even
since they had come to associate, their attachments were not permanent;
and they relied much on chance-comers for their society. Should they,
therefore, be lost, they would not feel that they were among strangers,
any more than that they were away from home.
“If we do not find Orlee will we go back?” asked Koree.
“We will not go back till we find her,” replied Sosee.
“We could live nicely in this forest,” said he; “there is plenty of food,
and we need no company.”
“When we find Orlee,” she replied, “we will have company.”
“Two is company,” said he, “and when we find her and take her to her
mother, shall we not come here to live?”
“Let us first find her,” she persisted; “we can then decide what to do
next.”
“There is nothing that we can lack here,” mused Koree; “a forest and a
swamp include all human desires;” and then, after a pause, he added, “and
Sosee.”
“And Orlee,” interposed Sosee.
“Love in a cottage” was long antedated by “love in a forest.” A sycamore
tree was cottage enough for our first parents.
“O! O! O! O!” ejaculated Sosee, too frightened to say more, as she
suddenly ran up a tree.
“Oo! Oo! Oo! Oo!” shrieked Koree, as he ran up another tree.
The cause of this sudden fright was a huge mammoth which slowly lifted
itself from a clump of bushes and walked toward the lovers. A great hairy
elephant, twice as large as those now existing, with long front legs,
carrying his bushy body high up in the air, and a back gradually sloping
to the ground, like a giraffe—such was the monster that confronted them.
[Illustration: KOREE AND SOSEE ENCOUNTER A MONSTER.]
Sosee had run up a slim sapling which this beast could easily have torn
up with his trunk, or from which he could have shaken her down like a
cocoanut; while Koree had run up a tree stout enough, indeed, to resist
uprooting or shaking, but so low that the monster could easily have
reached him with his long trunk. Their safety lay, therefore, in their
silence, and they were accordingly quiet,—quiet even for lovers.
The mammoth was in no hurry to leave the place. He browsed about slowly,
picking up bunches of grass, or reaching after leaves. Once he picked a
trunk full of leaves from the tree in which Koree was sitting; but he
took no notice of Koree, whether because he did not see him, or because
he did not care for him. Koree and Sosee alone were concerned,—not the
pachyderm. They remained simply quiet, and left the great beast in
undisputed possession of the field. Never were two lovers more cruelly
interrupted, and never did an unwelcome intruder stay so long.
“Two is company,” said Koree to himself, “and three is a great big crowd.”
The lovers could neither touch nor speak.
“Would that our trees were nearer,” whispered Koree.
“Or stouter,” replied Sosee.
“Or taller,” returned Koree.
“Never did I think,” muttered Sosee, “that anything so great could come
between our love.”
“Ugh!” shuddered they both.
The huge beast kept on eating, unconscious that he was a bore.
“I wonder when that brute will get enough,” muttered Sosee in impatience.
“If he is going to fill all that big carcass,” replied Koree, “we are up
here for all day.”
“Our only hope is that the leaves of these trees will give out,” replied
she, “so that he must go elsewhere to finish his dinner.”
“Or that he will want to take something to drink with his meal,” replied
Koree, “and so go to the Swamp to wet his snout.”
These breathings of the lovers were unnoticed by the monster, who took
them for whisperings of the wind, and went on leisurely eating.
“Never did I see such an appetite,” said Sosee.
“Or one so contented with its dinner,” added Koree.
“I don’t like this seat,” grumbled Sosee, “I wish we were on the same
tree.”
“I neither want to sit up here,” returned Koree, “nor get down.”
“I’m hungry,” said Sosee, after a long pause. “Never did I sit so long at
a meal, and not eat anything.”
“If this meal of the brute goes on much longer,” said Koree, “we will
both starve, or else be eaten.”
Just then, to the inexpressible relief of the tired, hungry and bored
lovers, the animal showed signs of satiety. He quit eating, looked around
with an air of satisfaction, stretched himself, and made a start, as if
about to leave the place. Their gratification, however, was short. He
walked around a few steps, and then, to their dismay, lay down under the
tree on which Koree was perched, and disposed himself for an afternoon
nap.
Koree looked at Sosee, and was silent.
Sosee returned the look, but was too disgusted and empty for utterance.
“If that beast sleeps as long as he eats,” she said, “we will get neither
supper nor slumber to night.”
“We will, however,” returned Koree, “be safe; for neither ape nor snake
will attack us with such a watch at our door. So one danger wards off
another.”
They were now reconciling themselves to spend the balance of the day, and
perhaps the night, in this situation, and also to add to their weariness,
hunger and disgust, the additional discomforts of sleeplessness and
danger. For as Sosee had never slept on a tree (the Ammi having come to
the ground before her birth), it was feared that, although her feet were
still prehensile, and served her well in climbing, they might fail her
from lack of practice when it came to holding to a limb when asleep.
Koree determined not to sleep under these circumstances, both because he
could not trust himself on a tree when asleep, and because he wanted to
watch Sosee in order to rescue her from the mammoth in case she should
fall. Love up a tree was thus faithful to the last.
While they were making their preparations for a continued disappointment,
however, an accident, which at first seemed disastrous, came happily to
their relief. Koree, in restlessly changing his position, fell off the
tree, and came down with a thump on the back of the mammoth.
Whether Koree or the monster was more frightened we know not. Koree,
however, was uninjured, the great beast breaking his fall, for the huge
back of the animal reached, when lying down, well up toward the branches
on which Koree was sitting. Sosee was, perhaps, the most frightened of
all, as one is often most scared at the danger of another; and she gave a
scream which the animal hearing, believed, in connection with the thump
on his back, to be caused by some other animal that was attacking him.
He started from his sleep and his position at once, and, without looking
for the cause of danger, rushed through the forest, while Koree ran up
another tree and waited till the brute was at a safe distance. Then both
he and Sosee came down, and returned thanks to the great Shoozoo for
their deliverance.