[Illustration]
The next day the Ammi were startled at the sight of a strange ape, which
was at first taken for one of the Lali, and they thought that the rest
would soon be upon them. He was soon seen, however, to be of a different
species, and so was allowed to pass unmolested. Next a whole group
of apes appeared; but, as they were small and apparently peaceable,
they produced no consternation. It was deemed best, however, to make a
reconnoisance; and so Pounder and Cocoanut-scooper each climbed a tree to
examine the surrounding country.
They reported the Swamp full of apes, which wandered about in groups
apparently without purpose. There were generally a male and three or four
females together.
These were some of the immigrants which had recently come from the
north, and were going south to escape the cold. They had remained a few
days with the Lali, and were now scattering in all directions. The Lali
themselves, they said, had all determined to migrate.
The Ammi, being therefore relieved of their fears, now determined to
return to the battle-field. For, as the reënforcements of the Lali had
dispersed, they thought they could safely fight them again.
They accordingly started back toward the Lali with renewed courage. The
cold was still increasing, and the waters of the Swamp through which
they had come were frozen over. For most of the way they walked on ice,
which made their return easy. They found some animals and birds along the
route, which had been frozen to death, of which they ate as they went,
and from which they re-supplied their stores.
“The cold has made a bridge for us across the waters,” said Koree, “and
we can now walk where we before waded.”
“True,” said Oko, “but it has taken away the water, and we shall have no
fish, and not even anything to drink.”
“It has turned the water into stone,” observed another, “and the land
has all been changed into a white foam, so that we shall hereafter have
neither land nor water.”
The situation was critical indeed. The whole earth seemed about to be
taken from them, or else turned into a new substance, cold, hard and
forbidding.
“What can we do,” asked Oko, “but migrate like the Lali?”
“Splash!” “Splash!” “Splash!”
Such were the sounds now heard in quick succession, and accompanying them
were cries, growls and great confusion.
The ice had broken and let some of them into the water. Pounder,
Cocoanut-scooper, Abroo, Oko, and others were floundering in the waves,
some swimming and others wading to their chins. The whole army was thrown
into a panic. The earth seemed to have given way beneath them, or what
they supposed to be new formed solid rock.
[Illustration: THE AMMI BREAKING THROUGH THE ICE.]
“It doesn’t look as if the water had given out,” growled Pounder, with a
savage glance at Oko.
“I wish it had,” observed Oko, as he tried to keep his head above the
floating ice.
A great scramble now ensued to regain the land, or a footing on solid
ice. Several got to fighting in the water, and there was a great
splashing and series of duckings.
Those who got out stood shivering in the snow, and occasionally tried to
help out others; but most were afraid to go near the place of danger.
When all had regained solid footing it became their chief care not to
break in again. They had evidently met a new danger greater than the
Lali. It was the water of the Swamp, which they had shortly before
bewailed as having gone forever. They moved more cautiously, therefore,
testing the strength of the ice as they proceeded.
Before leaving the scene of the catastrophe, however, Oko, seeking to
turn their misfortune to profit, picked up some pieces of floating ice,
and proposed to take them along.
“These rocks,” he said, “will make good missiles. By using them on the
Lali, we need not throw away our cocoanuts.”
He accordingly filled a skin pouch with them, and carried some in his
arms, while others followed his example. They soon found them, however,
not only heavy and bulky, but having a new inconvenience. They imparted a
sense of discomfort, now know as cold, which, being unknown to them, was
dreaded as mysterious, like the effects of fire.
After marching awhile they were rejoined by Fire-tamer, who had gone in
search of another “wood-eating beast.” He was successful in his search,
and his game was acceptable to the Ammi, who had learned to appreciate
the beast in cold weather. Even Gimbo was secretly glad, though he had to
protest, from force of habit, that they were introducing a demon among
them, and that they might as well be destroyed by the cold as eaten by
the hot monster.
They now all collected brush, and soon there was a roaring fire on the
ice, at which they dried themselves and planned their future movements.
The pieces of ice which Oko and others had carried for weapons, and which
they had laid by the fire to warm, were found to have disappeared. They
had melted and run away. Oko thought somebody had stolen them, and he got
into a fight with Pounder over the matter, when finally a halt melted
piece was seen to be turning into water. They then charged the theft to
the wood-eating monster, which they thought was devouring their rocks.
“He is worse than a hog,” said Oko, “to eat both wood and stone.”
They observed at this time that neither apes nor wild beasts approached
them while they sat by the fire, but turned off at the sight of it with
fear; so that Fire-tamer remarked:
“If we could always have this animal with us, no other danger would come
near.”
It was sometime after this, however, before men took to building fires as
a protection against wild beasts.
They observed also that some of the fruits and roots which
Cocoanut-scooper had tried to warm by placing them near the fire (for
they were frozen) became scorched, or boiled in their own juice, and
thereby much changed in taste. They found them better for the change;
so that they soon sought to do by design what they first did by
accident—prepare their food by fire—which was the beginning of the art of
cooking.
They also discovered that their food, thus treated, was more tender and
wholesome, so that they could eat many things which were before too hard
or tough, and they thereby greatly increased their food, which was a
matter of importance at a time when it was being reduced by the cold.
They also observed that when the fire was burning at night, it illumined
the space about them, making a kind of artificial day. Night fled from
it, as well as Cold and wild beasts, and stayed away as long as it
remained. By its means they could see without sun, or moon or Aurora
Borealis; and to overcome darkness in this way seemed the greatest
triumph yet made by man or beast.
Taking a stick one night which had been lighted at a heap of coals,
Fire-tamer was enabled, by carrying it around, to find a wolf skin which
Koree had lost, and which could not be found in the dark. This opened the
eyes of the Ammi, and from that moment they began to use fire for light,
as well as heat; and that stick was the first candle of the human race.
That day could be carried about in small pieces seemed astounding.
Through this discovery Fire-tamer gradually became the most important
man among the Ammi. Neither the strength of Pounder, nor the courage
of Koree, nor the wisdom of Abroo impressed the populace so much as
the mastery by this man of the wood-eating beast. He was appealed to
in all matters relating to fire. No other would venture to manage the
animal. Fire-tamer came at length to be thought sacred. The beast, it
was believed, dared not touch him. And Fire-tamer artfully used this
mystery to strengthen his influence among the Men. He purposely kept them
in ignorance and fear of the monster. He meant to keep control of this
interest, which he had the wisdom to perceive was soon to become the most
important one among the Ammi. He had, in short, a “corner” on fire, and
meant to keep it.
The awe in which Fire-tamer was thus held, and the influence which he
had in consequence among the people, excited the jealousy of Koree and
other leaders, who saw their own star declining. Several quarrels ensued,
and there was a crisis, when a happy solution was reached by making
Fire-tamer a sort of high priest, whose business it was to have charge
of the wood-eating monster and keep it burning, in return for which
distinction he was to abandon his ambition to control the Ammi in other
matters. His office was the predecessor of that of the vestal virgins,
and his charge—fire—became worshipped as a deity, while he, as keeper of
it, became the chief ruler of men in religious matters.
While they were discussing these interests, and the reciprocal bounds of
church and state were being first laid off, there arose a great commotion
among them.
“Splash!” “Splash!” “Splash!”
Such were the sounds that were now heard a second time; but the terror
was greater than before, and such a scene of confusion had never yet been
known to men.
The fire had melted the ice, which gave way, and men, fire and all went
down into the water. One over another they tumbled, and, amid smoking
logs and sissing embers, struggled with one another and with the floating
ice. The fire was put out, and with it went the prestige of Fire-tamer,
at least for awhile.
Some thought the wood-eating monster had taken a plunge and was running
away with them. They expected to be carried under the ice and into the
ground; and they were much relieved when they found that the monster had
gone alone and left them behind, and, as they gradually regained the
shore, or rather the firm ice, they presented such a mass of shivering
and dripping humanity as had not been seen till that day.