In the days before Ugh-lomi there was little trouble between the horses
and men. They lived apart--the men in the river swamps and thickets, the
horses on the wide grassy uplands between the chestnuts and the pines.
Sometimes a pony would come straying into the clogging marshes to make a
flint-hacked meal, and sometimes the tribe would find one, the kill of a
lion, and drive off the jackals, and feast heartily while the sun was
high. These horses of the old time were clumsy at the fetlock and
dun-coloured, with a rough tail and big head. They came every
spring-time north-westward into the country, after the swallows and
before the hippopotami, as the grass on the wide downland stretches
grew long. They came only in small bodies thus far, each herd, a
stallion and two or three mares and a foal or so, having its own stretch
of country, and they went again when the chestnut-trees were yellow and
the wolves came down the Wealden mountains.
It was their custom to graze right out in the open, going into cover
only in the heat of the day. They avoided the long stretches of thorn
and beechwood, preferring an isolated group of trees void of ambuscade,
so that it was hard to come upon them. They were never fighters; their
heels and teeth were for one another, but in the clear country, once
they were started, no living thing came near them, though perhaps the
elephant might have done so had he felt the need. And in those days man
seemed a harmless thing enough. No whisper of prophetic intelligence
told the species of the terrible slavery that was to come, of the whip
and spur and bearing-rein, the clumsy load and the slippery street, the
insufficient food, and the knacker's yard, that was to replace the wide
grass-land and the freedom of the earth.
Down in the Wey marshes Ugh-lomi and Eudena had never seen the horses
closely, but now they saw them every day as the two of them raided out
from their lair on the ledge in the gorge, raiding together in search of
food. They had returned to the ledge after the killing of Andoo; for of
the she-bear they were not afraid. The she-bear had become afraid of
them, and when she winded them she went aside. The two went together
everywhere; for since they had left the tribe Eudena was not so much
Ugh-lomi's woman as his mate; she learnt to hunt even--as much, that is,
as any woman could. She was indeed a marvellous woman. He would lie for
hours watching a beast, or planning catches in that shock head of his,
and she would stay beside him, with her bright eyes upon him, offering
no irritating suggestions--as still as any man. A wonderful woman!
At the top of the cliff was an open grassy lawn and then beechwoods, and
going through the beechwoods one came to the edge of the rolling grassy
expanse, and in sight of the horses. Here, on the edge of the wood and
bracken, were the rabbit-burrows, and here among the fronds Eudena and
Ugh-lomi would lie with their throwing-stones ready, until the little
people came out to nibble and play in the sunset. And while Eudena would
sit, a silent figure of watchfulness, regarding the burrows, Ugh-lomi's
eyes were ever away across the greensward at those wonderful grazing
strangers.
In a dim way he appreciated their grace and their supple nimbleness. As
the sun declined in the evening-time, and the heat of the day passed,
they would become active, would start chasing one another, neighing,
dodging, shaking their manes, coming round in great curves, sometimes so
close that the pounding of the turf sounded like hurried thunder. It
looked so fine that Ugh-lomi wanted to join in badly. And sometimes one
would roll over on the turf, kicking four hoofs heavenward, which seemed
formidable and was certainly much less alluring.
Dim imaginings ran through Ugh-lomi's mind as he watched--by virtue of
which two rabbits lived the longer. And sleeping, his brains were
clearer and bolder--for that was the way in those days. He came near the
horses, he dreamt, and fought, smiting-stone against hoof, but then the
horses changed to men, or, at least, to men with horses' heads, and he
awoke in a cold sweat of terror.
Yet the next day in the morning, as the horses were grazing, one of the
mares whinnied, and they saw Ugh-lomi coming up the wind. They all
stopped their eating and watched him. Ugh-lomi was not coming towards
them, but strolling obliquely across the open, looking at anything in
the world but horses. He had stuck three fern-fronds into the mat of his
hair, giving him a remarkable appearance, and he walked very slowly.
"What's up now?" said the Master Horse, who was capable, but
inexperienced.
"It looks more like the first half of an animal than anything else in
the world," he said. "Fore-legs and no hind."
"It's only one of those pink monkey things," said the Eldest Mare.
"They're a sort of river monkey. They're quite common on the plains."
Ugh-lomi continued his oblique advance. The Eldest Mare was struck with
the want of motive in his proceedings.
"Fool!" said the Eldest Mare, in a quick conclusive way she had. She
resumed her grazing. The Master Horse and the Second Mare followed suit.
"Look! he's nearer," said the Foal with a stripe.
One of the younger foals made uneasy movements. Ugh-lomi squatted down,
and sat regarding the horses fixedly. In a little while he was
satisfied that they meant neither flight nor hostilities. He began to
consider his next procedure. He did not feel anxious to kill, but he had
his axe with him, and the spirit of sport was upon him. How would one
kill one of these creatures?--these great beautiful creatures!
Eudena, watching him with a fearful admiration from the cover of the
bracken, saw him presently go on all fours, and so proceed again. But
the horses preferred him a biped to a quadruped, and the Master Horse
threw up his head and gave the word to move. Ugh-lomi thought they were
off for good, but after a minute's gallop they came round in a wide
curve, and stood winding him. Then, as a rise in the ground hid him,
they tailed out, the Master Horse leading, and approached him spirally.
He was as ignorant of the possibilities of a horse as they were of his.
And at this stage it would seem he funked. He knew this kind of stalking
would make red deer or buffalo charge, if it were persisted in. At any
rate Eudena saw him jump up and come walking towards her with the fern
plumes held in his hand.
She stood up, and he grinned to show that the whole thing was an immense
lark, and that what he had done was just what he had planned to do from
the very beginning. So that incident ended. But he was very thoughtful
all that day.
The next day this foolish drab creature with the leonine mane, instead
of going about the grazing or hunting he was made for, was prowling
round the horses again. The Eldest Mare was all for silent contempt. "I
suppose he wants to learn something from us," she said, and "_Let_ him."
The next day he was at it again. The Master Horse decided he meant
absolutely nothing. But as a matter of fact, Ugh-lomi, the first of men
to feel that curious spell of the horse that binds us even to this day,
meant a great deal. He admired them unreservedly. There was a rudiment
of the snob in him, I am afraid, and he wanted to be near these
beautifully-curved animals. Then there were vague conceptions of a kill.
If only they would let him come near them! But they drew the line, he
found, at fifty yards. If he came nearer than that they moved off--with
dignity. I suppose it was the way he had blinded Andoo that made him
think of leaping on the back of one of them. But though Eudena after a
time came out in the open too, and they did some unobtrusive stalking,
things stopped there.
Then one memorable day a new idea came to Ugh-lomi. The horse looks down
and level, but he does not look up. No animals look up--they have too
much common-sense. It was only that fantastic creature, man, could waste
his wits skyward. Ugh-lomi made no philosophical deductions, but he
perceived the thing was so. So he spent a weary day in a beech that
stood in the open, while Eudena stalked. Usually the horses went into
the shade in the heat of the afternoon, but that day the sky was
overcast, and they would not, in spite of Eudena's solicitude.
It was two days after that that Ugh-lomi had his desire. The day was
blazing hot, and the multiplying flies asserted themselves. The horses
stopped grazing before midday, and came into the shadow below him, and
stood in couples nose to tail, flapping.
The Master Horse, by virtue of his heels, came closest to the tree. And
suddenly there was a rustle and a creak, a _thud_.... Then a sharp
chipped flint bit him on the cheek. The Master Horse stumbled, came on
one knee, rose to his feet, and was off like the wind. The air was full
of the whirl of limbs, the prance of hoofs, and snorts of alarm.
Ugh-lomi was pitched a foot in the air, came down again, up again, his
stomach was hit violently, and then his knees got a grip of something
between them. He found himself clutching with knees, feet, and hands,
careering violently with extraordinary oscillation through the air--his
axe gone heaven knows whither. "Hold tight," said Mother Instinct, and
he did.
He was aware of a lot of coarse hair in his face, some of it between his
teeth, and of green turf streaming past in front of his eyes. He saw the
shoulder of the Master Horse, vast and sleek, with the muscles flowing
swiftly under the skin. He perceived that his arms were round the neck,
and that the violent jerkings he experienced had a sort of rhythm.
Then he was in the midst of a wild rush of tree-stems, and then there
were fronds of bracken about, and then more open turf. Then a stream of
pebbles rushing past, little pebbles flying sideways athwart the stream
from the blow of the swift hoofs. Ugh-lomi began to feel frightfully
sick and giddy, but he was not the stuff to leave go simply because he
was uncomfortable.
He dared not leave his grip, but he tried to make himself more
comfortable. He released his hug on the neck, gripping the mane
instead. He slipped his knees forward, and pushing back, came into a
sitting position where the quarters broaden. It was nervous work, but he
managed it, and at last he was fairly seated astride, breathless indeed,
and uncertain, but with that frightful pounding of his body at any rate
relieved.
Slowly the fragments of Ugh-lomi's mind got into order again. The pace
seemed to him terrific, but a kind of exultation was beginning to oust
his first frantic terror. The air rushed by, sweet and wonderful, the
rhythm of the hoofs changed and broke up and returned into itself again.
They were on turf now, a wide glade--the beech-trees a hundred yards
away on either side, and a succulent band of green starred with pink
blossom and shot with silver water here and there, meandered down the
middle. Far off was a glimpse of blue valley--far away. The exultation
grew. It was man's first taste of pace.
Then came a wide space dappled with flying fallow deer scattering this
way and that, and then a couple of jackals, mistaking Ugh-lomi for a
lion, came hurrying after him. And when they saw it was not a lion they
still came on out of curiosity. On galloped the horse, with his one
idea of escape, and after him the jackals, with pricked ears and
quickly-barked remarks. "Which kills which?" said the first jackal.
"It's the horse being killed," said the second. They gave the howl of
following, and the horse answered to it as a horse answers nowadays to
the spur.
On they rushed, a little tornado through the quiet day, putting up
startled birds, sending a dozen unexpected things darting to cover,
raising a myriad of indignant dung-flies, smashing little blossoms,
flowering complacently, back into their parental turf. Trees again, and
then splash, splash across a torrent; then a hare shot out of a tuft of
grass under the very hoofs of the Master Horse, and the jackals left
them incontinently. So presently they broke into the open again, a wide
expanse of turfy hillside--the very grassy downs that fall northward
nowadays from the Epsom Stand.
The first hot bolt of the Master Horse was long since over. He was
falling into a measured trot, and Ugh-lomi, albeit bruised exceedingly
and quite uncertain of the future, was in a state of glorious enjoyment.
And now came a new development. The pace broke again, the Master Horse
came round on a short curve, and stopped dead....
Ugh-lomi became alert. He wished he had a flint, but the throwing-flint
he had carried in a thong about his waist was--like the axe--heaven
knows where. The Master Horse turned his head, and Ugh-lomi became aware
of an eye and teeth. He whipped his leg into a position of security, and
hit at the cheek with his fist. Then the head went down somewhere out of
existence apparently, and the back he was sitting on flew up into a
dome. Ugh-lomi became a thing of instinct again--strictly prehensile; he
held by knees and feet, and his head seemed sliding towards the turf.
His fingers were twisted into the shock of mane, and the rough hair of
the horse saved him. The gradient he was on lowered again, and
then--"Whup!" said Ugh-lomi astonished, and the slant was the other way
up. But Ugh-lomi was a thousand generations nearer the primordial than
man: no monkey could have held on better. And the lion had been training
the horse for countless generations against the tactics of rolling and
rearing back. But he kicked like a master, and buck-jumped rather
neatly. In five minutes Ugh-lomi lived a lifetime. If he came off the
horse would kill him, he felt assured.
Then the Master Horse decided to stick to his old tactics again, and
suddenly went off at a gallop. He headed down the slope, taking the
steep places at a rush, swerving neither to the right nor to the left,
and, as they rode down, the wide expanse of valley sank out of sight
behind the approaching skirmishers of oak and hawthorn. They skirted a
sudden hollow with the pool of a spring, rank weeds and silver bushes.
The ground grew softer and the grass taller, and on the right-hand side
and the left came scattered bushes of May--still splashed with belated
blossom. Presently the bushes thickened until they lashed the passing
rider, and little flashes and gouts of blood came out on horse and man.
Then the way opened again.
And then came a wonderful adventure. A sudden squeal of unreasonable
anger rose amidst the bushes, the squeal of some creature bitterly
wronged. And crashing after them appeared a big, grey-blue shape. It was
Yaaa the big-horned rhinoceros, in one of those fits of fury of his,
charging full tilt, after the manner of his kind. He had been startled
at his feeding, and someone, it did not matter who, was to be ripped and
trampled therefore. He was bearing down on them from the left, with his
wicked little eye red, his great horn down and his tail like a
jury-mast behind him. For a minute Ugh-lomi was minded to slip off and
dodge, and then behold! the staccato of the hoofs grew swifter, and the
rhinoceros and his stumpy hurrying little legs seemed to slide out at
the back corner of Ugh-lomi's eye. In two minutes they were through the
bushes of May, and out in the open, going fast. For a space he could
hear the ponderous paces in pursuit receding behind him, and then it was
just as if Yaaa had not lost his temper, as if Yaaa had never existed.
The pace never faltered, on they rode and on.
Ugh-lomi was now all exultation. To exult in those days was to insult.
"Ya-ha! big nose!" he said, trying to crane back and see some remote
speck of a pursuer. "Why don't you carry your smiting-stone in your
fist?" he ended with a frantic whoop.
But that whoop was unfortunate, for coming close to the ear of the
horse, and being quite unexpected, it startled the stallion extremely.
He shied violently. Ugh-lomi suddenly found himself uncomfortable again.
He was hanging on to the horse, he found, by one arm and one knee.
The rest of the ride was honourable but unpleasant. The view was
chiefly of blue sky, and that was combined with the most unpleasant
physical sensations. Finally, a bush of thorn lashed him and he let go.
He hit the ground with his cheek and shoulder, and then, after a
complicated and extraordinarily rapid movement, hit it again with the
end of his backbone. He saw splashes and sparks of light and colour. The
ground seemed bouncing about just like the horse had done. Then he found
he was sitting on turf, six yards beyond the bush. In front of him was a
space of grass, growing greener and greener, and a number of human
beings in the distance, and the horse was going round at a smart gallop
quite a long way off to the right.
The human beings were on the opposite side of the river, some still in
the water, but they were all running away as hard as they could go. The
advent of a monster that took to pieces was not the sort of novelty they
cared for. For quite a minute Ugh-lomi sat regarding them in a purely
spectacular spirit. The bend of the river, the knoll among the reeds and
royal ferns, the thin streams of smoke going up to Heaven, were all
perfectly familiar to him. It was the squatting-place of the Sons of
Uya, of Uya from whom he had fled with Eudena, and whom he had waylaid
in the chestnut woods and killed with the First Axe.
He rose to his feet, still dazed from his fall, and as he did so the
scattering fugitives turned and regarded him. Some pointed to the
receding horse and chattered. He walked slowly towards them, staring. He
forgot the horse, he forgot his own bruises, in the growing interest of
this encounter. There were fewer of them than there had been--he
supposed the others must have hid--the heap of fern for the night fire
was not so high. By the flint heaps should have sat Wau--but then he
remembered he had killed Wau. Suddenly brought back to this familiar
scene, the gorge and the bears and Eudena seemed things remote, things
dreamt of.
He stopped at the bank and stood regarding the tribe. His mathematical
abilities were of the slightest, but it was certain there were fewer.
The men might be away, but there were fewer women and children. He gave
the shout of home-coming. His quarrel had been with Uya and Wau--not
with the others. "Children of Uya!" he cried. They answered with his
name, a little fearfully because of the strange way he had come.
For a space they spoke together. Then an old woman lifted a shrill
voice and answered him. "Our Lord is a Lion."
Ugh-lomi did not understand that saying. They answered him again several
together, "Uya comes again. He comes as a Lion. Our Lord is a Lion. He
comes at night. He slays whom he will. But none other may slay us,
Ugh-lomi, none other may slay us."
Still Ugh-lomi did not understand.
"Our Lord is a Lion. He speaks no more to men."
Ugh-lomi stood regarding them. He had had dreams--he knew that though he
had killed Uya, Uya still existed. And now they told him Uya was a Lion.
The shrivelled old woman, the mistress of the fire-minders, suddenly
turned and spoke softly to those next to her. She was a very old woman
indeed, she had been the first of Uya's wives, and he had let her live
beyond the age to which it is seemly a woman should be permitted to
live. She had been cunning from the first, cunning to please Uya and to
get food. And now she was great in counsel. She spoke softly, and
Ugh-lomi watched her shrivelled form across the river with a curious
distaste. Then she called aloud, "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi."
A girl suddenly lifted up her voice. "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi," she
said. And they all began crying, "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi."
It was strange how their manner changed after the old woman called.
He stood quite still watching them all. It was pleasant to be called,
and the girl who had called first was a pretty one. But she made him
think of Eudena.
"Come over to us, Ugh-lomi," they cried, and the voice of the shrivelled
old woman rose above them all. At the sound of her voice his hesitation
returned.
He stood on the river bank, Ugh-lomi--Ugh the Thinker--with his thoughts
slowly taking shape. Presently one and then another paused to see what
he would do. He was minded to go back, he was minded not to. Suddenly
his fear or his caution got the upper hand. Without answering them he
turned, and walked back towards the distant thorn-trees, the way he had
come. Forthwith the whole tribe started crying to him again very
eagerly. He hesitated and turned, then he went on, then he turned again,
and then once again, regarding them with troubled eyes as they called.
The last time he took two paces back, before his fear stopped him. They
saw him stop once more, and suddenly shake his head and vanish among
the hawthorn-trees.
Then all the women and children lifted up their voices together, and
called to him in one last vain effort.
Far down the river the reeds were stirring in the breeze, where,
convenient for his new sort of feeding, the old lion, who had taken to
man-eating, had made his lair.
The old woman turned her face that way, and pointed to the hawthorn
thickets. "Uya," she screamed, "there goes thine enemy! There goes thine
enemy, Uya! Why do you devour us nightly? We have tried to snare him!
There goes thine enemy, Uya!"
But the lion who preyed upon the tribe was taking his siesta. The cry
went unheard. That day he had dined on one of the plumper girls, and his
mood was a comfortable placidity. He really did not understand that he
was Uya or that Ugh-lomi was his enemy.
So it was that Ugh-lomi rode the horse, and heard first of Uya the lion,
who had taken the place of Uya the Master, and was eating up the tribe.
And as he hurried back to the gorge his mind was no longer full of the
horse, but of the thought that Uya was still alive, to slay or be slain.
Over and over again he saw the shrunken band of women and children
crying that Uya was a lion. Uya was a lion!
And presently, fearing the twilight might come upon him, Ugh-lomi began
running.