THE SPEAR-THROWING
The scene with which the last chapter closed had come as a not
unwelcome interruption to a family explanation which had been in
progress within the deer-skin hangings of the old chief's tee-pee.
A mother-in-law may be a delightful person, or the reverse. The
difficulties and temptations which beset her position are of no modern
creation. Are there not ancient wheezes upon this topic in Greek
anthologies? I doubt not that these hoary japes were in their day and
generation rehashes of Mykenæan jibes still more venerable, for under
given circumstances we humans act alike all the world over, and there
is no valid reason for assuming that our behaviours and misbehaviours
have varied to any great extent during the past hundred thousand years.
Listen to a case in point. A friend of mine with a faculty for getting
into and out of places the most tight and remote, once found himself
for a whole month dependent upon the hospitality of an African tribe
so degraded as to have lost (if it had ever possessed) the art of
hut-building. These simple aborigines erected little shelters of small
brushwood to windward and slept thereunder. They wore no garments, not
even the most exiguous. A rough man, a coarse man, in such company
would have discerned nothing but the brutality which he brought with
him. He would have mishandled the situation from the first, and, having
presently reduced his position to an impossibility, would have taken
himself off and returned (with luck) to civilisation with a story of
beastly savages, less than half human, no better than the dog-faced
baboons of the cliffs.
Not so my friend, who, being an English gentleman of the best type,
had no difficulty in adapting himself to the necessities of a novel
situation. He took to his hosts, they reciprocated, and he enjoyed the
unique opportunity of being admitted to the inner life of a singular
and interesting community. He watched and remembered. Among other
matters he observed that _the ladies of this little people had several
of the habits, mannerisms and small personal traits of their sisters in
good society_.
Back to my tale. One of the little ways of mothers-in-law, even of
mothers-in-law of family, is to assume a large degree of ignorance upon
the part of the bride, and to gently (but firmly) initiate her into the
right ways of doing things, and the relative positions and status of
the persons of her new circle. I put it diplomatically. I have not used
the word "encroach"; I have known a bride return from her honeymoon to
find _all_ her bridecake cut up and distributed.
But, conceive the claims of a grandmother-in-law, who was also
head-wife of the chief-regnant, a woman of advanced years, of the
firmest character, and not unaccustomed to implicit obedience.
This old lady was a rather terrible old lady, and no fool. She detected
a Little Moon woman at a glance, as she was likely to do, being a
Little Moon woman herself who had come over the pass forty years before
with her elbows shackled and a bruise upon the top of her head as big
as a fresh-water mussel. Hence a woman of the clan into which she had
been born was a quite unmysterious creature, about which she had, as
she conceived, nothing to learn. She was for undertaking the usual
breaking-in forthwith.
But her grandson Pŭl-Yūn would have none of it. Mildly, but with
absolute decision, he postponed the business. "No, my wife shall sit
in my presence,--yes, at my desire. Also, she shall eat with me. It is
unusual, I admit, but such is Our Rule. You do not understand?--That
too, I admit. I am hoping to make things plain presently, but we must
start fair, start as we mean to go on. In one word my wife is a Very
Great Medicine. I have brought her a long way through deep snow, she
is tired. I do not wish her to stand any more to-night, nor answer
questions. To-morrow, perhaps. In the meantime, feel this--" the man
extended his leg. "It was broken, as thou canst feel--she--my wife
there, mended it. I lay more than a whole moon in her hands. She found
me so; she left her tribe to come to me; she made me a sound man, as
thou canst see. It was great medicine."
"It was great medicine," murmured the old chief, critically fingering
the reunited bone. The eyes of the head wife snapped; seldom did a
broken leg come so straight as this, but, she would admit nothing.
Pŭl-Yūn was speaking.
"That was once, but she has saved my life three times since in battle.
I say it. Do not ask how to-night. Yes, this is a bear-skin, the pelt
of a very great Man-bear. A Cave Grizzly. I have never seen a greater,
but I have seen but few. Possibly my chief, who has seen and handled
several bears, has seen a greater Man-bear than this?"
The old chief watched the unrolling of the huge skin and shook his
head; no, he had never seen one as wide or so long: it was immense: a
winter coat, too, it was the finest skin he had ever handled.
"I did not kill this bear," said his grandson after a dramatic pause.
It was at this juncture that the challenge from without brought these
explanations temporarily to a close, and when the men re-entered the
tee-pee both felt that they had more momentous matter in hand than the
relative positions of the ladies.
Said the old chief, "Thou art in for it now. I would have warned thee
hadst thou not spoken so fast. My nephew has a bad heart. While thou
wast absent he has been sucking away from me the hearts of my young
men. Some he has beaten, and some he has bought, and some he has talked
over. But, I have kept the place warm for thee. I still dreamed of thy
home-coming. Never camest thou to me in sleep as thou wouldst have
come hadst thou been dead. But, this challenge and thy taking of it
up is a heavy matter. Honk-Ah has come on in his spear-throwing. And
he has great store of excellent weapons, well-handled, well-headed,
well-balanced. And, where are thine?--Thou hast come home empty-handed.
It is not well. But, since thou hast spoken I see no way out of a
re-trial."
"Nor I, chief," said Pŭl-Yūn, making low and dutiful obeisance, for
the old man's grave slow tones failed to hide a heart shaken by the
presence of long-expected and now imminent calamity, his grandson would
show courage enough for both,--"Nor would I put it off for a day. Leave
my wife and me to look over our weapons. All will go as thou wouldst
wish."
And to this the old chief listened with a grunt, a somewhat weak grunt,
as his grandson thought. The head-wife was harder to satisfy, a matter
which Pŭl-Yūn must take upon himself, as he presently discovered, for
her husband sate mute, letting her nag and question whilst Dêh-Yān
worked in silence and with despatch. What had come to the old chief? He
had not used to be so acquiescent: his grandson turned it over in his
mind, nor found any solution, being unacquainted with the premonitory
symptoms of age, the indisposition to take a strong line because inward
warnings forbid its being followed up effectively. There were few old
men among the Sun-Folk. The whole generation between the old chief and
the youth of the tribe had perished in a disastrous fight with their
southern neighbours some years before; a blow which had necessitated a
prompt removal from the disputed hunting-grounds and the stone-quarry,
the object of the battle. It was there that the fathers of Pŭl-Yūn
and his cousin had fallen. The Sun-Men, in fact, had been a dwindling
clan for nearly two generations, always liable to be cut off from their
supplies of two necessities, weapon-stone and wives, neither of which
could they obtain save at undue risks. Now with savages to dwindle is
the precursory process of death. The braves knew this and were restless.
So, during the hard weather of the past winter, the feeling among the
young warriors of the tribe that a younger and more active chief was
needed had been gathering to a head. There is small reverence for age
among the lowest savages: the Eskimo, nearest of existing races to the
Old Stone men of whom we are speaking, give little deference to the
grey head and the weak hand. Here, among the Sun-Men, the process of
supersession was beginning, the new leaf was pushing off the old.
"It seems to me," murmured Dêh-Yān to her husband, "it seems to me that
on this side of the ranges also the young bulls are making ready to
drive an old tusker from the herd." Pŭl-Yūn grunted, testing the point
of an arrow with his thumb.
But, although he had said nothing, Pŭl-Yūn's eyes and mind were
at work, and the impression of instability, of a new spirit among
his people since he had last been with them, and of impending and
far-reaching changes, lay down with him and arose with him next
morning. And was promptly confirmed, for his rival and his rival's
backers had been up and out betimes; the lists were already set and the
mark fixed, a matter which was the business of the chief alone.
The old chief saw what had been done and nodded acquiescence. It might
be that the sceptre was passing from him: he would have one more fight
for it, but the fight should be upon ground of his own choosing. He
was too great-minded to quibble over trifles, and in truth the lists
were well-set and the mark as truly and fairly fixed as he could have
desired.
None disputed his position as referee.
The contest would be quite the most solemn and momentous, as well
as the most sporting event that had occurred within the memories of
the tribe. Honk-Ah, who had been runner-up for the war-chieftainship
for two years past, as the old chief had said, had come on in his
spear-throwing during the winter, and was believed to have overcast
his cousin's best records. If he should succeed to-day it was possible
that he would kill two birds with one stone, make a sudden snatch at
the head-chieftaincy of the tribe, and that his backing of young braves
might support him.
If this occurred, if it came to blows, how would the matter go? The old
chief asked himself the question, but got no answer. Of one thing only
he was assured, winning or losing he would die a chief.
The mark was a badger-skin kaross fixed upon a wicker fish-trap and
set upon a stake as high as a man. The distance was extreme, as Pŭl-Yūn
saw at a glance. Forty-five strides is a big, a very big throw with an
assegai, if the mark is to be hit and penetrated. As a mere cast, an
exhibition of distance-throwing, a man might do more. But this was no
fancy-work; by the terms of the wager the mark was to be not merely hit
but pierced. A badger's pelt is long in the hair, the skin is of the
thickest and toughest of forest trophies. Pŭl-Yūn nodded.
"My cousin has set himself a difficult mark, it is small and it is not
easy to pierce. My cousin has plainly improved in his spear-practice
since I have been away. Let him begin the play."
The man addressed, Honk-Ah, a lithe, tall brave, naked except for his
breech-clout, arose from his heels carrying three spears.
"Shall it be a matter of three spears at this range?" he asked.
"Three will be sufficient," replied Pŭl-Yūn, "and he whose points go
farthest through the peltry shall be adjudged winner."
"I am judge," grunted the old chief.
"Without doubt, my father!" assented Pŭl-Yūn. Honk-Ah said nothing, he
was balancing a spear as he walked to the throwing crease.
Five paces he passed beyond it, turned upon his heel, paused, measured
his distance with his eye from old habit, arose upon his toes, pranced
up to his crease with hand and arm at their utmost stretch, shook and
flung his assegai.
All eyes followed the weapon, its grey chert head travelled steady as
a stone, its five feet of shaft rotating as it flew in such wise that
its extremity traversed a small circle. This was how a spear should
be thrown, perfect form. How about the aim? The weapon completed
its curve, pitched, struck, but did not satisfy the demands of the
competition so completely as the thrower's friends could have wished:
the direction was better than good, but the elevation was ever so
little too high: the weapon had struck the upper edge of the mark, the
shaft swung over and drew the point. The spear lay upon the ground
beyond, its head towards the thrower: yet, it was a great throw. As
every watcher knew, had the mark been a man that man would have taken a
nasty wound.
The thrower, you may be sure, had followed the flight of his assegai
no less critically. Without once taking his eye from the mark he took
and weighed in hand the spear which he was to throw next, stepped
lightly back, took distance, shook, ran and threw. Nor was he below
himself, this was better, as good as to direction, and as to elevation
somewhat lower than the former. The head penetrated the nether edge of
the skin and held, albeit the shaft drooped; thus much only it lacked
of perfection, yet, there was not another man in the silent circle
of spectators who could have done as well. The third and last was a
truly fine performance: a centre well driven home, it would have been
impossible to better it. The spearman, his hands hanging by his sides
surveyed his work frowning slightly, as an expert does who has done
well, but whose ambition was to have done better than well; then he
slowly raised his chin, folded his arms across his chest and turned to
his cousin with the superb and natural scorn of the savage who has no
tradition of restraint behind him.
"Is that Honk-Ah's best?" asked Pŭl-Yūn quietly, without rising from
his heels. "Let my cousin take his time, the day is still young. Try
three more throws, and again three more; it may be that two of thy
spears balanced ill, or thy arm was yet stiff from being lain upon.
What?--thou art satisfied? Wilt stand by these, nor ask for more,
however the matter goes?"
He ceased at a touch of the old chief's hand, and none too soon.
Honk-Ah, a passionate and hasty fellow was shaking with anger; he
detested his cousin with a bitterness which surprised even himself: he
had hated him when he thought him dead, and now, that he had returned
from the underworld, as it seemed, to snatch the prize from his grasp,
his aversion went near to choking him. Whether Pŭl-Yūn spoke or was
silent, sat or stood, he hated him; his least movement, or the absence
of movement fed the hate which had been smouldering within him for a
year, which had glowed in his bosom all night and now had all-but burst
into flame.
It was a full-blown flower of primitive jealousy. The old chief
recognised the growth and inwardly shivered, things might yet go ill.
Let there be no talk, let Pŭl-Yūn betake himself to his weapons.
"If it must be, it must be," remarked Pŭl-Yūn without enthusiasm. "But,
look you, my brothers and friends, I am but a night and a day from the
snows of the pass; three (or was it not four?) days and as many nights
did I sit in a snow-cave waiting for the fall to stop. I have travelled
through drifts as deep as my chin, and this upon the top of a broken
leg. Yes, I lay for nigh two moons in a cave with a broken leg. Hence
Pŭl-Yūn, who was approved your war-chief two years ago, is not at his
best this day. He has forgot his spear-throwing somewhat. It is four,
nay, it is six, moons since he threw a spear."
A shiver of astonishment ran around the circle, for this was giving
the contest away before it was begun. Spear-throwing is an art which
calls for constant and unremitting practice: the assegai-thrower no
more than the violinist can lay aside his instrument for weeks and
months at a time and resume it at will with his old facility. The
listening tribesmen covered their mouths with their hands and smiled
behind them, each man's eyes rolled on his fellows' seeking and finding
comprehension. The thing was as good as settled. But Pŭl-Yūn had
arisen to his feet and was still speaking,--
"I have brought back to camp no spears of our sort, for my arm is very
fat and weak, much weaker than the arm of my wife here (who will throw
presently)." A laugh broke out, but fell, for he was grave and was
still speaking, he had none of the marks of a madman about him, he was
just the Pŭl-Yūn whom they had all known and loved, gentle of speech
exceedingly,--yet his words, or some of them were strange--ludicrous.
"So, I have made for myself little assegais, boys' assegais," whilst
speaking he drew one from the long skin pouch which hung at his back
and handed it to the old chief, who turned it end for end in his hand,
and looked it over very critically and passed it on to the elder
nearest to him with an impassive face but a very shaken heart. The
absurd little thing went slowly around the circle, none above the age
of an uninitiated boy had ever handled its like, it reached Honk-Ah
who disdained to touch it, smiling insolently, his game already won.
"Yet, it seems I must do what I can," said Pŭl-Yūn, sighing again, "and
if, by good luck, I can make these little-boys' spears fly straighter
and stick deeper than my cousin's, what will ye say?"
Said the grey chief, "My son's son, whilst thou hast been away we have
had omens of change and of trouble. Our enemies, the White Wolves and
the men of the Lynx Totem have begun to encroach yet more upon our
hunting-grounds; they have taken game from our traps, they waylay and
wound our young men hunting singly. We have given up lone hunting, we
hunt in couples or threesomes. They, or we must move on. But, it needs
fighting to clear the matter. And,--and--I am grown better at council
than at the chase. Strong am I still, but I stiffen, and am slower of
foot than my wont. The Sun-Men have always had a war-chief who could
lead them. The tribe,--the young men, are asking for one. Thy cousin
claims the post. What can I say to thy question?"
To Pŭl-Yūn's thinking there was more than physical weakness in this
appeal, he faced the old man silently but with a steady confidence in
his eye which went some way to restore the senior's shaken courage, who
took fresh breath and went on--
"The spear, my son, is the only weapon, and the farther it is cast and
the deeper it is driven the better the warrior. Yonder is the mark. Get
thee to thy spears. I have spoken."
The little dart was still travelling its round, exciting amazement,
amusement and curiosity as it went. It returned to Pŭl-Yūn, he examined
its point and feather (the absurd little feather, fingered by so many,
understood by him alone), all with an exasperating deliberation and
gentle cheerfulness as of a man regaining his spirits. The tent-folds
behind him shook and forth came the foreign woman, his wife, Dêh-Yān,
as he had been heard to address her, bringing in hand--what?--surely
not more spears, for there were others in the skin pouch upon his
back, yet, she bore to him a staff stouter, heavier and longer than
any assegai, and, whereas a well-made assegai is thickest three hands'
breadths behind the head and thence tapers both ways, this clumsy shaft
was thickest in the middle. An impossible, headless weapon, thought the
tribe craning to see.
Pŭl-Yūn took the staff, tossed and caught it, shook it a little, whilst
the Little Moon woman unwound a stout cord of twisted sinew looped at
either end. Watched intently by the tribe the man threaded both loops
upon the staff, fitted the last to a notch at one end of it, which end
he turned under and set his left foot upon; then, holding the staff
erect and close to his left side, he, gripping its upper end with his
right, swiftly and strongly bent it over his knee and hip whilst with
his left hand sliding the second loop to its resting-place in the
second notch which was now close beside his chin.
'Twas done in a moment, and the thing stood confessed no weapon at all,
but just a drilling-bow, an out-sized, clumsy tool. Honk-Ah led the
laugh.
But Pŭl-Yūn unmoved and passively grave, was emptying at his feet
the skin pouch aforesaid, and lo! there lay more boys' assegais,
weak, light and decked with feathers where no feathers should be. The
laughter did not cease when the man chose three and approached the
scratch thus armed, for the bow-drill which he carried his critics
regarded as a mere encumbrance, a thing as foreign to the business
in hand as a fishing-line. Taking his stand upon the crease itself,
and making no preparation for the usual run before throwing, the
young chief gripped the bent bow-drill left-handedly by its midmost
stoutest part, laid a dart across the wood, and his left forefinger
over that dart, then, fitting a hitherto unnoticed notch in the end of
that dart to the string, he gripped both dart and sinew and drew both
away from the bending wood whilst raising the whole apparatus with
his extended left hand. Back and back went his right hand, stiffly
and more stiffly extended his left arm, until the chert head of the
dart stuck out beyond the left thumb, whilst the notched and feathered
tail, still fast against the sinew-cord, was level with the man's ear.
Thus he stood poised, tense and silent for a breath, the last cackle
of derisive laughter died; what did all this mean? _Twang!_--something
hummed like the wings of the great fawn-coloured mountain swift when he
sweeps a beetle from a grass-blade close to one's knee and is a hundred
strides away before one knows what he had done. Pŭl-Yūn was standing
exactly as he had stood before the sound, save that the string had
escaped from his hand and the bow-drill had gone straight again. What
had become of the dart? 'Twas gone, yet none had seen it go. At such
close range, and from such a powerful bow, an arrow travels nearly
level and exceedingly fast. The eyes of the tribe, fixed upon the man,
and awaiting the vehement action of the spear-thrower, had failed
altogether to pursue the flight of the missile.
"Wah! when is he going to throw?" "Where has it gone?" "When did he
cast?" "_How came it there?_" for lo! in the target beside the best
spear of Honk-Ah stood the dart of Pŭl-Yūn, quite as well-centred and
more deeply fixed.
A buzz of subdued clamour arose and was instantly hushed, for the
marksman's second dart was in his hand, and again that queer, clumsy
domestic implement, hitherto reserved for the girl who made fire, or
the eye of a needle, was bending again. _Twang!_--again that new, keen
sound and all eyes jumped, and again failed to follow that unnaturally
low, swift flight. They looked above it, looked where a spear would
have been, and whilst they stared--_thuck!_--a second dart was standing
in the target, not a hand's-breadth away from the first, and as deeply
imbedded.
Honk-Ah crammed his mouth full of his own fingers and bit them, but no
one spoke. All edged a step nearer, and when the string hummed for the
third time, and the final dart, driven straight and hard, stood between
the other two, there was a deep gasp of half incredulous surprise.
Savages are deeply and religiously conservative, and easily persuade
themselves that their own way, though demonstrably the worse, is the
right way. Did the land-owners of England effusively fold Stephenson to
their noble bosoms? His trains would interfere with their fox-hunting,
so much they could see. Later they saw money in the thing and came into
it with a rush.
Now the Sun-Men were almost as conservative as the House of Peers in
the day when the Rocket was the last New Thing; and there was nothing
of lucre with which to commend this invention to their unwilling
admiration.
Alack, our race has moved with a pitiful slowness, and still moves
locally and by jerks, and with much intermediate marking of time and
retrogressions elsewhere.
Hence it is not to be supposed that the Sun-Men acclaimed the first
performances of the New Thing with shouts of joy. To the braves of the
tribe it signified the success of a piece of woman's gear. Their first
impulse was to have none of it, to shout it down as foreign magic,
certainly novel, probably impious, and no doubt offensive to their
deity. Even the old chief, with all to gain by his grandson's victory,
was unenthusiastic.
Were they more stupid than their descendants of a later day? I trow
not. Let the reader judge. Once during England's struggle with
Napoleon was the chance offered to each antagonist to end the matter
at a stroke. How did they take it? Joseph Manton laid his designs for
rifled artillery before the Master of the Ordnance and was refused
leave to manufacture guns capable of demolishing the ships, forts
and forces of France at long range. A few years later young Fulton
explained to Bonaparte his plans for towing the wind-bound Boulogne
fleet across the Channel by steam. The hard, shallow grey eyes of
the Corsican stared him down, "_Idéalist!_" and England was safe for
another century.
Pŭl-Yūn had won, but the successful competitor's three astonishing
shots aroused suspicion in some, anger and jealousy in others. There
were men present capable of surlily or passionately repudiating the
fact. Honk-Ah did. He arose from his heels, flung out his hands,
strutted, laughed derisively, indulged in gestures offensive and
provocative and walked towards the target.
"Stop!" cried the old chief, "let no man draw those spears."
Himself detaching the skin he bore it around the circle of watching
braves. There was no denying the evidence. Those three, small,
bow-driven darts were in over their heads. A man so struck would hardly
have lived out the day.
Pŭl-Yūn, without vaunts, took the fact of his victory for granted, and,
noting his backer's reserve, came to the front.
"I have just one small thing to ask," said he, raising his hand, "a
very little thing. It is that my cousin will now throw spears with my
wife."
The listening tribe stared with open-mouthed amazement. The challenged
man fairly bristled. To a brave such a proposal was an indelible
insult. Yet Pŭl-Yūn's manner was not insulting; nothing could be less
provocative than the gentle, unsmiling simplicity of his mien.
"A brave plays only with braves," said the old chief, interpreting the
challenged man's rigid silence.
Then, at a nod from her husband, Dêh-Yān came from the curtained
doorway of the wigwam. She was wearing the full spring-months' working
dress of a woman of the tribe, to wit, her own supple beauty hidden
only from the waist to the knee by an apron of skins.
There was nothing to remark in this, but, what drew a murmur of
amazement from the circle, a murmur which presently turned to scoffs
and incredulous laughter, was the bear-skin which she bore upon her
arm, and the collar of teeth and claws which encircled the ruddy
symmetry of her throat. Sedately she spread the skin and took her stand
upon it. She knew, none better, that this hour would be the making or
the breaking of her man and herself, but she bore herself superbly. If
her heart fluttered within her breast her mouth was hard and her eye
steady. Silently she fingered the necklace and looked a question to her
husband who raised his hand.
"Do you ask why my wife stands upon that bear-skin whilst I stand upon
bare earth? Do you ask why she, and not I, wears that necklace? Those
are fair questions which I will answer presently. But, first I too have
a question to ask of you--
"If two go to the woods to hunt and a bear is killed by one of the two,
who shall wear the spoils--he who did the killing or he who looked on?
"That is our case, my wife's and mine. Whilst I lay with a broken
leg-bone, that bear came like a lynx upon a wood-hen in a gin and
thought to have made a meal of me. My wife was there, she might have
run for it, but she took spear in hand and killed that bear,"--he
stooped and lifted one of the enormous paws of the hide. "At one thrust
she killed that bear. He was very near to me, nearer than my cousin
is now; he was upreared for the stroke; he was not a young bear, nor
a brown bear, but a Grizzly of the rocks; an Old Man Grizzly; so my
chief says who knows more of bear than any of us; for myself I have
never had much to do with bear of any sort, two, perchance, Brown
Bears both--they fought well--did not they, Honk-Ah? But this was my
first Grizzly (he came near to being my last). We were in a cave, the
three of us. I was sitting, with my leg stiff and weak, so--" he was
now upon the ground at Dêh-Yān's feet, acting the scene. "The Grizzly
came thus--" he bounded from the earth, crawled, reared, pawed the
air, impersonating the monster. "She--she here, my wife,--who was not
attacked, who might have saved herself,--what did she?--_What did
she?--I ask!_" his voice rose to a shout. "What would _my cousin have
done_?" it fell to a soft, penetrating tone, he spread his hands and
bent towards Honk-Ah as though genuinely seeking an answer to his
question, a question put with an air of suave simplicity which it was
impossible to effectively resent. "My cousin would have done what my
wife did, yes, he would have killed that Grizzly, I see it in his
eye!--Thou wouldst have done just that, Honk-Ah!"
A stifled titter ran around the circle, for this was a home thrust.
Honk-Ah had indeed, as Pŭl-Yūn had reminded him, been present at the
hunting of one of the two bears which had been slain by the Sun-Men
during the past four years, but, by over-caution, or maladroitness, or
sheer ill-luck, it had not fallen to him to distinguish himself in that
fight. All braves cannot be at their best upon all occasions, and that
had not been one of Honk-Ah's days. The emergency which had found his
cousin wanting had been one which had set the seal to Pŭl-Yūn's courage
and address. Rivals before, the cousins had been rivals since, Pŭl-Yūn
leading. The elders present perceived that their young war-chief, not
content with re-establishing his precedence, was bent upon inflicting
a public humiliation upon his would-be supplanter; perceived too, that
he was probably aware of the plot which his timely return to his tribe
had barely forestalled, and were wondering how the Honk-Ah party were
taking it.
These, as it happened, were taking the matter extremely well. They had
fallen under the influence of Honk-Ah not for any love which they bore
him, but because a leader of some sort was needful for the tribe at a
critical juncture, and he, in default of Pŭl-Yūn, was the only possible
man. Their former war-chief had dropped upon them from the skies,
and albeit they had wavered in their allegiance, and some of them
had talked big over-night, with the instability of the savage (who,
like a boy, is merely a man in the making, fickle and easily moved
to good or evil), they were ready to return to duty. The result of
the spear-throwing had shaken them, but this exhibition of Pŭl-Yūn's
adroit eloquence had completed their reconversion, not to the new
weapon but to the old comrade.
Honk-Ah was upon his feet, he had heard the titter of the women behind
him, he had looked towards one and another of his chosen friends and
followers, but had failed in finding an answering eye, he felt himself
slipping, the situation called for instant action, he took it with a
rush, there was no finesse about Honk-Ah. He struck his hardest at his
opponent's weakest spot--this tale was too wonderful for belief. He
appealed to the experience of the old chief and the half dozen elders,
he claimed as a brave to know something, he and his contemporaries
had seen a bear or two die, but they had died hard, had charged home
a dozen times, had run, when it came to running, for a long way, had
stood at bay under a storm of spears for half a day: it had taken every
man of the hunting party all that he knew to finish the fight with a
whole skin. Yet, this foreign woman, forsooth, had killed her bear,
an Old Man Grizzly (there was no getting over that skin) with a casual
poke with one--_one_--of her people's stupid little darts. Absurd! That
the bear had died was evident--even bears cannot live forever; but, how
had he died?--In a pit? or under a down-fall? or by a chance-fallen
rock, perhaps? Such things did happen to bears as to men, he supposed.
And doubtless this had befallen whilst Pŭl-Yūn lay sick, and--well--it
was only too plain that his cousin had been very sick indeed, both in
his feet and in his head, for in a word, this foreign woman had fooled
him.
Pŭl-Yūn heard him to an end with grave patience, then turning to
Dêh-Yān, who was now quivering with hard-pent excitement, he nodded.
The girl retired to the wigwam and was presently back again no longer
wearing the bear's trophies, but re-arrayed in a triple necklace of
human teeth which encircled her brown throat in shining rows, whilst
three scalps swung and dangled from her waist-band.
A low cry of utter wonder broke from the circle of spectators, and rose
louder as, in obedience to her husband's eye, she made the circuit
of the ring, exhibiting these undreamed-of wonders to the astonished
braves with a sort of shy bravado. Scalps?--these were not the scalps
of old men, or of women, but of top-knotted braves. The teeth, too,
were not milk-teeth, but the unworn, fully-fanged grinders of men.
She returned to her place upon the bear-skin pursued by admiring
glances. All kept silence, not even Honk-Ah had any remarks to offer or
explanations to suggest. Pŭl-Yūn arose again.
"My cousin is hard to satisfy. A brave who has killed his bear in
single fight is still unworthy to meet my cousin. I ask my chief, I ask
myself and you--nay, I will ask my cousin--Who is worthy to meet so
great a warrior as Honk-Ah?--
"And, here is my answer!" he turned to his wife, "Behold my squaw,
Dêh-Yān is her name, she is wearing the scalps of three braves, they
were strong braves and great runners, a winter war-party (Gow-Loo,
Pongu and Low-Mah were their names). They were well-armed, behold their
axes and knives! They ambushed my wife, set upon her as she bent over
a trap; so much did I see of the fight with these eyes, looking from
the cave where I lay foot-fast. Did she fly screaming to me?--No, she
thought for me; she led them away from our cave, a long chase, oh, a
hard chase! one whole day. But this I cannot speak of particularly
for I did not see it. Late that night she returned to me with these
scalps. They were fresh then, new-stripped. Does my cousin, who speaks
of down-falls and pits, think that my squaw took all three braves in a
pit at one running? In a _hopo_, say, like a drove of horse? Does he
think in his heart that these young warriors gave their hair and their
teeth to a girl for love?" The speaker laughed merrily at the idea,
and save Honk-Ah, everyone within hearing laughed with him; he stilled
the merriment with upraised hand and turned to his antagonist.
"Once again I ask him whether he will play at the spear-throwing with
this brave, my squaw?"
The speaker paused for a reply, and in the silence which followed
braves and women alike craned for a better view of the face of the man
whom he challenged, who was squatting upon his heels glowering upon
his rival, the fingers of his throwing-hand tightening, slackening and
again tightening around the shaft of his assegai.
An answer of some sort he must make, but, what answer would pass?
Whilst he debated the foreign woman stooped, took her husband's bow
from the ground, chose her a single dart and approached the crease. She
turned and scrutinised the mark, the creel now denuded of the badger's
skin. The stake upon which it hung protruded through the wicker for the
length of half an arm. Watched by all she stood serenely at gaze, then,
threw up her chin and called to a woman at the other end of the lists.
"O woman, there!--thou with the papoose!--I want a mark. Wilt hang
something small, say a moccasin, upon the top of that stake? I thank
thee, sister!"
A gust of astonished laughter arose, what foolery, what bravado was
this?--There hung a child's mitten, an impossible mark, such as no
brave had ever set for himself or for his rival. Again arose the clear,
mellow woman's voice, using their own tongue with just a touch or two
of foreignness in its intonations--
"O my father and chief, may I throw at this mark?--I will throw but
once."
The old chief turned first to Honk-Ah, but the man sate mute and glum
as though the business was no concern of his. Then to the woman he
turned and nodded assent: doubting as did the rest, Pŭl-Yūn excepted.
[Illustration: DREW SWIFTLY, AND AS SWIFTLY LOOSED]
Dêh-Yān fitted arrow to string and half bent the great bow, still
keeping her eye upon the tiny mark, then with a small sweet laugh she
tripped back from the throwing-crease five full strides, drew swiftly
and to the ear and as swiftly loosed. Twang! the cord sang shrill in
the morning air, the arrow sped, and a whoop of sheer delight broke
from the watching tribe, for the shaft had struck the mitten full, had
pierced and transfixed it. The archer had watched the flight of her
shaft with a hard bright eye, now she turned and tripped back to her
husband's side without a side-glance, as if such marksmanship was all
in her day's work, a thing of nought. Doubt not that her little heart
was high within her bosom, but no vaunting word escaped her lips.
Dêh-Yān was great.
The old chief was upon his feet. Would his nephew throw? 'Twas a fair
challenge.
"On some other day--perhaps," muttered Honk-Ah, confusedly.
"To-day, and now, my cousin,--or not at all, and never!" retorted
Pŭl-Yūn. "And, bethink thee, it is not now for the war-chieftaincy that
thou art bidden to throw--that is lost to thee--but for its reversion.
Wilt thou stand third in the tribe by out-throwing my wife?--No!--then
thou art nought, just a brave among my braves, no more, whilst she
leads the war-parties in my absence."
"That is so,--I say it," said the old chief, stilling the clamour that
was arising among the braves. "Here stands my daughter, no foreign
woman, but a full member of the tribe; no squaw but a brave, and a very
great spearman."
"_Witch!_" screamed the cousin bounding to his feet and whirling back
his spear. In the twinkling of an eye he had quivered and had hurled
it at the shapely bosom of Dêh-Yān. But the grey chief stepped before
her with upraised hands and lips opening in rebuke that was never to
be uttered. Straight betwixt those upraised hands sped the spear, and
drove its keen chert head deep through the neck-cordage and into the
great throat artery of the father of the tribe.
The bright life-blood spouted high and wide. The stricken man
staggered, but kept his feet, composedly folded his arms and stood
awaiting his death.
A bitter cry of horror burst from the circle of braves, a shriller wail
from the outer ring of women, and as the uproar grew the tall figure of
the ancient leader was seen to totter, sway and fall.
Pŭl-Yūn had leaped to his feet snatching right and left for axe and
knife in the blind impulse of wrath. Honk-Ah, horror-struck at his
impiety, stood for some breaths covering his wide open mouth with his
hand, a petrifaction of remorse, whilst his friends fell away from him
as from an infected thing; then, seeing his enemy and master, the new
chief, in whose hand lay his life and his limbs to torture at his will,
bounding across the open circle towards him, he turned and fled with
winged feet.
He had yet a chance, not only for life alone, but for far more than
life, for the chieftaincy of the tribe! If he could reach covert and
maintain himself alive for ten days and ten nights the Headship of the
Sun-Men was his.
Such was the Custom of the Tribe. Such was the rule of succession of
the Priests of Nemi (Kings of the Grove) down to the times of the
Antonines; such, within living memory, was the law of the Red-skins of
the Middle States.
The timber was near; with such a start and on so short a course escape
seemed possible. Save those of the head-wife, bent in agony upon the
resolutely-composed face of her dying lord, the eyes of all were upon
the runners, who had reached a hundred strides from the lists and were
nearing the edge of the scrub. The avenger of blood carried nought
but an axe, he ran desperately, but haltingly, for his leg failed
him, suddenly he stopped, threw, and missed! Honk-Ah drew away, and
then,--all was momentary, whence came it?--What was happening?--it was
done! A cry "_Moon, help me!_" had shrilled,--a tense string had hummed
behind the backs of the gazing crowd, a light fledged assegai had
sped its curve over their heads, had dipped and was sticking between
the working shoulder-blades of the murderer. A throw prodigious and
incredible!--The stricken man ran staggering for a few paces, then
his head went forward and he pitched upon his face, struggled to his
knees and strove to rise. But Pŭl-Yūn was after him with the long
leaping strides of the master-wolf when he hurls himself at the flank
of the sinking buck. He was upon him, a knife rose and fell, all was
over. Why did he not take his scalp?--For what was he waiting? To
whom beckoning? Round wheeled the tribe to see more of the thrower of
that amazing cast, and met Dêh-Yān, last night the foreign woman, and
now the just-admitted brave, her black eyes burning, her white teeth
a-glitter in the glory of victory. Bow in hand she broke through the
throng, her light limbs twinkled as she raced to her husband's side.
Her bow she cast down, her knife was out, an avenging fury she knelt
upon her fallen foe and tore away his scalp as the falcon strips the
breast-bone of a partridge.
Her shriek of triumph ended in a peal of elvish laughter. Shall we
blame her? No, nor praise. Why should we? Here stands a primitive human
document. This was no product of nursery, High School and drawing-room,
nor was she an unsexed termagant of the slum, neither super-civilised
nor residual. No, nor an abnormality, but something above a typical
woman of the Old Stone Age, a fine specimen, if you will, of woman
as we know her in the shaping, half-way up from the ridge-browed,
spidery-armed, dog-toothed Forerunner, who, some hundred thousand years
or so earlier, had dropped from her tree at the cry of her fallen
piccaninny, and, greatly daring, had beaten off a hyena with a club.
There, indeed stood the First Parent whom we need recognise, for, past
gainsaying the crucial moment was that which found us upon firm ground
instead of clinging to a branch, which saw us upon two feet instead of
four, and with a tool in hand.
The difference betwixt that far-away, hirsute, anthropoid heroine
who discovered the club, and her distant descendant who invented the
bow, was great, but was chiefly physical. The lengthening of the
lower limbs and the shortening of the upper, changes in the forms
of the extremities, a progressive opening of the facial angle, and
modifications in eye, ear, and spinal column had obliterated the ape
and brought to the birth a stalwart savage, ingenious, artistic, and
in many ways distinctively human, without sensibly raising the moral
standard. Yet another hundred thousand years, more or less, would have
to elapse ere a Voice should cry "_Love your enemies!_"
The Master-Girl had already once in her life gone as far in that
direction as could be expected of her. There were no tribal or
religious sanctions for sparing the life of a ruffian who had shed the
blood of the father of his people in a treacherous attempt upon the
wife of his cousin.
Leaving the corpse to the care of whom it might concern, and her
weapons to her husband, Dêh-Yān strode back to the lists swinging
the dripping scalp around her head, singing her chant of triumph,
transfigured, her six feet of supple bronze seeming to o'ertop
the tallest brave of her tribe. They drew away from her cowering,
deprecating her incantation and the magical potencies of her glance
and hand; a priestess confessed.
Meanwhile the widowed head-wife rent the air with her wailing; to her
the victor addressed herself, a woman to a woman. The mourner had seen
nothing, knew nothing, nor understood what had befallen, until in
answer to her passionate appeals for vengeance upon the slayer of her
lord, the newcome foreign woman laid in her hands the wet scalp of the
murderer.
The braves returning from stepping-out the full distance of that still
only just credible cast, found the head-wife of their dead chief
grovelling at the feet of the New Leader.
"Dêh-Yān," said her husband tremulously, himself half afraid of this
prodigy to whom he found himself mated, "will it please thee to draw
thy shaft?--they--we--do not seem to care to lay hand to it. It is
still fast in his heart. Its head was small enough to pass between his
back-ribs. Thou wilt remember the arrow--the last of thy making."
"The white ptarmigan's feather? Yes, I prayed to my Totem for its luck
when I made it; and again as I loosed. What are they saying?"
"They are hailing thee chieftainess--Yes, and I, too, hail thee!" He
came near, very near, to prostrating himself, but something in her eye,
some movement of her lip deprecated, forbade.
From that hour the Master-Girl's influence was paramount.
* * * * *
That shot converted the braves of the Sun Totem from spear-throwers to
bowmen. In time, and as it seemed, but just in time, an archer-force,
equipped and trained by their chieftainess, encountered the long
anticipated raid of the Lynx-Men. The rout of the invaders was signal
and complete. Timely warning of their presence was given by the young
Good Wolves which the Master-Girl had taught her people to domesticate:
these warders of the dimness before the dawn held up the advance guard
of the foe with bristling backs and shining teeth until Dêh-Yān had set
her battle in array. A born general, one of the first, she had silently
thought out her strategy--piously attributing its inspiration and
success to her Totem--the horned moon, whose very form she imitated in
the marshalling of her little force.
This naked woman-savage had evolved from her own clear brain the
most consistently successful tactic of all subsequent warfare, that
deceptive movement which consists in refusing battle by the attacked
centre whilst delivering counterstrokes from the converging flanks.
"The Lynx-Men are very stout-hearted," she said. "They have carried
matters their own way for many years, you tell me. It is well, O
Pŭl-Yūn, for I would have them charge us as an old boar charges,
without thought of turning or looking to left or right," she laughed
low in her throat, but her eye was hard and bright, her braves watched
her as growing boys watch a man. "Now we have them," she cried, as
battle was joined, "remember, if one of them falls by a _spear_ of ours
I shall want to know whose spear it was that transgressed!"
A minute later and the Sun-Men's centre, a special force of spearmen,
trained to practice the ruse, after wasting their assegais at
idle range, were in full retreat upon the stockade--_and their
bows!_--whilst ambuscaded archery was closing in upon both flanks. The
enemy, stubborn, haughty and with an unbeaten record, saw nothing, knew
nothing, until, clambering one upon another at the stockade like bees
that swarm, their backs felt the dreadfully-piercing small javelins of
their despised foes, whilst the bowmen behind the stockade struck them
down faster than they could climb.
They died there to a man; not one escaped. It was a war-party of
Sun-Men disguised in Lynx trappings which took the news of the defeat
to the Quarry-camp. This was the Master-Girl's counterstroke; she led
it--as the song that was sung for many generations told--led it in the
weed of a captive woman, one of a crowd of women, and of braves decked
out as women, who marched with dishevelled hair and down-cast heads
and with hoppled hands!--but with their bows borne for them by their
(supposed) captors, ready at need. The surprise was absolute and final.
The Lynx Totem was blotted out, only the young unproved girls and the
smallest of the toddling boys were reserved to be incorporated in the
Sun-and-Moon Clan, the first of many similar acts of adoption.