CHAPTER IX
THE KITCHEN-MIDDENITES
Great rollers were coming in upon what must be a rugged beach, for their clamour was appalling. Such roaring, thunderous sound of water I did not remember to have heard before, and I wondered where I was. It was dark where I lay upon what seemed a mass of weed in a hut-like place, having at the side a low door reminding one of the entrance to a burrow of some animal. It was nearing morning now, for it began slowly to grow lighter and I could distinguish my surroundings better. There was little to consider, though upon one side of the strange place lay what I knew to be a stone axe such as I had carried once, and there were other things which might be weapons, but the use of some of which I could not then understand. I knew well that I could not be quite myself, else I would remember more. I was dazed as I had seen wild beasts sometimes become when great rocks had been rolled down from heights above and some had been struck upon the head and wandered about unknowingly and helplessly. Only I had no pain. I felt strong, and I was hungry.
I crawled out through the low doorway and looked about me. There was much to see. In the east was the glow of the rising sun, its first clear rays making glitter the crests of the rollers which were tumbling and roaring in over reefs and boulders, and climbing far up a long sandy beach. There had been a storm. The beach, which was a wide one, extended from the shore backward to nearly the edge of a dense forest, and along this edge rose a great line of huts from some of which smoke was arising. The huts were rude affairs, built of driftwood and brush and resembling generally the one I had just emerged from, which stood at the southern end of the long line. There was something more. Directly in front of the line of huts, and parallel with them, rose a mound of regular height almost equalling that of the huts themselves and cutting off the view of the sea save where wide passages led through it here and there. It was the view of this mound which brought me to my senses, for, as I now knew, I had been dazed only by a dream, a dream of warm winds and hunting. All that was gone now, and I knew that I was but looking upon the huts inhabited by my own people, the shell-fish eaters, and that the vast mound extending before them, and which exhaled a mighty odour, was but the refuse of our eating. The “Kitchen-middens,” were such mounds as these to be called by far distant future peoples. Not alone were shells in the mound, but the bones of countless birds and beasts and fish, for we were hunters and fishermen as well as plunderers of the enormous beds of oysters and mussels and cockles and other shell-fish, and of the toothsome sea-snails in the shallow waters. It was to our disadvantage, though we did not know it, that such an abundance of sea food lay at our very doors, for so we had become more slothful and indifferent and were making no advancement. This I knew because when any accretions to our numbers on our peninsula crossed the narrow strait we called the Skaw, between us and the mainland, they bore better weapons than we and knew more of many things. We remained as we had been when our first ancestors crossed from the lands beyond the Kattegat—the sea bay connected at its ends with those seas the North and Baltic—and remained upon this jutland because of the abundant shell-beds they discovered.
Better for us had we all been hunters and far rangers. It was a land for it, this Jutland. Wonderful flint, the finest for spear and arrow-heads and knives, abounded everywhere, and game was plentiful. What quarry for skilled hunters there was in those great forests of pine, at this time yielding fast to other forests of beech and oak, and on the grassy plains of the interior! There were wandering herds of reindeer and white elk and the urus and red deer; there were bears and wolves and lynx and wild boars and a host of the smaller things. In the streams were many beaver; in the lakes were swan and geese and lesser waterfowl, and in the marshes millions of woodcock and other birds as succulent. But of all this spoil of bird and beast we took slight toll because of our ease of living, though there were hunters among us and men who were not lacking in courage. Some of the more hardy had crossed the peninsula to the western shore against which rolled the sea. It was told that one adventurer had even put forth to the northward in his boat and had been sucked down into the great maelstrom there which roars by Varo Island.
None remained upon this shore, because the winds were chill and there were no beds of shell-fish to make the living easier. On our own side, it is true, the winters were cold, but some of the game remained in the forest, there was still the fishing, through the ice or from the boats far out, and we had always much provided of dried meat and fish, and were never in danger of absolute starvation. We were as listless as the seals, which minded not the seasons.
At work in the shell beds we were indeed expert, either in the digging at low tide or in the dredging from boats with rakes made of wood with teeth of stag’s horn, and at the fishing, as well, we were all skilful. The big fish were no safer from us than were the smaller ones. Those which were accustomed to come to the surface of the water we hunted with javelins barbed with bone. To the end of the javelin’s shaft would be attached a strong cord at the end of which was fastened securely an inflated bladder. The javelin we could throw to a long distance and with the greatest surety, and the fishing with it was most successful. The impaled fish might dive deeply, but the wind-filled bladder would pull upward and, as the fish neared the surface, reveal his whereabouts; another javelin cast into him would make his diving still more difficult until, at last, he became exhausted and, so, easily speared. Sometimes not the javelin, but the bow, would be used in this sort of fishing. There were the leister or fish trap, too, which was of service and of course, and, chiefly, the barbed bone hooks we used upon our lines. We were an indolent people, we of the kitchen middens, yet we might have been still more so had there been caves along the shore such as we knew were inhabited by those who lived in other regions, but there were no such natural homes to occupy, and we must build our own shelters against wild beasts and winter’s cold. This was by no means difficult, for driftwood and the wood of the forest were at our hands, and our homes were but rude ones, varying in size according to the number in the family, some built up squarely, but most of them not unlike my own in shape. In summer they were not uncomfortable, and in winter they were covered with sods or earth, and were kept warmer by a skin across the entrance and the burning of beech sticks in shells filled with oil from the seal or certain fish. Sometimes in winter, too, blocks of ice would be built up into an enclosure of the huts, keeping out the cold as well as could anything else. Fuel of all kinds was about us, but we paid little attention to our fires in any weather. We had become hardened to the climate.
To the south our land was endless, so far as we could tell, but we knew its boundaries well to the north and east and west. To the west were the blending seas; the Kattegat lay east of us, with no great island in sight, but with many little islets along the shore. Upon these islets a few of our people lived since the shell beds were beside and among them, and there was gained an added degree of safety from any sudden danger. It was easy to row to the nearby shore for hunting or for any other purpose.
Toward the north our peninsula gradually lessened in width until it ended in the Skagen Rock. Between us and the rock was a weary distance, along which, not near together, but wherever the shell beds were, lived other clans of our race, with whom we had slight dealing.
Of laws or government we had little, though we usually recognized a sort of chief, a man not regularly elected but coming to the place by a sort of general admission, because of his own good qualities, or his shrewdness. To old Rolf, our leader, I was the main support and aid in most of what he sought to accomplish, first because I was the strongest of our clan and the greatest ranger of the forest and most careless of risk, and more, it may be, since I was a silent man, unmated and unlikely to be fooled or thwarted. We were friends, and, after a fashion, as I have said, he relied upon me much. We did not need laws greatly, even such as were observed by the more savage tribes of which we had heard. In such ease did we live that there was no battling for food or clothing and, if sometimes there was rivalry for the possession of a woman, she was left to decide the matter herself, and it was rarely that the loser complained when he thus had two against him. We were not all of an aggressive ancestry, as was plain, though, on occasion, we could show courage. We were bold either in or upon the water—I have seen a man kill a shark with a flint knife, and have seen another dive many times in treacherous eddies to bring upward and to life again one which had gone down stunned from a blow—but very rarely were there affrays, and few cared to face the dangerous forest creatures; I alone rejoiced in that. It may be that I was of a different breed from my companions, that there was a strain in me of some far back marauder of the region from which our tribe had come. Of that I cannot tell; I only know that I liked the forest better than the water, and the hunting better than the fishing. Much was I relied upon for meat and skins, for which I received oysters and fish and oil and many other things I needed, such as weapons of flint and whatever else I lacked in my living. Always I hunted alone.
Not much did most of the shell-fish people think. Each day sufficed for itself, though a little they regarded the strange things that no man may understand. Our dead, we knew, would not come back to us, yet we had regard for the bodies, and buried them deeply beneath great heaps of stones in a rocky place not far from the village. We did not want wolves to get them, and there was, besides, another feeling which I cannot explain. One of the old men said that the dead would come back after many years, but none of us believed him. If it were so, why did not those who died very long ago appear? And why should we die at all? But upon these matters we did not think much. We ate and slept.
Dull, though, as were usually the people of the clan, the strange and mysterious would sometimes arouse as it alarmed them. There was one time when even the bravest of the hunters feared to venture deeply into the forest at night, especially toward a little lake to the west where the urus were accustomed to feed and beside which, on the north, was a stretch of forest with dim winding paths beneath the shadow of its dense foliage and many pools fringed with the rich grass the urus liked. Concerning this forest strange tales began to go about in the clan. There was a ghostlike monster there—perhaps the thing that made the wind bring pestilence and death as it had once in the past—a great white shape that moved about in the dark alleys of the forest, and which was not a thing to be wisely faced by man. More than one of the hunters declared he had seen the white thing, and the people dreaded to enter the woods in search of fruit or nuts and roots. Over all this I puzzled much. What could the white thing be? After much persuasion, I induced Leuk, one of the hunters, to go with me at night to learn, if we might, what was the mystery. It was with difficulty that I secured his company, but, in truth, I did not greatly care to go alone. There are many things of which we do not know. It was somewhat of a dark night on which we went, but I knew that the moon would rise in time and that we could see about us more distinctly. It did not take us long to reach the lake, and there we waited, hidden in a thicket by its shore.
From the forest near us came many sounds. There were the “pad-padding” along of the smaller hunting creatures, calls of the night birds and sometimes the snarl of the prowling wood-cat, but above these and continuous was another noise, one of crashing of branches in the thickets as some large body passed through them, and the thud of ponderous feet and frequent husky gruntings. I knew that the urus were feeding in the glades.
Very near us was an opening, or rather a sort of indentation, in the forest, and across this in the dimness we could see dark shadows passing, though we could not distinguish what they were. After a time these moving shadows disappeared. And then, all at once, loomed up a great white shape, passing, without a sound it seemed, across the glade!
Leuk sank shudderingly to the ground, and I, with a feeling in my belly and throat I did not like, stood gazing at where the ghostly thing had disappeared. We did not speak; we but waited in wonder and, it may be, with not a little apprehension; and as we thus waited the moon rose, and through the open space to the eastward poured her light upon the lake and its surroundings, making all nearly light as day. And then, almost at the moment, emerged with stately tread from the forest into the glade again, a majestic snow-white urus!
Our fear was gone, but it was succeeded by a great astonishment. Who had ever before seen the marvel of a white urus? I had, it is true, seen a white crow, and once a snow-white beaver, and knew that such things happened, but such freak of what makes living things was a wonder on such a scale. However, the mystery was solved and the fear which was undefined departed from the clan, though it was long before the more timid lingered much about the pleasant lake. Greatly did I desire the skin of the white urus, but he had drifted away with his companions and I never saw him again. The needless scare had taught the people no lesson. They had still the dread of the mysterious.
So passed the inactive and indifferent days, but not for long with me.
There came the strangest, as it was the most important, adventures of my life. Near the point of our northward extending Jutland had grown up a fierce and vigorous clan, greater hunters and fighters than we, who had decided to leave the place they inhabited, because of the exhaustion of their oyster beds. Such movement by a clan was no uncommon thing, because, though the hunting and fishing might be usually good, there were times when they failed, and, besides, as was considered by my own people, the oysters and mussels and other shell-fish were easier to gather and had, furthermore, become the food to which the people were most accustomed and which, some thought, best nourished them. Far to the south and past our own and other clans must this one go to where it was said there were more beds of great richness. There were sometimes runners between the clans, and we knew of the migrating band which was already on its way. It chanced that I, at this time, was about to set out on a solitary hunt to the northward to reach the shores of a bay where were many of a small animal, a sort of sable, having a wonderful fur of which I wished to secure enough to make a cloak, not because I wished to wear such a cloak myself, but because I might trade it for many things.
I was two days on my journey and reached the bay as night was coming on. I made a fire, turning a sharpened stick swiftly into a dry one, as was our way—the fire being necessary to keep at a distance the prowling beasts—and, after eating my supper of dried venison and fish, lay down to sleep. It was not for long. I was awakened by noises in the wood to the north, and, seizing my weapons, slipped into the dense bushes at the edge of the forest. The noise I had heard was that of the loud voices of men, and I did not know who these strange wanderers might be. They emerged presently upon the beach, a great company of men, women and children. Some of the men gathered about my fire curiously and there was discussion, but they made no search in the wood. They thought, doubtless, that it had been built by some wandering hunter whom their advance had frightened. They were right in that. My apprehension did not go when, as they began the building of many more fires, intending to encamp, I had a good view of them in the light of the growing flames.
The men were a stalwart lot and somewhat more fierce of aspect than were the men of my own clan. The women, too, seemed fuller breasted and more robust. One I noted particularly, a magnificent creature with yellow hair, who was moving about the fire, where stood a big man who seemed in authority and whom I recognized at once. It was old Horsen, chief of the migrating clan, and this was to be one of their stations on the march. I liked not the look of Horsen. I went farther into the forest and made myself a bed of leaves in a thicket, kindling no fire to attract the notice of the wanderers. As for the dangerous wild beast, bear, wolf or lynx, they would not remain in the region of the noisy camp. I slept soundly.
I awoke as day was breaking and, for a time, was undecided what to do, though, certainly, my first object must be to learn from their actions if the invaders thought to encamp by the little bay for any length of time. I crept cautiously to a place near the wide stretch of beach where the trees and bushes were thickest and, peering out from there, saw what convinced me that the band would remain there for some days, probably to renew their supplies by hunting and fishing. They had brought with them a number of light canoes, such as could be easily carried by two men, and, early as it was, I saw fishermen out upon the waters. The rude skin tents erected were pegged down firmly, the people near the morning fires were moving about slowly, while, here and there, were men engaged in examining their bows and other weapons, and consulting together and pointing in different directions. Apparently they were going on a hunt. I felt assured they would not depart from the region at once.
My plans regarding the hunting of the little sable were surely thwarted, but it seemed to me that it would be a wise thing to lurk about for a time, if I could do so with safety, and so learn more fully what manner of people these were and how their advent on their southward march might possibly affect my clan. We surpassed them in numbers somewhat, but they were fierce of appearance and the men were all well armed. Their bows seemed better than ours, they were longer and heavier, and their spears were many of them made smooth, as I could see when the sun shone on them. These wanderers might be peaceful, but it was well that my clan should be prepared. Our oyster and mussel beds and excellent fishing grounds were prizes worth the taking, and peace between clans was a string of bark at best.
Soon after a great number of the men of the camp—more than half of them—gathered in a body equipped for the hunt, and entered the forest toward the southwest. Evidently they were going to hunt on a large scale, as we sometimes did, extending a line in a great semicircle and bringing in the ends, thus enclosing whatever game might be near us in our front. That they would not hunt save at a long distance from the camp I knew, because the commotion there had driven the game away, and so I felt certain that they would not return until nearly nightfall. Many others of the men were fishing and there remained in the camp only a few of the less active, and the women and children. What a chance, I thought, for a surprise by an enemy!
There was no longer such extreme need for caution in my movements, and so I wandered about through the forest, thinking that I might surprise a grouse or some other bird, to give variety to my supper. I was unsuccessful, and, wearied of the search, at last threw myself upon the ground in a little glade closely surrounded by trees and a thicket and entered only by a narrow pathway made by the creatures of the forest. I was soon asleep, for, necessarily, I had rested but little during the night.
How long I slept I do not know, but I awoke with the feeling that something alive was near me, a faculty common to us people of the shore and woods, who must always be, even unknowingly, exerting our senses for safety’s sake. I rose slowly to my feet and stood facing the woman with the yellow hair whom I had seen talking with Horsen the night before! I think we were equally startled, but it was the maiden who spoke first.
“Who are you?” she said.
Her language was like my own, for only one speech was known along the coast, and I understood her readily, and understood, as well, that she was not afraid. I scarcely knew how to answer her. “I am a hunter,” I replied, “from a village two days to the south.”
“Sit down,” she said, “and tell me about it.”
So we sat down upon the grass, the pleasant sun shining upon us, and I told her all I thought best of our people and of our way of living. She made no comment for a little time and then said, thoughtfully: “I think it is better than ours.”
As I sat there looking at her it came to me that there was none like her in my own clan, none so stately and brave, as she had shown herself, and, assuredly, none so good to look upon. There were yellow-haired women there, but none with such deeply yellow masses of it; there were women of excellent form, but none so finely straight and slender, yet full-bosomed and rounded of leg and arm. I could not keep my eyes from her. I wanted her.
We sat there talking long. She had come into the forest seeking the berries which grew in the thickets and so had found me. I told her of my name, Scar, and she in turn told me that her name was Freya, that she was the daughter of the leader, Horsen, and that the encampment was to continue for five days, when the march southward would be taken up again. And more we said. It was wonderful, my great good fortune, but we became friends as those the Something which I do not understand may sometimes make us. She promised that she would not betray my nearness and that she would come to the little glade again at the same time on the morrow.
And the story of what followed in the next three days it seems to me must have been a very old one, for I had seen what was somewhat like it among the lovers of my own clan. We, Freya and I, came to know our hearts and what was within us very well. We knew that if we were apart it would not be as good as if we were together always. She was faithfully daring. On the fourth evening she came to me in her jacket and short skirt of wolf skin, with her necklace and armlets of bright beads, and carrying her cloak of fur and her bow and quiver of arrows. She could use the bow, she said. We fled together into the forest, and it was when we were perhaps a league from the camp that our first misfortune came. We saw at not a great distance from us one of the clan returning from the hunt, and he discovered us as well. He seemed to pay little attention, though, perhaps thinking me one of his own band, but we knew that when Freya was missed it would be known that her companion was a stranger, and that there would be swift and fierce pursuit. It could not be known yet where we were going, and the trackers must move slowly. All night we hurried at our utmost speed without the risk of exhaustion and then hid in the depths of a great swamp. We were safe enough for a time, and a full day, we judged, ahead of the certain pursuit. Old Horsen was not one likely to lose a daughter tamely. Yet there came no alarm and, travelling at our best all night and in the day as well, we reached my village in the afternoon. I had been more than doubtful of the manner of my reception when I told of all which had happened, for I had done what might possibly bring the clan into grave trouble did it venture to take up my cause, a most unlikely thing, for a man of the Kitchen-middens did not often fight for love when the love was not his own. We were yet too near the ways of brutes for that.
I need not have been troubled, for the time, at least. The whole village was in a turmoil as we issued from the forest; there was much running and shouting, many boats were on the water, and all excitement was centred upon a huge, dark object which lay among the reefs not a great way from shore and directly in front of the line of huts. I recognized what it was on the moment. It was a great whale stranded, a rare event and a glorious one for the people of the clan. I caught one of the men by the arm and made him tell me how it had come.
A little before noon the people on the beach and those fishing had noted a great commotion of the water quite a distance out at sea, and could not understand it until the foaming and splashing came nearer, for it was approaching the shore rapidly. Then they who had seen the happening often, though never so near the village, recognized what it all meant. A big whale was being attacked by the only enemies he feared in all the ocean, the giant swordfish and the sea fox, as we called it, the thresher, which, with its enormously lengthened body thrown in air, could deliver a blow to crush frightfully into the body of even such a monster as a whale. The attack—for it was no conflict—was a dreadful one, and the victim, in his agony and fear, was heading recklessly and unknowingly directly for the shore. The tide was high, there was a big sea on and, in his senseless and desperate rush, the leviathan came in, on and through the body of a high wave, topped the outer reefs and rocks and pitched floundering among the jagged uprearing mass of rock, a vast prisoner who could not possibly escape. His savage assailants swam up and down outside the reef for a time, as if unwilling to give up their prey, and then took to the deep again, while the whale, deeply wounded, lay gasping where he had been cast until the tide went down, and died there in the shallow water, scarce a hundred yards from land.
The clan had gone half mad with triumph and excitement. Every boat was seized upon, and those who did not possess one swam out, knife or stone axe in teeth, and the body of the whale was attacked by scores upon the side which lay nearest the village. It was a monstrous and welcome prize and there would be much immediate feasting, for whale meat was a fine thing, and there would be blubber for all. The candles of dried beech splinters stuck into the shell filled with oil would burn merrily in every hut. There would be bone for an hundred uses, and it was no wonder that all were boisterously happy. As for me, I hurried Freya to my own hut and left her there, for it was necessary that we, too, should have our share of the great booty at hand. Time and again I filled my boat with blubber and skin which I cut away from the tremendous carcass, so working until nightfall, when I had a towering mass of it heaped up beside the hut by my helpful Freya, to be better disposed of when the whale had been entirely stripped. We ate, and then the danger which threatened us came sharply to my mind again. I would see old Rolf, chief of the clan, so far as we recognized a chief, and to his hut I straightway went.
Not a man of great strength or courage above others was old Rolf, but he was friendly to me as I have told, and wise in his way and very crafty. I doubted, though, if he would be of much active aid to me in my strait on this occasion. He received my story as I thought he would.
Very grave became the old man’s face when I had told him what I had done and what I feared might follow. He thought a little, and, even as he was thus considering there came hurrying to the door of the hut, directed by some of the clan, two runners from the advancing force of Horsen, who demanded that they might talk with him at once.
Very brief was the speech of the runners. Horsen had told them that his daughter had been stolen by one of our clan, and that when his band reached our village on its journey the daughter must be returned and the man who had taken her given over for punishment. Otherwise, the approaching clan would take the man and woman by force.
The action of old Rolf was better and shrewder now than I had hoped for. He knew nothing of the matter, he said. If such a thing had happened, surely the man and woman would be given up, for such stealing of women was a thing prohibited between the clans. He must first know, however, if the outrage had really been done. He would make all inquiries, and would act as was right when the clan of Horsen appeared. Meanwhile, when they came there must be a feast of the two peoples together. The runners went away.
Turning to me then old Rolf made short comment:
“We will not give you up if we can help it; you are too great a hunter and fisherman to lose. But you must hide away in some of the many deep thickets of the marsh to the southwest, near where is the blasted pine upon the little island there. I will send a runner to you to-morrow to tell you of what has happened.”
I bowed my head. Evidently there was nothing else to do. It was, anyhow, better than I had feared. That night Freya and I fled to the distant little island in the marsh. I thought but slightly of it as a refuge.
We took food and warm cloaks with us to the marsh and were not uncomfortable, but I was in fear of our discovery, and much I planned. Then came the promised runner in the afternoon, a man named Stor, who was my friend. Horsen, he said, had grumblingly accepted the invitation to the feast old Rolf had offered, because his people were eager for the whale meat, but a serious thing had happened. I had been betrayed by some enemy and it was known to Horsen that Freya had indeed been taken away by one of our clan, who, as old Rolf explained propitiatingly, had fled in the night to some unknown place and could not be produced. Why, he added, should this be the cause of trouble between the clans? He, himself, with the men of his people, would assist in the hunt for the fugitive and in the rescue of the daughter. Yet this, Stor said, did not satisfy the vengeful Horsen. He had demanded that his men search every hut in our village, which had been consented to readily enough, but which search, of course, had no result. The immediate region round about had been explored as well, with equal barrenness of issue, and Horsen was in a rage. Even to the feast the men of either clan were going armed. After that the country would be scoured and, Stor thought, there could be no escape for us. I knew that he was right. I thought much upon it, and a great plan came to me!
That night Freya and I returned to a place near the village and, making no sound, crept into our own hut at midnight. A storm was brewing, as I had foreseen in the afternoon. I had two boats, one much larger than the other. I crept out in the darkness and found them and brought them together to my hut. Such was the difference in size that I could put the smaller one within the other, and this I did.
Long before day came, when only the fishermen were out, seeking a reef where they seemed to be always most successful at this strange hour, I went boldly down to the beach with the courageous Freya and there we embarked with difficulty in the teeth of the gale which was making the waves roll high. We were seen by some of our people, but they gave no alarm. Well it was for us now that I was a strong rower else we would have never got to sea. We succeeded, though, and later passed the daring group of fishermen who were out already nearly a league from shore and were letting down their lines. As we passed they shouted and, a little later, I saw one of them suddenly put about and begin to row toward the village. I knew my enemy now. It was still dark. I rowed on until the fishermen were lost to sight, and then Freya and I accomplished a feat, for, perched on each end of the larger boat, we managed to get the lesser one out beside us and to enter it despite the turbulence of the waters. The larger boat we cast adrift to tell its story of our seeming drowning. We had done well. I changed my course now and rowed well to the north. I did not wish to be seen again by the fishermen. I laboured in this direction for some time and then, after a struggle to keep the narrow boat well balanced, to avoid swamping in the rough waves, I turned my course directly toward the village. If I could only gain it before the darkness passed! We reached it at last, for I rowed furiously, and were soon beside the whale, on its seaward side. That had been my goal! Lashed in the bottom of the boat were a broad-bladed stone axe, keen of edge, and a long stone knife as sharp. I broke the axe from its fastenings and, while Freya held the boat against the dead monster’s side, I worked as I had never worked before. I cut deeply, in a line up and down and half the height of a man, and cut a parallel line at a distance of a yard from the first one. Next I connected these two cuttings by a similar one at the bottom. From this bottom cutting I worked inward until I could lift the skin a little in a flap, which I could turn upward and then chopped into the flesh with all my might, casting it into the sea as I freed it, where it was gorged in a moment by the hungry awaiting fish. I was making a little cave in the whale.
Furiously I laboured and soon had made a hollow in the flesh large enough to hold two people, a cave having a close-fitting flap for a doorway and invisible to all outside. Into this cave I lifted Freya and the food we had provided. Before I followed her I drove my axe through the bottom of the boat, making a great gap through which the water crushed in and sank the craft as I clambered upward to join my assisting mate. I could recover and mend the boat later if ever safety came to us. We were together in warmth and darkness, relieved of something of our fears. Had ever man and mate such harbourage before?
There came faintly to us, at last, the sound of shouting. I pressed aside a little of the flap and saw a fleet of boats being launched upon the now almost raging waters. They were filled by Horsen’s men, confident seemingly of capturing us if we were still alive in our frail cockleshell. There was no place where we might elude their sight, unless, keeping always ahead of them, we could pass the sea to far Lesso, half way across the Kattegat, a feat impossible in such a boat as ours.
We settled down to endure as best we might. From outside faint sounds came to us, and when I ventured cautiously to press the edge of the flap aside into a crack I could hear the tumult of many voices and knew that they were working feverishly upon the whale, but this did not disturb me. I knew that they would work only on the landward side where was shallow water, and knew, too, that they would not reach us for some days. The whale was a huge one.
The first night passed quietly and we slept well. What courage showed my mate! In the early morning I peered forth again and saw the boat I had cast adrift lying stranded on the beach. This was as I had planned. There came no unwonted sound from shore, and I decided that there could have been no battle. And so passed three more days, when suddenly sounds became distinct and very near. Our clansmen had almost reached us. I could feel the flesh behind me quivering, and I had a great idea. I chopped vigorously with my axe into the soft blubber and made a hole finally, and bellowed loudly through it. There was a roar of fright which was followed by flight and silence. Then I made the hole much larger and passed through it with Freya and called aloud to my friends who, it must be said, came back most hesitatingly. They thought us come from the bottom of the sea! Soon, though, they were themselves again and told me the story of all relating to Horsen and his band.
The men in the boats seeking us on the water had rowed hard all day in a rough sea, and one boat had capsized and two of its crew were lost. There had been much risk, and when, at night, the boats returned all felt assured that Freya and I must have been lost before we had gone a league. There had been a close search of the country, but they had expected to find nothing and were not disappointed in that. They had returned from the search in an ugly mood, and the vengeful Horsen had seemed about ready for battle, but our clan had its own temper aroused by this time and, upon showing their readiness for the fight, outnumbering the men of Horsen as they did, he had thought better of it, and departed sullenly with his following. We should probably never see any of them again, for the shell-beds they sought were far to the south and there were intervening fjords which must be rounded, making their journey a long and arduous one. So we settled down to peace, Freya becoming an accepted and much regarded woman of the clan. We two sought our hut, and I carried to it more of the blubber of the whale because of the light it would supply us. As for the flesh, we would have none of it. Its odour was too persistent in our nostrils.
The long days passed and the winter came, bitter, even for the region, but little did my Freya and I heed the cold in our hut, upon which I had heaped many sods and before the door of which the indrawn shield of skins fitted too closely to admit the chilly winds. We snuggled, like rabbits, there together in our furs, and ate and slept and were almost as sluggish, though most happily, as were the others about us. Often Freya would stroke the long scar upon my face and press her lips against it. We were different in many ways from our companions. Yet, the winter seemed long, though sometimes I would go floundering through the deep snow on the hunt seeking such game as had not moved southward for the time, and especially the fur-bearers whose pelts now bore their richest covering. Some success I had at this, but I was glad, as was my mate, when the sun shone again more warmly and the snow and ice turned into water. First of all were we to build our fire out in the open.
Warmer and warmer became the days, the snow had gone and there were leaves upon the trees and many flowers upon the ground, of which Freya would twine wreaths in her hair, making her fairer still, if that might be. Then came upon us both a certain longing and a great restlessness, which we could not understand.
It was I, thinking deeply one day while on the hunt, who first recognized the nature of our weariness and discontent. We were not as we should be. So different from the others were we that our lot should not be cast always with them. What should we do? I hastened home to Freya and told her of what was in my mind, and she assented joyously. We would leave the shell-fish eaters!
But what region should we seek, and should we go alone? Not quite all alike were the shell-fish eaters, and I knew of some, especially among the younger men, though some of them were mated, who might be desirous of such adventure. The blood of wandering ancestors was yet in their veins and, in some cases, showed a little of itself despite degeneration. I would talk with these. I did so soon and found some twoscore of the clan who would accompany us gladly, among whom were five women who were mated to five men among them.
We prepared most swiftly for this great adventure, for, now that it was secretly resolved upon, all were most impatient. Carrying our weapons and a store of dried meat and fish—though we thought to live easily on the game we met—the band gathered one night at an appointed place in the forest and thence silently took its departure.
In which direction we should go was a subject of grave debate for a time, but it was at last decided that we should press northward to Skagen Rock and thence cross the narrow strait to the mainland in the two light boats we carried. Especially was this determined upon because I had already travelled over much of the way, and Freya knew the course for the remainder of the journey. We were doubtful about the southward way, for we were ignorant of where the land ended there, not knowing that it was but a part of the mainland and would be our shorter course to the regions we were seeking, which were the lands from which our people had once come. Our decision was most unfortunate. How could we know?
As it chanced, though, all came out as we had expected for the first part of our long march. We avoided the shore of the Kattegat lest we stumble upon other clans of shell-fish eaters, and reached the Skagen Rock and made the passage to the land beyond in safety. Then we took up the march toward the south.
For days we travelled, finding abundant game and suffering no hardships worth the mentioning. As we progressed the climate became warmer, the trees changed more to oak and beech, and we were more and more rejoiced that we had left the now far distant village where was so little life. Then came some apprehension, when we discovered signs of human beings in the trails we came upon, and we moved more cautiously. We could but guess what manner of men these might be. There were stories of tribes upon this borderland who were most ferocious and merciless and who spared none of those whom they might at any time overcome.
We were moving slowly along a broad space between dense forests on either side, one afternoon, when there broke out suddenly from all about us such a fierce and hideous yelling as I had never heard, and from the depths of the wood leaped out a dozen times our number of wild gaunt creatures, better armed than we, who did not hesitate or parley, but sent their arrows upon us in a cloud. More than half of us fell beneath that furious volley, and others went down a moment later before the spears and axes. Crazed, I transfixed one of the savages with my spear as they crowded murderously in upon us, and, even as I did so, saw another sink his axe into the head of one of the women with us. They would spare none. As I thought this, in that brief instant, it brought me comfort. Freya was in my mind. I fought desperately, but what of it? A spear entered my body. Of those who had left the shell-bed country not one remained alive!