The sunlight was filtering down upon me through the broad foliage of a tree of an unfamiliar kind. Birds with hooked bills, brilliant plumage, and squalling voices were flitting among the branches all about. The rank perfume of strange flowers was in my nostrils, and to my ears came a pleasant, distant sound, the softened roar and lapping of waves upon a beach. I was lying in a little glade, wood-surrounded on three sides, but open to the southward. Through the space thus unobscured I could see a blue expanse of sky but nothing more, prone as I was upon the turf, my head resting on what was soft and furry, the folded skin of some wild animal. I was faint and weak; my eyes were opened for a moment only, and then once more I slept. An hour later I awoke again, refreshed and stronger, and, with much difficulty, succeeded in raising myself upon an elbow. My appreciation of things was returning slowly and it seemed to me—I cannot tell why—that I was not alone, that there must be another presence in the glade. I turned my head as well as my position would allow, and looked about me.
Seated upon a little hummock was a woman and, even as I turned, she saw the movement and ran toward me with a glad cry. She was a splendid creature. Tall she was, and her long hair, thrown back uncombed and tangled, swung down below her slender waist. There was down upon her brown arms and her bare legs, and she moved with the swift grace of the tiger or leopard kind. Her mouth was large, and her teeth gleamed sharply, but it was a fair mouth nevertheless, and her eyes were dark and deep. Her only garment was a soft robe of coney skin passing over one shoulder, and leaving half the full bosom exposed. The robe was held close to her body by a belt of some sort and extended to her knees. Brown she was indeed, a creature of the sun and air and storm, yet her skin was smooth and soft. But it was her eyes I saw. They spoke to me.
The appearance of the woman did not surprise me. It seemed a matter of course that she should be there, and my heart leaped as I looked upon her. I was still dazed, but I knew that she belonged to me. There was a sense of protective ownership of her and of a need of her, this savage beauty whom I might smite if she displeased me, but for whom I would battle to the death. She was beside me in a moment, kneeling with a pitying look in her eyes and beginning at once to unwind the strings of inner bark which held in place a huge bandage around my leg not far above the knee. Very gently and carefully she removed the mass of green, wet leaves covering others nearest the flesh. These macerated into a sort of pulp. Cautiously she lifted the mass and there, in my thigh, I saw a gash which had ceased to bleed but which was raw and open. Nor deep nor dangerous was this wound, but evidently I had lost much blood and so had fallen weak and senseless. As gently as she had taken it away the woman renewed the bandages with new pulp and leaves and, the binding finished, she looked at me happily.
“The Boar,” she said.
The boar, the savage boar! Yes, I dimly remembered now. There had been a chase somewhere, and the wild boar had charged me, but where were the rest of my tribe, those I had led away from the devouring of the mammoth, to take up the desperate southward quest? Where were the drifting snows and the fierce winds and bitter cold and awful loneliness, the drowsiness and dream of death?
The bandage in its place, the woman sat beside me and stroked my face softly, but only for a little time. She arose quietly, went a little distance away, curled herself down upon the green turf, and seemed to fall asleep on the instant. Then I realized what it meant. She must have been alert and watching throughout the night, and how much longer I could not tell, and so was wearied, if not near to exhaustion. My own strength I felt returning to me, though when I sought to rise to my feet I failed miserably because of the pain the effort brought to my wounded leg. I crawled to the foot of the tree, and leaning my back against the trunk, sought to collect my scattered senses and realize, if I could, the situation. Where could I be? Who, indeed, was I?
As my glance wandered about it was drawn to certain objects upon the ground not two yards away from me. Only one of them was familiar; it was a stone axe, but the haft was of a different wood and colour from that of the axe with which I had slain the great cave bear, and the heavy blade was polished so that it shone in the sunlight. It was a beautiful axe and I resolved that I must have it, if it were not mine already. Beside the weapon lay something which greatly puzzled me at first. It was a long shaft of some tough wood, but its head was of stone like that of the axe, though of a different shape, long and sharp and pointed and held in the shaft’s split end by knotted sinews. At last I comprehended; it must be a spear, but the only spears we had ever known in the land of cold were long sticks sharpened at the end and charred and hardened in the fire. They were but trifling things compared with what this must be in the fight or hunt.
But it was what remained that most aroused my curiosity and perplexed me. There was a stout, springy length of ash, as long nearly as my own height, with the ends bent toward each other and so held by a strong sinewy cord which stretched between them. Lying beside this curious thing was a number of very slender shafts, each notched at one end and bearing at the other a little stone head shaped like that of the spear. I could not understand them and finally gave up the problem. I crawled back to the skin bundle and lay down and slept again.
It had been mid-forenoon when my latest sleep began; when I awoke it was almost night. I was aroused by the call of a pleasant voice beside me, “Scar! Scar!” and the continuous patting of a hand upon my shoulder. I was wide awake and with my mind all restored in an instant.
“What is it, Otter?” I answered.
She laughed joyously. “You know again; you will soon be well. He struck hard, but the cut is not deep. Soon you will run. Your arrows killed him. We will go and eat.”
All this she said in short, chattering words and with much gesticulation. It was an odd sort of incomplete speech. She helped me to my feet and I found that I could stand without much difficulty. I managed to hobble along by her side, leaning on her heavily. My wound ceased to pain me and my strength was fast returning. As for my dreams of cold and of other things, such as the great beast buried in the snow, they were but dreams, assuredly.
We came out upon a far extending shore, and there, magnificently coloured in blue and crimson by the sky and the setting sun, extending beyond all vision, heaved the mighty sea. How great was then the later named Mediterranean! Far back where now the desert is, lay its unseen southern shores, and the strand upon which we stood lay farther to the north than when existed kingdoms of later ages. The spectacle was wonderful, but all familiar to me.
We passed slowly along the shore until we reached a rocky place wherein was a little hollow in front of which was burning a fire replenished by my anxious mate while I had slept. Brands for the fire had been brought from our distant cave before my hurt had been received. Otter led me into the little opening and brought flesh of a boar from a hiding place in the rocks and roasted it in the fire and fed me to repletion. Then, having eaten herself as eats a healthy, omnivorous animal of the wild, she coiled down beside me in the little recess, after leaning logs and driftwood against the opening, as some defence against all prowling things. My weapons she placed at my hand.
I awoke in the morning astonishingly refreshed, and could limp about without the assistance of Otter, and with little pain. We must go inland to where were the ledges and where was our cave among the others. There I could rest easily until all my strength returned. So we took up the slow journey and entered the forest, plodding doggedly along the paths within its depths. We had with us some of the roasted boar’s flesh and ate of it when we were hungry.
On the journey we came upon a little open space where were great birds, the bustards, moving about, and I killed one with an arrow, rejoicing the while that I was so good a bowman. Otter carried the huge bird lightly, saying we should have the best of food when we reached our home. My dazedness of the day before, when I failed to recognize my weapons, was all gone now. Was not I, Scar, the greatest archer among my people? Was not Otter, my mate, the greatest in the water of them all? Yet, as to Otter, it had been but a little time since the Cave people had learned to swim. Like the monkeys, which we sometimes shot with arrows in the woods, the Cave men had ever dreaded the water. It was in the days of our great, great grandfathers, so the very old men told us, that the change came, and then by accident.
There had been a wide and deep creek close beside the caves in which our forefathers dwelt, and it had been a great barrier between the rocky country and good hunting grounds on the other side. One day my own great grandfather, when a young man, slipped upon a wet stone and fell into the water and was swept away and they did not even look for him, for in those days he who fell into deep water was drowned, and what good to seek for that which was gone? But my great grandfather caught hold of a piece of light driftwood, and though it would not lift him entirely, yet, with his chin upon it, his head was sustained above the water until he reached a shallow place where he could wade ashore. He came back to the caves and beat my great grandmother sorely, because she was eating when he returned. He brought back with him the bit of driftwood and thenceforth played in the water with it, tying it beneath his chin and making great strokes with his arms and legs until there came a day when he found, to his wonder, that he did not need the driftwood to sustain him, but could go about in the water as did the otter and the beaver, though never in a way to equal them. And others tried to do as he did, and, though some were drowned, in the end it came that all the Cave people, even the children, could swim. A great advantage was this in the hunt or on a journey of any kind. And among us all, at this time, my mate, my slender Otter, was swiftest in the water. So her name had come to her.
We travelled far this day and crossed many streams and I was nearly spent, when after nightfall we came upon ledges of tumbled rocks uprising near the river and in the midst of a dense wood, and there entered our own cave without arousing any of the people in the other caves. It was not a large cave, but was most comfortable. There was a great bed of moss covered with skins beside one of the brown walls, and from an ash-filled hollow at one side Otter uncovered still glowing embers. In front of this hollow were a lot of stones laid carefully, whereon meat could be roasted. Just inside the cave’s entrance, but not large enough to entirely fill it, was a round rock of sandstone, not too heavy, which Otter alone rolled into the opening. We sought the couch of moss and skins and slept at once, for each of us was weary.
I awoke, it seemed to me, almost well, for from flesh wounds we Cave men recovered swiftly. I awoke with a fragrance in my nostrils. Otter had already risen, and the bustard, cleanly plucked, was roasting on the stones before the fire my mate had built. We ate most of the big bird at that one meal, for we had slept long and were hungry. Then, with Otter beside me, I took my bow and bark quiver of arrows and limped outside the cave. We had hardly come into the sunlight when there came to our ears a shout and the twanging of a bowstring and, a moment later, around a turn in the ravine, appeared the Climber, often my companion in the hunt. He was shooting arrows upward and catching them as they fell, in mere sport, shouting meanwhile to arouse me, for he did not yet know that I had been lamed by the boar. We called to him and he clambered up to us and heard the story of my hunt, laughing only when he heard its issue, for we did not sympathize deeply in that age, though we would sometimes fight for each other valiantly enough. The Climber was armed as I with bow and spear and clad in the same way, with only a clout of skin about his middle. Despite his careless demeanour he had news to bring. Some of the Hill men had been seen lurking about at the foot of the wooded mountain slopes to the westward!
The Hill men were our natural enemies and had been so since a time beyond which none of the old men could remember. They were unlike us in their ways, existing chiefly on fruit and nuts and roots, which they stored in the mountain caves, where they lived, and they had no bows, carrying only stone axes and long spears. They hunted less than we, but were extremely strong and savage and their numbers made them dangerous. Many a wanderer of the Cave men had disappeared when these hairy savages of the hills had sometimes invaded our side of the river, and word of a threatened raid by them was but a signal for more than ordinary caution.
In a few days I was well again and the fight with the big boar something almost forgotten. There came, for a time, no incident in the life of our scattered group. We hunted and fished and fed well and were warm, for it was a good country and the climate mild. But for old Fang, the arrow-maker, there would have been a pleasant enough monotony to our existence. Fang was more vicious than any of the beasts in the wood; he seemed more like the Things we had never seen, but dreaded, the Things which whispered strangely when the wind blew through the forests at night and which roared and bellowed when the great storms came. He was not like the rest of us. He was the first monopolist, too, the world had ever known.
Our arrows were excellent, not rude chipped things such as our ancestors had known, but smoothed and polished and keen-edged and deadly when launched by a strong arm from a strong bow. A task it was to make an arrow such as one of ours, for there was first the rude chipping and then the weary polishing of the flint by rubbing it upon wetted sandstone. Few of us had patience for all this, and old Fang, who lived alone in a cave in a thicket close beside a little waterfall of the brook running down to the river, was arrow-maker for most of us. We paid him for the arrows by bringing him meat and skins and all the means for living, and his wicked eyes would gleam when we brought them to him.
He was a misshapen creature, with one leg so distorted that it made him half a cripple, teeth which protruded viciously, and eyes like those of the snakes which sunned themselves upon the clogged driftwood beside the river banks. A great archer he was, but he seldom hunted, for he could but limp, with his twisted leg. At last came a time when he never went abroad at all. It came curiously and in a wicked way.
The fall in the little brook which ran beside the cave of Fang was but three or four yards in height, but the water dropped sheerly and strongly and had worn a little hollow in the stone beneath, a broad bowl a yard across, in which, in a miniature whirlpool, the waters swirled round and round as if aboil. One day a hunter who had brought to Fang some arrow-heads to be polished, accidentally dropped one of them in the water as he leaped the brook above the falls and, counting it lost, paid no attention to it. The keen eye of the arrow-maker had seen the thing and, knowing that the arrow-head could be easily recovered, he said nothing. He would get it for himself.
The old man, busied at his work, forgot the arrow-head for a month, then one day he remembered and found it at last amid the swirling pebbles and looked upon it in astonishment as he drew it forth. Not with all his labour of rubbing the flint heads upon coarse sandstone could he polish an arrow like to this, The sand and pebbles in the foaming bowl had done the work far better than could he. An idea came to him. The pool should be his and his alone, and the water and the little pebbles should do his polishing. So he put chipped arrow-heads into the bowl and, after that, the hunters for a time wondered more than ever at the perfection of his work.
One day an old woman leading a child and seeking nuts came close to the edge of the falls and peered over the bank curiously. Her body was found there later and it was plain that an arrow had passed through it, though the shaft could not be found. The child, which had fled shrieking back to the cave, could but tell what the old woman was doing when she fell down. Later, a hunter who lingered carelessly near the pool was shot as ruthlessly, but lived long enough to reach companions to whom he could give no account as to whence the arrow came. But all understood. There was little justice then, and there were no attempts at punishment. The old demon owned the waterfall. As for me, I paid slight heed to the matter. For that I nearly lost my Otter.
One day I had shot an arrow into a wild pig in a wooded height just beyond the cave of Fang and, as I pursued it straightforwardly through the bushes, Otter ran around through an open space to intercept its flight and pierce it with another arrow, if she might, for she shot almost as well as I, though far less strongly. She was near the pool when the pig dashed from the thicket, and she shot at it as I broke through. Then, of a sudden, she shrieked wildly and dropped her bow and I saw her bravely plucking at an arrow which had pierced her arm. It had come from the cave of Fang. I called to Otter, who had already darted into the bushes, and she came running to me. I drew the arrow forth with little difficulty, for it was not a dangerous wound, though through no fault of the murderous archer. Only Otter’s swift step as she shot at the pig had kept the arrow from her body.
We went back into the wood and there I left Otter while I circled about to regain the cave of Fang. I saw him close beside the pool and shot, though it required a long arrow-flight. The shaft lowered with the distance, but pierced him slightly in the thigh, and, with a snarl, he glided into the bushes and behind the trunk of a great tree. A moment later an arrow tossed my hair, and then I, too, went into hiding. We sought glimpses of each other as we circled about, but there was no fair chance afforded until my quiver was emptied and then—for Fang could not run as could I—I rejoined my mate in safety. I knew that either Fang or I must die.
There was little thought of Fang after we had reached the cave. There was heard all about us the cry: “The Hill men! The Hill men!” and there was reason for the alarm. A great band of the mountain savages had just been seen by a hunter, going up the river on the further bank. Well we knew what that portended. They outnumbered us five to one, but the Hill men could not swim and they were going up the river to the first shallow where they could cross in safety. The fording place was where a gorge entered the river through a rock which rose in a long precipice on either side. Into and up this gorge, if they could, must the Hill men come. All the Cave people were now together and we held anxious consultation. It seemed to me that there was but one thing to do, and in the end all our fighters agreed with me. We must assemble at the mouth of the gorge before the Hill men reached the place and there dispute the crossing to the end; there, with our bows and upon firm ground, we might have some chance against them despite their overpowering numbers. Soon all those capable of fight were on the hurried march, including over half the women. Only the old men and women and the children were left in the caves, since all lives were at stake. Even the vengeful old Fang, who had been summoned, was limping with us, for he was in equal danger with the rest. All night we wound our way along the forest paths and by dawn were in the gorge, where we rested and ate of the dried food brought with us. No Hill men appeared in sight until a little after noon and then they came in what seemed to us a host. There were of us Cave men and women some seventy-five, of the Hill men at least four hundred, fierce looking creatures, armed with spears and stone axes, and terrifying to look upon. Yet our fathers had once beaten them and why should not we? We had a vast store of arrows and good bows, and better spears and axes than had the foe.
They came, bellowing like wild beasts, and we went down the sloping bank to meet them at the crossing. The leader, a huge creature, shaking his spear threateningly, plunged in first and I yelled with delight as I saw, when he reached the middle of the river, that the water rose to his armpits. As he gained a shallower part and upreared his hairy breast, I drove an arrow into it, and his spear fell and he toppled over and was swept down stream. My comrades were doing as well, since there was room for nearly all of us to shoot; and the slaughter was fairly on! The Hill men seemingly knew no fear. They plunged in from behind by scores and one or two had almost reached our banks when they were speared, one after another, by Bull, the most gigantic of the Cave men, who had rushed in to meet them. Still they came in a desperate, roaring mass. So I have seen a herd of the great aurochs cross a stream mightily. There were not enough of us to do the killing. The waters of the river were red. More than half the Hill men had been slain, but the pack came howling on, now, still more like monstrous wolves. We shot until there was no more time to notch our arrows, and then we waded in a little way and met them with our spears and axes. I had no fear; I was but a raging, blood-thirsty, killing thing! We held them at bay for a time, and so many of them were slain that now they did not more than twice outnumber us, but those of us in front were exhausted by the struggle, and the remnant of the Hill men were still fresh. I staggered back, as another Cave man took my place, and went a little up the slope and refilled my quiver and stood there breathing heavily for a moment with others as spent as I. That breathing space did us good, and well that it was so, for it saved the Cave men. There was a wild cry, a yielding, and our comrades lower down came pressing back upon us. The Hill men had gained the shore! We rallied to the fight, but there could be no more arrow-shooting. It was spear and axe work now. Ever raging in front, the leader of the remaining Hill men was a giant whose spear seemed irresistible, and more than one of the Cave men fell before him. The sight drove me into a still more murderous craze. I was rested now. I leaped forward to meet the grisly savage and in a moment we were facing, with spears clattering together. It was death for the Hill man! He was stronger, but not so swift as I at this deadly fencing, and, as I turned his spear aside, I leaped in and drove my own cleanly through him. He toppled with a roaring growl, like that of a bear dying, and, with that, a panic came upon the Hill men and they turned and fled, pursued and speared as they floundered in the waters of the river. The fight was over!
And then, just then, as I lifted my hand to my streaming face, something smote me fiercely in the back and I looked dazedly at an arrow-head which protruded from my breast. I turned, tottering, to see the stone axe of the Climber crash down into the head of the glaring Fang, who crumpled weakly to the ground, and to see Otter running toward me, screaming and with arms outstretched. Then I pitched forward upon my face.