In the Morning of Time

Noticing for the first time in his excitement that the ground, here parched and bare, was uncomfortably hot beneath his feet, he carried his burden a few rods further on, to where the green began again, and laid her down on the thick herbage. Then he turned to see what the bears were going to do.

Seeing that their intended prey made no further effort to flee, the two monsters grew still more excited. For a moment Grôm thought they would dare the passage of the barrier, but he was reassured to see that the flames filled them with an insuperable fear. They dared not come nearer than the thin edges of the verdure. At last, as if the same notion had struck them both at once, they whirled about simultaneously, made off among the dense thickets to the right, and disappeared.

Grôm knew far too well the obstinate vindictiveness of their kind to think that they had given up the chase; but, feeling safe for the present, and seeing that the girl, recovered from her swoon, was sitting up and staring with awed eyes at the line of fire, he turned all his attention to these mysterious, shining, leaping shapes to which they owed their escape.

With an attitude of deference, yet carrying both club and spear in readiness, he slowly approached the barrier, at the point where the flames were lowest and least imposing. Their heat made him very uneasy, but under the eyes of the girl he would show no sign of fear. At a distance of six or eight feet he stopped, studying the thin, upcurling tongues of brightness. Their heat, at this distance, was uncomfortable to his naked flesh, but as he stood there wondering and took no further hurt, his confidence grew. At length he dared to stretch out his spear-tip and touch the flames, very respectfully. The green-hide thongs which bound the flint to the wood smoked, shriveled and hissed. He withdrew the weapon in alarm, and examined the tip. It was blackened, and hot to the touch. But, seeing that the bright dancers had taken no notice, he repeated the experiment. Several times he repeated it, deeply pondering, while the girl, from her place at the edge of the grass, stared with the wide eyes of a child.

At last, though the green thongs still held, the dry wood burst into flame. Startled to find that when he drew the point back he brought a portion of the shining creature with it, Grôm dashed the weapon down upon the ground. The flame, insufficiently started, flickered and died. But it left a spark, winking redly on the blackened wood. Audacious in his consuming curiosity, Grôm touched it with his finger. It stung smartly, and Grôm snatched back his finger with an exclamation of alarm. But by that touch the spark itself was extinguished. That was an amazing thing. Sucking his finger, Grôm stood gazing down at the spear-tip, which had but now been so bright, and was now so black. Plainly, it was a victory for him. He did not understand it. But at least the Mysterious Ones were not invincible, however much the bears feared them. Well, he did not fear them, he said proudly in his heart. Aloud he said to A-ya:

“The Shining Dancers are our friends, but they do not like to be touched. If you touch them, they bite.”

His heart swelled with a vast, unformulated hope. Ideas, possibilities which he could not yet grasp, seethed in his brain. Dimly, but overpoweringly, he realized that he had passed the threshold of a new world. He picked up the spear and turned to renew his experiments.

This time he let the fire take well hold upon the spear-tip before he withdrew it. Then he held it upright, burning like a torch. As he gazed at it raptly a scream from the girl aroused him. She had sprung to her feet and stood staring behind her, not knowing which way to run because of her fear of the fire. And there, not twenty paces from her, their giant grey bulks half emerging from the thicket, stood the bears, slavering in their fury but afraid to come nearer the flame.

With a shout, Grôm darted at them, and the wind of his going fanned his spear-point to a fierce blaze. The girl screamed again at the sight, but bravely stood her ground. The bears shrank, growled, then turned and fled. With a dozen leaps Grôm was upon them. The flame was already licking up the spear-shaft almost to his grip. With all his force he threw, and the flint tip buried itself in the nearest monster’s haunch. The long fur blazed, and, in a frenzy of terror, the great beasts went crashing off through the coverts. The fire was speedily whipped out by the branches, but their panic was uncontrollable; and long after they had passed out of sight the sounds of their wild flight could be followed. Grôm’s heart came near bursting with exultation, but he disdained to show it. He turned to the girl, and said quietly: “They will not come back.” And the girl threw herself at his feet in adoration.

And now for hours Grôm sat motionless, pondering, pondering, and watching the line of flames with deep eyes. The girl did not dare to interrupt his thoughts. With the going of the sun came a chill breeze drawing down from the ridges. Grôm rose, led the girl nearer the flames, and reseated himself. As the girl realized the kindly and comforting warmth her fears diminished. She laughed softly, turned her shapely body round and round in the glow, and then curled herself up like a cat at Grôm’s knees.

At last Grôm arose once more. Picking up his remaining spear, he approached the fire with decision, and thrust the butt, instead of the tip, into the flame. When it was well alight, he thrust it down upon a tuft of withered grass. The stuff caught at once, blazed up and died out. Then Grôm rolled the burning spear-butt on the earth till it, too, was quite extinguished. The sparks still winking in the grass he struck with his palm. They stung him, but they perished. He drew himself up to his full height, turned to the girl and stretched out his blackened hand. The girl sprang to her feet, thrilled and wondering.

“See,” said Grôm, “I have made the bright Dancing Ones my servants. The tribe shall come here. And we shall be the masters of all things.”

Once more the girl threw herself at his feet. He seemed to her a god. But remembering how she had twice saved his life, she laid her cheek against his knee. He lifted her into the hollow of his great arm, and she leaned against him, gazing up into his face, while he stood staring into the fire, his eyes clouded with visions.

CHAPTER IV

THE CHILDREN OF THE SHINING ONE

I

From the lip of the narrow volcanic fissure, which ran diagonally two-thirds of the way across the mouth of the valley, the line of fire waved and flickered against the gathering dark. Sometimes only a few inches high, sometimes sinking suddenly out of sight, and then again as suddenly leaping up to a height of five or six feet, the thin, gaseous flames danced elvishly. Now clear yellow, now fiery orange, now of an almost invisible violet, they shifted, and bowed their crests, and thrust out shooting tongues, till Grôm, sitting on his haunches and staring with fascinated eyes, had no choice but to believe that they were live things like himself. The girl, curled up at his side like a cat, paid little attention to the marvel of the flames. Her big, dark eyes, wild and furtive under the dark, tangled masses of her hair, kept wandering back and forth between the man’s brooding face and the obscure black thickets which filled the valley behind him. The dancing flames she did not understand, but she understood the ponderous crashing, and growls, and savage cries which came from those black thickets and slopes of tumbled rocks. The man being absorbed in watching the wonders of the flames, and apparently all-forgetful of the perils prowling back there in the dark, it was plainly her duty to keep watch.

From time to time Grôm would drag his eyes away from their contemplation of the flames to study intently the charred spots on his club and the burned, blackened end of his spear. He looked down at the lithe figure of the watching girl, and laid a great, hairy hand on her shoulder in a musing caress, as if appraising her, and delighting in her, and finding in her a mate altogether to his desire, although but a child to his inmost thoughts. But those sounds of menace from the darkness behind him he affected not to hear at all. He could see from the girl’s eyes that the menace was not yet close at hand; and since he had learned the power of the fire, and his own mastery over that power, he felt himself suddenly little less than a god. The fire was surely something of a god; and if he had any measure of control over the fire, so as to make it serve him surely, then still more of the god was there in his own intelligence. His heart swelled with a pride such as he had never before conceived, and his brain seethed with vague but splendid possibilities. Never before had he, though at heart the bravest of his brave clan, been able to listen to the terrible voices of the cave-bear, the cave-hyena, or the saber-tooth without fear, without the knowledge that his own safety lay in flight. Now he feared them not at all.

A louder roaring came out of the shadows, closer than before, and he saw A-ya’s eyes dilate as she clutched at his knee. A slow smile spread across his bony face, and he turned about, rising to his feet as he did so, and lifting the girl with him.

With a new, strange warmth at his heart he realized how fully the girl trusted him, how cool and steady was her courage. For there, along the edge of the lighted space, glaring forth from the fringes of the thickets, were the monstrous beasts whom man had most cause to dread. Nearest, his whole tawny length emerging from the brush, crouched a giant saber-tooth with the daggers of his tusks, ten inches long, agleam in the light of the dancing flames. He was not more than thirty or forty paces distant, and his tail twitched heavily from side to side as if he were trying to nerve himself up to a closer approach to the fire. Some twenty paces further along the fringe of mingled light and shadow, their bodies thrust half way forth from the undergrowth, stood a pair of huge, ruddy cave-bears, their monstrous heads held low and swaying surlily from side to side as they eyed the prey which they dared not rush in and seize. The man-animal they had hitherto regarded as easy prey, and they were filled with rage at the temerity of these two humans in remaining so near the dreaded flames. Intent upon them, they paid no heed to their great enemy, the saber-toothed, with whom they were at endless and deadly feud. Away off to the left, quite clear of the woods, but safely remote from the fire, a pack of huge cave-hyenas sat up on their haunches, their long, red tongues hanging out. With jaws powerful enough to crack the thigh-bones of the urus, they nevertheless hesitated to obtrude themselves on the notice either of the crouching saber-tooth or of the two giant bears.

With neither the bears nor the great hyenas did Grôm anticipate any trouble. But he felt it barely possible that the saber-tooth might dare a rush in. Snatching up a dry branch, and leading the girl with him by the wrist, he backed slowly nearer the flames. Terrified at their dancing and the scorching of their breath, the girl sank down on her naked knees and covered her face with her hair. Smiling at her terror, Grôm thrust the branch into the flames. When it was all ablaze he raised it above his head, and, carrying his spear in his right hand, he rushed at the saber-tooth. For a few seconds the monster faced his approach, but Grôm saw the shrinking in his furious eyes, and came on fearlessly. At last the beast whipped about with a screeching snarl, and raced back into the woods. Then Grôm turned to the bears, but they had not stayed to receive his attentions. The sight of the flames bursting, as it seemed, from the man’s shaggy head as he ran, was too much for them, and they had slunk back discreetly into the shadows.

Grôm threw the blazing stick on the ground, laid several more branches upon it, and presently had a fine fire of his own going. He seized a small branch and hurled it at the hyenas, sending them off with their tails between their legs to their hiding-places on the ragged slopes. Then he fed his fire with more dry wood till the fierce heat of it drove him back. Returning to the side of the wondering girl, he sat down, and contemplated his handiwork with swelling pride. When the flames died down he piled on more branches till they blazed again to the height of the nearest tree-tops. This he repeated, thoughtfully, several times, till he had assured himself of his power to make this bright, devouring god great or little at his pleasure.

This stupendous fact established clearly, Grôm brought an armful of grass and foliage, and made the girl take her sleep. He himself continued for an hour or two his experiments with the fire, building small ones in a circle about him, discovering that green branches would not burn well, and brooding with knit brows over each new center of light and heat which he created.

Then, seated on his haunches beside the sleeping A-ya, he pondered on the future of his tribe, on the change in its fortunes which this mysterious new creature was bound to bring about. At last, when the night was half worn through, he awakened the girl, bade her keep sharp watch, and threw himself down to sleep, indifferent to the roars, and snarls, and dreadful cries which came from the darkness of the upper valley.

The valley looked straight into the east. When the sun rose, its unclouded, level rays paled the dancing barrier of flames almost to invisibility. Refreshed by their few hours’ sleep in the vital warmth, Grôm and the girl stood erect in the flooding light and scanned the strange landscape. Grôm’s sagacious eyes noted the fertility of the level lands at a distance from the fire, and of the clefts, ledges and lower slopes of the tumbled volcanic hills. Here and there he made out the openings of caves, half overgrown with vines and bush. And he was satisfied that this was the land for his tribe to occupy.

That it was infested with all those monstrous beasts which were Man’s deadliest foes seemed to him no longer a fact worth considering. The bright god which he had conquered should be made to conquer them. Some inkling of his purposes he confided to the girl, who stood looking up at him with eyes of dog-like devotion from under the matted splendor of her hair. If he was still the man she loved, her mate and lover, yet was he also now a sort of demi-god, since she had seen him play at his ease with the flames, and drive the hyena, the saber-tooth and the terrible red bear before him.

When the two started on their journey back to the Country of the Little Hills, Grôm carried with him a bundle of blazing brands. He had conceived the idea of keeping the bright god alive by feeding him continually as they went, and of renewing his might from time to time by stopping to build a big fire.

The undertaking proved a troublesome one from the first. The brand kept the great beasts at a distance, time and again the red coals almost died out, and Grôm had anxious and laborious moments nursing them again into activity; and the care of the mysterious things made progress slow. Grôm learned much, and rapidly, in these anxious efforts. He discovered once, just at a critical moment, the remarkable efficacy of dry grass. A bear as big as an ox came rushing upon them, just when the flames were flickering out along the bundle of brands. A-ya started to run, but Grôm’s nerve was of steel.

Ordering her to stop, he flung the brands to the ground, and snatched a double handful of grass to feed the dying flame. Luckily, the grass was dry. It flared up on the sudden. The bear stopped short. Grôm piled on more grass, shouted arrogantly, and rushed at the beast with a blazing handful. It was a light and harmless flame, almost instantly extinguished. But it was too mysterious for the monster to face.

Grôm was wise enough not to follow up his victory. Returning to the fire he fed it to a safe volume. And the girl, flinging herself down in a passion of relief and adoration, embraced his knees.

After this they journeyed slowly, Grôm tending the brands with vigilant care, and striving to break down the girl’s terror of them. That night he built three fires about the base of a huge tree, gathered a supply of dry wood, taught the girl to feed the flames–which she did with head bowed in awe–and passed the hours of darkness, once so dreaded, in proud defiance of the great beasts which prowled and roared beyond the circle of light. He made the girl sleep, but he himself was too prudent to sleep, lest these fires of his own creation should prove false when his eye was not upon them.

The following day, about midday, when he slept heavily in the heat, the fire went out. It had got low, and the girl, attempting to revive it, had smothered it with too much fuel. In an agony of fear and remorse, she knelt at Grôm’s side, awakened him, and showed him what she had done. She expected a merciless beating, according to the rough-and-ready customs of her tribe. But Grôm had always been held a little peculiar, especially in his aversion to the beating of women, so that certain females of the tribe had even been known to question his manhood on that account.

Furthermore, he regarded the girl with a tenderness, an admiration, an appreciation, which he could not but wonder at in himself, seeing that he had never heard of it as a customary thing that a man should regard a woman in any such manner. At the same time he was in a state of exaltation over his strange achievements, and hardly open, at the moment, to any common or base brutality of rage.

He gave the girl one terrible look, then went and strove silently with the dead, black embers. The girl crept up to him on her knees, weeping. For a few seconds he paid her no heed. But when he found that the flames had fled beyond recovery, he lifted her up, drew her close to him, and comforted her.

“You have let the Bright One escape,” said he. “But do not be afraid. He lives back there in the valley of the bears, and I will capture him again.”

And when the girl realized that he had no thought of beating her, but only wished to comfort and shield her, then she felt quite sure he was a god, and her heart nearly burst with the passion of her love.

II

It galled Grôm’s proud heart to find himself now compelled, through loss of the fire, to go warily, to scan the thicket, to keep hidden, to hold spear and club always in readiness, and to climb into a tree at night for safety like the apes. But he let no sign of his chagrin, or of his anxiety, appear. Like the crafty hunter and wise leader that he was, he forgot no one of his ancient precautions.

They had by this time passed beyond the special haunts of the red bear and the saber-tooth. Twice they had to run before the charge of the great wooly rhinoceros, against whose massive hide Grôm’s spear and club would have been about as effective as a feather duster. But they had fled mockingly, for the clumsy monster was no match for them in speed. Once, too, they had been treed by a bull urus, a gigantic white beast with a seven-foot spread of polished horns.

But his implacable and patient rage they had cunningly evaded by making off unseen and unheard, through the upper branches. They came to earth again half a mile away, and ran on gaily, laughing at the picture of the furious and foolish beast waiting there at the foot of the tree for them to come down. Once a prowling leopard confronted them for a moment, only to flee in great leaps before their instant and unhesitating attack. Once a huge bird, nearly nine feet high, and with a beak over a foot in length, struck at them savagely, with a shrill hissing, through a fringe of reeds, because they had incautiously come too near its nest. But they killed it, and feasted on its eggs. And so, without further misadventure, they came at last to the skirts of their own country, and looked once more on the rounded, familiar, wind-swept tops of the Little Hills, sacred to the barrows of their dead.

It was toward sunset, and the long, rosy glow was flooding the little amphitheater wherein the remnants of the tribe were gathered, when Grôm crossed the brook, and came striding up the slope, with A-ya close behind him. She had been traveling at his side all through the journey, but here she respected the etiquette of her tribe, and fell behind submissively.

Hardly noticing, or not heeding if he noticed that the tribe offered no vociferous welcome, and seemed sullenly surprised at his appearance, Grôm strode straight to the Chief, whom he saw sitting on the judgment stone, and threw down spear and club at his feet in sign of fealty. But A-ya, following, was keen to note the hostile attitude of the tribe. Her defiant eyes darted everywhere, and everywhere noted black looks. She could not understand it, but she divined that there was some plot afoot against Grôm. Her heart swelled with rage, and her dark-maned head went up arrogantly, for she felt as if the strongest and wisest of the tribe were now but children in comparison with her lord. But, though children, they were many, and she closed up behind him for a guard, grasping more firmly the shaft of her short, serviceable spear. She saw the broad, black, scowling visage of young Mawg, towering over a little group of his kinsfolk, and eyeing her with mingled greed and rage, and she divined at once that he was at the back of whatever mischief might be brewing. She answered his look with one of mocking scorn, and then turned her attention to the Chief, who was sitting in grim silence, the customary hand of welcome ominously withheld.

A haughty look came over Grôm’s face, his broad shoulders squared themselves, and he met the Chief’s eyes sternly.

“I have done the bidding of Bawr the Chief,” he said, in a clear voice, so that all the tribe might hear. “I have found a place where the tribe may hold themselves secure against all enemies. And I have come back, as was agreed, to lead the tribe thither before our enemies destroy us. I have done great deeds. I have not spared myself. I have come quickly. I have deserved well of the people. Why has Bawr the Chief no welcome for me?”

A murmur arose from the corner where Mawg and his friends were grouped, but a glance from the Chief silenced it. With his piercing gaze making relentless inquisition of the eyes that answered his so steadily, he seemed to ponder Grôm’s words. Slowly the anger faded from his scarred and massy face, for he knew men; and this man, though his most formidable rival in strength and prestige, he instinctively trusted.

“You have been accused,” said he at length, slowly, “of deserting the tribe in our weakness–”

A puzzled look had come over Grôm’s face at the word “accused”; then his deep eyes blazed, and he broke in upon the Chief’s speech without ceremony.

“Show me my accusers!” he demanded harshly. The Chief waved his hand for silence.

“In our weakness!” he repeated. “But you have returned to us. So I see that charge was false. Also, you have been accused of stealing the girl A-ya. But you have brought her back. I see not what more your accusers have against you.”

Grôm turned, and, with a quick, decisive motion, drew A-ya to his side.