CHAPTER XII
ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS
I
The People of the Cave were running short of arrows. The supply ofyoung hickory sprouts, on which they had depended for their shafts,was almost exhausted. And within a two days' journey of the Cavesthere was nothing to be found that would quite take the place of thosehickory sprouts. Neither Grom himself nor any other member of histribe had as yet succeeded in so fixing a tip of bone or flint to ashaft of cane as not to interfere with its penetration. Some growthmust be found that was tough, perfectly straight, and tapering, whileat the same time so solid and hard of grain that it would take andhold a point, and heavy enough for driving power. All this wasdifficult to find, and Grom was convinced that it must be sought forfar afield. Life had been running uneventfully for months at the GreatCaves, and Grom's restless spirit was craving new knowledge, newadventure.
On this quest of the arrow Grom took with him only two companions--hisslim, swift-footed mate, A-ya and that cunning little scout, Loob, theHairy One.
For the space of three days they journeyed due west from the Caves.Then the range of downland which they had been following swept offsharply to the south.
Being bent upon exploring to the westward--though he was not veryclear as to his reasons for his preference--Grom led the way down fromthe hills into the rankly wooded plain. For two days more they pushedon through incessant perils, the country swarming with black lions,saber-tooth, and woolly rhinoceros. As they were not fighting, butexploring, the price of safety was a vigilance so unremitting that itsoon began to get on their nerves, and they were glad to take a wholeday's rest in the spacious security of a banyan top, where nothingcould come at them but leopards or pythons. Neither leopards norpythons gave them any great concern.
On the second day after quitting their refuge in the banyan top, theyemerged from the jungle so suddenly that they nearly fell into ariver, whose whitish, turbid flood ran swirling heavily before theirfeet. It was a mighty stream, a good half-mile in width, and at thispoint the current was eating away the bank so hungrily that wholeranks of tree and bush had toppled over into the tide.
The great river barred their way, flowing as it did toward thenorth-east, and Grom reluctantly turned the course of the expeditionsouthward, following up the shore. Swift as was the current, thesefolk of the Caves might have crossed it by swimming; but Grom knewthat such waters were apt to swarm with giant crocodiles of varyingtype and unvarying ferocity, as well as with ferocious flesh-eatingfish that swarmed in wolfish packs, and were able to tear an aurochsor a mastodon in pieces with their razor-edged teeth. He gazeddesirously at the opposite shore, however--which looked to him muchmore beautiful and more interesting than that on which he stood--andwondered if he should ever be able to devise some way of reaching itother than by swimming.
Along the river shore the travelers had endless variety to keep theminterested, with a less exhausting imminence of peril than in thedepths of the jungle. Sometimes great branches, draped and festoonedwith gorgeous-flowered lianas, thrust themselves far out over thewater, affording easy refuge. Sometimes the river was bordered by astrip of grassy level, behind which ran the edge of the jungle in theform of a steep bank of violent green, with here and there a broadsplotch of magenta or violet or orange bloom flung over it like acurtain. At times, again, it was necessary to plunge back into thehumming and steaming gloom behind this resplendent screen, in order tomake a detour around some swampy cove, whose dense growth of sedge,fifteen to twenty feet in height, was traversed by wide trails whichshowed it to be the abode of unfamiliar monsters. The travelers werecurious as to the makers of such colossal trails, but were not temptedto gratify this curiosity by invading their lairs.
In all this time, and through all difficulties and dangers, neitherGrom nor A-ya, nor the unsleeping Loob had lost sight of the object oftheir journey. Every straight and slender sapling and seedling of hardgrain they tested, but hitherto they had found nothing that camewithin measurable distance of their requirements.
In the customary order of their going, Grom went first, peering ahead,ever studying, pondering, observing, with his bow and his club swungfrom his shoulder, his heavy, flint-headed spear always in readinessfor use at close quarters. Loob the scout, little and dark and hairy,with the eyes of a weasel and the heart of a bull buffalo, wentdarting and gliding soundlessly through the undergrowth a few paces tothe left, guarding against the approach of any attack from thejungle-depths. While A-ya, whose quickness and precision with the bow,her darling weapon, were nothing less than a miracle to all the tribe,covered the rear, lest any prowling monster should be following ontheir trail.
It chanced that A-ya dropped back some paces further, without sayinganything to Grom. She had marked a slim shaft of a seedling whichlooked suitable for an arrow; and in case the discovery should prove agood one, she wanted the credit of it to herself. She stooped to pullthe seedling up by the roots, since it seemed too tough to break. Itwas obstinate. In the effort her naked side and shoulder leaned fullyagainst the trunk of a small tree of which she had taken no notice. Ina second it seemed to her as if the tree trunk were made of red-hotcoals. The stinging fire of it ran like lightning all over her armsand body. With a piercing scream she sprang away from the tree, andbegan tearing and beating frantically at her body with both hands. Shewas covered with furious ants--the great, red, stinging ants whosevenom is like drops of liquid flame.
At the sound of her scream, Grom was back at her side in two leaps,his hair and beard bristling stiffly, his eyes blazing with rage. Butthere was no assailant in sight on whom to hurl himself. For a secondor two he glared about him wildly, with Loob crouched beside him,snarling for vengeance. Then, perceiving the woman's plight, he flunghimself upon her, trying to envelop her in one sweeping embrace thatshould crush all the virulent pests at once. In this he failedsignally; and in an instant the liquid fire was running over his ownbody. The torture of it, however, was a small thing to him comparedwith the torture of seeing them sting the woman, and feeling himselfimpotent to effect her instant succor. He slapped and beat at her withhis great hands, while she covered her face with her own hands toprotect it from disfigurement.
Loob came to help, but Grom, his brain keen in every emergency,stopped him.
"Keep off!" he ordered. "Keep off! and keep watch!"
Then he seized A-ya by one arm, rushed her to the edge of the bank,and dragged her with him into the water.
At this point the water was not much more than three feet deep. Theycrouched down in it, heads under, for nearly a minute; while Loob,spear in hand, stood over them, his wild little eyes scanning thewater depths in front and the jungle depths behind for the approach ofany foe.
When they could hold their breath no longer, they stood up. Their redassailants were floating off on the current; but the fiery poisonremained, and they bathed each other's scarlet and scorched shouldersassiduously, forgetful for the moment of everything besides. At thismoment a gigantic water python reared its head from the leafage closeby, fixed its flat, lidless, glittering eyes upon them, and drew backto strike. But in the next second Loob's ready spear was thrust cleanthrough its throat, and his yell of warning tore the air. Grom andA-ya whipped up onto the bank like a pair of otters: and the python,mortally stricken, shot out into the water over their heads, carryingLoob's spear with it, gripped tight in the constriction of its throatmuscles.
As the lashing body struck the surface the water boiled about it,suddenly alive with crocodiles. Balked of their human prey, they fellupon the python. One of the monsters shot straight up, half-way out ofthe water, with two convulsive coils of the python's tail wrappedcrushingly about its jaws; but the python, with Loob's spear throughits throat, could only struggle blindly. A moment more and it wasbitten in two, and the crocodiles were fighting monstrously amongthemselves for the writhing fragments.
"You got us out of that just in time," said Grom, grinning upon thelittle scout with approval.
A-ya w
rung the water out of her heavy hair with both hands, and threwthe masses back with an upward toss of her head.
"I hate ants," she said, shuddering. "Let's get away from here."
II
Some two hours after sunrise of the following day they came to a placewhere a belt of woods, perhaps a hundred to two hundred yards indepth, ran bordering the river, while behind it a broad stretch ofgrassy plain thrust back the jungle. Along the edge of the plain,skirting the belt of woods, the grass was short and the traveling waseasy; but off to the left the growth was ranker, and interspersed withthickets such as Grom always regarded with suspicion. He had learnedby experience that these dense thickets in the grass-land were afavorite lurking-place of the unexpected--and that the unexpected wasalmost always perilous.
Suddenly from the deeper grass a couple of hundred yards or so to theleft rose heavily the menacing bulk of a red Siva moose bull, andstood staring at them with mingled wonder and malevolence in hiscruelly vindictive eyes. In stature surpassing the biggest rhinocerosthat Grom had ever seen, he gave the impression of combining theterrific power of the rhinoceros with the agile speed and devilishcunning of the buffalo. His ponderous head, with its high-archedeagle-hooked snout, was armed with two pairs of massive, keen-tipped,broad-bladed horns, that seemed to be a deadly-efficient compromisebetween the horns of a buffalo and the palmated antlers of a moose.This alarming apparition snorted loudly, and at once from behind himlurched to their feet some two score more of his like, and all stoodwith their eyes fixed upon the little group of travelers by the edgeof the wood.
Grom had heard vague traditions of the implacable ferocity of thesered monsters, but having before never come across them he answeredtheir stare with keen interest. At the same time, edging in closer tothe wood, he whispered:
"Don't run. But if they come we must go up the first tree. They areswift as the wind, these great beasts, and more terrible than thesaber-tooth."
"Can't go in _these_ trees!" said Loob, whose piercing eyes hadinvestigated them minutely at the first glimpse of the monsters in thegrass.
"Why not?" demanded Grom, his eyes still fixed upon the monsters.
"Oh! The bees! The terrible bees!" whispered A-ya. "Where can we go?"
Grom turned his head and scanned the belt of woodland, his ears nowsuddenly comprehending a deep, humming sound which he had hithertoreferred solely to the winged foragers in the grass-tops. Scattered atintervals from the branches, in the shadowy green gloom, hung a numberof immense, dark, semi-pear-shaped globes. They looked harmlessenough, but Grom knew that their inhabitants, the great jungle-bees,were more to be dreaded than saber-tooth or crocodile. To disturb, orseem to threaten to disturb, one of their nests, meant sure andinstant doom.
"No, we must trust to our running--and they are very swift," saidGrom. "But let us go softly now, and perhaps they will not charge uponus."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the giant red bull, with agrunt of wrath, lurched forward and charged down at them. Andinstantly the whole herd, with their ridiculous little tails stuck upstiffly in the air, charged after him. Swift as thought A-ya drew herbow. The arrow buried itself deep in the red giant's muzzle. With abawl of fury, he paused, to try and root the burning torment out ofhis nose. The whole herd paused behind him. It was only for a fewseconds, and then he came on again, blowing blood and foam from hisnostrils; but they were precious seconds, and the fugitives, runninglightly, and stooping low for fear of offending the bees, had gained astart of a hundred yards or more.
The three were among the swiftest runners of the tribe; but Grom soonsaw that the utmost they could hope was to maintain their distance.And there was the imminent risk that the bees, disturbed by the noiseof flight and pursuit, might take umbrage. To lessen this frightfulrisk, he swerved out till he was some thirty or forty paces distantfrom the belt of woods. And he noticed, too, that the pursuing herdseemed to have no great anxiety to approach the frontiers of the BeePeople. They were following on a slant that gave the woods a wideberth.
About a mile further on the woods came to an end, and Grom, though hefeared the pace might be beginning to tell on A-ya, and though therewas no refuge in sight, breathed more freely. He feared the bees morethan the yellow monsters, because they were something he could notfight. The grass-land now ran clear to the river's edge, and gave firmfooting; and the fugitives raced on, breathing carefully, and trustingto come to trees again before they should be spent.
At last a curve of the bank showed them the woods sweeping down againto the water, but three or four miles ahead! Grom, looking back overhis shoulder, realized that their pursuers were now gaining upon themappreciably. With an effort he quickened his pace still further. Loobresponded without difficulty. But A-ya's face showed signs ofdistress, and at this Grom's heart sank. He began to scan the water,weighing the chances of the crocodiles. It looked as if they weretrapped beyond escape.
Perhaps half a mile up the shore a spit of land ran out against thecurrent, and behind its shelter an eddy had collected a mass ofuprooted trees and other flood refuse, all matted with green from thegrowth of wind-borne seeds. It was in reality a great natural raft,built by the eddy and anchored behind the little point. For this Gromheaded with new hope. It might be strong enough--parts of it atleast--to bear up the three fugitives. But their furious pursuerswould surely not venture their giant bulks upon it.
Approaching the point he slackened his pace, and steadied A-ya withone hand. At the edge of the eddy he stopped, casting an appraisingeye over the collection of debris, in order to pick out a stableretreat and also the most secure path to it. In this pause themonsters swept up with a thunder of trampling hooves and windysnortings. They had their victims at last where there was no escape.
The raging brutes were not more than a dozen paces behind, when Gromled the way out upon the floating mass, picking his steps warily andleaping from trunk to trunk. Loob and A-ya followed with like care.Certain of the trunks gave and sank beneath their feet, but their feetwere already away to surer footing. And at the very outermost point ofthat old collection of debris, where the current and the eddy waveredfor mastery, on a toughly interwoven tangle of uprooted trunks andhalf-dead vines, they found a refuge which did not yield beneath them.Here, steadying themselves by upthrust branches, they turned andlooked back, half apprehensive and half defiant, at their mightypursuers.
"They'll never dare to try to follow us here," gasped A-ya.
But she was wrong. Quite blind with rage through that galling shaft inhis muzzle, the giant bull came plunging on, and half a dozen of hisclosest followers, infected with his madness, came with him. The inneredge of the mass gave way at once beneath them--and the bank at thispoint was straight up and down. The monsters floundered in deep water,snorting and spluttering, while their fellows on the shore checkedthemselves violently and drew back bawling with bewilderment. As thedrowning monsters battled to get their front legs up upon the raft,the edges gave way continually beneath them, plunging them again andagain beneath the surface, while A-ya stabbed at them vengefully withher spear, and Loob shot arrows into them till Grom stopped him,saying that the arrows were too precious to waste. Thereupon Loobtripped delicately over the surging trunks and smote at the strugglingmonsters' heads with his light club.
The anchorage of this natural raft having been broken, the weight ofthe monsters striving to gain a foothold upon it soon thrust its firmouter portion forth into the grip of the current. In a minute or twomore this solid portion was torn away from the rest, and went sailingoff slowly down stream with its living freight. The incoherent remnantwas left in the eddy, where the snorting monsters struggled andthreshed about amongst it, now climbing half-way out upon some greattrunk, which forthwith reared on end and slid them off, now vanishingfor a moment beneath the beaten stew of leaves and vines.
A couple of the horned giants, being close to the bank, now seemed torecover their wits sufficiently to turn and clamber ashore. But theothers were mad with terror. And in
a moment more the fascinatedwatchers on the raft perceived the cause of this madness. All roundthe scene of the turmoil the water seethed with lashing tails andsnapping jaws; and then one of the monsters, which had struggled outinto clear water, was dragged down in a boiling vortex of jaws andbloody foam. A few moments more and the whole eddy became a bubblinghell of slaughter, and great broad washes of crimson streamed out uponthe current. The monsters, for all their giant strength, and thepile-driving blows of their huge hoofs, were as helpless as rabbitsagainst their swarming and ravenous assailants; and the battle--whichindeed was no battle at all--soon was over. The eddy had become but awrithing nest of crocodiles.
"It was hardly worth while wasting arrows, you see?" said Grom,standing erect on the raft and watching the scene with broodinginterest.
"Do you suppose those swimming beasts with the great jaws can get atus here?" demanded A-ya with a shudder.
"While this thing that carries us holds together, I think we can fightthem off," replied Grom. And straightway he set himself to examine howsecurely the trees were interknit. The trunks had been piled by floodone upon another, and the structure seemed substantial; but to furtherstrengthen it he set all to work interweaving the free branches andsuch creepers as the mass contained, with the skill that came of muchpractice in the weaving of tree-top nests.
When all was done that could be done, the voyagers took time to lookabout them. They had by now been swept far out into the river, and theshores on either side seemed low and remote. A-ya felt oppressed, theface of the waters seeming to her so vast, inscrutable and menacing.She stole close up to Grom and edged herself under his massive arm forreassurance. The little scout sat like a monkey between two branches,and scratched his hairy arms, and, with an expression of pleasedinterest, scanned the water for the approach of new foes. As for Grom,he was entranced. This, at last, was what he had really come in searchof, the stuff for arrows being merely his excuse to himself. This wasthe utterly new experience, the new achievement. He was traveling bywater, not in it, but upon it--upborne, dry and without discomfort,upon its surface.
For a little while he did not ask whither he was being borne. To hissurprise the crocodiles and other formidable water-dwellers, whichwere quite unknown to him, paid them no attention whatever; and heconcluded that they looked upon the raft as nothing more than a massof floating driftwood containing nothing for them to eat. He could seethem everywhere about, swimming with brute snouts half above water orbasking on sandy spits of shore. Then he observed that the current wasbearing them gradually towards that further shore which he so longedto visit, and he thrilled with new anticipation. But when, afterperhaps an hour, the capricious tide blew them again to mid-stream, anew idea took possession of him. He must find some way of influencingthe direction of their voyage. He could not long relinquish himself tothe blind whim and chance of the current.
Just as he was beginning to grapple with this problem, A-yaanticipated his thought--as he had noticed that she often did. Lookingup at him through her tossed hair, she enquired where they weregoing.
"I am just trying to think," he answered, "how to make this thing takeus where we want to go."
"If the water is not too deep, couldn't you push with your longspear?" suggested the girl.
Acting at once on the suggestion, Grom leaned over the edge and thrustthe spear straight downwards. But he could find no bottom.
"It is too deep," said he, "but I'll find a way."
As he stood near the forward end of the raft he began sweeping thespear in a wide arc through the water, as if it were a paddle, butwith the idea merely of testing the resistance of the water. Poorsubstitute as the spear was for a paddle or an oar, his great strengthmade up for its inefficiency, and after a few sweeps he was astonishedand delighted to notice that the head of the raft had swung away fromhim, so that it was heading for the shore from which they had come.
He pondered this in silence for a little, then stepped over to theother side and repeated the experiment. After several vigorous effortsthe unwieldy craft yielded. Its head swung straight, and then, verygradually, toward the other side. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Hehad found a way of influencing their direction.
"I am going to take you over to the other shore," he announcedproudly.
And now, laboring in a keen excitement, he set himself to carry outhis boast. First he so overdid it that he made the raft turn cleanabout and head upstream. He puzzled over this for a time, but atlength got it once more headed in the direction which he wished it totake. Then he found that he could keep it to this direction--more orless--by taking a few strokes on one side, then hurriedly crossing totake a few strokes on the other. And in this way they began once moreto approach the other bank. The process, however, was slow; and Grompresently concluded that it was wasteful. He hit upon the idea ofsetting A-ya and Loob together to stroking with their spears on oneside, while he, with his great strength, balanced their effort on theother. Whereupon the sluggish craft woke up a little and began to makeperceptible progress, on a slant across the current toward shore.
"I have found it!" he exclaimed in exultation. "On this thing we cantravel over the water where we will."
"But not against the current," objected A-ya, whose enthusiasm was alittle damped by the fact that she did not like the look of thatfurther shore.
"That will come in time," declared Grom confidently.
"Here's something coming now," announced Loob, springing to his feetand grabbing his bow. At the same moment the flat, villainous head ofa big crocodile shot up over the edge of the raft, and its owner, withenormous jaws half open, started to scramble aboard.
A-ya's bow was bent as swiftly as Loob's, and the two arrows spedtogether, both into the monster's gaping gullet. Amazed at thisreception it shut its jaws with a loud snap, halted and came on again.Then a stab of Grom's great spear caught it full in the eye, and thiswound struck fear into its dull mind. It rolled back hastily into thewater and sank, leaving a foamy wake of blood behind it.
By this time they were getting nearer the other shore. But on closeview, Grom was bound to admit that it was not alluring. It was so lowas to be all awash, and fringed deep with towering reeds, which weretraversed by narrow lanes of water. Of dry land there was none to beseen.
"Oh, we don't want to go ashore there!" protested A-ya fervently. Asshe spoke a hideous head, with immense, round, bulging eyes and long,beak-like mouth arose over the sedge tops on a long, swaying neck andstared at them fixedly.
"No, we don't," said Grom, with decision, making haste to swing thehead of the raft once more out into the channel. They were pursued bya dense crowd of mosquitoes, voracious and venomous, which followedthem to mid-stream and kept tormenting them till an up-river gust blewthem off.
Grom made up his mind that the exploration of that unknown shore couldwait a more convenient season. He was now deeply absorbed in thecomplex problem of directing and managing his raft. As he pulled hisspear through the water, and noted the additional effect of its flathead, the conception came to him of something that would get a morepropulsive grip upon the water than was possible to a round pole.Furthermore, he was quick to realize that the immense, shapeless massof debris on which they were traveling might be replaced by somethinglight and manageable which he would make by lashing some trimmedtrunks together with lengths of bamboo to give additional buoyancy. Ashe brooded this in silence, with that deep, inward look in his eyeswhich always kept A-ya from breaking in upon his vision, he came tothe idea of a formal raft, and a formal paddle. And to this he added,with a full sense of its value, A-ya's suggestion that this newstructure might very well be pushed along, in shallow water, with apole. Having thought this out, he drew a deep breath, looked up, andmet A-ya's eyes with a smile. His eager desire now was to get backhome and put his new scheme into execution.
"Where are we going now?" asked A-ya.
Grom looked about him wildly--at the sky, at the far-off hills ontheir right, at the course of the stream, which
had changed within thepast few miles. His sense of direction was unerring.
"This river," he answered, "flows towards the rising sun, and mustempty into the bitter waters not more than a day or a half day fromthe Caves. We are going home. We will come again to look for arrows ina new raft which I will make."
As he spoke, Loob's spear darted down beside the raft, and came upwith a big, silvery fish writhing upon it. He broke its neck with ablow and laid the prize at A-ya's feet.
"I wish we had fire with us, to cook it with," said she.
"On the new raft, as I will make it," said Grom, "that may very wellbe. Our journey will be safe and easy, and the good fire we will havealways with us."