 1. Uglomi and Uya. This story is of a time beyond the memory of man. Before the beginning of history. A time when one might have walked dryshod from France as we call it now, to England. And when a broad and sluggish Timbs flowed through its marshes to meet its father Rhine, flowing through a wide and level country that is underwater in these latter days, in which we know by the name of the North Sea. In that remote age, the valley which runs along the foot of the Downs did not exist, and the south of Surrey was a range of hills, fur clad on the middle slopes, and snow capped for the better part of the year. The cores of its summits still remain as leaf hill, and pitch hill, and hind head. On the lower slopes of the range, below the grassy spaces where the wild horses grazed, were forests of ewe, and sweet chestnut, and elm. And the thickets and dark places hid the grizzly bear and the hyena. And the gray apes clamored through the branches. And still lower amidst the woodland and marsh and open grass along the way, did this little drama play itself out to the end that I have to tell? 50,000 years ago it was, 50,000 years, if the reckoning of geologists is correct. And in those days, the springtime was as joyful as it is now, and sent the blood coursing in just the same fashion. The afternoon sky was blue with piled white clouds sailing through it, and the southwest wind came like a soft caress. The new cum swallows drove to and fro. The reaches of the river were spangled with white renuculus. The marshy places were starred with ladies smock, and lit with marshmallow wherever the regiment of the sedges lowered their swords. And the northward moving hippopotamie, shiny black monsters, sporting clumsily, came floundering and blundering through it all, rejoicing dimly and possessed with one clear idea, to splash the river muddy. Up the river and well inside of the hippopotamie, a number of little buff colored animals dabbled in the water. There was no fear, no rivalry, and no enmity between them and the hippopotamie. As the great bulks came crashing through the reeds and smashed the mirror of the water into silvery splashes, these little creatures shouted and gesticulated with glee. It was a sure sign of high spring. Balu, they cried. Baya, Balu. They were the children of the menfolk, the smoke of whose encampment rose from the knoll at the river's bend. Wild-eyed youngsters they were, with matted hair and little broad-nosed impish faces. Covered, as some children are covered even nowadays, with a delicate down of hair. They were narrow in the loins and long in the arms. And their ears had no lobes, and had little pointed tips, a thing that still, in rare instances, survives. Start naked vivid little gypsies, as active as monkeys and as full of chatter, though a little wanting in words. Their elders were hidden from the wallowing hippopotamie by the crest of the knoll. The human squatting-place was a trampled area among the dead brown fronds of royal fern, through which the cross-years of this year's growth were enrolling to the light and warmth. The fire was a smoldering heap of char, light gray and black, replenished by the old women from time to time with brown leaves. Most of the men were asleep. They slept sitting with their foreheads on their knees. They had killed that morning a good quarry, enough for all, a deer that had been wounded by hunting dogs, so that there had been no quarreling among them, and some of the women were still gnawing the bones that lay scattered about. Others were making a heap of leaves and sticks to feed brother fire when the darkness came again, that he might grow strong and tall therewith, and guard them against the beast. And two were piling flints that they brought, and armful at a time, from the bend of the river where the children were at play. None of these buff skin savages were clothed, but some were about their hips' rude girdles of adder skin, or crackling undressed hide, from which depended little bags, not made, but torn from the paws of beasts, and carrying the rudely dressed flints that were man's chief weapons and tools. And one woman, the maid of Uya the cunning man, wore a wonderful necklace of perforated fossils that others had worn before her. Besides some of the sleeping men lay the big antlers of the elk, with the tines chipped to sharp edges, and long sticks, hacked at the end with flints and to sharp points. There was little else save these things in the smoldering fire, to mark these human beings off from the wild animals that range the country. But Uya the cunning did not sleep, but sat with a bone in his hand, and scraped busily thereon with a flint. A thing no animal would do. He was the oldest man in the tribe, beetle-browed, pugnacious, lank-armed. He had a beard and his cheeks were hairy, and his chest and arms were black with thick fur. And by virtue both of his strength and cunning, he was master of the tribe, and his share was always the most and the best. Yudina had hidden herself among the elders, because she was afraid of Uya. She was still a girl, and her eyes were bright, and her smile pleasant to see. He had given her a piece of the liver, a man's piece, and a wonderful treat for a girl to get. But as she took it, the other woman with the necklace had looked at her, an evil glance, and Uglomi had made a noise in his throat. At that, Uya had looked in and long instead fastly, and Uglomi's face had fallen. And then, Uya had looked at her. She was frightened, and she had stolen away. While the feeding was still going on, and Uya was busy with the marrow of a bone. Afterwards, he had wandered about as if looking for her. And now she crouched among the elders, wondering mightily what Uya might be doing with the flan and the bone. And Uglomi was not to be seen. Presently a squirrel came leaping through the elders, and she lay so quiet the little man was within six feet of her before he saw her. Whereupon he dashed up a stem in a hurry, and began to chatter and scold her. What are you doing here? he asked, away from the other men-beast. Peace, said Udina, but he only chattered more. And then she began to break off the little black cones to throw at him. He dodged and defied her, and she grew excited and rose up to throw better. And then she saw Uya coming down the knoll. He had seen the movement of her pale arm amidst the thicket. He was very keen-eyed. At that, she forgot the squirrel and set off through the elders and reeds as fast as she could go. She did not care where she went, so long as she escaped Uya. She splashed nearly knee-deep through a swampy place, and saw in front of her a slope of ferns, growing more slender and green as they passed up out of the light into the shade of the young chestnuts. She was soon amidst the trees. She was very fleet of foot. And she ran on and on until the forest was old and the veils great. And the vines about their stems where the light came were thick as young trees, and the ropes of ivy stout and tight. On she went, and she doubled and doubled again. And then at last lay down amidst some ferns in a hollow place near a thicket, and listened with her heart beating in her ears. She heard footsteps presently rustling among the dead leaves, far off, and they died away, and everything was still again, except the scandalizing of the midges, for the evening was drawing on, and the incessant whisper of the leaves. She laughed silently to think the cunning Uya should go by her. She was not frightened. Sometimes, playing with the other girls and lads, she had fled into the wood, though never so far as this. It was pleasant to be hidden and alone. She lay a long time there, glad of her escape, and then she sat up listening. It was a rapid pattering, growing louder and coming towards her, and in a little while, she could hear grunting noises, and the snapping of twigs. It was a drove of a lean, grisly wild swine. She turned about her, for a bore is an ill fellow to pass too closely, on account of the sideways slash of his tusks, and she made off slantingly through the trees. But the patter came nearer. They were not feeding as they wandered, but going fast, or else they would not overtake her, and she caught the limb of a tree, swung on to it, and ran up the stem with something of the agility of a monkey. Down below, the sharp bristling blacks of the swine were already passing when she looked, and she knew the short sharp grunts they made meant fear. What were they afraid of? A man? They were in a great hurry for just a man. And then, so suddenly, it made her grip on the branch tightened involuntarily, a fawn started in the break and rushed after the swine. Something else went by, low and gray, with a long body. She did not know what it was. Indeed, she saw it only momentarily through the interstices of the young leaves, and then there came a pause. She remained stiff and expectant, as rigid almost, as though she was a part of the tree she clung to, peering down. Then, far away among the trees, clear for a moment, then hidden, then visible knee deep in ferns, then gone again, ran a man. She knew it was young Uglami by the fair color of his hair, and there was red upon his face. Somehow his frantic flight and that scarlet mark made her feel sick. And then near, running heavily and breathing hard, came another man. At first she could not see, and then she saw, foreshortened and clear to her, Uya, running with great strides in his eyes staring. He was not going after Uglami. His face was white. It was Uya, afraid. He passed, and was still loud hearing when something else, something large and with a grizzled fur, swinging along with slow swift strides came rushing in pursuit of him. Udina suddenly became rigid, ceased to breathe, her clutch convulsive, and her eyes staring. She had never seen the thing before. She did not even see him clearly now, but she knew it once. It was the terror of the wood shade. His name was a legend. The children would frighten one another, frighten even themselves with his name, and run screaming to the squatting place. No man had ever killed any of his kind. Even the mighty mammoth feared his anger. It was a grizzly bear, the Lord of the world as the world went then. As he ran, he made a continuous growling grumble, men in my very lair, fighting in blood, at the very mouth of my lair, men, men, men, fighting in blood, for he was the Lord of the wood and of the caves. Long after he had passed she remained, a girl of stone, staring down through the branches. All her power of action had gone from her. She gripped by instinct with hands and knees and feet. It was some time before she could think, and then only one thing was clear in her mind, that the terror was between her and the tribe, that it would be impossible to descend. Presently, when her fear was a little abated, she clambered into a more comfortable position, where a great branch forked. The trees rose about her, so that she could see nothing of Brother Fire, who was black by day. Birds began to stir, and things that had gone into hiding for fear of her movements crept out. After a time, the taller branches flamed out at the touch of the sunset. High overhead, the rooks, who were wiser than men, went calling home to their squatting places among the alms. Looking down, things were clearer and darker. Eudena thought of going back to the squatting place. She let herself down some way, and then the fear of the terror of the woodshade came again. While she hesitated, a rabbit squealed dismally, and she dared not to descend further. The shadows gathered, and the deeps of the forest began stirring. Eudena went up the tree again to be nearer the light. Down below, the shadows came out of their hiding places and walked abroad. Overhead the blue deepened. A dreadful stillness came, and then the leaves began whispering. Eudena shivered and thought of Brother Fire. The shadows now were gathering in the trees. They sat on the branches and watched her. Branches and leaves were turned to ominous, quiet black shapes that would spring on her if she stirred. Then the white owl, flitting silently, came ghostly through the shades. Darker grew the world and darker, until the leaves and twigs against the sky were black, and the ground was hidden. She remained there all night, an age-long vigil, straining her ears for the things that went on below in the darkness, and keeping motionless, lest some stealthy beast should discover her. Man in those days was never alone in the dark, save for such rare accidents as this. Age after age he had learnt the lesson of its terror, a lesson we poor children of his have nowadays painfully to unlearn. Eudena, though an age-woman, was in heart like a little child. She kept this still, poor little animal, as a hair before it has started. The stars gathered and watched her, her one grain of comfort. In one bright one, she fancied there was something like Uglomi, and then she fancied it was Uglomi, and near him, red and duller, was Uya. And as the night passed, Uglomi fled before him up the sky. She tried to see Brother Fire, who guarded the squatting place from Beast, but he was not in sight. And far away she heard the mammoth trumpeting as they went down to the drinking place, and once some huge bulk with heavy paces hurried along, making a noise like a calf, but what it was she could not see. But she thought from the voice it was Yaa the Rhinoceros, whose stabs with his nose, goes always alone, and rages without cause. At last the little stars began to hide, and then the larger ones. It was like all the animals vanishing before the terror. The sun was coming, Lord of the sky, as a grizzly was Lord of the forest. Yudina wondered what would happen if one star stayed behind, and then the sky pale to the dawn. When the daylight came, the fear of lurking things passed, and she could descend. She was stiff, but not so stiff as you would have been, dear young lady, by virtue of your upbringing. And as she had not been trained to eat at least once in three hours, but instead had often fasted three days, she did not feel uncomfortably hungry. She crept down the tree very cautiously, and went her way stealthily through the wood, and not a squirrel sprang, or a deer started, but the terror of the grizzly bear froze her marrow. Her desire was now to find her people again. The dread of Uya the cunning was consumed by the greater dread of loneliness. But she had lost her direction. She had run heedlessly overnight, and she could not tell whether the squatting place was sunward or where it lay. Ever and again she stopped and listened, and at last, very far away, she heard a measured chunking. It was so faint, even in the morning stillness, that she could tell it must be far away. But she knew the sound was that of a man sharpening a flint. Presently the trees began to thin out, and then came a regimen of needles barring the way. She turned aside, and then she came to a fallen tree that she knew, with a noise of bees about it. And so presently she was inside of the knoll, very far off, and the river under it, and the children in the hippopotamie, just as they had been yesterday. And the thin spire of smoke swaying in the morning breeze. Far away by the river was a cluster of alders where she had hidden. And at the sight of that, the fear of Uya returned. And she crept into a thicket of bracken, out of which a rabbit scuttled, and lay awhile to watch the squatting place. The men were mostly out of sight, saving Wei Yu the flintchopper, and at that, she felt safer. They were away hunting food, no doubt. Some of the women, too, were down in the streams, stooping in tent, seeking mussels, crayfish, and water snails. And at the sight of their occupation, Eudena felt hungry. She rose and ran through the fern, designing to join them. And as she went, she heard a voice among the bracken calling softly. She stopped. Then suddenly, she heard a rustle behind her. And turning, saw Uglomi rising out of the fern. There were streaks of brown blood and dirt on his face, and his eyes were fierce. And the white stone of Uya, the white firestone that none but Uya dared to touch, was in his hand. In a stride he was beside her and gripped her arm. He swung her about, and thrust her before him towards the woods. Uya, he said, and waved his arms about. She heard a cry, looked back, and saw all the women standing up, and two waiting out of the stream. Then came a nearer howling, and the old woman with the beard, who watched the fire on the knoll, was waving her arms. And Wei Yu, the man who had been chipping the flint, was getting to his feet. The little children, too, were hurrying and shouting. Come, said Uglomi, and dragged her by the arm. She still did not understand. Uya has called the deathward, said Uglomi, and she glanced back at a screaming curve of figures, and understood. Wei Yu and all the women and children were coming towards them, a scattered array of buffed, shock-headed figures, howling, leaping, and crying. Over the knoll, two youths hurried. Down among the ferns to the right came a man, heading them off from the wood. Uglomi left her arm, and the two began running side by side, leaping the bracken, and stepping clear and wide. Yudina, knowing her fleteness and the fleteness of Uglomi, laughed aloud at the unequal chase. They were an exceptionally straight-limbed couple for those days. They soon cleared the open, and drew near the wood of chestnut trees again. Neither afraid now, because neither was alone. They slackened their pace, already not excessive. And suddenly Yudina cried and swerved aside, pointing, and looking up through the tree stems. Uglomi saw the feet and legs of men running towards him. Yudina was already running off at a tangent. As he too turned to follow her, they heard the voice of Uya coming through the trees, and roaring out his rage at them. Then terror came in their hearts. Not the terror that numbs, but the terror that makes one silent and swift. They were cut off now on two sides. They were in a sort of corner of pursuit. On the right hand and nearby them came the men swift and heavy, with bearded Uya, antler in hand, leading them. And on the left, scattered as one scatters corn, yellow dashes among the fern and grass, ran weyu and the women. And even the little children from the shallow had joined the chase. The two parties converged upon them. Off they went, with Yudina ahead. They knew there was no mercy for them. There was no hunting so sweet to these ancient men, as the hunting of men. Once the fierce passion of the chase was lit, the feeble beginnings of humanity in them were thrown to the winds. And Uya in the night had marked Uglomi with the death word. Uglomi was a day's quarry, the appointed feast. They ran straight, it was their only chance, taking whatever ground came in the way. A spread of stinging nettles, an open glade, a clump of grass out of which a hyena fled snarling. The woods again, long stretches of shady leaf mold and moss under the green trunks. Then a stiff slope, tree clad, and long vistas of trees. A glade, a succulent green area of black mud. A wide open space again, and then a clump of lacerating brambles with beast tracks through it. Behind them the chase trailed out and scattered, with Uya ever at their heels. Udina kept the first place, running light and with her breath easy, for Uglomi carried the firestone in his hand. It told on his pace, not at first, but after a time. His footsteps behind her suddenly grew remote. Glancing over her shoulders they crossed another open space. Udina saw that Uglomi was many yards behind her, and Uya close upon him, with Antler already raised in the air to strike him down. Wayu and the others were but just emerging from the shadow of the woods. Seeing Uglomi in peril, Udina ran sideways, looking back, threw up her arms and cried aloud. Just as the Antler flew. A young Uglomi, expecting this and understanding her cry, ducked his head, so that the missile merely struck his scalp lightly, making but a trivial wound, and flew over him. He turned forthwith, the quartzite firestone in both hands, and hurled it straight at Uya's body as he ran loose from the throw. Uya shouted, but could not dodge it. It took him under the ribs, heavy and flat, and he reeled and went down without a cry. Uglomi caught up the Antler, one tiny bit was tipped with his own blood, and came running on again, with a red trickle just coming out of his hair. Uya rolled over twice, and lay a moment before he got up, and then he did not run fast. The color of his face was changed. Wayu overtook him, and then others, and he coughed and labored in his breath, but he kept on. At last the two fugitives gained the bank of the river, where the stream ran deep and narrow, and they still had fifty yards in hand of Wayu, the foremost pursuer, the man who made the smiting stones. He carried one, a large flint, the shape of an oyster, and double the size, chipped to a chisel edge in either hand. They sprang down the steep bank into the stream, rushed through the water, swam the deep current in two or three strokes, and came out waiting again, dripping and refreshed, to clamor up the farther bank. It was undermined, and with Willows growing thickly therefrom, so that it needed clambering. And while Udina was still among the silvery branches and Uglomi still in the water, for the Antler had encumbered him, Wayu came up against the sky on the opposite bank, and the smiting stone, thrown cunningly, took the side of Udina's knee. She struggled to the top, and fell. They heard the pursuer shout to one another, and Uglomi, climbing to her and moving jerkily to Mar Wayu's aim, felt the second smiting stone graze his ear, and heard the water splash below him. Then it was Uglomi, the stripling, proved himself to have come to Man's estate. For running on, he found Udina fell behind limping. And at that he turned, and crying savagely and with a face terrible with sudden wrath and trickling blood, ran swiftly past her to the bank, whirring the Antler round his head. And Udina kept on, running stoutly still, though she must need's limp at every step, and the pain was already sharp. So that Wayu, rising over the edge and clutching the straight Willow branches, saw Uglomi towering over him, gigantic against the blue, saw his whole body swing round, and the grip of his hands upon the Antler. The edge of the Antler came sweeping through the air, and he saw no more. The water under the Osirers whirled and eddied, and went crimson six feet down the stream. Uya, following, stopped knee-deep across the stream, and the man who was swimming turned about. The other men who trailed after, they were none of them very mighty men, for Uya was more cunning than strong, brooking no sturdy rivals, slacking momentarily at the sight of Uglomi, standing there above the Willows, bloody and terrible, between them and the halting girl, with the huge Antler waving in his hand. It seemed as though he had gone into the water of youth, and had come out of it a man full grown. He knew what there was nothing behind him, a broad stretch of grass, and then a thicket, and in that Udina could hide. That was clear in his mind, though his thinking powers were too feeble to see what should happen thereafter. Uya stood knee-deep, undecided, and unarmed. His heavy mouth hung open, showing his canine teeth, and he panted heavily. His side was flushed and bruised under the hair. The other man beside him carried a sharpened stick. The rest of the hunters came up one by one to the top of the bank. Harry, long-armed men, clutching flints and sticks. Two ran off along the bank downstream, and then clambered into the water, where Wei-Yu had come to the surface struggling weakly. Before they could reach him, he went under again. Two others threatened Uglomi from the bank. He answered back, shouts, vague insults, gestures. Then Uya, who had been hesitating, roared with rage, and whirling his fist, plunged into the water. His follower splashed after him. Uglomi glanced over his shoulder and found Yudina already vanished into the thicket. He would perhaps have waited for Uya, but Uya preferred to spar in the water below him until the others were beside him. Human tactics in those days, and all serious fighting, were the tactics of the pack. Prey that turned at bay, they gathered around and rushed. Uglomi felt the rush coming, and hurling the antler at Uya, turned about and fled. When he halted, to look back from the shadow of the thicket, he found only three of his pursuers had followed him across the river, and they were going back again. Uya, with a bleeding mouth, was on the farther side of the stream again, but lower down, and holding his hand to a side. The others were in the river dragging something to shore. For a time at least, the chase was intermittent. Uglomi stood watching for a space, and snarled at the side of Uya. Then he turned and plunged into the thicket. In a minute, Yudina came hastening to join him, and they went on hand in hand. He dimly perceived the pain she suffered from the cut and bruised knee, and chose the easier ways. But they went on all that day, mile after mile, through wood and thicket, until at last they came to the chalkland, open grass with rare woods of beach, and the birch growing near water, and they saw the wielded mountains near, and groups of horses grazing together. They went circumspectly, keeping always near thicket and cover. For this was a strange region, even its ways were strange. Steadily the ground rose, until a chestnut forest spread wide and blue below them, and the timbs marched as road silvery, high and far. They saw no men, for in those days men were still only just coming to this part of the world, and were moving but slowly along the river ways. Towards evening they came on the river again, but now it ran in a gorge, between high cliffs of white chalk that sometimes overhung it. Down the cliffs was a scrub of birches, and there were many birds there, and high up the cliff was a little shelf by a tree, whereon they clambered to pass the night. They had had scarcely any food. It was not the time of year for berries, and they had had no time to go aside to snare or waylay. They tramped in a hungry, weary silence, gnawing at twigs and leaves. But over the surface of the cliffs were a multitude of snails, and in a bush were the freshly laid eggs of a little bird, and then Uglomi threw at and killed a squirrel in a beech tree, so that at last they fed well. Uglomi watched during the night, his chin on his knees, and he heard young foxes crying hard by, and the noise of mammoths down the gorge, and the hyenas yelling and laughing far away. It was chilly, but they dared not light a fire. Whenever he dozed, his spirit went abroad, and straight away met with the spirit of Uya, and they fought. And always Uglomi was paralyzed, so that he could not smite nor run, and then he would wake suddenly. Udina, too, dreamt evil things of Uya, so that they both awoke with a fear of him in their hearts. And by the light of dawn, they saw woolly rhinoceros go blundering down the valley. During the day, they caressed one another and were glad of the sunshine, and Udina's leg was so stiff, she sat on the ledge all day. Uglomi found great flints sticking out of the cliff face, greater than any he had seen, and he dragged some to the ledge and began chipping, so as to be armed against Uya when he came again. And at one he laughed heartily, and Udina laughed, and they threw it about in derision. It had a hole in it. They stuck their fingers through it. It was very funny indeed. Then they peeped at one another through it. Afterwards, Uglomi got himself a stick, and thrusting by chance at this foolish flint, the stick went in and stuck there. He had ran it too tightly to withdraw it. That was still stranger, scarcely funny, terrible almost, and for a time Uglomi did not greatly care to touch the thing. It was as if the flint had bit and held with its teeth. But then he got familiar with the odd combination. He swung an about, and perceived that the stick with the heavy stone on the end struck a better blow than anything he knew. He went to and froze swinging it, and striking with it. But later he tired of it, and threw it aside. In the afternoon, he went up over the brow of the white cliff, and lay watching by a rabbit-worn until the rabbits came out to play. There were no men thereabouts, and the rabbits were heedless. He threw a smiting stone he had made, and got a kill. That night they made a fire from flint sparks and bracken fronds, and talked and caressed by it. And then their sleep, Uya's spirit came again. And suddenly, while Uglomi was trying to fight vainly, the foolish flint on the stick came into his hand, and he struck Uya with it, and behold, it killed him. But afterwards came other dreams of Uya, for spirits take a lot of killing, and he had to be killed again. Then after that, the stone would not keep on the stick. He awoke tired and rather gloomy, and was sulky all the forenoon, in spite of Udina's kindliness. And instead of hunting, he sat chipping a sharp edge to the singular flint, and looking strangely at her. Then he bound the perforated flint onto the stick with strips of rabbit skin. And afterwards he walked up and down the ledge, striking with it, and muttering to himself, and thinking of Uya. It felt very fine and heavy in the hand. Several days, more than there was any counting in those days, five days it may be, or six, did Uglomi and Udina stay on that shelf in the gorge of the river, and they lost all fear of men, and their fire burnt redly of a night. And they were very married together. There was food every day, sweet water, and no enemies. Udina's knee was well in a couple of days, for those ancient savages had quick healing flesh. Indeed, they were very happy. On one of those days, Uglomi dropped a chunk of flint over the cliff. He saw it fall, and go bounding across the riverbank into the river, and after laughing and thinking it over a little, he tried another. This smashed a bush of hazel in the most interesting way. They spent all the morning dropping stones from the ledge, and in the afternoon, they discovered this new and interesting pastime was also possible from the cliffbrow. The next day they had forgotten this delight, or at least it seemed they had forgotten. But Uya came in dreams to spoil the paradise. Three nights he came fighting Uglomi. In the morning after these dreams, Uglomi would walk up and down, threatening him and swinging the axe. And at last came the night after Uglomi brained the otter, and they had feasted. Uya went too far. Uglomi awoke, scowling under his heavy brows, and he took his axe, and extending his hands toward Udina, he bade her wait for him upon the ledge. Then he clambered down the white declivity, glancing up once from the foot of it, and florished his axe. And without looking back again, went striding along the riverbank, until the overhanging cliff at the bend hid him. Two days and nights, the Udina sit alone by the fire on the ledge waiting. And then the night, the beast howled over the cliffs and down the valley. And on the cliff over against her, the hunched hyenas prowled black against the sky. But no evil thing came near her safe fear. Once far away, she heard the roaring of a lion, following the horses as they came northward over the grasslands with the spring. All that time, she waited, the waiting that is pain. In the third day, Uglomi came back up the river. The plumes of a raven were in his hair. The first axe was red stained, and had long dark hairs upon it, and he carried a necklace that had marked the favorite of Uya in his hand. He walked in the soft places, giving no heed to his trail. Save a raw cut below his jaw, there was not a wound upon him. Uya cried Uglomi exultant, and Udina saw it was well. He put the necklace on Udina, and they ate and drank together. And after eating, he began to rehearse the whole story from the beginning. When Uya had cast his eyes on Udina, and Uya and Uglomi, fighting in the forest, had been chased by the bear, eaking out his scanty words with abundant pantomime, springing to his feet, and whirling the stone axe round when it came to the fighting. The last fight was a mighty one, stamping and shouting, and once a blow at the fire that sent a torn of sparks up into the night. And Udina sat red in the light of the fire, gloating on him. Her face flushed, and her eyes shining, and the necklace Uya had made about her neck. It was a splendid time, and the stars that looked down upon us, looked down upon her, our ancestor, who has been dead now these fifty thousand years. End of Section 1. Section 2 of A Story of the Stone Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Story of the Stone Age by H. G. Wells. Section 2. The Cave Bear. In the days when Udina and Uglomi fled from the people of Uya towards the fur-clad mountains of the weld, across the forest of sweet chestnut and the grass-clad chalkland, and hid themselves at last in the gorge of the river between the chalk cliffs, men were few and their squatting places far between. The nearest men to them were those of the tribe, a full day's journey down the river, and up the mountains there were none. Man was indeed a newcomer to this part of the world in that ancient time, coming slowly along the rivers, generation after generation, from one squatting place to another, from the southwestward. And the animals that held the land, the hippopotamus and rhinoceros of the river valleys, the horses of the grass plains, the deer and swine of the woods, the gray apes in the branches, the cattle of the uplands, feared him but little. Let alone the mammoths in the mountains and the elephants that came through the land in the summertime out of the south. For why should they fear him? But with the rough-chip flints that he had not learned to halft, but which he threw but ill, and the poor spear of sharpened wood, as all the weapons he had against hoof and horn, tooth and claw. Andu, the huge cave-bear who lived in the cave up the gorge, had never even seen a man in all his wise and respectable life, until midway through one night, as he was prowling down the gorge along the cliff edge. He saw the glare of Udina's fire upon the ledge, and Udina red and shining, and Uglomi, with a giant shadow mocking him upon the white cliff, going to and fro, shaking his mane of hair, and waving the ax of stone, the first ax of stone, while he chanted of the killing of Uya. The cave-bear was far up the gorge, and he saw the thing slanting ways and far off. He was so surprised, he stood quite still upon the edge, sniffing the novel odor of burning bracken, and wondering whether the dawn was coming up in the wrong place. He was the lord of the rocks and caves, was the cave-bear, as his slighter brother the grizzly, was lord of the thick woods below, and as the dappled lion, the lion of those days was dappled, was lord of the thorn-thickets, reed-beds, and open plains. He was the greatest of all meat-eaters. He knew no fear, none preyed upon him, and none gave him battle. Only the rhinoceros was beyond his strength. Even the mammoth shunned his country. This invasion perplexed him. He noticed that these new beasts were shaped like monkeys, and sparsely hairy like young pigs. Monkey and young pig said the cave-bear, it might not be so bad, but that red thing that jumps, and the black thing jumping with the yonder, never in my life have I seen such things before. He came slowly along the brow of the cliff towards them, stopping thrice to sniff and peer, and the reek of the fire grew stronger. A couple of hyenas also were so intent upon the thing below, that Andu, coming soft and easy, was close upon them before they knew of him, or he of them. They started guiltily and went lurching off. Coming around in a wheel a hundred yards off, they began yelling and calling him names to revenge themselves for the start they had had. Yaha! they cried. Who can't grub his own burrow? Who eats roots like a pig? Yaha! For even in those days, the hyenas' manners were just as offensive as they are now. Who answers the hyena? growled Andu, peering through the midnight dimness at them, and then going to look at the cliff edge. There was a glomy, still telling his story, and the fire getting low, and the scent of the burning hot and strong. Andu stood on the edge of the chalk cliff for some time, shifting his vast weight from foot to foot, and swaying his head to and fro with his mouth open, his ears erect and twitching, and the nostrils of his big black muzzle sniffing. He was very curious was the cave bear, more curious than any of the bears that live now. And the flickering fire and the incomprehensible movements of the man, let alone the intrusion into his indisputable province, stirred him with a sense of strange new happenings. He had been after Red Deerfawn that night, for the cave bear was a miscellaneous hunter. But this quite turned him from that enterprise. Yaha! yelled a hyena's behind. Yaha! Peering through the starlight, Andu saw that there were now three or four going to and fro against the gray hillside. They will hang about me now all the night, until I kill, said Andu. Filth of the world. And mainly to annoy them, he resolved to wash the red flicker in the gorge until the dawn came to drive the hyena's scum home. After a time they vanished, and he heard their voices, like a party of cockney bean-feasters, away in the beech woods. Then they came slinking near again. Andu yawned and went along the cliff, and they followed. Then he stopped and went back. It was a splendid night. The set was shining constellations. The same stars, but not the same constellations we know. For a sense of those days, all the stars have had time to move into new places. Far away, across the open space beyond where the heavy shouldered, lean body hyena's blundered and howled was a beech wood. And the mountain slopes rose beyond, a dim mystery, until their snow-capped summits came out white and cold and clear, touched by the first rays of the yet unseen moon. It was a vast silence, save when the yellow of the hyena's fung of vanishing discordance across its peace. Or when from down the hills the trumpeting of the new-come elephants came faintly on the faint breeze. And below now the red flicker had dwindled and was steady, and shone a deeper red. Anuglomi had finished his story and was preparing to sleep. Andudina sat and listened to the strange voices of unknown beast, and watched the dark eastern sky growing deeply luminous at the advent of the moon. Down below the river talked to itself, and things unseen went too and fro. After a time the bear went away, but in an hour he was back again. Then, as if struck by a thought, he turned and went up the gorge. The night passed anduglomi slept on. The waning moon rose and let the gaunt white cliffs overhead, with a light that was pale and vague. The gorge remained in a deeper shadow and seemed all the darker. Then by imperceptible degrees, the day came stealing in the wake of the moonlight. Udina's eyes wandered to the cliffbrow overhead once, and then again. Each time the line was sharp and clear against the sky, and yet she had a dim perception of something lurking there. The red of the fire grew deeper and deeper. Grey scale spread upon it. Its vertical column of smoke became more and more visible. And up and down the gorge, things that had been unseen grew clear in the colorless illumination. She may have dozed. Suddenly she started up from her squatting position, erect and alert, scrutinizing the cliff up and down. She made the faintest sound, anduglomi too, light sleeping like an animal, was instantly awake. He caught up his axe and came noiselessly to her side. The light was still dim. The world now all black and dark gray, and one sickly star still lingered overhead. The ledge they were on was a little grassy space, six feet wide perhaps, and twenty feet long, sloping outwardly with a handful of St. John's wart growing near the edge. Below it, the soft white rock fell away in a steep slope of nearly fifty feet to the thick bush of hazel that frins the river. Down the river the slope increased, until some way off a thin grass held its own right up to the crest of the cliff. Overhead, forty or fifty feet of rock bulged into the great masses characteristic of chalk. But at the end of the ledge a gully, a precipitve groove of discolored rock slashed the face of the cliff and gave a footing to a scrubby growth, by which Udina anduglomi went up and down. They stood as noiseless as startled deer, with every sense expectant. For a minute they heard nothing, and then came a faint rattling of dust down the gully, and the creaking of twigs. Udina gripped his axe and went to the edge of the ledge, for the bulge of the chalk overhead had hidden the upper part of the gully. And forthwith, with a sudden contraction of the heart, he saw the cave bear halfway down from the brow, and making a gingerly backward step with his flat hind foot. His hind quarters were toward Uduglomi, and he clawed at the rocks and bushes, so that he seemed flattened against the cliff. He looked none the less for that. From his shining snout to a stumpy tail, he was a lion and a half, the length of two tall men. He looked over a shoulder, and his huge mouth was open with the exertion of holding up his great carcass, and his tongue lay out. He got his footing, and came slowly, a yard nearer. Bear, said Uduglomi, looking round with his face white. But Udina, with terror in her eyes, was pointing down the cliff. Uduglomi's mouth fell open, for down below, with her big forefeet against the rock, stood another big brown gray bulk, the she-bear. She was not so big as Andu, but she was big enough for all that. Then suddenly Uduglomi gave a cry, and catching up a handful of the litter of ferns that lay scattered on the ledge, he thrust it into the pallet ash of the fire. Brother Fire, he cried. Brother Fire, and Udina, starting into activity, did likewise. Brother Fire, help. Help, Brother Fire. Brother Fire was still red in his heart, but he turned to gray as they scattered him. Brother Fire, they screamed. But he whispered and passed, and there was nothing but ashes. Then Uduglomi danced with anger and struck the ashes with his fist. But Udina began to hammer the firestone against a flint. And the eyes of each were turning ever and again towards the gully, by which Andu was climbing down. Brother Fire. Suddenly the huge furry hindquarters of the bear came into view, beneath the bulge of the chalk that had hidden him. He was still clambering gingerly down the nearly vertical surface. His head was yet out of sight. But they could hear him talking to himself. Pig and Monkey said to Cave Bear, it ought to be good. Udina struck a spark and blew at it. It twinkled brighter, and then went out. At that she cast down flint and firestone and stared blankly. Then she sprang to her feet and scrambled a yard or so up the cliff above the ledge. How she hung on even for a moment, I do not know. For the chalk was vertical and without grip for a monkey. In a couple of seconds, she had slid back to the ledge again, with bleeding hands. Uglomi was making frantic rushes about the ledge. Now he would go to the edge, now to the gully. He did not know what to do. He could not think. The she-bear looked smaller than her mate, much. If they rushed down on her together, one might live. Ugg said to Cave Bear, and Uglomi turned again and saw his little eyes peering under the bulge of the chalk. Udina, cowering at the edge of the ledge, began to scream like a gripped rabbit. At that, a sort of madness came upon Uglomi. With a mighty cry, he caught up his axe and ran towards Andu. The monster gave a grunt of surprise. In a moment, Uglomi was clinging to a bush right underneath the bear. And in another, he was hanging to its back, half-buried in fur, with one fist clutched in the hair under its jaw. The bear was too astonished at this fantastic attack to do more than cling passive. And then the axe, the first of all axes, rang on its skull. The bear's head twisted from side to side, and he began a petulant, scolding growl. The axe bit within an inch of the left eye, and the hot blood blinded that side. At that, the brute roared with surprise and anger. And its teeth gnashed six inches from Uglomi's face. Then the axe, club close, came down heavily upon the corner of the jaw. The next blow blinded the right side and called forth a roar, this time of pain. Udina saw the huge flat feet slipping and sliding. And suddenly the bear gave a clumsy leap sideways, as if for the ledge. Then everything vanished, and the hazel smashed. And the roar of pain and tumult of shouts and growls came up from far below. Udina screamed and ran to the edge and peered over. For a moment, man and bears were a heap together, Uglomi uppermost. And then he had sprung clear and was scaling the gully again, with the bears rolling and striking at one another among the hazels. But he had left his axe below, and three knob-ended streaks of carmine were shooting down his thigh. Up, he cried, and in a moment, Udina was leading the way to the top of the cliff. In half a minute, they were at the crest, their hearts pumping noisily, with Andu and his wife far and safe below them. Andu was sitting on his haunches, both paws at work, trying with quick exasperated movements to wipe the blindness out of his eyes. And the she-bear stood on all fours a little way off, ruffled in appearance and growling angrily. Uglomi flung himself flat on the grass and lay panting and bleeding with his face on his arms. For a second, Udina regarded the bears. Then she came and sat beside him, looking at him. Presently, she put forth her hand timidly and touched him, and made the guttural sound that was his name. He turned over and raised himself on his arm. His face was pale, like the face of one who was afraid. He looked at her steadfastly for a moment, and then suddenly he laughed. Wa! he said exultantly. Wa! said she. A simple but expressive conversation. Then Uglomi came and knelt beside her, and on hands and knees peered over the brow and examined the gorge. His breath was steady now, and the blood on his leg had ceased to flow, though the scratches the she-bear had made were open and wide. He squatted up and sat staring at the footmarks of the great bear as they came to the gully. They were as wide as his head and twice as long. Then he jumped up and went along the cliff face until the ledge was visible. Here he sat down for some time thinking, while Udina watched him. Presently, she saw the bears had gone. At last Uglomi rose, as one whose mind is made up. He returned towards the gully, Udina keeping close by him, and together they clambered to the ledge. They took the firestone in a flint, and then Uglomi went down to the foot of the cliff very cautiously and found his axe. They returned to the cliff as quietly as they could and set off at a brisk walk. The ledge was home no longer with such collars in the neighborhood. Uglomi carried the axe and Udina the firestone. So simple was a paleolithic removal. They went upstream, although it might lead to the very layer of the cave bear, because there was no other way to go. Down the stream was the tribe, and had not Uglomi killed Uya and Weyu? By the stream they had to keep, because of drinking. So they marched through the beach trees, with the gorge deepening until the river flowed, a frothing rapid, five hundred feet below them. Of all the changeful things in this world of change, the courses of rivers and deep valleys changed least. It was the river way, the river we know today, and they marched over the very spots where nowadays stand Little Guilford and Galdalming, the first human beings to come into the land. Once a gray ape chattered and vanished, and all along the cliff edge, vast and even, ran the spore of the great cave bear. And then the spore of the bear fell away from the cliff, showing Uglomi thought that he came from some place to the left. And keeping to the cliff's edge, they presently came to an end. They found themselves looking down on a great semicircular space, caused by the collapse of the cliff. It had smashed right across the gorge, banking the upstream water back in a pool, which overflowed in a rapid. The slip had happened long ago. It was grasped over, but the face of the cliffs that stood about the semicircle was still almost fresh looking, and white is on the day when the rock must have broken and slid down. Starkly exposed, and black under the foot of these cliffs, were the mouths of several caves. And as they stood there, looking at the space and disinclined to skirt it, because they thought the bear's lair lay somewhere on the left in the direction that they must need to take, they saw suddenly first one bear, and then two coming up the grass slope to the right, and going across the amphitheater towards the caves. Andu was first. He dropped a little on his forefoot, and his mean was despondent. And the she-bear came shuffling behind. Udina and Uglomi stepped back from the cliff until they could just see the bears over the verge. Then Uglomi stopped. Udina pulled his arm, but he turned with a forbidding gesture, and her hand dropped. Uglomi stood watching the bears with his axe in his hand until they had vanished into the cave. He growled softly, and shook the axe at the she-bear's receding quarters. Then, to Udina's terror, instead of creeping off with her, he lay flat down and crawled forward into such a position that he could just see the cave. It was bears, and he did it as calmly as if it had been rabbits he was watching. He lay still, like a barked log, sun-dabbled in the shadow of the trees. He was thinking. And Udina had learnt, even when a little girl, that when Uglomi became still like that, jawbone on fist, novel things presently began to happen. It was an hour before the thinking was over. It was noon when the two little savages had found their way to the cliff-brow that overhung the bear's cave. And all the long afternoon, they fought desperately with a great boulder of chalk, trundling it with nothing but their unaided sturdy muscles, from the gully word it hung like a loose tooth, towards the cliff-top. It was a full two yards about. It stood as high as Udina's waist. It was obtuse-angled, and toothed with flints. And when the sun set, it was poised, three inches from the edge, above the cave of the great cave-bear. In the cave, conversation languished during that afternoon. The she-bear snooze sulkly in her corner, for she was fond of pig and monkey. And Andu was busy licking the side of his paw, and smearing his face to cool the smart and inflammation of his wounds. Afterwards he went and sat just within the mouth of the cave, blinking out at the afternoon sun with his uninjured eye and thinking. I was never so startled in my life, he said at last. They are the most extraordinary beast, attacking me. I don't like them, said the she-bear, out of the darkness behind. A feebler sort of beast I never saw. I can't think what the world is coming to, scraggly, weedy legs. Wonder how they keep warm in winter. Very likely they don't, said the she-bear. I suppose it's a sort of monkey gone wrong. It's a change, said the she-bear. A pause. The advantage he had was merely accidental, said Andu. These things will happen at times. I can't understand why you let go, said the she-bear. That matter had been discussed before and settled. So Andu, being a bear of experience, remained silent for a space. Then he resumed upon a different aspect of the matter. He has a sort of claw, a long claw that he seemed to have first on one paw, and then on the other. Just one claw. They're very odd things. The bright thing, too, they seem to have. Like that glare that comes in the sky in daytime. Only it jumps about. It's really worth seeing. It's a thing with a root, too. Like grass when it's windy. Does it bite, asked the she-bear. If it bites, it can't be a plant. No. I don't know, said Andu. But it's curious, anyhow. I wonder if they are good eating, said the she-bear. They look it, said Andu, with appetite. For the cave-bear, like the polar bear, was an incurable carnivore. No roots or honey for him. The two bears fell into a meditation for a space. Then Andu resumed his simple attentions to his eye. The sunlight up in the green slope before the cave-mouth grew warmer in tone and warmer, until it was a ruddy amber. Curious sort of thing, day, said the cave-bear. Lot too much of it, I think. Quite unsuitable for hunting. Dazzles me always. I can't smell nearly so well by day. The she-bear did not answer, but there came a measured crunching sound out of the darkness. She had turned up a bone. Andu yawned. Well, he said. He strolled to the cave-mouth and stood with his head projecting, surveying the amphitheater. He found he had to turn his head completely around as he objects on his right hand side. No doubt that I would be all right tomorrow. He yawned again. There was a tap overhead, and a big mess of chalk flew out from the cliff face, dropped a yard in front of his nose, and starred into a dozen unequal fragments. It startled him extremely. When he had recovered a little from his shock, he went and sniffed curiously at the representative pieces of the fallen projectile. They had a distinctive flavor, oddly reminiscent of the two drab animals of the ledge. He sat up and pawed the larger lump, and walked round it several times, trying to find a man about it somewhere. When night had come, he went off down the river gorge to see if he could cut off either of the ledge's occupants. The ledge was empty. There were no signs of the red thing, but as he was rather hungry, he did not loiter along that night, but pushed on to pick up a red deer fawn. He forgot about the drab animals. He found a fawn, but the doe was close by and made an ugly fight for her young. Andrew had to leave the fawn, but as her blood was up, she stuck to the attack, and at last he got a blow of his paw on her nose, and so got hold of her. More meat, but less delicacy. And the she-bear following had her share. The next afternoon, curiously enough, the very fellow of the first white rock fell, and smashed precisely according to precedent. The aim of the third that fell the night after, however, was better. It hit Andrew's unspeculative skull with a crack that echoed up the cliff, and the white fragments went dancing to all the points of the compass. The she-bear coming after him and sniffing curiously at him found him lying in an odd sort of attitude, with his head wet and all out of shape. She was a young she-bear and inexperienced, and having sniffed about him for some time and licked him a little and so forth, she decided to leave him until the odd mood had passed, and went on with her hunting alone. She looked up the fawn of the red doe they had killed two nights ago, and found it. But it was lonely hunting without Andrew, and she returned caveward before dawn. The sky was gray and overcast, the trees up the gorge were black and unfamiliar, and into her ursine mind came a dim sense of strange and dreary happenings. She lifted up her voice and called Andrew by name. The sides of the gorge re-echoed her. As she approached the caves, she saw on the half-light and heard a couple of jackals scuttle off. And immediately after, a hyena howled, and a dozen clumsy bolts went lumbering up the slope, and stopped and yelled derision. Lord of the rocks and caves, Yaha! came down the wind. The dismal feeling in the she-bear's mind became suddenly acute. She shuffled across the amphitheater. Yaha! said the hyena's retreating. Yaha! The cave-bear was not lying quite in the same attitude, because the hyenas had been busy. And in one place, his ribs showed white. Dotted over the turf about him lay the smashed fragments of the three great lumps of chalk. And the air was full of the scent of death. The she-bear stopped dead, even now that the great and wonderful Andrew was killed was beyond her believing. Then she heard far overhead a sound, a queer sound, a little like the shout of a hyena, but fuller and lower in pitch. She looked up, her little dawn-blinded eyes seeing little, her nostrils quivering. And there, on the cliff-edge, far above her against the bright pink of dawn, were two little shaggy, round-dark things, the heads of Eudena and Aglomi, as they shouted derision at her. But though she could not see them very distinctly, she could hear, and dimly she began to apprehend. A novel feeling as if eminent strange evils came into her heart. She began to examine the smashed fragments of chalk that lay about Andrew. For a space she stood still, looking about her and making a low continuous sound that was almost a moan. Then she went back incredulously to Andrew to make one last effort to rouse him. End of Section 2. Section 3 of A Story of the Stone Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Story of the Stone Age by H. G. Wells. Section 3. THE FIRST HORSEMAN In the days before Aglomi, there was little trouble between the horses and men. They lived apart, the men in the river swamps and thickets, the horses in the wide grassy uplands between the chestnuts and the pines. Sometimes a pony would come straying into the clogging marshes to make a flint-hacked meal, and sometimes a tribe would find one, the kill of a lion, and drive off the jackals and feast heartily while the sun was high. These horses of the old times were clumsy at the fetlock, and dung-colored with a rough tail and big head. They came every springtime northward into the country, after the swallows and before the hippopotamie, as the grasses and the wide downland stretches grew long. They came only in small bodies thus far, each herd, a stallion and two or three mares, and a foal or so, having its own stretch of country, and they went again when the chestnut trees were yellow, and the wolves came down the welded mountains. It was their custom to graze right out in the open, going into cover only in the heat of day. They avoided the long stretches of thorn and beechwood, preferring an isolated group of trees void of ambuscade, so that it was hard to come upon them. They were never fighters, their heels and teeth were for one another, but in the clear country, once they were started, no living thing came near them, though perhaps the elephant might have done so had he felt the need. And in those days, man seemed a harmless thing enough. No whisper of prophetic intelligence told the species of the terrible slavery that was to come, of the whip and spur and bearing rain, the clumsy load in the slippery street, the insufficient food, and the knackers yard that was to replace the wide grassland and the freedom of the earth. Down in the way marshes, Uglome and Udina had never seen the horses closely, but now they saw them every day as the two of them raided out from their lair on the edge of the gorge, raiding together in search of food. They had returned to the ledge after the killing of Andu, for of the she-bear they were not afraid. The she-bear had become afraid of them, and when she winded them, she went aside. The two went together everywhere, for since they had left the tribe, Udina was not so much Uglome's woman as his mate. She learned to hunt even, as much that is as any woman could. She was indeed a marvelous woman. He would lie for hours watching a beast, or planning catches in that shock head of his, and she would stay beside him, with her bright eyes upon him, offering no irritating suggestions, as still as any man, a wonderful woman. At the top of the cliff was an open grassy lawn and then beech woods, and going through the beech woods one came to a ledge of the rolling grassy expanse, and in sight of the horses. Here, on the edge of the wood and bracken, were the rabbit burrows, and here among the fronds Udina and Uglome would lie with their throwing stones ready, until the little people came out to nibble and play in the sunset. And while Udina would sit, a silent figure of watchfulness regarding the burrows, Uglome's eyes were ever away across the greensward at those wonderful grazing strangers. In a dim way, he appreciated their grace and their supple nimbleness. As the sun declined in the evening time and the heat of the day passed, they would become active, would start chasing one another, neighing, dodging, shaking their mains, coming round in great curves, sometimes so close that the pounding of the turf sounded like hurried thunder. It looked so fine that Uglome wanted to join in badly, and sometimes one would roll over on the turf, kicking four hooves heavenward, which seemed formidable and was certainly much less alluring. Dim imaginings ran through Uglome's mind as he watched, by virtue of which two rabbits lived the longer, and sleeping his brains were clearer and bolder, for that was away in those days. He came nearer the horses he dreamt and fought, smiting stone against hoof, but then the horses changed to men, or at least to men's with horses' heads, and he awoke in a cold sweat of terror. Yet the next day in the morning, as the horses were grazing, one of the mayors winnied, and they saw Uglome coming up the wind. They all stopped their eating and watched him. Uglome was not coming towards them, but strolling obliquely across the open, looking at anything in the world but horses. He had stuck three fur and fronds into the mat of his hair, giving him a remarkable appearance, and he walked very slowly. What's up now, said the master horse, who was capable but inexperienced. It looks more like the first half of an animal than anything else in the world, he said. Four legs, and no hind. It's only one of those pink monkey things, said the eldest mare. They're a sort of river monkey. They're quite common on the plains. Uglome continued his oblique advance. The eldest mare was struck with a want of a motive in his proceedings. Fool, said the eldest mare, in a quick conclusive way she had. She resumed her grazing. The master horse and the second mare followed suit. Look, he's nearer, said the foal with a stripe. One of the younger foals made uneasy movements. Uglome squatted down and sat regarding the horses fixedly. In a little while he was satisfied that they meant neither flight nor hostilities. He began to consider his next procedure. He did not feel anxious to kill, but he had his acts with him, and the spirit of sport was upon him. How would one kill one of these creatures, these great, beautiful creatures? Eudena, watching him with a fearful admiration from the cover of the bracken, saw him presently go down on all fours, and so proceed again. But the horses preferred him a biped to a quadruped, and the master horse threw up his head and gave the word to move. Uglome thought they were off for good, but after a minute's gallop they came round in a wide curve and stood winding him. Then, as a rise in the ground hid him, they tailed out, the master horse leading, and approached him spirally. He was as ignorant of the possibilities of the horse as they were of his, and at this stage it would seem he funked. He knew this kind of stalking would make Red Deer a buffalo charge if it were persisted in. At any rate, Eudena saw him jump up and come walking towards her with the firm plumes held in his hand. She stood up, and he grinned to show that the whole thing was an immense lark, and that what he had done was just what he had planned to do from the very beginning. So that incident ended, but he was very thoughtful all that day. The next day this foolish, drab creature with its lean-eye mane, instead of going about grazing or hunting he was made for, was prowling round the horses again. The eldest mare was all for silent contempt. I suppose he wants to learn something from us, she said, and let him. The next day he was at it again. The master horse decided he meant absolutely nothing. But as a matter of fact, Uglomi, the first of men to feel that curious spell of the horse that binds us even to this day, meant a great deal. He admired them unreservedly. There was a rudiment of the snob in him, I am afraid, and he wanted to be near these beautifully curved animals. Then there were the vague conceptions of a kill. If only they would let him come near them. But they drew the line he found, at fifty yards. If he came nearer than that they moved off, with dignity. I suppose it was the way he had blinded Andu that made him think of leaping on the back of one of them. But though Eudena after a time came out in the open two, and they did some unobtrusive stalking, things stopped there. Then one memorable day, a new idea came to Uglomi. The horse looks down in level, but he does not look up. No animals look up, they have too much common sense. It was only that fantastic creature man could waste his wit skyward. Uglomi made no philosophical deduction, but he perceived the thing was so. So he spent a weary day in a beach that stood in the open, while Eudena stalked. Usually the horses would into the shade and the heat of the afternoon, but that day the sky was overcast, and they would not, in spite of Eudena's solicitude. It was two days after that that Uglomi had his desire. The day was blazing hot, and the multiplying flies asserted themselves. The horses stopped grazing before midday, and came into the shadow below him, and stood in couple's nose to tail, flapping. The master horse, by virtue of his heels, came closest to the tree, and suddenly there was a rustle and a creek, a thud, then a sharp chipped flint bit him on the cheek. The master horse stumbled, came on one knee, rose to his feet, and was off like the wind. The air was full of the whirl of limbs, the prints of hooves, the snorts of alarm. Uglomi was pitched a foot in the air, and came down again, up again. His stomach was hit violently, and then his knees got a grip of something between them. He found himself clutching with knees, feet and hands, careering violently with extraordinary oscillation through the air. His axe gone, heaven knows wither. Hold tight, said Mother Instinct, and he did. He was aware of a lot of coarse hair in his face, some of it between his teeth, and the green turf streaming past in front of his eyes. He saw the shoulder of the master horse, vast and sleek, with the muscles flowing swiftly under the skin. He perceived that his arms were round the neck, and that the violent jerkings he experienced had a sort of rhythm. Then he was in the midst of a wild rush of tree stems, and then there were fronds of bracken about, and then more open turf. Then a stream of pebbles rushing past, little pebbles flying sideways a thwart to stream from the blow of the swift hooves. Uglomi began to feel frightfully sick and giddy, but he was not the stuff to leave go, simply because he was uncomfortable. He dared not leave his grip, but he tried to make himself more comfortable. He released his hug on the neck, gripping the mane instead. He slipped his knees forward, and pushing back, came into the sitting position where the quarters brought him. It was nervous work, but he managed it, and at last he was fairly seated astride, breathless indeed and uncertain, but with that frightful pounding of his body at any rate relieved. Slowly the fragments of Uglomi's mind got into order again. The pace seemed to him terrific, but a kind of exultation was beginning to oust his first frantic terror. The air rushed by, sweet and wonderful. The rhythm of the hooves changed and broke up and returned into itself again. They were on the turf now, a wide glade. The beech trees a hundred yards away on either side, and the succulent band of greens started with pink blossoms and shot with silver water here and there, meandered down the middle. Far off was a glimpse of Blue Valley, far away. The exultation grew. It was man's first taste of pace. Then came a wide space dappled with flying fellow deer scattering this way and that, and then a couple of jackals, mistaking Uglomi for a lion, came herring after him. And when they saw it was not a lion, they still came out of curiosity. On galloped the horse, with his one idea of escape, and after him the jackals, with pricked ears and quickly barked remarks. Which kills which? said the first jackal. It's the horse being killed, said the second. They gave the howl of following, and the horse answered to it as the horse answers nowadays to the spur. On they rushed, a little tornado through the quiet day, putting up startled birds, sending a dozen unexpected things starting to cover, raising a myriad of indignant dung flies, smashing little blossoms, flowering complacently, back into their parental turf. Trees again, and then splash, splash across the torrent. Then a hare shot out of a turf of grass under the very hooves of a master horse, and the jackals left them incontinently. So presently they broke into the open again, a wide expanse of turfy hillside, the very grassy downs that fall northward nowadays from Epson's stand. The first hot bolt of the master horse was long since over. He was falling into a measured trot, and Uglomi, albeit bruised exceedingly, and quite uncertain of the future, was in a state of glorious enjoyment. And now came a new development. The pace broke again. The master horse came round in a short curve, and stopped dead. Uglomi became alert. He wished he had a flint, but the throwing flint he had carried in a thong about his waist was, like the axe, heaven knows where. The master horse turned his head, and Uglomi became aware of an eye and teeth. He whipped his leg into a position of security, and hid it to cheek with his fist. Then the head went down somewhere out of existence apparently, and the back he was sitting on flew up into a dome. Uglomi became a thing of instinct again, strictly prehensile. He held by knees and feet, and his head seemed sliding towards the turf. His fingers were twisted into the shock of Maine, and the rough hair of the horse saved him. The gradient he was on lowered again, and then, "'Whoop!' said Uglomi, astonished, and the slant was the other way up. But Uglomi was a thousand generations nearer the primordial than man. No monkey could have held on better. And the lion had been training the horse for countless generations against the tactics of rolling and rearing back. But he kicked like a master, and buck jumped rather neatly. In five minutes, Uglomi lived a lifetime. If he came off, the horse would kill him, he felt assured. Then the master horse decided to stick to his old tactics again, and suddenly went off at a gallop. He headed down the slope, taking the steep places at a rush, swerving neither to the right nor to the left. And as they rode down, the wide expansive valley sank out of sight, behind the approaching skirmishers of oak and hawthorn. They skirted a sudden hollow with the pool of a spring, rank weeds and silver bushes. The ground grew softer and the grass taller, and on the right hand side and the left, came scattered bushes of may, still splashed with belated blossom. Presently the bushes thickened, until they lashed the passing rider, and little flashes and gouts of blood came out on horse and man. Then the way opened again. And then came a wonderful adventure, a sudden squeal of unreasonable anger rose amidst the bushes, the squeal of some creature bitterly wronged. And crashing after them appeared a big gray-blue shape. It was Yah, the big horned rhinoceros, in one of those fits of fury of his, charging full tilt after the manner of his kind. He had been startled at his feeding, and someone, it did not matter who, was to be ripped and trampled therefore. He was bearing down on them from the left, with his wicked little red eye, his great horned down, and his tail like a jury mass behind him. For a minute, Luglomi was minded to slip off and dodge, and then, behold, the staccato of the hooves grew swifter, and the rhinoceros in his stumpy, hurrying little legs seemed to slide out at the back corner of Luglomi's eye. In two minutes they were through the bushes of may, and out in the open, going fast. For a space he could hear the ponderous paces in pursuit receding behind him, and then it was just as if Yah had not lost his temper, as if Yah had never existed. The pace never faltered, on they rode, and on. Luglomi was now all exultation. To exalt in those days was to insult. Yah-ha! Big nose, he said, trying to crane back and see some remote speck of a pursuer. Why don't you carry your smiting stone in your fist? He ended in a frantic whoop. But that whoop was unfortunate, for coming close to the ear of the horse, and being quite unexpected, it startled the stallion extremely. He shied violently, Luglomi suddenly found himself uncomfortable again. He was hanging onto the horse he found, by one arm and one knee. The rest of the ride was honorable, but unpleasant. The view was chiefly of blue sky, and that was combined with the most unpleasant physical sensations. Finally a bush of thorn lashed him, and he let go. He hit the ground with his cheek and shoulder, and then, after a complicated and extraordinarily rapid movement, hit it again with the end of his backbone. He saw splashes and sparks of light and color. The ground seemed bouncing about just like the horse had done. Then he found he was sitting on turf, six yards beyond the bush. In front of him was a space of grass, growing greener and greener, and a number of human beings in the distance. And the horse was going round at a smart gallop, quite a long ways off to the right. The human beings were on the opposite side of the river, some still in the water, but they were all running away as hard as they could go. The advent of a monster that took to pieces was not the sort of novelty they cared for. For quite a minute Luglomi sat regarding them in a purely spectacular spirit. The bend of the river, the knoll amongst the reeds and royal ferns, the thin streams of smoke going up to heaven, were all perfectly familiar to him. It was a squatting place of the sons of Uya, of Uya from whom he had fled with Udina, and whom he had waylaid in the chestnut woods and killed with the first axe. He rose to his feet, still dazed from his fall, and as he did so the scattering fugitives turned and regarded him. Some pointed to the receiving horse and chattered. He walked slowly towards him, staring. He forgot the horse. He forgot his own bruises in the growing interest of this encounter. There were fewer of them than there had been. He supposed the others must have hid. The heap of fern for the night fire was not so high. By the flint heaps should have sat wayu, but then he remembered he had killed wayu. Suddenly brought back to this familiar scene, the gorge and the bears and Udina seemed things remote, things dreamt of. He stopped at the bank and stood regarding the tribe. His mathematical abilities were of the slightest, but it was certain there were fewer. The men might be away, but there were fewer women and children. He gave the shout of homecoming. His quarrel had been with Uya and wayu, not with the others. Children of Uya, he cried. They answered with his name, a little fearfully, because of the strange way he had come. For a space they spoke together. Then an old woman lifted a shrill voice and answered him, Our Lord is a lion. Uglomi did not understand that same. They answered him again several together. Uya comes again. He comes as a lion. Our Lord is a lion. He comes at night. He slays whom he will. But none other may slay us, Uglomi. None other may slay us. Still Uglomi did not understand. Our Lord is a lion. He speaks no more to men. Uglomi stood regarding them. He had had dreams. He knew that though he had killed Uya, Uya still existed. And now they told him Uya was a lion. The shriveled old woman, the mistress of the fire-minders, suddenly turned and spoke softly to those next to her. She was a very old woman indeed. She had been the first of Uya's wives, and he had let her live beyond the age to which it is seenly a woman should be permitted to live. She had been cunning from the first, cunning to please Uya and to get food. And now she was great in counsel. She spoke softly, and Uglomi watched your shriveled form across the river with a curious distaste. Then she called aloud, Come over to us, Uglomi. A girl suddenly lifted up her voice. Come over to us, Uglomi, she said. And they all began crying. Come over to us, Uglomi. It was strange how their manner changed after the old woman called. He stood quite still, watching them all. It was pleasant to be called, and the girl who had called first was a pretty one. But she made him think of Yudina. Come over to us, Uglomi, they cried. And the voice of the shriveled old woman rose above them all. At the sound of her voice, his hesitation returned. He stood on the river bank, Uglomi, Ugg the thinker, with his thoughts slowly taking shape. Presently one and then the other paused to see what he would do. He was minded to go back. He was minded not to. Suddenly his fear or his caution got the upper hand. Without answering them he turned, and walked back towards the distant thorn trees, the way he had come. Fourth with the whole tribe started crying to him again very eagerly. He hesitated and turned. Then he went on. Then he turned again. And then once again, regarding them with troubled eyes as they called. The last time he took two paces back before his fear stopped him. They saw him stop once more, and suddenly shake his head and vanish among the hawthorn trees. Then all the women and children lifted up their voices together, and called to him in one last vain effort. Far down the river the reeds were stirring in the breeze, where, convenient for his new sort of feeding, the old lion who had taken to man-eating had made his lair. The old woman turned her face that way and pointed to the hawthorn thickets. Ooya! she screamed. There goes thine enemy. There goes thine enemy, Ooya. Why do you devour us nightly? We have tried to snare him. There goes thine enemy, Ooya. But the lion who preyed upon the tribe was taking his siesta. The cry went unheard. That day he had dined on one of the plumper girls. And his mood was a comfortable placidity. He really did not understand that he was Ooya, or that Uglomi was his enemy. So it was that Uglomi rode the horse, and first heard of Ooya the lion, who had taken the place of Ooya the master, and was eating up the tribe. And as he hurried back to the gorge, his mind was no longer full of the horse, but of the thought that Ooya was still alive, to slay or be slain. Over and over again he saw the shrunken band of women and children, crying that Ooya was a lion. Ooya was a lion. And presently, fearing the twilight might come upon him, Uglomi began running. End of Section 3. Section 4 of A Story of the Stone Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Story of the Stone Age by H. G. Wells. Section 4. Ooya the Lion. The old lion was in luck. The tribe had a certain pride in their ruler, but that was all the satisfaction they got out of it. He came the very night that Uglomi killed Ooya the cunning, and so it was that they named him Ooya. It was the old woman, the fireminder, who first named him Ooya. A shower had lowered the fires to a glow, and made the night dark. And as they conversed together, and peered at one another in the darkness, and wondered fearfully what Ooya would do to them in their dreams now that he was dead, they heard the mounting reverberations of the lion's roar close in hand. Then everything was still. They held their breath, so that almost the only sounds were the patter of the rain and the hiss of the raindrops in the ashes. And then, after an interminable time, a crash and a streak of fear and a growling. They sprang to their feet, shouting, screaming, running this way and that. But brands would not burn, and in a minute, the victim was being dragged away through the ferns. It was Urk, the brother of Ooya. So the lion came. The ferns were still wet from the rain the next night, and he came and took click with the red hair. That suffice for two nights. And then in the dark between the moons he came three nights, night after night, and that though they had good fires. He was an old lion with stumpy teeth, but very silent and very cool. He knew of fires before. These were not the first of mankind that administered to his old age. The third night he came between the outer fire and the inner, and he leapt the flint heap and pulled down Urm, the son of Urk, who had seemed to be like the leader. That was a dreadful night, because they lit great flares of fern and ran screaming, and the lion missed his hold of Urm. By the glare of the fire, they saw Urm struggle up and run a little way towards him. Then the lion and two bounds had him down again. That was the last of Urm. So fear came, and all the delight of spring passed out of their lives. Already there were five gone out of the tribe, and four nights added three more to the number. Food seeking became spiritless. None knew who might go next. And all day the women toiled, even the favorite women, gathering litter and sticks for the night fires. And the hunters hunted ill. And the warm springtime hunger came again, as though it was still winter. The tribe might have moved had they had a leader, but they had no leader. And none knew where to go that the lion could not follow them. So the old lion waxed fat and thanked heaven for the kindly race of men. Two of the children and a youth died while the moon was still new. And then it was the shriveled old fireminder first but thought herself in a dream of Udina and Uglomi, end of the way Uya had been slain. She had lived in fear of Uya all her days, and now she lived in fear of the lion. That Uglomi could kill Uya for good, Uglomi whom she had seen born was impossible. It was Uya still seeking his enemy. And then came the strange return of Uglomi, a wonderful animal seen galloping far across the river that suddenly changed into two animals, a horse and a man. Following this portent, the vision of Uglomi on the farther bank of the river. Yes, it was all plain to her. Uya was punishing them because they had not hunted down Uglomi and Udina. The men came straggling back to the chances of the night while the sun was still golden in the sky. They were received with the story of Uglomi. She went across the river with them and showed him a spore, hesitating on the further bank. Sis, the tracker, knew the feat for Uglomi's. Uya needs Uglomi, cried the old woman, standing on the left of the bend, a gesticulating figure of flaring bronze in the sunset. Her cries were strange sounds, flitting two and fro on the borderland of speech. But this was the sense they carried. The lion needs Udina. He comes night after night seeking Udina and Uglomi. When he cannot find Udina and Uglomi, he grows angry and he kills. Hunt Udina and Uglomi. Udina whom he pursued. An Uglomi for whom he gave the death word. Hunt Udina and Uglomi. She turned to the distant reed bed as sometimes she had turned to Uya in his life. Is it not so, my lord? she cried. And as if an answer, the tall reeds bow before a breath of wind. Far into the twilight the sound of hacking was heard from the squatting places. It was the men sharpening their ashen spears against the hunting of the morrow. And in the night, early before the moon rose, the lion came and took the girl of Sis, the tracker. In the morning before the sun had risen, Sis, the tracker and the lad Wei, who now chip flints. And one eye and bow, and the snail-eater, the two red-haired men, and cat-scan and snake, all the men that were left alive of the sons of Uya, taking their ashen spears and their smiting stones, and with throwing stones in the beast-paw bags, starting forth upon the trail of Uglomi through the hawthorn thickets, where Yah the rhinoceros and his brothers were feeding, and up the bare downland towards the beach-woods. That night, the fires burnt high in fierce, as the waxing moon set, and the lion left the crouching women and children in peace. And the next day, while the sun was still high, the hunters returned, all save one eye, who lay dead with a smashed skull at the foot of the ledge. When Uglomi came back that evening from stalking the horses, he found the vultures already busy over him. And with them, the hunters brought Udina, bruised and wounded, but alive. That had been the strange order of the shriveled old woman, that she was to be brought alive. She is no kill for us. She is for Ulya the lion. Her hands were tied with thongs, as though she had been a man. And she came weary and drooping. Her hair over her eyes and matted with blood. They walked about her, and ever and ever again, the snail-leader, whose name she had given, would laugh and strike her with his ashen spear. And after he had struck her with his spear, he would look over a shoulder like one who had done an over-bold deed. The others too looked over their shoulders ever and again. And all were in a hurry save Udina. When the old woman saw them coming, she cried aloud with joy. They made Udina cross the river with her hands tied, although the current was strong, and when she slipped the old woman screamed, first with joy, and then for fear she might be drowned. And when they had dragged Udina to shore, she could not stand for a time, albeit they beat her sore. So they let her sit with her feet touching the water, and her eyes staring before her, and her face set, whatever they might do or say. All the tribe came down to the squatting place. Even curly little Ha Ha, who as yet could scarcely toddle, and stood staring at Udina and the old woman, as now we should stare at some strange wounded beast in its captor. The old woman tore off a necklace of Uya that was about Udina's neck, and put it on herself. She had been the first to wear it. Then she tore at Udina's hair, and took a spear from Sis, and beat her with all her might. And when she had vented the warmth of her heart on the girl, she looked closely into her face. Udina's eyes were closed, and her features were set. And she lay so still that for a moment the old woman feared she was dead. And then her nostrils quivered. At that the old woman slapped her face and laughed, and gave the spear to Sis again, and went a little way off from her, and began to talk and jeer at her after her manner. The old woman had more words than any in the tribe, and her talk was a terrible thing to hear. Sometimes she screamed in moan incoherently, and sometimes the shape of her guttural cries was the mere phantom of thoughts. But she conveyed to Udina nevertheless much of the things that were yet to come, of the lion and of the torment he would do her. And Uglomi, ha-ha! Uglomi is slain? And suddenly Udina's eyes opened, and she sat up again, and her look met the old woman's fair and level. No, she said slowly, like one trying to remember. I did not see my Uglomi slain. I did not see my Uglomi slain. Tell her, cried the old woman. Tell her, he that killed him. Tell her how Uglomi was slain. She looked, and all the women and children there looked, from man to man. None answered her. They stood shame-faced. Tell her, said the old woman. The men looked at one another. Udina's face suddenly lit. Tell her, she said. Tell her mighty men. Tell her the killing of Uglomi. The old woman rose and struck her sharply across her mouth. We could not find Uglomi, said cis the tracker slowly. Who hunts to kills none. Then Udina's heart leapt, but she kept her face hard. It was as well, for the old woman looked at her sharply, with murder in her eyes. Then the old woman turned her tongue upon the men, because they had fear to go on after Uglomi. She dreaded no one, now Ui was slain. She scolded them as one scolds children. And they scalded her, and began to accuse one another. Until suddenly, cis the tracker raised his voice. And bade her hold her peace. And so, when the sun was setting, they took Udina and went. Though their hearts sank within them. Along the trail the old lion had made in the reeds. All the men went together. At one place was a group of alders. And here they hastily bowed Udina, where the lion might find her, when he came abroad in the twilight. And having done so, they hurried back until they were near the squatting place. Then they stopped. Cis stopped first, and looked back again at the alders. They could see her head, even from the squatting place. A little black shock under the limb of a larger tree. That was as well. All the women and children stood watching upon the crest of the mound. And the old woman stood and screamed for the lion to take her whom he sought, and counseled him on the torments he might do her. Udina was very weary now, stunned by beatings and fatigue and sorrow. And only the fear of the thing that was still to come up held her. The sun was broad and blood red between the stems of the distant chestnuts. And the west was all on fire. The evening breeze had died to a warm tranquility. The air was full of midge swarms. The fish in the river hard by would leap at times. And now and again a cockchafer would drone through the air. Out of the corner of her eye, Udina could see a part of the squatting knoll, and little figures standing and staring at her. And, a very little sound, but very clear, she could hear the beating of the firestone. Dark and near to her and still was the reed-french thicket of the lair. Presently the firestone ceased. She looked for the sun and found he had gone, and overhead and growing brighter was the waxing moon. She looked towards the thicket of the lair, seeking shapes in the reeds. And then suddenly she began to wriggle and wriggle, weeping and calling upon Uglomi. But Uglomi was far away. When they saw her head moving with her struggles, they shouted together on the knoll, and she desisted and was still. And then came the bats, and the star that was like Uglomi, crept out of its blue hiding place in the west. She called to it, but softly, because she feared the lion. And all through the coming of the twilight, the thicket was still. So the dark crept upon Udina, and the moon grew bright, and the shadows of things that had fled up the hillside and vanished with the evening, came back to them short and black. And the dark shapes in the thicket of reeds and alders where the lion lay, gathered, and a faint stir began there. But nothing came out there from, all through the gathering of the darkness. She looked at the squatting place and saw the fires glowing smoky red, and the men and women going too and fro. The other way over the river, a white mist was rising. Then far away came the whimpering of young foxes, and the yell of Ahaina. There were long gaps of aching waiting. After a long time, some animals splashed in the water, and seemed to cross the river at the ford beyond the lair. But what animal it was, she could not see. From the distant drinking pool she could hear the sounds of splashing, and the noise of elephants. So still was the night. The earth was now a colorless arrangement of white reflections and impenetrable shadows under the blue sky. The silvery moon was already spotted with the filigree crest of the chestnut woods. And over the shadowy eastward hills, the stars were multiplying. The nullfires were bright red now, and black figures stood waiting against them. They were waiting for a scream. Surely it would be soon. The night suddenly seemed full of movement. She held her breath. Things were passing. One, two, three. Subtly sneaking shadows. Jackals. Then along waiting again. Then, asserting itself as real at once over all the sounds her mind had imagined, came a stir in the thicket. Then a vigorous movement. There was a snap. The reeds crashed heavily. Once, twice, thrice, and then everything was still, saved a measured swishing. She heard a low tremendous growl, and then everything was still again. The stillness lengthened. Would it never end? She held her breath. She bit her lips to stop screaming. Then something scuttled through the undergrowth. Her scream was involuntary. She did not hear the entering yell from the mound. Immediately the thicket woke up to a vigorous movement again. She saw the grass stems waving in the light of the setting moon, the alders swaying. She struggled violently. Her last struggle. But nothing came towards her. A dozen monsters seemed rushing about in that little place for a couple of minutes. And then again came silence. The moon sank behind the distant chestnuts, and the night was dark. Then an odd sound, a sobbing panting, that grew faster and fainter. Yet another silence, and then dim sounds in the grunting of some animal. Everything was still again. Far away eastwards an elephant trumpeted, and from the woods came a snarling and yelping that died away. In the long interval, the moon shone out again, between the stems of the trees on the ridge, sending two great bars of light and a bar of darkness across the reedy waste. Then came a steady rustling, a splash, and the reeds swayed wider and wider apart. And at last they broke open, cleft from root to crest. The end had come. She looked to see the thing that had come out of the reeds. For a moment it seemed certainly the great head and jaw she expected, and then it dwindled and changed. It was a dark, low thing that remained silent. But it was not the lion. It became still. Everything became still. She peered. It was like some gigantic frog, two limbs and a slanting body. Its head moved about, searching the shadows. A rustle, and it moved clumsily, with a sort of hopping. And as it moved, it gave a low groan. The blood rushing through her veins was suddenly joy. Ugomi, she whispered. The thing stopped. Udina, he answered softly, with pain in his voice, and peering into the alders. He moved again and came out of the shadow beyond the reeds into the moonlight. All his body was covered with dark smears. She saw he was dragging his legs, and then he gripped his axe, the first axe, in one hand. In another moment he had struggled into the position of all fours, and it staggered over to her. The lion, he said in a strange mingly of exultation and anguish. Wa! I have slain a lion, with my own hand, even as I slew the great bear. He moved to emphasize his words, and suddenly broke off with a faint cry. For a space, he did not move. Let me free, whispered Udina. He answered her with no words, but pulled himself up from his crawling attitude by means of an alder stem, and hacked at her thongs with a sharp edge of his axe. She heard him sob at each blow. He cut away the thongs about her chest and arms, and then his hand dropped. His chest struck against her shoulder, and he slipped down beside her and lay still. But the rest of her release was easy. Very hastily she freed herself. She made one step from the tree, and her head was spinning. Her last conscious movement was towards him. She reeled and dropped. Her hand fell upon his thigh. It was soft and wet, and gave way under her pressure. He cried out at her touch, and rived, and lay still again. Presently a dark dog-like shape came very softly through the reeds. Then stopped dead and stood sniffing, hesitated, and at last turned and slunk back into the shadows. Long was the time they remained there motionless, with the light of the setting moon shining on their limbs. Very slowly, as slowly as the setting of the moon, did the shadow of the reeds towards the mound flow over them. Presently their legs were hidden, and Uglomi was but a bust of silver. The shadow crept to his neck, crept over his face, and so at last the darkness of the night swallowed them up. The shadow became full of instinctive stirrings. There was a patter of feet, and a faint snarling. The sound of a blow. There was little sleep that night for the women and children at the squatting place, until they heard Udina scream. But the men were weary, and sat dozing. When Udina screamed they felt assured of their safety, and hurried to get to the nearest place to the fires. The old woman laughed at the scream, and laughed again because Sai, the little friend of Udina, whimpered. Directly the dawn came, and they were all alert and looking towards the alders. They could see that Udina had been taken. They could not help feeling glad to think that Uya was appeased. But across the minds of men, the thought of Uglomi fell like a shadow. They could understand revenge, for the world was old in revenge. But they did not think of rescue. Suddenly a hyena fled out of the thicket, and came galloping across the reedspace. His muzzle and paws were dark stained. At that sight all the men shouted, and clutched at throwing stones and ran towards him. For no animal was so pitiful a coward as the hyena by day. All men hated the hyena because he preyed on children, and would come and bite when one was sleeping on the edge of the squatting place. And catskin, throwing fair and straight, hit the brute shrewdly on the flank, where at the whole tribe yelled with delight. At the noise they made, there came a flapping of wings from the lair of the lion, and three white-headed vultures rose slowly and circled and came to rest amidst the branches of an alder, overlooking the lair. Our lord is abroad, said the old woman, pointing. The vultures have their share of Udina. For a space they remained there, and then first one, and then another dropped back into the thicket. Then, over the eastern woods and touching the whole world to life and color, poured with the exultation of a trumpet blast, the light of the rising sun. At the sight of him, the children shouted together, and clapped their hands and began to race off towards the water. Only little sigh lagged behind, and looked wonderingly at the alders, where she had seen the head of Udina overnight. But Uya, the old lion, was not abroad, but at home, and he lay very still, and a little on one side. He was not in his lair, but a little away from it in a place of trampled grass. Under one eye was a little wound, a feeble little bite of the first axe. But all the ground beneath his chest was ruddy-brown with a vivid streak, and in his chest was a little hole that had been made by Uglomi's stabbing spear. Along his side and at his neck the vultures had marked their claims. For so Uglomi had slain him, lying strickened under his paw and thrusting haphazard at his chest. He had driven the spear in with all his strength, and stabbed the giant to the heart. So it was the reign of the lion, of the second incarnation of Uya the master, came to an end. From the knoll the bustle of preparation grew, the hacking of spears and throwing stones. None spake the name of Uglomi, for fear that it might bring him. The men were going to keep together, close together, and the hunting for a day or so. And their hunting was to be Uglomi, lest instead, he should come hunting them. But Uglomi was lying very still and silent, outside the lion's lair, and Udina squatted beside him, with the ash spear, all smeared with the lion's blood, gripped in her hand. End of Section 4