A child, being told a tale asks: " Is it true?" which is vital to him to know. He does not ask: "Was it a fact?" which, to him, is of no importance at all. Yet he is often given the wrong reply.
CHAPTER I
BWENE* sat in his cave, where none but he would venture to come, unless by invitation from him, even though he should have sat with an open stone, for that was his will, long known and proclaimed aloud in the Cave of Words; and he was King of all the Baradi race, and life and death were the gifts he had power to deal to those who should please or offend his will.
* Two syllables, please.
He was King of all the Baradi, the people of the coast-flats, who were a numerous folk, dwelling on a narrow stretch of land between the steep cliffs and the sea. They had no footing on the high plain, for it was there that the ape-men dwelt, and would have met them with rending fangs; nor was there much to tempt them to such a strife, for the high plain was barren and dry, and beyond were the frozen hills.
It may be asked why the high plain was not watered from the snow of the frozen hills, but that was simple to see, for at the foot of the mountain range there was a valley, and a chain of lakes, narrow and long, and these were drained by streams that ran seaward through caves that were underground, or emerged into deep canyons that split the plateau in places from east to west.
The plateau was wide enough to have sustained a great people had it been fertile of soil, but it was barren, and, except at one time of year, it had little comfort of rain. The ape-men did not dwell on its surface, but in its higher fissures, into some of which was drained such moisture as the plain would yield. They could not dwell in the valley of narrow lakes, for it was a lava'd land, where nothing grew but a rock-plant of a creeping prickly kind, which poisoned a treading foot, so that t would grow purple and swell, and must be cut off with speed if it were not to bring the whole man to the like colour, and bloated death.
Further south, beyond the Baradi land, there was a great river, and on its other bank was forest, rich and fertile and low, into which a blue-black people had come at a former day, and had slain the Baradi who dwelt there at that time, being great of stature and limb. They might have come further, and made an end of a weaker race, but there was little to tempt thereto, they having won the more desirable land. So the King of the Baradi of that day had bought his peace with a tribute of fish, and of skins of seals.
The Ho-Tus (for that was the name which the blue-black people gave to themselves) had gained a land that was fertile and full of game. It had great trees, where men could build high platforms, and roof them with ready boughs, as it had been their habit to do. But that had since changed with the years, as they found themselves to be lords of a land where nothing lived with strength to dispute their power, and they built wooden houses upon the ground. . . .
The King's cave was not fully light, even near its outer end, for the entrance was blocked by a large stone, which was so placed that, when it was closed, it could only be moved from within. There was a space through which light and air came, but it was much too small for a man to squeeze through, even though he were smoothed with fat, so that Bwene could sleep in a better peace than a king should reckon to do.
When he rose with the coming of dawn, as he mostly did, he would pull back the stone, and go forth; but if he willed to think first, he would let it be, and men might say he slept if they would. May not a king sleep when he will?
Now he pondered long in a troubled mind, but his thoughts were not on the Ho-Tus, with whom there was peace so long as the tribute was promptly paid, nor on the ape-men, who had always left the Baradi alone; neither, it may be, being confident of a greater strength, or not having enough desire for a land that was not theirs to try the ordeal of blood.
His thought was on a plague that possessed the land, and on the causes from whence it sprang, whether from the wrath of the gods, or the devices of weaker powers. . . .
It was the law that the King might have but one child, and he a boy. If a girl were first born, then she must be slain in a public way. If a boy were born, then no other must be allowed to live, unless he should die by some evil chance, when the King might have a new heir, but never two at one time.
It was a very wise and ancient law, for it was told by those of the Sacred Cave that there had once been two brothers who were the sons of a dead king, and who had quarrelled over the rule, and they had promised rewards to men who would take their sides, so that there had been a great folly of strife, and men had died for no gain, till those who remained alive must take the burden of three wives, if not four, that the tribe might be raised anew.
That was not a road, to walk twice. And it is easy to see that if there be women left alive of the King's blood, they may think their own sons would be fit to rule, and put evil thoughts in their hearts, from which discords grow. And though the life of a single heir may fail, it is smaller risk, for the land may choose another king to content its will.
Now the King looked back in his mind, and he saw a day when Huni had come to his cave, saying: "The Queen has a female child." And he had answered, as was the law: "Let it be drowned in the sight of all on the third day."
He had not said this with a glad mind, but he had known that, though it might seem to more foolish men that he had an absolute power, yet the ancient customs were far stronger than he.
If he should defy such a law, men would still go their own ways, being moved thereby to resist his will, and he would be a lesser king at the next dawn. But while he followed the ancient laws, as though in a willing way, men did not see the limits that hedged him in.
And so a three-days' child had been drowned on the third day. But that it had been his own - he was not sure. He had had a reason to doubt. And he knew that Bira was not one who would be docile to yield her child, either for an old law or a distant god, if she could contrive in another way.
But the years had passed, and Bira had had no second babe, so that it had seemed that the gods had been stirred to passion, and cursed her womb. And the day had come when he had married a second wife, that there should be an heir for the land when he came to die. She had not been one on whom Bira could look with jealous regard, but a day had come when she had said: "I am with child," and the next week she had gone. None had seen her go, nor had her bones ever been found. She had become no more than an empty place.
The King had looked at Bira in doubt, wondering what she might know, but he had not asked, for, had the girl died by her hands, he would but be met with a bold lie; and had she gone to death by another road, he had had no wish to show that he had such a thought in the dark caves of his mind.
And with the next year he had married another wife. Gwa might lack the bold style of the Queen, but she was a lover of life, and not one who would be expected to disappear in a dumb way. Nor was she one whom those who knew her would soon forget. A time had come when she said: "I have been with child for two months, but have feared to speak. Lord, keep me from the Queen's eyes."
He saw that laughter had left her heart, but though he had questioned long, he could find no substance behind her charge. "That," he had said, "if there be cause, I suppose that I shall be sufficient to do."
And after that Bira had shown the face of a friend to the younger wife, and it may be that her fear had died. But when she had been six months with child, there had come a day when she had been no more than an empty place, and no one had seen her bones.
From that day he had continued a childless king. . . . And now a fresh plague had fallen upon the land.
CHAPTER II
TWO thousand miles from where the Baradi dwelt there was a great city, splendid with opal walls, where a people lived who cared nothing for outer things, or for the savage life which might run over the surface of barbarous lands. They had long conquered all the evils which plague mankind. They had no lack of delectable things.
They had vanquished pain, and made death no more than a pleasant dream, that will come to those who begin to yawn for the night. The beatitudes would have had no meaning for them, who neither quarrelled nor mourned.
Once, in its tenth year, each child was exposed to heat and cold, to hunger and pain, on the outside of the walls, and he would not ask to feel them again, having had enough of the outer things.
The city was very great in itself, but not of such girth as was the sand-blown desert that closed it round, and kept it secure from men of less excellent kinds. Those who ruled in its walls had but one fear (if that could be called by so strong a name which watchful prudence controlled), that love of change, or some folly of discontent, should destroy the heaven-on-earth that their fathers made.
To avert this peril, they ruled all that the young were taught in a most absolute way, choosing only those for full knowledge who could be trusted to use it well. . . . The Informer made her report on the girls who had come to the end of their nineteenth year.
She said: "Of the fifty girls of the year, there are two who may be placed with those who should be given the fuller course, and one who showed discontent. The others are well content with the pleasures the body gives, and that their desires will be freely fed."
"As to the one who shows discontent," the Controller replied, "she can be spared with a placid will, for there was, as you know, a surplus birth of a year ago, of which adjustment has been delayed, in our over-merciful way, until such a chance as this should arise. You will give her the usual choice."
The Informer returned to the girl, whose name was Raina, and said: "While I was informing you of your last course, it was plain at times that you were less than pleased with the Heaven in which you live."
Raina did not deny that. She said: "I call it fair in a flowerless way, but I suppose that there may be better things which we are likely to miss."
"If you think thus," the Informer replied, "there is one thing that is sure, which is that you are now where you should not be, for we can have no discord to break our peace. But we will deal with you in the merciful way which is provided for such cases as yours.
"We offer you the kindly refuge of death, which, as you know, is open to all as their pleasures tire, and is so contrived that it may be no less than a last ecstasy of delight; or you can be transported, if you prefer, to some distant part of the barbarous earth, where you may learn the meaning of hunger and fear and pain in more detail than you have yet done. And in a year's time, but not less, you may return, if you can, and if you have then come to a better mind.
"You will be sent naked into the world, if you make that choice, leaving even the clothes which now defend you from knowledge either of heat or cold. You can go if you will, but you will be much wiser to die, while you can do it here in a painless way."
Raina said: "Those who live here have the choice of two deaths, either long or slow. But I am choosing to live till the day I die."
CHAPTER III
RAINA looked round on a land that was level and bare, and as yellow as a lion's skin. It had a withered stubble, as of a growth that had died, or been grazed away, but it had no suggestion of any resources for clothes, or water, or food. She did not like what she saw. Nor had she comfort in her own state. She felt naked, and, for no more than the second time in her life, she was conscious of cold.
"I suppose," she said, "I might have gone to death by a better way." But her thought changed with the sound of the spoken word, for it roused a small, tawny, fox-like animal almost from beneath her feet. It gave her one startled glance, which showed no surprise, but rather a familiar fear. It fled fast, taking a zig-zag course, and was lost to her sight almost at once, on a plain that was coloured so like itself.
She thought: "It has a knowledge of men. Knowledge and fear. There must be those who dwell in these parts, and they have dominion over the beasts, even though they be of the barbarity which the Informer would have me believe. That may be well. But where can I get clothes?"
That was not easy to say, and the question died as it came, for there was a sharp cry of terror from the direction in which the creature had fled. It was zig-zagging across her path, unconscious of herself before the impulse of a more certain danger.
Something - was it man or dog? - something larger than itself was in close pursuit - was on it with a final bound, almost before her feet. She saw that the man's jaws - was it baboon or man? - had closed upon the back of the creature's neck. There was a moment's scuffle, and it was being shaken violently from side to side, as a dog shakes a rat (though the disparity of size was much less) till it hung limply from the lifted mouth.
The mouth of what? Was it man or baboon or dog? It was hard to say. But no - not dog. The idea had come with the dog-like pursuit of a flying prey, but it was a resemblance that lessened with a closer view. The face was more human than that of a dog; more human than that of a baboon, though the line of nose and forehead were one. That was the difference that divided it from the human kind - the forehead receded backward following the line of the nose. The body was dark brown, but hairless. More human than baboon in that also. He stood all-fours, on straight arms, and on legs that bent outwards in a curious way, adjusting their difference of length, but a moment later he rose erect without difficulty, though his knees bent outward. That was when he first saw she was there. Before that he had torn the body with strong teeth, and drained its blood with a sucking sound, not pleasant to hear. Most unpleasant for one who might be the next object of that swift pursuit.
The ape was looking her way. . . . looking with black-red, fiercely-intelligent eyes. Now that it had risen erect, it was of something more than her own height, in spite of the outward-bending knees. . . . Its gaze did not seem to be of an active threat, though it was not friendly at all. It was puzzling, unexpected, in a way that she could not define.
She stood quietly still, not attempting the folly of useless flight.
Yet when it advanced upon her, step by step, still remaining erect, she withdrew at a similar pace. She was careful not to show haste or fear, but she could not easily endure that this creature should touch her flesh, perhaps paw her over, perhaps feel her with a smelling muzzle, perhaps tear her with sudden jaws, perhaps. . . . No, she could not avoid the implications of those retreating steps.
But, seeing her so withdraw, he did not attempt to come close, as he might have done. Rather he moved aslant till he was nearly at her other side. Then he advanced again. Soon she perceived what it meant. He did not wish to close in upon her. He did not wish to frighten her into a run. She was being driven - gently driven, as one might shepherd a timid hen. . . . Driven where, and for what?
They went on thus for half a mile, or it might be more. The drained, flaccid body of the dead creature had been left on the ground. Evidently it was the blood, not the flesh, which the ape (for so she had named him now) had desired. She was easy to drive. There was no sense in dodging to left or right. It would be the same at last, and she would have tired herself to no useful end. She had more sense than a fowl. Perhaps it might be well that the ape should perceive that. Learning the way it would have her go, she went as straight as she could, and was turned with ease. So they came to a new sight.
They came to a sudden gap in the plain. It did not end there. They looked across, and it was the same as before. They looked down, and there was a canyon beneath their feet, a canyon more deep than wide, though it was of some width. Beyond that, it seemed that the plain went on to the sky's fall, though it might be with other cracks such as that into which she gazed. What was she to do now?
It seemed that she was to descend, which was not easy to think. The side of the canyon was steep. There was no path. There was no growth to which weight could hang. She could not climb like an ape. Yet she did what she must, as we mostly do. . . . Once she scratched her leg on a stone. A long scratch on the outer side of the left calf. A mere breaking of skin. But it bled. She had a panic thought that her captor might be roused by the sight of blood to a new thirst. She went the faster for that. She tried to move so that it should not be seen. . . . She tried to wipe the blood off with a furtive hand. . . . Then they came to a gentler slope, and to a place of trees that rose from a sandy soil.
Here her captor stopped, with a barking cry, which was yet rather a voice than a bark. It was answered by varied sounds of the same kind. That it was language was easy to perceive, though it might be of a poor sort. . . . Now she was surrounded by apes in the gathering dusk. . . . It was almost dark under the trees, though they were not of a dense shade, being of lank growth and a somewhat feathery top. They might have been hybrids of the Australian gum and a desert palm. They were unlike either of these, yet the two may give an impression of what they were. But that is how that would look on the next day. She had more urgent thoughts at this time than the observation of trees that it was too dark to see well.
. . .She was being driven into a low tunnel of living boughs, or so she thought, making a good guess in the dusk. They were boughs that met overhead, so that she must stoop a little, lest she be caught by the hair. She went but three or four yards by this way, and came into a walled and covered place. She heard behind her a rustling of thorns, and the passage darkened as it was closed.
She stood still, seeing nothing at first. Then she thought that there were those, either beasts or men, who crouched under the further wall. Well, she would stay where she was, till the light came. So far, she was unharmed. That might be because she had had the wisdom not to resist.
She would lie on the floor and rest. She would have found covering if she might, but how was that to be done? She stepped on something that was small and soft, and that gave way under her foot. She drew it back in a sudden doubt, and was on others of the same kind. But they did not squirm or withdraw. Probably they were harmless, and not alive. . . . In the end, she found a clear place, and lay down. She did not wake till the dawn came.
CHAPTER IV
SHE opened bewildered eyes to the dimness of a place that was not windowed at all, but that was walled and roofed with twisted bundles of thorn through which some light came. There were five other creatures of about her own size caught in the same cage (if cage it were), and as the light strengthened they began to move about, and to pick up from the floor.
Now she saw that they were of the ape-kind, alike to those that had driven her here. Was she in the public jail? Or might it be that she was not jailed at all, but in a kindly hospitality? It was hard to tell.
But she was hungry, and her thirst was great. What did they pick and eat from the floor? She perceived that it was a small oblong fruit, date-like in shape, but having a blue-black skin, which was scattered freely about. Doubtless it was some of these on which she had trodden last night. How different things look in the day!
She did not like to take a meal from the floor. But she liked to starve even less than that. That which was good for these other creatures should sustain her own life. She found it to be a fruit which would peel. It had a good taste. She ate, and had a worse thirst than before. But she could see nothing to drink.
The other creatures were round her now, having finished their own feeding, and having perceived her to be different from themselves. They surrounded her in a half-circle, as she sat with her back to (but not touching) the thorny wall. They seemed curious rather than hostile, discussing her in their own tongue. They were particularly curious to see behind her shoulders, peering from either side between her back and the thorny wall. She was puzzled by this till she noticed that each of them had a yellow oval mark below the back of its neck, and perceived that they looked to see if she were branded in the same way, and were surprised that she was not.
After a time, they lost interest in her, sitting about the floor in a listless way.
She considered them in the growing light, and thought that they were a poor lot. There was one male, old and with a scarred and lustreless skin. He had lost an ear. There were four females, of which two also were old, though they looked vigorous enough in a dried-up way. One of the others had a face that was deformed, or had been distorted by accident or disease, very evil to see. The last was well-formed and young, out of a savage aspect - the only one (she thought) to be feared. What could it all mean? As to that, she was getting too thirsty to care. Let them give her water, and they could do what else to her they would. Did they never drink?
She wondered, were they of the nature of men? If she could communicate her need to their minds, would it rouse them to sympathy, or a possible help? She tried this, pointing to her mouth, and making signs as of one who drinks. She raised cupped hands. She made a sucking sound. She tried other symbols. She thought that she was understood, but their reaction was strange and hostile. It was as though the suggestion of water were an indecent or repulsive thing. They drew back, chattering. The young female that she was disposed to fear snarled. She felt that if she did not desist, there might be teeth at her throat. At the thought, her own jaw tightened in a way which was new and strange, but it was a strife that she did not seek. She sat still. . . . Perhaps she had been wrong to think of them as a kind of man. Most of the earth's mammals are content to control themselves to circumstance, but men seek to control circumstance to themselves. By this reckoning she might call them men of a kind, but the distinction is not absolute. There have been other creatures, among insects if not mammals, in every age, who have made their own world. There are mammals and birds that have their individuality, their adaptability, though limited by the greater isolation of their lives, they not having learned to record their thoughts to communicate them from generation to generation. Broadly, the distinction is of degree, not of kind. . . . But there are very few creatures that do not drink!
Now there were noise and movement outside, and the barrier of the entrance was pulled away. Three of her captors came in, entering on all fours. They sat round her, talking. Their speech seemed to be of vowel sounds, running up and down a musical scale in a barking way, very strange to hear. She doubted that she would ever learn to understand such a tongue, and to speak it would be harder still.
The one that had caught her sat in the midst. He seemed to her in control, though the other two were males as finely formed as himself. The other captives, withdrawn to the further wall, looked to be of a very meagre aspect in this comparison.
Well, if she could not understand their speech, she must try that they should understand hers. She made the same signs of thirst as before. She looked in fear of a similar hostile reaction, but it did not come. They watched, but she could tell nothing of their thoughts.
And then - too suddenly to resist - the apes that were on either side reached forward and seized her arms. They drew her on to her face before the one who sat in the midst. She struggled for freedom, and it was all so instant that it seemed that she had come clear at the first pull. She sat up, and they were all as they were. But between her shoulder-blades there was a sharp pain. That she had been branded, as were the others, was a thing easy to guess, though she could not tell what it might mean.
Her thoughts returned to the thirst which was even more; insistent than the pain that her shoulders felt. If she could have made them understand that! But they were already gone, and the entrance was being closed.
She felt desperate then. She considered the thorny walls. She saw that they were not formed of separate boughs, but of
whole bushes of thorn which had been closely pressed. It was a forbidding wall. Yet freedom is worth a price. It is worth much to one who thirsts, as she did. Would the others interfere? She must try the event. She would have waited till night, but she was sure that she could not break through that barrier in the dark.
Handling the thorns with care, she broke off one or two fragments. These were absurdly small, but the thorns were large and closely set, having a broad base, like those of a briar, but of a worse kind. Then she scratched her wrist. It was a tiny scratch, of which she took no heed. Trying to pull away a length of thorn, it rebounded against her arm. It left several punctured wounds on the upper arm of which she would have taken less heed had not her wrist throbbed. It was hot to touch. She saw that they were poisonous thorns. Poisonous to her, if not to her companions. How much so she would soon know. She stopped work, watching her wrist. The others took no notice at all. They may have known that what she did was a futile thing.
As she sat thus, her wrist and arm becoming hotter, and somewhat swollen, though not as much as she had feared at first, the entrance was opened again. None came in, but there was a cry without which the others clearly understood. They rose, with an aspect of sullen reluctance, but without hesitation. They went out, and she followed. There was more hope in any change than in sitting there.
Outside she came to a stronger light. It was nearing noon. There was a clear space between the trees and the thorn-hut which she had left. She saw a number of male apes that stood round, erect on their hind legs. They might be spectators or guards. There were six wicker baskets on the ground. They were shaped to fit the back, somewhat like a fisherman's creel, being curved on the inner and more on the outer side. There were shoulder-straps and a lower one for the waist. They had a water-tight lining of some thin light metal inside, and an inner lid of the same. She saw that these apes must be creatures who could plan and work. Seeing that the others were putting on the baskets, though in a sullen way, she did the same. The significance of the number was easy to read. She had no will to make trouble by disobedience, at least till she could better tell what it all meant. Perhaps these were no other than slaves, or criminals condemned to some distasteful work. It was beyond possibility to guess what it might be, but any change gave hope. There might be water where she would go.
Then, with the suddenness of a cat, the young female sprang - she of the savage eyes. She sprang at a male ape, who stood watching her, somewhat behind the rest. It was so sudden that none could interpose. He had no time even for the instinctive lifting of hands that would be a guard to his own throat. They rose swiftly indeed, but it was to tear at teeth that already met. He went down from the impact of the spring, and as he did so she drew back. She rose up, well content, from a dying thing.
There was outcry to left and right. The young female made no motion either to fight or fly. One who had stood at the side of the dying ape lifted a wooden spear. In another moment, it would have revenged the deed, but, on an impulse strange to herself, Raina struck it aside with the basket which she was lifting to adjust to her own back.
She was puzzled afterwards as to why she had done this. She had no cause to take the part of a murderess who was not of her kind, and who had shown no kindness to her. It would have shown a depth of folly to engage in aggressive action in such a cause. But she had not done that. Indeed, though of a restless curiosity which had brought her there, she was not of aggressive character. She had only intervened to save life from a sudden thrust. Perhaps there was some faint obscure impulse springing from the fact that they appeared to be in a common slavery, bearing a common brand. Perhaps it was a memory of the look of satisfied and derisive hate which she had seen in the dead ape's eyes, and which had met that swift and deadly reply. Anyway, so it was.
And, as is often the issue of that from which prudence turns, but which courage does, for herself it seemed to have no consequences. That it saved the life of the female ape for that time was a certain thing. For there was no second blow. There was swift clamour of sounds. There was order made. It seemed that they were to adjust their baskets and to go on, and the murderess also, as though she had done nothing at all. Raina saw that he who struck would have been very willing to strike again, but he was overruled by reason, or by those with more power than himself. Was it that the fate to which they six were doomed was so dreadful that no punishment could be worse?
They went on under the trees which she now saw clearly for the first time. They went down the course of the canyon, following a single path, one after one. There was none to guide, the old scarred male going first, though there were those who followed behind. Raina saw from this that they must walk in a known way, and with some measure of their own consent. Anyway, she was last of the six. To one who walked on so blind a path there was some comfort in that.
The path descended in a very gradual way. Always aware of the thirst that ached in her throat, she looked ever for pool or stream, but she saw none.
When they had gone for about two miles, there was a patter of rain among the leaves. Those who were ahead halted at that, as though being unwilling to go on. But those who walked in the rear cried to them in an angry way. The patter ceased. They went on as before.
Then there was heavier rain, which was not quick to stop. Those in front halted again. There was hesitation now among those who drove them from the rear. They would not let the line turn back, but they did not urge it ahead. So it stood, and was drenched.
As for Raina, she had thought but for one thing. She caught rain in her joined hands. She licked rain from bare arms. She sucked rain from around her lips with a stretched tongue. When they were allowed to turn after a time, she scarcely knew what she did, being in such bliss from that storm. The rain streamed over her naked body from head to foot. She felt she was breathing rain.
As they laid down the baskets in the place where they had taken them up, the one whose life she had saved from a spear's point was at her side. She saw her look at a place where a dying body had kicked. but two hours ago. It was gone now, but there was a wide space of blood on which the rain beat. The young ape looked at this with a snarling lip, making a face which was not pleasant to see, but Raina was content enough. She felt it to be the face of a friend, and of a fellow-slave with a branded back. But what, she asked again, did it all mean? For what purpose had they set forth, which was so clearly dreaded, and which yet could be turned back by a shower?
Being shut up as before, her companions began to search the ground for such fruit as was left, which was not much. Raina's thirst being stayed, she found that she had hunger enough, but she would not scramble for that which (she thought) had lain on the ground too long. She was rewarded for that reluctance when one came and brought a fresh supply of the fruit, which he bore in a fibre bag. The bag was not new, and it burst as he would have scattered its contents on the ground. Seeing that, he cast it down, as a thing used.
Having eaten her need, she looked at the bag, and had a thought. She enlarged the hole which had burst in the bottom till her head would go through, though her shoulders would not pass it with ease. She did not want it too large. In the end, she had a skirt, at which she was better pleased than at the best dress she had ever bought. It had come to her by a strange unlikely chance, but with so much ill-fortune being hers, was it not fair that there should be some small thing in the other scale? There was no lifting in the cloud of her greater need. She listened in the night for the sound of a rain which did not come.
Still, there must be fresh water somewhere. She had felt rain.
When would they let her loose? She had no words, and they would not understand signs.
She considered the one whose life she had saved, and of whom she now thought as a friend. She was sitting by herself now. She had a savage jaw, but her expression was more content than before, as of one who had done that which she would. If she could make her understand, she might tell them. They couldn't want her to die of thirst. But it was not easy to see how she could explain it by signs, and she remembered how strangely, in what a hostile way, her previous pantomime had been received. She did not wish to convert a friend to a new enmity.
While she hesitated, the entrance was opened again. Once more they were released that they might take up the burdens of the baskets, and the procession of yesterday was repeated. Raina looked up to a sky which was hot and blue. It was near to noon, and the sun shone down into the gorge. She could see no hope of rain. She thought that her companions looked upward with a like hope and were as disappointed as she, and from the same cause.
There was one other incident of a disconcerting kind as they started out, which she endured with a wise passivity. When she had been inspected before by the ape population (which was not more than three score in all, in this place, as far as she could observe) they had shown some curiosity, though perhaps less than there might have been. Now that she walked out in the greater assurance of the acquired skirt, she had a different experience. They crowded close to look. They pulled it up to observe what it might mean or hide. In the end. they decided that there was nothing there. So she was allowed to go on.
CHAPTER V
THE gorge widened somewhat, and bent sharply to the left. As it bent, the scene changed. The trees, which had gradually become smaller and more scattered, ceased, and there was a bare rocky slope. On the left, another gorge joined that by which they had come, the two uniting in this bare descent, which ended abruptly at the side of a wider and far deeper canyon which crossed their front.
On the edge they must halt. Behind them were the two converging gorges: on either hand were sheer walls of rock: before them was sheer descent: opposite was the further wall of the great canyon into which they looked.
Looking over the edge of that sheer descent, Raina saw the floor of the canyon. It was edged by a growth of trees that looked like bushes, being so far down, and there was a river, running fast, that shone in the midday sun.
Here was water enough for a nation's thirst, had it been possible to descend that wall - which was a vain thing to dream. Why had they come?
Raina looked to the opposite wall of rock which rose to a like height to those which were on either hand, and she saw that the level which she had first known must be a great table-land of the earth, flat and barren and very high, which these fissures rent; only, the two gorges which were behind her were of a less depth, while this into which they led went down to the very bottom of a lower land.
They were moving now to the left hand, the old male going first, as he had from the start, but she could not guess what they would do, for it was but a space of ten yards along the land's edge, and then they came to the wall of rock which they could not climb. Could they go out on the cliff's face? It was wild to dream, it being almost sheer and at so dizzy a height, though it was what she would have had a will to do, had it been more gentle of slope, for there was a stream of water that broke out from its side, it might be forty yards away, or a little more, somewhat higher than where they stood, and fell in a cascade down the precipitous side, so that it seemed to her sight that it ended as a mere mist in the air before it reached the depth to which it was ever flung.
The side of the cliff was not smooth, though it fell so sheer, but was of a rocky surface, rough and broken and hard, and covered in places by a small mossy falling plant of a blackish-green colour, having blue flowers, bright but very small. As she looked more closely she saw, not a path - for how could it be called that where there was no level on which the feet might tread? - but the faint marks of a traversed way. It was no more than a blurring of the mossy growth, an accenting of places where foot must have followed foot, or where the hollow above a rocky knob had been deepened by the holding of many hands, and as she saw this, she saw too that it was the way that they were meant to take, for the old male had stepped out and was clinging with hands and feet to the cliff's face, while her remaining companions sat down along the edge, waiting their turn, for it was clear that it was not such a path as two could take at one time, which would have meant that they must cross as the first returned.
So she sat and watched, thinking of what it must mean, and of what she would do when her turn came.
As to what it might mean, that was becoming easy to see. If there were no water in these high gorges, or on the table-land overhead, and it must be fetched at this peril of life at i times of a long drought, then it might be a natural thing that they should condemn the old to this risk, for they were no loss when they fell, and it might well be that they would add to these such as were of an ill-temper or an ill-build, which they could lightly spare, and that one captured from they knew not where (meaning herself) might be put to the same use. But what she should do was a harder thing to resolve.
She was not one who was overmuch feared of a great height, s many are, but her limbs were not trained to hold to a cliff-side as a fly walks. Besides, she saw that what she did once, she might be expected to do again and again. And the end of that would be a most certain thing.
If she should refuse the attempt at first, it was a thing which they could not force her to do. That was clear. But how they would act then was a greater doubt. They might throw her over the edge. They might let her go. She might have tried that chance but for the thirst which was in her throat, and that the water was a lure from which it was not easy to turn.
Of course, they might let her drink from that which the others brought, but it was less than a sanguine hope. . . . In the end, and it was sooner to think than to write, she resolved that she would make the attempt, if the others should come safely back. She would get her drink, and after that she must; escape as she best could. So she watched the one who had gone first, that she might learn what she could.
She saw that he went on safely, moving slowly and with care, even at times with more caution than she would have thought needful, though ever as one without fear, being in control of himself and of that which he did, and so he came to the place where the water fell, and filled that which he bore, and was most of the way back, when there was a warning cry from some of those who watched, at which he stopped, flattening himself against the face of the rock, and clutching hard on such hold as he could gain at that place.
And in the next minute she saw what his fear was, for a huge bird flew toward them up the great gorge, having a spread of wings which there would be no eagles to match. She saw that I it was of a glossy black colour, but with a speckled breast, and having a great beak, yellow and hooked. It flew past the clinging man, and struck him with a buffeting wing, turning almost in the act that it might strike him again from the other side. lt did not strike with talons or beak, and it was easy to see that its object was to beat him off the place to which he clung, that he might fall to his death, and be meat in the gorge below.
It must have done this in the end, had not those who saw picked up the lumps of rock that were round their feet, and thrown at it, for which the distance was not too great. They threw hard and straight, and in a short time the great bird had had more than enough, and soared higher, to be free of that shower, and then screamed in an angry way, and made off with a flight that was easy and slow.
After that he who had been in such risk made his way back, and the others were not anxious to take their turns. Their protests were plain enough, even to one who could not speak in their tongue, but they gained nothing thereby. The bird was gone, and it seemed that they must do that for which they came, be they willing or loth. And so, one by one, they did, and Raina watched that they came back alive, and thought she might do the same with a like care, and the water was a strong call (for they had pushed her back with rough hands, and with angry cries, when she would have drunk from that which the others brought), and she saw that when she got to it she could both fill her creel, and drink all that she would.
At this time there had been arrival of another troop of apes from the other gorge, which joined the one by which she had come, where the bend was, and they also brought some who were old or of little count, that they might serve the tribe in the same way.
Seeing these others to wait their turn, and not being one to provoke her captors to no good end, Raina lost no time, but rose to set out, as the last of her companions stepped back to the level ground.
She would not look down, but turned somewhat to the cliff's face, seeking for foothold with steady eyes, and making sure of her grip, by which means she did well enough for the first few yards, and then found she had something to learn which might have cost her life, and which it is likely that she would have been told had she known the apes' speech, or they hers. For she put foot on the mossy trailing growth which hung from the cliff's face, at a spot where it was flat, and had the look of a safe rest, but this moss was of so soft and slippery a kind that her foot shot out to the air, and had she not had a good grasp at that moment she had been but a dead thing. As it was, she shook for a time with a fear which she could not rule, and could do nought but cling to the rock's face, making no effort to move. At that time she had no thought but to go back, be the penalty what it might, but as her heart slackened at last, and her breath took its own speed, she thought again of the thirst which would still be hers, even though they should let her live, if she went back with an empty creel. So at that she went on, though with a greater heed than before, knowing now why it had seemed to her that the others had moved with an even greater caution that she had thought it needful to do.
Moving thus, she came to the place where the water fell, and here she drank long, swallowing all that she might, for she did not know when the next chance would be, except she came here again, and then, having done, she filled her creel, and turned to retrace her way. She had gone but a few steps when she heard a warning cry, such as had been given when the great bird came before, and at that she looked, and had a very terrible fear, for wings came from the higher sky, and those not of one bird, but of two.
There was barking and throwing of many stones, as there had been before, but now they were little more than a vain threat, for the distance was too great, they who threw having to lean out too far for a forceful throw or a good aim, and it was easy to see that there could be but one end.
. . .A great wing struck her arm with a bruising blow, and; before she could regain balance there was another against her side. She was somewhat turned at that, and must look down as she moved to strengthen her grip. She saw a tree that stuck out from the cliff's face. It was far below, but it was further from the ground than from her. It was a meagre tree, of few leaves, but it showed the whiteness of an ape's bones, which were still as he had hung in the tree when he fell. There was no comfort in that.
"But that," she thought, "or the ground below, is where I shall soon be, and I must get there as best I can, for there is no other end." And at that she found that her mind was clear and calm. Her thoughts were rapid, but very cool. It was a wild idea, but a chance. All this was in the space that the birds took to turn. Then they buffeted her again, and she held on with a desperation of bleeding hands.
Before they reached her for a third time, she had loosed the creel from her back, so that, when they smote, it fell clear, and she was the better by the loss of the weight. They wheeled, screaming, at that fall, and then they shot down, faster than the creel fell, to see what it was, and soared upward again with baffled discordant cries.
She used those seconds to move a few feet, gaining a firmer hold, and then she set herself to endure till the time should come which would be her chance.
She was buffeted from left and right till she felt that she was all one bruise, and as they passed they came closer and closer still, till the beak of one grazed her shoulder, so that she could not forbear to loose one hand to beat it away. She saw the great yellow beak and the fierce tawny eyes, exultant with the greed of a prey that was nearly won, and she thought: "It is that one it shall be. But I have missed a chance. I was a coward that time. It shall not be so again." For her thought was that the next time it came so close she would seize it in her arms, and there should be two or none that would fall to the depth below.
So at that she loosened her hold, and turned as far as she might to face the abyss below, but her eyes were not on that depth, but on the wide spread of the wings that were but a few yards away in the level air.
The bird may have thought that she was about to slip, and that he would make an end, for he dashed upon her with a great force, and as he did this she leapt upon him, seeking that her arms should be round his neck.
There was a second when she thought that she was lost indeed, for the great bird swerved with an instant speed, and it was only with one hand that her grasp took. Yet it held till the other arm made a better grip. And then she had a quick joy in the thought that it would be two or none, though she could not tell which it would be.
For they went down fast at the first, or, as it seemed to her eyes, looking over the shoulder of the falling bird, the cliff rose past her at a great rate, but it was a speed that slackened as the great wings beat with a frightened strength, and there was a moment when she must doubt whether it might not even avail to bear her away, but her weight was too great for that.
Down they went, though at a slow speed, and with a new peril for her. For now the bird, having steadied its flight, and understanding better the trouble that pulled it down, became active to cast her off, either by beak or claws. She was bold to loose with one hand, that she might hold its head off with a grasp of the feathered throat, but the claws were a different thing, and twist and kick as she might she was saved at one time only by the rough thickness of the skirt she wore from being torn in the lower parts, in a way that would not have been easy to heal. As it was, there was blood that ran to her foot, though she took no heed of that, having more urgent matters of which to think.
Had that struggle been on the ground, there is little doubt but her death would have been its end, but, as it was, she looked down, and trees and river rose to meet her, being now large and near, and then they struck with a great splash, and when she knew she was safe she loosed her hold, and dived and swam for a reeded bank.
The bird flapped its way to the river-shore, with a turmoil of scattered spray, and made off with a cowed flight, low over the trees. The other bird, which had circled down at their own pace, but without taking part in a struggle which it may not rightly have understood, made a swoop at the head which rose as she swam for the reeds, so that she had a doubt whether the peril were yet past, but when it saw that its mate was in retreat, it made off by the same way, and so Raina lay on the river bank, and could get her breath once again, and think of the escape she had had, both from the peril of death, and from the apes that had made her a slave. But there was one ape of which she thought most, a young female with a savage jaw, for as she turned to leap for the bird's neck she had had an instant of sight of one who started to come to her aid at that need, with a wooden spear in her hand.
CHAPTER VI
OUR present want is ever the greatest, be it whatever it may. An hour before, Raina would have said that water is man's first need, and, if he have that, he cannot be in so evil a case that he should complain overmuch.
Now she lay on a river's bank, and there was more water flowing before her face than she could have drunk in a hundred years, and did she thank Heaven for that? Not at all. Her mind was on other things. She had a wound which would make it a trouble to walk, though she saw that it might have been worse: her single garment was a torn rag, at which she had the less reason to grieve as it had cost her nought: more important, she felt the need of a meal which she did not know how to get. Did she want to go back to the apes? Hardly that. Yet she gave it enough thought to observe that, had she so wished, it might not have been easy to do. She looked round for those tough-boughed trees with which she had become familiar in the upper gorge. She knew that with their fruit, if she could find it, she would do well enough. But that was what she could not do. They grew in a cooler place. On this level to which she had come, there was a heavy warmth in the windless air of the deep gorge, and though there was little growth from a rocky soil, except somewhat at the river's edge, what there was was of ranker, fleshier sort than had been the trees of the higher cleft.
She looked down the river's way, thinking that if she went by that path she should come to an open land at the last, which might be fertile of fruits where the winds blew at their own will, and the sun had his way with the earth from the dawn to the natural dusk, and it came to her mind to wonder that those apes should dwell in a high place where no water was. Why did they not come down here? It seemed that it must mean that there was no way from the high level of the upper plain to that to which she had come by so strange a fall. That might mean that she must go far between walls that were narrow and high. Still, it had to be proved. It was no use to stay here. It seemed the fainter hope to go up the stream by a narrowing cleft. She must do what she could while the strength was hers, and the light held. So she went down the gorge.
She did not go fast, for one who treads among rocks does not move as though on a level road, and those whose feet are bare will soon learn to look first before the step fall, and she may not have gone as far as she would have guessed, when she came to a place on her left hand, where the fall of the cliff was less sheer, and looking up she was the more amazed that the apes did not come to the water by that way, for the slope lessened even more as it rose, being covered with a dense growth of thorns, such as had been cut to make the walls of the prison in which she had been held for the last two nights. And then she remembered how poisonous were the pricks they gave, and was somewhat less sure.
But she made a better pace in the next hour, it seeming at times that she had the help of a trodden way, and this the more as she went on, so that she grew afraid of what it might mean, saying to herself: "There are those, either beasts or men, who come up the side of this stream. They come upward from below, and the higher it was, the fewer there were who would come that far. What do I go to meet at such haste?" She was afraid, yet she must go on, for there were no means of life where she now was. Only water to drink.
Then she came to one of the palm-fruit trees, which grew from a cleft in the rocky wall, somewhat over her head, and small, as being out of its natural place, but it had dropped some fruit, and she threw rocks, winning more.
She ate what she could, and made shift to carry some, folding the side of her torn skirt, so that they could be held as she walked. She felt better for that meal, and the hope it gave.
Then she went on anew, and came to a place where the walls of the gorge narrowed again, and the stream, which was no wider than it had been at first, or not much, had no more than room to pass with the help of a deeper bed, and a stirred speed. There was little space for her if she would walk dry, and it was here that her mind cast its last doubt - there was a path, trodden and clear, between the stream and the cliff-wall.
Now a path may be trodden by many creatures that are not men, and that may be better or worse than they, and she was not one who was used to call a guess by a worse name. Also, unless she would that she should come to a place that was empty of all her kind, a sign of the nearness of men should be that which she should be most glad to meet. Yet this was no less true, that she thought that path to be such a sign, and that she saw it with a heart-beat of dread.
On the first point, she was right in fact, whether by premonition or chance, and as to having reason to fear, well, it is a thing to be judged as the tale moved to its end.
Anyway, so it was. It may have been from the contact she had already had with the apes, which were so near to men, and were yet not (to her) of a pleasant kind, but she looked on the hardness of that narrow path as Crusoe would look on a later day at the print of a man's foot on the sand. She had to call all her courage that she should go ahead by that way, which she did at a slow pace, looking ever to right and left, and starting once when a bird flew.
. . .And so she came to the cave.
They did not see her at first, being too intent on that which they watched in their midst, and she might have passed unseen in a quiet way, but for the steps that were cut down to the stream, which would have been hard to cross except she should push aside him who sat with his back to the topmost edge. But she did not think to do that. She just stood and watched, for it was a strange thing that she saw.
There was a gourd of blood in the midst, and there was a heap of dead birds cast aside, of the size of crows, and as black as they, out of which it was easy to guess that the blood had come; and there were four who bent over the bowl.
The one who sat facing the light at the entrance of the cave, and who might have seen that there was one who watched had she lifted her eyes, was a woman, such as the world (holding many types) might have held in a later day. She was brown and slender and young. Her head was small, even for her size, it being covered with hair that rippled rather than curled and that was of a glossy black at the front and top, but of a more bronze colour at the back and sides. This was a new thing, that the hair on a woman's head should be of two colours (not being dyed, as she did not think it to be), though she saw that it was nothing strange in itself. The eyes of the woman (who was no more than a girl, and may not have come to her full growth) were large, and of a very dark blue, but they were less easy to see, being cast down on the bowl. She was clothed in a close-fitting garment, brightly red, that might be of smooth cloth or a polished skin, out of which her neck rose, and she had a necklet of shining stones.
The three who sat round her were men, darker brown than she, old by the whiteness of their short hair, and by the wrinkles in faces from which no beards grew. Each was clothed alike in a garment of white cloth, broidered with red, and having a red stone at the throat, and a flint-headed club lay near to the hand of each.
There was a heap of wood-ash on their side of the bowl. The girl tipped the bowl from side to side in a spinning way, and as she did this each of the men in turn cast a pinch of ash on to the surface of the curdling blood. Each of them did this four times, and then a cloth was cast over the blood, and each shook it in turn. Then the girl lifted the cloth from the bowl, and they bent forward to see the figure which the ashes had made.
Raina could not see this, nor could she interpret their words, or she might have understood that which followed more quickly than she was able to do.
The man who sat in the midst said: "It is a woman's form, and by the line of her breast she is still barren and young. Priestess, it is yourself who must lift this cloud from our tribe."
But the girl said: "You are wrong. She is much taller than I." She seemed to draw back, as one called to a work that she would not be eager to do.
The man said: "It is the Queen?"
She denied this also: "No, it is not she. . . . It. . . . it is one whom the gods will send in their own time."
The man who sat on the girl's left hand said: "She has her face to the west. She must come down the gorge from the canyon that is empty of men."
As he said this, he looked the way that his thought went, and Raina fronted his gaze. He cried out in a sudden fear, and they all looked, and wonder was in their eyes.
They saw a woman, taller and whiter than they, and with a crown of shortened chestnut hair, such as they had not known, and yet being kin to them, as they to her, in a way in which the ape-men could never be. She wore nothing but a skirt of coarse grey fibre cloth, which in itself was of a god like mode, for their own bodies were fully covered; but what they noticed most was the gathered fruit which she held at her side, in a fold of the lifted skirt, for they knew that it was such fruit as grew in the upper gorges, where the ape-men were, though they knew that there was no path by which they could be reached from that canyon, from end to end, even to where the stream first came from the depths of the rock, issuing from a dark cave, and between walls that were narrow and high.
The girl said: "She has come from the hollow depths, as the stream comes, for there is none like her in all the earth, and there is no other way. She brings the fruit to show us that by which those who are left may live."
The man on her right said: "It may be as you say, for you are nearer the gods than we; but it will avail us nothing at all, the fruit being beyond our reach."
The girl answered to that: "The shore cliffs could be climbed."
The man said: "I did not mean that. Will the apes sit still? Will they come to us to be slain that we may pile them in one heap? Shall we eat that by which they live, and they do nothing at all?"
But the other men cried out: "She will show us how this thing may be done. It is for that she is come. If you speak thus, she may leave us in a great wrath. Have you no child that can die?"
The man shook with fear at that. He answered quickly, as one who would be first in his words: "She will not be wroth, knowing that I meant nothing at all. . . . Goddess" (he turned to Raina, rising as he did this, so that he might bend his knees in an outward way, doing her all the homage he might: "Goddess, I am a very foolish man."
She made some answer to that, being so directly addressed. It matters nothing what she said, for they could not understand her any more than she them, but at the sound of the strange tongue the girl who was priestess rose. She said to the men: "You can go now. Come tomorrow at the noon-hour, and I shall have learned what the gods will us to do."
They went at that without pause, while she came over to Raina, not showing the fear she felt, for a priestess must not show fear before those whom she should rule, and took her hand, saying: "Come with me. There is one within who is wiser than I."
Raina understood the gesture, though not the words, and she was of a mind to understand more. She followed into the cave.
CHAPTER VII
BWENE sat in the shadow at the back of his own cave, for Dit was there that he had found that he could think best, and he had much matter for thought, in a mind that was aware of its own ignorance (in which he was as ourselves), and which was impeded by the things which he thought he knew (as men will be to the end). He did not know all that we do today, but he knew that the divinations of those who dwelt in the Cave of Ghosts (which was an old name by which the Sacred Cave was once known) were not to be lightly weighed.
He would sit there silent for many hours, having much leisure for thought and, as the years passed, getting somewhat stouter than he had been in his first youth, but not so that he could not endure, and he had a sure rule, for men knew him to be both wise and strong, patient to hear, and ruthless when there was a good need.
Now he was troubled in mind with a great cause. It was not Bira who vexed his peace, as she often would, though he had a doubt that she was the root-cause, even of this, for the gods (on whose ways he had tried ever to shape his own) are of a patient kind. Bira had tricked them once (there was little doubt of that), and though it was eighteen years ago they had been in no haste. They had shown their wrath in a slow way. They were showing it now. There was no heir to the power he held. If things went on as they now did, there need be no grief for that, for there would be no people to rule. . . . And now there was this tale of one who came from the gods. . . . Well, he would see Huni again.
Huni was one of those who had sat at the cave-mouth. He was the one who sat in the midst. He was old now. He had taught Bwene in youth, but now he knew that Bwene had grown to be wiser than he. Bwene would still talk to him as he talked to none other, using plain and equal words, and showing his mind at times in a bare way.
"Huni," the King said, when they sat together in the Cave of Words, where none could come near unseen: "I would hear this tale for a second time."
"King, it is soon told, though it be very strange, so that I think at times that I walked in sleep to the Sacred Cave."
"That cannot be, or there had not been three who saw the same thing. . . . Did she look such a one as could be of the gods themselves, or such as they would send of a good will?"
"King, it is a hard question to tell. She did not look assured, as a god should. She looked troubled, and bewildered of mind, as one who knew not why she was there. Yet she was serene and quiet, as one who meant no evil to us, and who controlled fear. She is of a fine form, being also larger and whiter than we. There were bruises upon her, as though she had not come to earth by a quiet path, and blood had dried on a cut thigh."
"Did the Old One come out?"
"We did not see her at all. When the goddess spoke, Tela told us to go, and led her into the cave."
"That being the goddess's word?"
"I cannot say. It was a strange tongue."
"Yet Tela could understand?"
"I cannot tell that. . . . She would have us think that she did. . . . Tela hath thine own wisdom, though it may shake with a girl's fears."
The King looked wroth at that word, and yet more troubled than wroth.
"That," he said, "was foolish to say."
"It is unsaid."
"It is foolish even to think. The Old One bears her own young."
"It is the faith we hold. It is known to be so to all."
Then they paused, for Bira entered the Cave of Words. She was still in the vigour of youth, and had a face that was dark and fierce and proud, and she was very tall for her race, being nearly of the King's height.
She spoke to Huni, and there was contempt in her voice. "What is this tale I hear of a war in which all must join? Would you be the first to have your blood sucked through an ape's teeth?"
"Queen," the King interposed, "it being through you that this trouble comes, as we three know who are here, you would do better to sit still in your own place."
Bira looked at the King, and there was anger in her eyes, and a light of mockery, but no fear, though she knew well the peril in which she walked.
"Will you lay it at my door that you cannot beget a male child?"
The King started, and then checked his words. He looked at her with considering eyes. "Would you have it all said?" he asked at last, and there was silence at that, for they all looked back at the same things, though seeing them in their own ways.
. . .The King's thoughts moved forward to a year ago when the plague came to the land. It was a plague that did not haste, causing one to sicken here, and one there, but it did not cease. It fell most on the children and the young men, causing them to lie in the caves while their strength went, so that when they died they were so thin that a man might carry three in a bundle under his arm. It had spread from end to end of the land, and had become worse in the winter days. . . .
Bira saw other things. . . . She saw a light that went out. She felt that the babe was gone, and that another was between her hands. She walked back by a secret way, holding its mouth that it should not cry at a wrong time. It could cry on the next day, when it would have cause enough, but the babe was not hers, and she cared nothing for that. That had been two hours before dawn. . . . She saw the face of the girl Gwa. She could not speak, for the hands that were round her throat. . . . She saw other things. Things that she only could see, being known to none else.
Huni saw a less thing. He saw a birthmark under the arm of the priestess of the Sacred Cave. He saw the Old One reach out, and a garment pulled. He had made his eyes blank in his head at that time, and he still lived.
They saw different things, but their thoughts walked in the same way. There was no need for words, which, to Bira, might have had an ill sound. Yet she looked at the King, and her glance was level and unafraid. "A king may say what he will. Is it fault of mine that I do not breed, having borne once?"
"It is fault neither of thine nor of mine," the King answered. "It is the gods' curse."
She made no answer to that, and after a pause the King spoke again. "It is a curse that might be borne, if it were that, and no more; but our backs bleed from a worse scourge."
Bira answered then, and her contempt had but a thin veil. "It is ever the gods, when an evil falls. You call it a gods' curse that our young men sicken and die, and you would have me think that they have sent One to our aid from their own place. Which will you have it to be?"
Huni said: "Queen, that is soon said. They may have fed their wrath till their skins stretched, and they would save those who yet live."
CHAPTER VIII
RAINA followed her guide without fear, for the milleniums may pass, but the bases of confidence do not change. She had seen friendliness in eyes which might have been those of a girl of her own kind, except that they were a darker blue than was common among her race. Her instinct told her that this girl was of gentle moods, though she had seen her making play with a gourd of blood.
She followed without fear, but without ease, for the way was narrow, and though the floor was smooth, having been trodden for many years, the walls were rough, and the way was not straight.
The priestess, as she had been called by the old men, and of whom the King had spoken by name, calling her Tela, walked without care, having gone in and out by that way since she could first stand, nor was she quick to see what was wrong, for those dark-blue eyes were content in a dusky gloom, which was day to them, and more vexed by the glare of too bright a noon; but when she did guess she slackened pace, and then reached backward a timid hand, which was soft and slim.
So they came to a cave of the size of a large room, its extent seeming somewhat more than it was, because the roof was so low that it could be touched by a lifted hand.
To this ceiling two small covered lamps were fixed, giving
a faint diffused light. Raina thought: "How can life endure in such gloom?" She could not know that it was all the light that was needed by Tela s eyes, and that more would be a glare which must be faced at times, though it was tiring to do.
Tela stopped here, saying that which meant little, except for its tone, for the words were strange. Gesture said more. In fact, she asked her guest to wait there, while she went to tell have been hard to understand, even had the words been clear, for the cave had neither chair nor stool. But Tela tried gesture again. She sat on the floor. With a gently imperative hand she drew her guest down to her side. Then she rose, with a backward motion of her hand which was clear enough. Raina sat still, watching her go out at the further end of the cave. It was not hard to sit thus, for the floor was soft with the skins of seals.
It was long before Tela returned, so that there was leisure to think, and to look round. Not having understood the conversation at the mouth of the cave, Raina had no idea that she could be regarded as an expected visitor of celestial origin, nor of the status of her whose guest she had now become. But she felt that she was in a better atmosphere than that of the ape-men of the higher plateau. She had reason to thank a very sulky and frightened bird, who now sat by a high nest refusing to explain what had occurred in an intelligent manner to a mate who was rather larger and more powerful than himself, and could lift heavier weights from the ground. She would always think that he had been trying to show off in a silly way. . . . But he had clone Raina a good turn, though she hadn't recognised it in time to thank him before he went. . . .
Tela went on by other passages which were not lighted at all. She came to an inner cave where the Old One sat. The Old One had once been known as the Priestess or Witch of the Hills, but when Tela had been invested with the same sacred rank, she had become the Old One in the mouths of men.
Few had seen her in recent years, for she was reluctant to go out to the light. The fact was that she had become almost blind, which she thought that even Tela did not suspect. Tela knew it well, but she knew also that it was a thing which she was not supposed to observe.
Now the Old One sat with a graving-tool in her hand. She drew pictures upon the wall of the cave. That had been her occupation for many years, which had enabled them to pass without the monotony of life becoming difficult to endure. Such pictures covered the walls of caves that went far into the hills. They had had a use at first, being like the names of streets. She had begun them after she had been lost in a dark labyrinth into which she had wandered too far. There had been three days without food before she had found the way out. Had there not been water in the inner caves, she would not have come back alive.
So she had explored more gradually after that, drawing signs, such as a man's hand or a fish's tail, where there was turning or fork, so that the way back could not be missed.
After that, she had found joy in the work itself. She had found that she could draw with bold and simple lines that brought man and beast to life. She had had much joy in that toil, though it was known to none but Tela, and she could look for no praise of men.
Now she still drew, though her sight was not clear, and her hand shook. She did not know that she was spoiling a better work of earlier years, over which the tool moved. Tela did not venture to tell her that. Why should we cause grief to the old, whom, in some measure, we love?
Tela told her tale, beginning at that which was least hard to believe.
"Huni," she said, "spoke for the King. He sought a sign that would rouse the land."
The Old One had not lost her wits, though her hand shook. She did not know whether she herself believed in the oracles which she gave, but she knew that it was wisdom to learn the minds of those who besought her aid. She supposed that Tela believed without reservation or doubt, for so she had been taught, and she was of a quiet and gentle habit of speech, which would seldom dispute. Yet she could be trusted to undertake even such interpretations as these, having wisdom in what she said. The Old One would have taken the divination herself, but it would have exposed her blindness to all. She could not face the light of the open day, and the King's counsellors could not have seen the shape that the ashes took in the dim light of the caves.
So she had trusted Tela, having no choice; but she was not herself. Quiet of manner and mood, she was yet of a cool wit. Timid of heart, and with no ambition to rule or guide, she was yet one who might do a brave thing in a frightened way. At the last test, she might show much of her father's wisdom, and something of the spirit of Bira, whose child she was.
"What," the Old One asked, "does the King seek?"
"I think he would lead us all to a new land. He would go up the river, or to the land of the Ho-Tus."
"That," the old woman answered, "would be no less than the end. This evil has made us too weak to go forth to war."
"Yet he thinks that we get worse, and the chance less."
The Old One thought by this that Tela was of the same mind as the King, which she was not quick to approve. She thought the project beyond their strength, and she had a personal fear. What would become of her, if the tribe should move? She was too ancient to leave the caves. She had not passed the entrance for fifty years: for nearly twenty she had not looked out, except by night, finding that her eyes ached. There was a new sharpness in her voice as she asked: "You have not told them the gods approve? Such signs are not easy to read. What did the bowl show?"
"It showed the form of a barren woman who came down the gorge."
"That could be read in more ways than one. What did you read it to be?"
"There was more than that. But I have not read it at all. I told them that I must refer all to you. They are to come again at the noon-hour. . . . But there was more than that. When we looked up, the woman had come from the gods."
"You mean a real woman?"
"Yes. One who could move and speak."
"Your eyes were dazzled by the sun's light."
"No. It is something different from that. She is now in the outer cave. I left her there while I told."
"Then it is a trick of the King."
"I have thought of that. But how could he guess what the bowl would show?"
"Of what sort is she? Would she be priestess, and take your place?"
"I cannot say. She seems bewildered and strange. It would not be hard to think that she has come from the gods. She is not of our land, nor of the ape-men, nor is she black like the Ho-Tus. . . . She cannot speak in our tongue."
"She has come from the gods, and cannot speak in our tongue! What use is there in her? . . . I must see of what sort she is."
The Old One rose with a creaking of rheumatic bones, and then paused, remembering that she could see little. It would be best to ask Tela all she could first. Questions would seem queer after she had looked with her own eyes. She still thought she had to deal with a King's trick. Or it might be some strange illusion of Tela's; some vision that could not last. Probably when they got to the outer cave, the apparition would not be there. She asked: "What is she like?"
"She is taller than I. Her hair is short and dark like the winter boughs, with some sunlight within the brown. Her skin is white. I do not mean white like a cod's flesh, but she is lighter than we. She wears a piece of cloth, rough and torn, that conceals her loins."
"That is not in the way of gods."
"No. But she is bare besides that, which is not after the way of our women, nor of the Ho-Tus, who call it shame to reveal their knees. . . . She has a long wound on the leg, from which the blood has run down. It is a new wound of this day. Her arms have been pricked with the poison-thorn about two days ago."
"Is that all?"
"No. She had turned up the cloth she wore, at one side, making it a bag for such fruit as the ape-men eat."
"Then it was the high plateau from which she came."
"Yes. Or, at least, down the gorge. There are more than one of those trees on the side of the cliff, further up the gorge, though they do not thrive, the heat being too great for them. . . . Huni thought it meant that we are to attack the ape-men, and win the fruit for ourselves."
"If Huni said that, it is no less than the King's will, who must have sent the woman therefor. . . . I will see what she can say for herself. It may be she will talk to me."
Tela made no answer to this, being unconvinced. She thought again, how could the King have foreseen what the bowl would show? But she was accustomed to be silent when she did not agree. It is a habit which is saving of many words.
CHAPTER IX
AT the next noon, the King himself came to the cave's mouth, which he had not done since about the time that Tela was born, for he had considered that, since the Old One would not come forth, it would reduce his dignity that he should go to her. But now he was both anxious to know what the oracle would pronounce, and curious to see this strange woman the gods had sent. But he gained little either for ears or eyes.
Tela met him at the cave-mouth with the news that she who came from the gods would not be seen for two moons, after which she would both reveal herself and disclose her will. The King felt thwarted and vexed. "If it be the will of the gods that we take the fruit which the ape-men grow, we cannot be told too soon."
"If the gods' will be thus," Tela answered adroitly, "they will wish it done when the main crop is ripe, which the ape-men store for the winter days. After two moons, the right time will be very near."
"Yet," the King answered, for he was not one who was easily turned from his own will, "I would have word of hope; for the folk die."
As he said this, his thoughts were divided between the errand on which he came and the priestess to whom he spoke, who, he had little doubt, was his own child. He thought her beautiful, as she was, by the standards of any age, for beauty is not a fashion that can learn change; and he saw that in her eyes which told him that she was Bira's child; yet she was very different from her, being smaller and of less imperious ways. He had a doubt of how she would do when the Old One should die, as she soon must. . . . Yet, for all he knew, the Old One might be dead now. It was long since she had been seen of any at the cave-mouth. Tela did all in her name.
Now she was silent for a time, and then said, in a quiet, confident tone: "You may have word of hope. There will be fewer deaths from this day."
The King was glad of that word. He was glad that it could be heard by Huni and others who stood behind. They could be trusted to spread it abroad, and men would not say that it was for nought that the King had stood at the witch's door, and had not been asked to go in. He saw, too, that Tela had said no more than a likely thing, for the deaths had grown fewer the year before as the summer waned and then worse again in the winter days.
Yes, with that word, he could tell the people to wait for two moons, giving them no more than the expectation of something great to be done after that time, when She should appear whom the gods had sent. Yet he made one more effort to gain light on what that should be when its time came. He said: "If you could show me something of the gods' will, though it were no more than as one who lifts a skirt to the knee, I might do much to prepare, which may be worse done at the last."
Tela thought again. She could not tell that which she did not know, but she felt that she must make better answer than that, speaking where many heard.
"Would you," she asked, "that the thing you are then to do should be the talk of two moons? Can you stay talk with a wall? Even now, there is too much said."
The King was silent, seeing the wisdom of what she urged. If they were to attack the Ho-Tus in two months' time, it would be ill indeed that there should be rumour spread at an earlier day. Even the ape-men might have ways by which they could learn. There were other possibilities. . . . He saw that it would be best to wait. . . . He saw also that Tela might be more fit for the place she held than he had first thought.
"Tell the Old One," he said, "that we will wait with quiet minds for the two moons, knowing that all will be well at last."
"All is well," Tela replied, "when the gods speak, for we are dust in their breath."
She went back to tell the Old One of what had passed, who was well content. The Old One played for delay. Indeed, what else could she do? She understood the King's mind. His people had become too numerous for the land they held, which, though it was fertile and flat, might not be so healthful for them as the distant hills from which their fathers had come, or the wooded country which they had occupied for a shorter time, till they had been driven out by the Ho-Tus. Where they now were, they had decreased in virility as their numbers grew. Now disease was reducing these numbers, and it is a basic instinct, both of men and animals, to seek new ground when they are afflicted thus.
But where could the tribe go, with a good hope? They could not conquer the Ho-Tus. She was sure of that. They might have a better chance against the ape-men, though they would gain less. There was little to sustain life on the high plateau. It was true that they would gain the fruit on which the ape-men fed. There might be a source of health in that change of diet, and it was natural that the minds of Huni and his companions should have been opened to such a thought when they saw the strange woman, as they looked up from the divination bowl, with the fruit in her folded skirt.
But the Old One saw that the King's plan might go beyond that. If he could gain control of the plateau, he might seek some fairer land on its further side. There must be many lands (she supposed) that were empty of men. Who had ever come to the earth's end?
Thinking of this, she saw better hope. Why should they not come to a peaceful bargain with the Ho-Tus, that they should go through their land, doing harm to none, seeking that which was farther off? That would be better than strife, even for the Ho-Tus, who, though they would surely win, would sustain some loss, and gain nothing at all.
But though she might see the wisdom of such a plan, it was one that she would be slow to speak, for she neither wished to leave the cave, nor to be left there alone.
Besides, there was the question of this strange woman, who might have come from the gods, though it was a tale that she would be slow to believe. But she must resolve that first. And it was not easy to do, till they could speak in a common tongue. The woman seemed content to stay, and of friendly mood. She responded quickly to any effort to communicate by signs, or the learning of words. Tela must be diligent both to learn and teach. When they could talk, they could learn what she was, and with what object she came. She might be from the gods indeed, in which case it would be worse than vain to oppose their will. Or she might be a useful tool. Meanwhile, Tela must speak such words that the King would be content to sit still.
CHAPTER X
RAINA found that she was expected to stay in the witch's cave, which she was very willing to do. It gave her an opportunity of learning the ways of this strange people to whom she had come, while she was quiet and safe, as she could not otherwise have expected to be. She felt that Tela was a friend. Of the Old One she was less sure, but she saw little of her. After the first interview, which was no more than a gazing upon one another in a dim light, the Old One kept to herself. She sat brooding in her own cave, or spent long hours carving on the rock, not knowing that she was sometimes defacing that which she had done better before.
Tela was more than a casual companion. It became evident from the second day that she was diligent to instruct: she did not want to learn her guest's tongue, but to teach hers. She enquired for Raina's name, which she gave, and which Tela found easy to say. But beyond her name, Tela asked nothing of her. She was intent only to teach her own tongue, which her guest was as keen to learn. Having nothing else to do, she learnt fast.
Meanwhile she knew nothing of the land or people to which she had come. But for those three men whom she had seen seated with Tela around the bowl, she would have had no evidence that there were others alive in those parts. For though she was not forcibly prevented from going abroad, and was probably of a strength to overcome both Tela and the Old One had it been put to the test, she was discouraged from the attempt. Tela's hand would be on her arm, if she moved toward the outer passage, and she would address her in pleading or warning words, which might not be understood, but their purpose was clear.
Not knowing what perils there might be for an ignorant stranger abroad, it would have been foolish to go out, having no cause, and being so warned by one who had the voice of a friend. When they could speak, and exchange thoughts, she would know what it all meant, and could judge for herself. So she stayed within, learning words.
She saw signs from the first, which were more than confirmed as her knowledge grew, that these people were of a higher intelligence, and had a more complex civilisation, than that of the ape-men. As the language lessons advanced beyond the names of objects that the cave held, and the elementary actions and emotions that are common to all, Tela found difficulty in communicating ideas or facts which had no visual basis. She overcame this by drawing the things to which she would give a name, which she could do with swiftness and skill.
Her material was a rubber-like substance, which she would heat and then roll out to a thin sheet, in which condition it took the impressions of a metal stylus, smaller than, though otherwise similar to, that with which the Old One drew on the rock. While it was still warm, the marks upon it could be obliterated by a finger's pressure, but as it cooled they became indelible, unless the material should be heated again, when its surface could be smoothed anew. Raina learned that there was a great store of such sheets in the recesses of the Old One's cave. They bore ancient writings in a picture alphabet which Tela could read, but made no effort to teach, for which there might have been less than time. But it was not a thing which she would have been quick to do, had the time been much more than it was, for the knowledge of that writing was private to the Old One and herself alone. She would need to be much surer of Raina, much more certain of who or what she might be, before she would think to teach her the secret language which was for those of the Sacred Cave.
In fact, in the first days, Raina was much readier to give friendship than Tela was to respond. That was natural enough. Raina sought friends. Her instinct told her that here was one whose friendship would be of a good kind. But Tela was on her guard, being faced by a strange thing.
Yet Tela also lacked friends, though she was less aware of her need. She had been isolated from birth. What did she know, what had she seen, beyond the cave mouth, or that which the Old One taught? Well, something more of both than the Old One had ever guessed. Yet she had been held apart from her kind by the fact that she was the Old One's child (as was supposed), and the priestess-to-be. . . .
Raina soon learnt the routines of the cave-life. Every evening, as the dusk fell, Tela would go out to take food which was brought to the mouth of the cave, and at the same time she would carry out the refuse of the past day, which would be removed by those who came with the food, that there should be no pollution around the cave.
After the bringing of food, there would be no man in the river gorge, which would be sacred from that hour to those who dwelt in the cave. It was then, in the moonlight nights, that Tela would go out to bathe in the stream.
As the days passed, and friendship grew, Tela took Raina with her at these times, and, as confidence came, Tela told at last how she had wandered at night, even from childhood, while the Old One slept. She had not (as she thought) ever been seen, for the folk did not stir abroad without a great cause when the moon shone, believing that sickness came from its light. That was what the Old One taught, it having come down to her from the wisdom of ancient days. Raina wondered whether it might have originated in the fertile mind of some young priestess who, like Tela, wished to walk in the night.
It was by knowledge gained in these moonlight wanderings, rather than through the Old One's teaching, that Tela was able to explain so much of the life of the tribe from which she was held apart.
Raina responded, as their ability of conversation grew, by telling what she could of the civilisation from which she came, and Tela, listening, saw that she was a goddess indeed.
She told also of how the ape-men had tried to enslave her, and how she had made use of the great bird to descend into the gorge. Raina did not aim to give an untrue account, but her choice of words was not great. As Tela saw it, it became a miraculous thing. Raina, looking with contempt on the puny efforts of the ape-men to confine her against her will, had descended on a bird's back. She was a goddess indeed.
This revelation made Tela shy for a time, but the friendship between the two was a thing too natural for such a barrier to hold it back. Tela reflected that she was a priestess herself, which, if not quite equal to being a goddess, comes rather near. She believed (as did all the tribe) that she had the power to produce a female child by her own will, which, when the Old One died, it would become her duty to do. There were writings which the Old One did not allow her to read as yet, which would tell her how this could be done. Tela thought vaguely of ceremonies and incantations.
If the Old One should die, having told her no more, it would be her first duty to read these secret records (which she would then be the only one living who would be able to do), and she would know more than she did now. . . .
In the light of a full moon which rose to a cloudless sky, Tela led her friend down the path of the gorge, with the cliff-wall rising on their left hand, and the shining instability of the river breaking up the moonlight upon their right. She led on to where the gorge opened, as the high cliffs ceased, and they heard the distant sound of the ocean breaking upon a beach that was less than two miles away.
The air was cooler here, under the starlit sky, than it had been in the gorge. A wind blew from the north which they had not felt before. Raina looked round in expectation of unfamiliar things, but there was nothing before her but the sand-dunes, and the river flowing down to the sea.
She would have gone forward, following the river's course, but Tela touched her with a timidly restraining hand, and they turned southwards, keeping under the shadow of the high cliff.
Even here, Tela paused. She seemed afraid to speak, and uncertain whether to go on. Under her breath she said: "Too much light." She would have preferred clouds to this glare of a moon at full, and the starlit sky. But they went forward silently, taking what shadow they could, and as they went the land became fertile and broad, and the sound of the tide grew fainter and then ceased.
When they had passed the mouths of caves in the high cliffs, which were like to the one from which they came, and which were for the King's use and those of his own household, Tela moved with less caution, only watching, as they came near the dwellings of men, that they kept to the shadows, lest they should be visible to any who looked out through the latticed squares through which light and air entered the Baradi huts.
Raina noticed that in every hut a lamp burned, making it at once less likely that they would be seen by those who dwelt within, and easy for them to observe the sleepers, if they ventured to look through the lattice-bars. Tela had done that many times before, and had learned some things of the ways of the tribe which she would not otherwise have done. She would have learnt more, but for the fact that it was not easy to look downward through the lattices from without. It was easier to see roof and walls than the floor on which the folk slept.
"Why," Raina asked, "do they burn lights through the night?"
"It is to keep out the dark, which is bad to breathe, though it does no harm to us, who are of the priestly race."
"That," Raina said, "has a foolish sound."
"Folly," Tela agreed, "is always easy to find."
Raina would have added that darkness cannot be breathed, being nothing more than the absence of light, but she was short of words, and had learned already that it was better to be still than to attempt that which might be beyond her power to express.
She turned her thoughts to the moonlit gardens and fields, which, in that softened light, seemed to be well cultivated and well kept, and not unbelievably different from those of the fairer land from which she had come. But there were few trees, and there was no luxuriance in the growth of crops on the level land.
"How many are there," she asked, "of the men of your tribe?"
This was not answered with ease, but Tela, using patience and craft of words, made herself understood in the end. There had been seventeen thousand, fit for labour or war, two years ago, but that number was not more than twelve now, of whom four thousand were seal-hunters and catchers of fish, who might be hard to move inland. These men had large flat-bottomed boats, or rafts, on which they would migrate for several months of each year to islands where they could catch seals. When they came home, they spent their time fishing in nearer seas.
"We have lost already one strong man out of three, and they still die," Tela said, "but that is not all, nor, perhaps, the worst. The boy children have died so fast that our young men must be fewer each year. For-twenty years, they will be less with the passing of every year, even though there should not be another death from today. That is why the King would have the tribe moved while its strength is no less than now."
Raina knew by this-time of the peril in which the people lay, and of the part which she was expected to take. She understood that she was believed to have been sent by the gods, which she did not deny. She saw that it might even have a kernel of truth. What is sure, in a world in which all is strange? Only those who are dull of mind can be slow to wonder and doubt, and the more we learn the fewer certainties we may have.
But as Tela explained these things, and learned what she could of Raina's own world, her own doubt grew. She did not doubt that Raina came from a higher race. She would have called her goddess with ready will. But she saw that, if she had been sent to aid the land, she had not known that for which she came.
Yet she might help none the less - if Tela knew what she would have her to do, of which she was not sure. And, in any case, that was for the Old One to say.
Meanwhile, as the weeks passed, affection and confidence grew between two who were girls together, though we may call them goddess or priestess, or what we will. And the day was near when the King would send again to ask that the oracle be interpreted, and the will of the gods revealed. Tela looked for the Old One to speak, which she did not do She had ceased to draw. She ate little. She sat on the floor of her dark cave, with eyes fixed on the ground. Often, she did not answer when Tela spoke.
"It is the noon after next that the King will send Huni here, unless he shall come himself once again," Tela said. "I must ask my mother to say what the oracle meant, or I must resolve it in my own way. It is not a thing to be left unthought till the last hour."
She spoke timidly, as one diffident and perplexed, and yet Raina thought, as King Bwene had thought before, that she might do better at a hard pass than would many who faced the world with a bolder front. The next morning she spoke again in the same way. "I will ask my mother now," she said, "for her speaking cannot be longer delayed."
She went, leaving Raina in the outer cave, as she had done at the first. But she learned nothing of what the Old One may have pondered in those silent days, for she had sunk sideways on to the floor from the place where she had been seated, being quite dead.
CHAPTER XI
TELA raised a form which was strangely light. She had never before lifted her whom she called mother, and who had been her sole guardian and companion from the first weeks of her life. There had, in fact, been little closeness of physical intimacy between them, and their souls had been far apart.
The Old One, even in younger days, had not been of those who will give confidence to a child, and to her wisdom or admonitions Tela had listened with little argument or dispute, even with little questioning after the first years, receiving all that she heard in a quiet way, that gave little sign of her own thoughts. Yet the Old One would have been surprised to know how well she was understood.
She laid the shrivelled form on a pile of seal-skins in a low corner of the cave, which had been its bed when alive. She went back to Raina. She said: "My mother is dead." It was spoken without tears, but there was that in the tone which expressed a world of desolation within her heart. Yet it was less than would have been had Raina not come to the cave, and had she been more absolutely alone.
She remembered that the oracle must be expounded on the next day. There would be no help from the Old One now. She must do it herself. Unless Raina would. She had no jealousy of Raina, not being one who desired to rule. Yet it was not her way to refuse to do the part which became hers. Raina said: "I will give you any help that I can."
Tela felt better for that promise, though she would have preferred that Raina should have taken control, and that she should have been the one to give help. But she saw that that could not be. Raina was even more ignorant than herself of the conditions of the problem which must be faced, and of the ways of her tribe. Tela must decide for herself what should be said to the King at tomorrow's noon. But Raina would give her all the help that she could. . . .
There was another matter on her mind, rivalling, if not exceeding, in urgency that of the oracle which she must pronounce tomorrow. There were the writings to which she had had no access till now: those that were to be read at once when her mother died. Those that held strange knowledge by which each priestess in turn must guide her life, and by which their line continued its generations. Even Raina must know nothing of them.
Raina asked: "Should you not let it be known that your mother is dead?" She remembered that there might be none who would come till the sunset neared, when food would be brought to the cave.
"I cannot tell," Tela answered, "what I shall do, till I have read that which my mother wrote. I have her charge to do nothing at all before that."
She went back to her mother's cave, and to the recess which was near her bed. She took out many tablets which she laid aside, being those which she knew. She found a pile beyond them which had changed colour somewhat from age, but the writings were still clear. There were some also more recent which were in her mother's hand, but which she had not seen before then.
She sat down on the cave-floor to read these, thinking that she would be alone while she learned things which were strange and new, and which she supposed that she must not speak. Even from Raina, she was a priestess apart.
She felt this the more as she read the first tablet of instructions which the Old One had written, for it impressed upon her the need of secrecy in all that she did. She must take no one into her confidence, until her daughter should be of an age to assist her in the rites and oracles by which they lived. These words had been written before Raina had come to the cave, but they were clear that there must be no exception at all. "Not even," the tablet warned, "to the father of your child must you tell aught."
What might be the meaning of that? Puzzled brows drew together over the dark-blue eyes. Well, she must read more. Doubtless, she would understand in the end. . . .
But these very admonitions of secrecy, while they emphasised the importance of withholding from Raina a closer confidence, increased the sense of isolation which depressed her mind. Twice she rose with the thought that she would take as many of the secret tablets as she could bear, and decipher them in the outer cave where Raina was. Twice she sat back, feeling that she should be alone while she read that which was only meant for her own eyes. But she rose a third time with the thought that it could make no difference, if she did not tell what she read, that Raina should be near, she not being skilled to read. So she took as many tablets as she could, and went where Raina was, sitting down at her side. She read long, and Raina could see at times that she was puzzled, and at times excited or troubled, by that which she read; but she said nothing, leaving Tela to speak if she would.
Tela was grateful for that. After a time she ceased to read, and sat long with her thoughts. She said, half-aloud: "The Old One was very wise." It sounded as though she would still a doubt in her own mind.
Raina spoke at last: "Is there any help I can give?"
"My mother," Tela answered, "is not to be seen of men. You can help me in that." But she did not answer as one whose trouble would be met by such help, but rather as one who had been disturbed from a different thought.
After that, they took the Old One by a long path into a distant cave where there was a pool, very black and deep. Tela carried the body, wrapped in a cloak of skins, and Raina bore a light, of which Tela had the less need. When they came there, they sank the body with stones that the cave supplied, Tela using certain rites which the tablet had enjoined her to do, about which we need not pause, for they are nothing to us.
CHAPTER XII
TELA looked at Raina and her lips opened and closed. She was not the first, by several, who had read those tablets and been led in an hour's space into a world of thought where all was strange, and values altered or fell. But those others had been alone with their thoughts through the slow hours, that might have drawn into months before they had become the settled furniture of their minds, or would be the roots from which action grew.
If Tela must not tell, might she not ask? There were things, she felt, that Raina could tell which might resolve much. She felt that Raina had a far wider knowledge and a different experience of life than were hers at that time. A minute's speech might save her a week of thought. Yet she was not one who was likely to be betrayed by any rashness of words. What is said in a minute's space may be regretted for more weeks than one. She had learned that when she was younger than now.
Besides that, her mind was a chaos of many thoughts which would not lie quiet, nor could she consider any for long, for they would be smothered by others that were thrown up volcanically, to be overwhelmed in their turn.
She was not a child of the Old One. . . . She was Bira's child. . . . It was all tricks and cheats. . . . The tablets did not say that, but every word was pregnant with that assumption. . . . .She was Bwene's child. The only child of the King. . . . An oracle should always be so worded that it could be read in two ways so that you could not be proved to be wrong when the event came. . . . She had no mysterious creative power. She must steal a girl-child by some sleight, and with a cunning that no one would ever guess; or she must find a father for one that she must bear alone in the dark caves. . . . A child that must be a girl, or it must not live, and it must be done all over again. . . . It was a folly to foretell life or death, or, indeed, anything definite that would bring her to disrepute if it should befall in a diverse way. But if you should be caught in that trap, you must bring it to pass. If you should say that a man would die, die he must, though it be by your secret hand. . . . There were many ways by which a priestess might become a mother with no risk that it would be told among men. There were accounts of how it had been done in earlier days, and in different ways. There had been one at the first that had been secret and sure. The priestess who lacked an heir would seek the man she chose in the night. She would whisper that it was a goddess who came, whose presence would blind him should she be seen. Hence she could only come when the moon was down. When she had had what she would, she would still him with strong drugs, or a dagger's point.
That method had worked well, and for more times than a few, till (how do such things become known?) there had come a proverb that he must die whom a goddess kissed in the dark. After that, there had grown up a tale that the dark itself was an evil to be kept out of a healthy hut. That tale might come from a different source, but it had the same effect as though it had been designed. . . . But these things must be put aside now, for the King would be here at the next noon, and what should be said to him?
"Raina," Tela asked, "will you tell me all that you can about the ape-men on the level height? Are they many or few?"
Raina could give little answer to that, but she told what she could. They pooled knowledge. The ape-men did not seem very formidable. Perhaps the fruit that their gorges bore would really bring the health which the tribe lacked. Perhaps that had really been the meaning of the way by which Raina had come, and the fruit she held. It was the idea in the King's mind. It pointed to an enterprise which might be within the present strength of the tribe. It did not involve that Tela should leave the caves which had been her home from birth, and in which she dwelt as a priestess apart. To do that would be an adventure from which she shrank, though it had some allure too. . . . Besides, there was a way she could help in such a war, of which the King himself did not know. . . .
When the King came at the noon of the next day, Tela met him at the cave-mouth, and there was no doubt in her mind as to what she should say.
Raina stood at her side. She wore no more than such a kirtle as that in which she had first appeared to those who had been grouped round the bowl of blood, though it was not now made from a sack which was soiled and torn. Tela had seen to that. It was now of the finest cloth which the tribe wove, and stained with a dark blue which was almost black. Tela had said: "You can have white if you choose, but it will soon soil, when you go abroad, as I suppose you must when the tribe moves. There are other dyes, but they are in common use, both by women and men. You should have that which will place you apart." She did not offer the scarlet which she wore herself, and which was sacred to her. Perhaps that would have been more than she could have been expected to do. Nor would it have suited Raina, as it did her.
Raina would have worn more, if she might, but against that Tela had been firm. "It is the way of gods to go bare, as you now do, and as you were when you came. It is not the way of women of mortal kind. Had you come clothed as ourselves, you might have been taught the feel of a master's whip, if you had come to no worse ending than that."
That she talked thus (though she did it without thought of offence) showed that she had lost the fear that it was a goddess to whom she spoke. That was of instinct rather than reason, for she still had a great doubt in her mind as to what Raina might be. But she felt that they were comrades for the days that were now at hand, and it was essential to her, as to Raina herself, and to the good of the tribe, that she should be a goddess revealed to men.
So they came out side by side to give audience to the King at the cave's mouth. The King did not come alone. Huni was there, and a dozen others who were leaders of men, whom the King would have to hear what the oracle would pronounce. He did not think that the Old One would fail him now. Anyway, it was best that it should be heard of all.
There were no women there, for that would have been against the customs that ruled the land.
The King looked at Tela with friendly eyes, but he had seen her when last he came, and now he turned to a stranger sight - to one who was whiter and taller than the women of his own race, and who walked unashamed in a bold way, being more than the daughters of men.
Raina looked on a king who had left his youth, and whose girth was more than it once had been, though he was still active and strong. He had the manner of one who ruled, and his eyes were those of a man who thought much. Raina thought him the best man she had yet seen in this savage land, as, indeed, he was. He looked at Raina, and he felt more than he thought or saw. Their glances met, and his fell.
It was to Tela he spoke, while she looked at him with new eyes, knowing now that he was father as well as king. She wondered, did he know that? Perhaps he did. He had the look of one who knew much. But it was a thing that must not be said: that was best unthought. . . . Her mind adjusted itself to the moment's need, as she heard his words: "Priestess," he said, "it is the hour at which you will show us the gods' will."
"The gods say: 'They shall go up when the moon is full.' "
"That will be ten nights from now."
"It will be the tenth night."
"Do the gods promise that we prevail? Do the gods bless?"
"They bless those who are first to go, but there is a curse on the lagging feet. He who is last will lie soon in a narrow bed."
The King heard, and was well content. There was no need to ask where it was meant that they should go. There was but one upward way from that land. To go up, at whatever point, was to come to the high plain where the ape-men dwelt. Yet he saw that there must be more said. He did not know what part Raina should have in this, but he saw that it was a vital thing that she should be there to inspire the tribe.
"Is this," he asked, "what the bowl showed? Or has the Old One had later word from the gods themselves?"
"The Old One," Tela answered, "is here no more. She has gone to the gods herself, and I am priestess alone from this hour. There is more to be said, but it is not for the birds to hear. . . . Will you come into the cave?"
The King was glad to hear this. It was what he had wished, but had paused to ask, lest he should be refused in the hearing of those he led. He looked on them in doubt, knowing that they would be glad to come too. He did not warn them, but he thought it foolish to show his mind. Refusal should come from her.
Tela read his mind in a quick way. "Huni can come with you," she said.
The others understood from that that they must remain where they were, or could go home if they would. They sat down to wait.
CHAPTER XIII
TELA led the way to the large low cave to which she had brought Raina when first she came. Having designed to lead the King in, she had a lamp in readiness, so that he could walk at ease on that gloomy path.
They sat on the rug-strewn floor, Tela and Raina being side by side, and the King facing them, with Huni somewhat behind on his left side. Huni said nothing at this time, and may have had leisure to think the more. His time would come when the King should call him to counsel in the Cave of Words, where there would be none but they two.
"I know well," the King said, "that it must be as the gods have willed, and as has been said now in a public way. Also, I see that, if we are to go up in the night, it must be when the moon is full. Yet, had the choice been mine, I would have taken a nearer day, and I would have moved at the dawn hour. My people know that the darkness is ill to breathe."
Tela was not quick to answer this. She felt more nervous now than she had done when she had spoken to all that came. She had spoken then as one who was no more than a messenger of the distant gods. It was for those who heard to obey, not to argue on what she said. But in her heart she knew that the words were hers, and that she had sought to give counsel which would be wise in itself, and would accord with the King's will. Yet what did she know of the arraying of men, or of the needs of the war which her words would wake? Now she saw that the King was less than pleased, and her heart shook. Had she spoken that which would send her people to death?
Yet she knew that she must show neither doubt nor fear with Huni, of whom she knew little, sitting watchful behind the King. Also, she had something to show on her side which the King could not guess, but which was likely to please him well. And she had talked long with Raina, making what they had thought to be no less than a good plan.
"The moon," she said, "being full, will not set till the dawn is near.
The King pondered this. "Is it the will of the gods that we do not move till the dawn hour?"
"I speak not now from the gods, but of the moons, which know well."
The King looked at Raina, though it was to Tela that he still spoke. He was not sure that Raina could speak his tongue. "Will she whom the gods have sent be our guide on this upward way?"
"She will appear when the height is won."
The King pondered again. He looked at Raina, who had an aspect of flesh and blood - of one who might be harmed by a straight-cast spear. It might hearten his people more if she were to lead their advancing ranks, but he saw that if she should fall it would be a disaster that it would be hard to survive. Also, that she should appear on the height which she had not climbed had the sound of a god-like way. He saw beyond that, that if the ape-men should make no guess of the plans they made, the high cliffs might be scaled before resistance should show its head. Yes, from any angle it might be the best way. Anyway, it was that which the gods had willed.
He had another doubt in his mind. "It is a good word," he said, "that the gods will have no blessing for lagging feet, yet it will make it a harder thing to set out ranks in array. War is not a game in which men jostle to see who may be first; or, at least, cannot be so designed when we marshal ranks to advance. Now it seems that whoever will hold the rear, as some must, will be looked on as a cursed man."
"Yet," Tela answered to that, for it was a thing planned between Raina and her, "they will not know who is last, for the attack can be made from different points, and those who haste may be well ahead, even to him who brings up the rear. It is of that I would speak. Will you send a strong force up by this gorge when the hour comes, with two leaders whom you can most trust?"
"With how strong a force?"
"You will know better than I."
"I might, if I should know how it is meant to be used."
"That is not to be known till the hour comes."
The King looked at Raina, who gave no sign, for it was agreed that Tela should talk at this time. He remembered that she had come down the gorge. Now she was to appear on the height. He thought she knew of some place at which the gorge could be scaled. It sounded a good plan. But, in fact, it was more than that. He said: "I will send you a thousand men."
"Will you send two?"
"You must see that they cannot move more than two abreast on this way."
"Yet I would have it two thousand men."
"It was but now that you said I should be the better judge of that count."
"Yes. So you are. . . . You will send two leaders of skill?"
"I will send you the best I may." The King knew that such leaders must be chosen by little more than a random guess. It was long since his tribe had been arrayed on a front of war.
"And with two thousand men of your best?"
The King saw she would have her way. "Yes," he said, "it shall be the number you will. . . . Do you stay here yourself when the strife joins?"
The King did not urge, he sought only to know. It was tradition that the priestess must be seen in the ranks of war, for she was one whom the gods would guard, and their favour might be a cloak that would be common to all. Yet he would not that she should take a risk that he could not measure with a sure mind. She was his daughter, as they both knew, and the only priestess they had. Should she come to a quick end, it would be evil indeed.
"I cannot come," she said, "nor do I sit still when the tribe moves. I must give aid in another way." Seeing that he was about to question again, she added: "There is no more to be said at this time."
The King was silenced by that, but he was well content in his secret heart, even though Huni heard. He would have his daughter assert her power now that the Old One was dead, and seeing her so young, and of quiet ways, he had had a doubt that he was glad to lose. . . . His eyes went to Raina again. Did the gods send them a woman of mortal kind? Was she such that a King could wed? Or was there impiety, perhaps madness, in such a thought?
He resolved that he must put such doubts aside till the time of war should be past. After that - well she might go back to the gods, if she came from them. But if she stayed among men, she might be glad to wed with a king, for how could she do better than that? <