CHAPTER XXX.
Sleep came not to the Ammi that night, but instead Pestilence settled down upon them. The water of the Swamp, stirred by the recent floods, and the strange fruits which they had eaten since leaving home, had brought Colic to the camp, and, like Dreams, it visited the couches of the heroes, and rolled them about in aches and pains. Night slackened its pace and dwelt long among them, covering with darkness their pain; and, as they ran about holding their stomachs and looking for sweet relief, which came not, the Lali, who faintly discerned their movements in the moonlight, thought they were making preparations for battle, and so they fled, lest disaster should follow on their defeat of the day before. Thus did the Lali run away from the Belly-ache.
And when Aurora, closing the gates of the world on Night, advanced, announcing with freshened breath the Day, and her golden train fell in rich drapery over the eastern sky, the Ammi were seen lying about in groups,doubled up and griping, each caring not for glorious victory but for peace within. Koree forgot his beloved Sosee, and Pounder lay in a big heap, caring neither for battle nor country.
Gimbo walking about on all fours administered relief, being physician as well as priest.
“There is nothing so good for colic,” he said, “as to pound the stomach;” and, taking a long-necked pumpkin, he gave each a blow on the spot where the pain was felt. This caused the patient to give a jerk and a howl.
“That is good;” said Gimbo, “it is the colic jumping out of you;” and in very bad cases he repeated the blow.
“It is well,” he added, “to keep your stomachs turned toward the Swamp; the colic always goes out on that side, owing to the influence of the Alligator.”
He also applied the wing of a dragon fly to those who had not yet contracted the complaint, with a view to keep it away.
“When the colic sees this sign of Shoozoo,” he said, “it is afraid to come near you.”
There were no hostilities that day, the Lali being kept back by fear and the Ammi by colic.
On the morning following, when Pain and Fear had fled from both camps, the combatants were far apart. The Lali had retreated either for safety or preparations, and the Ammi had the field, but were without an enemy either to fight or treat with for peace.
Anxiety now took the place of colic in their breasts, and uncertainty about what the Lali were devising made them hesitate about their own course.
Meanwhile other matters came to occupy their attention.
“I have long noticed,” said Gimbo, “that it is getting colder. Walking on four feet I learn things sooner than others. I used to walk without discomfort to my hands. But now the ground is so cold that I can hardly stand it with either feet or hands. I must get up a tree to keep warm, or else go into a hole.”
Others had observed the same change. In fact it was the sudden cold, coming the night before, that helped bring on the colic just mentioned. It disturbed the temperature of the body, and the first inconvenience from sudden changes of climate was felt by mankind.
Nor was this a small matter. The first Glacial Period had set in. That great catastrophe which, at the end of the Tertiary Age, covered the northern hemisphere with mountains of ice, burying the earth out of sight, and destroying all life, was beginning to make itself felt.
Farther to the north, (as they heard), the progress of the cold was well under way, but now its influence first reached the Ammi.
“What is that?” asked several at once, directing their attention to the sky.
A snow storm had come. It was the first snow that had fallen in those regions, and was a stranger to both Men and Apes.
“It’s the clouds coming down from the sky,” said one; “they have broken in pieces and are falling.”
“It is blossoms from the trees in heaven,” said Koree, who had grown sentimental from long thinking aboutSosee; “Shoozoo is shaking them down as he runs through the forests after owls.”
“I think it is dragon flies,” said Gimbo, who observed the form of the flakes. “There is here the short-beam and the long-beam. Surely Shoozoo is coming to the earth, and we ought to be very devout.”
Among the Lali the snow produced still greater consternation. Some said it was the white form of Simlee, the wife of Shoozoo, who was coming to the Apes; and all agreed that it came on account of the war between the Apes and the Men. In as much as a snow-flake, when examined, was seen to turn to water, a priest of the Lali remarked that it was going back to Shoozoo, the great reservoir, or Swamp, into which all things at last return.
Suddenly there was a tremendous rush of arctic animals over both camps, and all the country, as far as the eye could reach, was alive with them. They came from the north where the heavy snows had started a migration southward. Aurochs, reindeer, Irish elk and other kinds now extinct, were in the herds. They rushed pell-mell before the snows, tramping down everything in their way, and falling over one another, like a stampede of buffaloes or wild horses. Many were trampled to death or else left maimed in their trail. Mingled among them were lions, leopards and other savage beasts, which followed them for food, or were also migrating to a warmer climate; so that there was a slaughter of many kinds in the herds. It seemed to the Ammi as if all the beasts had gone to war, as well as the Men and Apes, and weremarching in great armies and fighting constant battles.
“The Sky and the North are both pouring out their forces upon us,” said Abroo.
“Let us catch them, and keep them for food,” said Oko, who had been trying to tame a calf of the Urus which he had captured, thus beginning the work of domestication, which the descendants of the Ammi have continued till now.
“It is better to let them go,” said Koree, who picked up the clubs and missiles which they had scattered; “we ought to be glad to be rid of them.”
For some of the Ammi had been trampled to death in the stampede, so that this incursion of cattle upon them was nearly as destructive as the war.
After the herds had gone by, they were seen to spread out over the plains in the direction from which the Ammi had come to the seat of war. There they found grass and were leisurely grazing.
“It looks,” said Abroo, “as if they had come to stay, so that when we return from the war they will dispute the possession of Cocoanut Hill with us.”
The snow, however, continued to fall, which, like the curse of the wandering Jew, was to give the fugitives no rest.