FOOTNOTES:[3]A capacity independent of religious sanctions and of future hopes. What celestial reward did Eucharis expect, the freed-woman of "light life," whose constancy on behalf of her friend, the falsely-accused Octavia, exhausted the infernal ingenuities of Nero?
FOOTNOTES:
[3]A capacity independent of religious sanctions and of future hopes. What celestial reward did Eucharis expect, the freed-woman of "light life," whose constancy on behalf of her friend, the falsely-accused Octavia, exhausted the infernal ingenuities of Nero?
[3]A capacity independent of religious sanctions and of future hopes. What celestial reward did Eucharis expect, the freed-woman of "light life," whose constancy on behalf of her friend, the falsely-accused Octavia, exhausted the infernal ingenuities of Nero?
CHAPTER V
THE TESTING OF THE NEW THING
Andnow there was gloom in the household. Pŭl-Yūn was gaining strength daily and as irritable as your convalescent is permitted to be. His leg was not yet sound enough or supple enough to attempt the descent of the face, for the knee-joint creaked from its six weeks of disuse; on the other hand, it could not get enough of play within the limits of the cave. His nerves excited him, his temper was less even than when he was helpless, and, worst of all, his conscience would not let him be. Thus came Aidôs down to men.
Dêh-Yān put up with her man's petulant outbreaks and slaved for him harder than ever. A diet of dark bear-meat—solid bear-meat daily and twice a day, althoughadmirably suited to keep up the bodily warmth, is hard upon the liver unless regulated by abundant exercise, which in the case of her husband was out of the question. She cast about for something lighter, but game was getting scarce in the immediate neighbourhood of the cave, and indeed in the glen itself; she had hunted it too closely and too long. It was the depth of winter in the mountains, migratory life had long since left for the lower levels, resident life was scanty. Dêh-Yān betook herself to trapping. A bird of some kind her man should have.
Pŭl-Yūn, peering moodily from his cave-platform, watched her bending over a trap far below and a long way off. The cackle of a chough came up clearly through the cold air, a danger-signal, and it struck him as singular that the bird should be calling so far from the woman, for as a rule they ignored her movements unless she were within, say, a hundred paces, yet he putthe matter from him, no dream had given him prescience of impending danger.
The girl, busied at her work, crouched beside her gin, her deer-skin quiver upon her shoulder, her bow laid beside her hand. The man was annoyed at the sight, he distrusted this new-fangled plaything of hers; why could she not carry spears as he would have done, as he was going to do in a week or so? Everything she did, or failed to do, had power to annoy the poor fellow now. That she bore with him so quietly was an offence in itself. Had she answered him back, had she met him half-way in the quarrel which he had been provoking for a week past, he would have taken such an attitude in good part. That is to say he would have found it natural and treated it naturally, beaten her, to wit, as every savage man has ever done since the male subjugated the female.
But Dêh-Yān's gentle, unselfish reserve,and perpetual activities on his behalf, gave him never an opening.
So he watched her moodily,jealously—come, the secret is out at last, we have a name for the complaint.
This is of the primitive passions. It is one which we share with, or inherit from the brutes. A cat, a lap-dog, a parrot, will sicken of jealousy. Children, savages, uneducated people, our semi-educated fellow-citizens (our new masters), are subject to severe and protracted fits of this torturing disease. We have known a working-man, middle-aged, of failing health, and with a sickly wife and young family to support, throw up a foreman's post of twenty-eight shillings the week and begin life again upon seventeen as a common labourer, from sheer jealousy of one of the gang under him whom he could not induce his firm to discharge without a reason.
Women are more liable to the malady than men because they have, upon thewhole, less distractions for their minds. A man can escape from the proximity of his enemy (once possibly his friend), he can steep his mind in business, in politics, in literature, in sport. A woman has her rival ever at her elbow, in her kitchen, in the nursery, in the school-room or next door.
In the case of poor Pŭl-Yūn the position was reversed. It was he, who with hardening muscles and strengthening passion, was debarred from healthy and adequate physical exercise, and was fain to eat his heart in bitterness of spirit, with an accusing conscience ever at his elbow, a house-mate for which he had no name, for the Thing, like many other Things, rheumatism, gravity, panic-terror, malaria, etc., although maleficent, had not yet been separated, personified and named.
Picture him overlooking with the beady, deep-set, far-sighted eyes of the savage, like an eagle from his eyrie, the doingsof his jealously-loved squaw a half-mile away and three hundred feet below.
There, she had set that gin, and half arose, her chert-knife in one hand, her bow in the other. Sudden as the pounce of a lynx (and nothing in nature save the stroke of a snake can be swifter), a man leaped upon her from the scrub. Pŭl-Yūn caught his breath, for the enemy had her by the kaross and must have borne her down had not his foot caught in a trailing bough ofpumilus. As it was, it was the nearest thing in the world, for as he stumbled, still fast to her, the skewer at her throat snapped, he reeled back with the kaross, the woman was free. He was at her again, but she doubled under his tossed-up arm, striking back and up as she did so and getting him in the arm-pit, as her husband thought. By some means she was at liberty, off and away; not along the glade, but winding swift and puzzlingly amid the tangling scrub ofwhich she knew every game-track by heart. This was the saving of her, as Pŭl-Yūn saw and breathed again, for two other hunters now upsprang from beside the path which they had anticipated her flying feet would follow. These seemed for a moment somewhat out of it, for their quarry had doubled back and secured a lead, but they were hardened braves in the pink of condition, winter-hunters who seemed to know the valley, and once clear of that patch of scrub what would happen?
There is but one thing that can happen when an unarmed woman is set upon by three armed men—unless, indeed, she be helped. But how was Dêh-Yān to be helped?—and by whom?—By himself only! He smote his stiff knee and yelped a short and very bitter laugh. Yes, the girl must come to him for help at the last.
Meanwhile she was playing the game, running her ring about the thicket, as a vixen does when roused. There was justthe off-chance that she might throw her pursuers out, and get back to her earth unviewed. But, with three men (and such men), it was the poorest of chances, and she was incurring the most outrageous risks. She had boasted somewhat to him of her speed, and he had believed that she was fleet for a woman, but what woman, or what man, for the matter of that, could stand up before three?—She was heading down-glen when he lost sight of the chase, and every step would have to be retraced, and the double made in face of a runner-up pressing her for all he was worth, and flankers running wide to cut her off when she turned.
He threw himself upon the cave-floor and gnawed his knuckles in impotent chagrin.
She should not have turned. She should have headed straight for him at once. They would have stood out the siege together, and died together, for thatwas what it would have come to, as he saw too clearly.
As for his wife making a successful stand anywhere, or under any circumstances, and fighting it out with that new Thing of hers, the idea never occurred to him once during the long hours of his lonely vigil.
The shadows of the winter's day lengthened. The imprisoned man had given up hope. His wife did not come, would never come to him again. The husband's heart grew heavy with the sorrow which settles down upon the watcher whose anxieties are over at last, whom the worst has befallen.
For himself he did not particularly care. He had no fear that she would give him away under torture. Dêh-Yān would be staunch to the last, of that he was assured, doing her justice now that she was gone. He had stores enough for another four months, and long before that would be as sound a man again as ever he was. Butthis cave would be a hateful place without his squaw. Nor could he face the thought of returning to his tribe without her, empty-handed, with nothing to show for his winter-hunting. This was a humiliation not to be borne, the sneering enquiries of his cousin and rival, the wonder of his fellow-braves, the eyes of the women. No wife and no scalps?
Whether besieged or no, Pŭl-Yūn would stay back and avenge her. What was she worth in Little Moon lives? He held up all his ten fingers and solemnly gloomed upon them. Ten should die for her—if he lived—not less. So the night wore.
Then a stick cracked below in the darkness, and her signal, the shrill whistle of the marmot, rang out. His heart leaped, he gripped his axe and a stone for a down-throw; she would be hard-pressed to a surety, but why did the fool-creature make such a noise?—'Twas madness!
He hirpled to the lip of the rock-platformand craned over, peering down into the impenetrable dusk below, ready for action, listening, eye, ear and nostril at stretch for news of the whereabouts of his foes. But the only sounds were the scrape of his squaw's moccasins and her hardly-taken breaths. How heavily she climbed!—Was she wounded? She did not reply to his low-spoken questions. She was coming nearer, nearer; his eyes, accustomed to seeing in the worst of lights, could make out her bare unbandaged head and shoulders, her arms too, there seemed little the matter with what of her he could see. Her kaross was gone, he had seen it go, she was still encumbered with that silly bag of arrows, and the big bow-drill hampered her climbing. Drawing her breath in gasps, she reached the sill of the cave, crawled in and sate mutely panting, her eyes shining glassily in her head. She seemed unharmed; she was unharmed; it was wonderful—amazing! Now, what hadhappened? Why could not the creature speak? "What of the chase, Dêh-Yān?"
Still mute and with an open mouth drawn up from the teeth with the muscular contraction of extreme toil, she unrolled and laid out before him in the dusk—One—Two—Threebloody scalps each with the top-knot of a brave,—raw, fresh-stripped.
Pŭl-Yūn caught his breath in with a harsh cry: "Wah!—What?—How?—Where?" but the woman squatting over her spoils did not answer. She had reached her farthest. She swayed, she leaned, she collapsed, she tumbled forward almost into his arms.
The man drew the bear-skin over her as she lay shuddering, whimpering. He marvelled to hear her long-drawn sobbing in the darkness. This was new indeed; never had he known her to weep. Presently she relaxed and slept. He watched her slumber, gnawing a tortured lip, incredulous and convinced, exulting and humiliated,adoring and furiously jealous by fits. What would come out of this? 'Twas glorious! But 'twas absurdly disconcerting! Wonderful, no doubt, past whooping, but not to be put up with!
At midnight she awoke with a start, sighed once, rubbed her eyes, put back her hair, pulled herself together and was a new creature. Ashamed of her weakness, she silently got to her feet, made up the fire and cooked food for both.
Pŭl-Yūn watched her, would give her time, when she had eaten forth it came.
She had led her pursuers over a long and difficult line, hoping to throw them out, but Gow-Loo, though less fleet than she, was not to be shaken off; in fact he had pressed her hard and fired thrice as the leading greyhound fires at his hare, whilst the others, running to point, had headed-off her attempts at doubling. The men were in training, knew the country, and thought to wear her down by sprintingin succession. Again, and yet again, had her turn of speed been the saving of her.
HE THREW SHORT WITH A GASP
But she was getting a long way down the glen and the daylight held. It would see her out unless she changed her tactics. In a little while she would be out of her country and (for aught that she knew) in theirs, then the game would be up.
So, tightening her throat, she had made up her mind, and doubled right-handedly close across the line of Low-Mah, whom she believed she had hurt, taking the risk of his assegai at short range. Her judgment justified itself when the hunter threw short with a gasp and she slipped past him and made her point, a salient rock-face that she knew, steep, narrow, where she could neither be overlooked nor outflanked. There, at more than a very tall spruce-tree's height from the last stones of the scree below her, she had chosen her ledge and stood at bay, regulating her breathand schooling her swimming head for the final tussle.
"I think those rocks were not wholly new ground to thee," suggested the listener.
"I had been up there before—three years back, when I was a girl. Our old men call them 'The Two Fangs,' but the tribe has re-named them; they are 'The Hungry Boys' since—since something happened there which is not good to speak about," she shot a glance over her shoulder to make sure that The Dead were not listening. "Three of our unproved lads, two half-growns and a child, whilst berrying, were driven up that cleft by a wolf. They were not found in time. The two boys must have eaten the little one. Then—who knows?—perhaps they fought with knives. They were found up there, dead,—with the bones."
"Ugh! not a clean place after dark. Surely your children went wide of it in all lights. How then—?"
"The boys I played with dared me.... Not one of them would do it.... There was a gnawed finger-bone still in a crevice.... So, I knew my footholds to-day."
Pŭl-Yūn laid his hand upon his mouth and perused this wife of his in the flicker of the brands. There was nothing in this by-incident to excite surprise, a piteous tragedy: the coarse woof of savage life is occasionally shot by such a crimson warp. His mental vision was busy with this woman's adventure, picturing the tall, splinteredaiguille, springing sheer from its scree, cleft by its one narrowcheminéeleading to its one broad platform-ledge so far aloft there. Yes, he had realised themise-en-scène, and could follow the woman's weary voice carrying on her story, and could accompany her point by point.
The pursuers had seen that she was at the top of a blindcouloirfrom which was no escape upward. Saw too that the overhangprotected her from anything sent down from above. Saw too that the rock was absolutely sound, and that she hadnothing to throw(a point in their favour).
Then, since daylight was waning, they determined to put the thing through. Their camp, dogs ("good wolves"), karosses and sleeping-robes were hours away. There was neither fuel nor water upon that scree beneath the cliff. After all, strong runner as she was, this was only a girl—unarmed, and probably spent.
Up came the leading couple, boldly and close together, and only when fully committed to the business, recognised the trap.
The girl, who had by this time recovered her wind, held her fire until the leading climber's top-knot showed twenty feet below her ledge. She knew him for Gow-Loo, he turned his head, saw her leaning above him, handling the absurd bent stick which she had carried throughout the run, and, getting his breath, made her a mock offer of marriage, the same bitter little jeer that he had cast after her thrice during the chase. As he made it, he laid his head back upon his shoulder the better to leer at his helpless victim, now safely under his hand, and—even as he bared his dog-tooth, a little short light assegai was sticking deeply beneath his ear. The stricken man plucked hard at the shaft with one hand, but the bone head was barbed and he could not draw it. He uttered no cry, possibly from shame, more probably from inability to articulate, and his fellow-climber, Pongu, just below him in thecheminée, getting no reply from him, and craning out to learn why his leader had stopped, knew not what had happened before a second shaft was driven hard and deep between collar-bone and shoulder-blade into his own lung, which brought him, too, to a stand with his mouth and nose full of blood.
Each man knew that he was hard hit, butknew not of the other's hurt; each felt the immediate need of getting down, but neither could speak, nor warn the man below him to vacate the footholds. To give ground to a young squaw was despicable; both held on grimly, doggedly and too long.
Low-Mah, the lowest, came up the cleft haltingly, crippled by that stab in the arm-pit that we know of, and which he had known for hours past to his bitter cost. The point of the Master-Girl's knife, whilst making a quite inconsiderable puncture, had touched one of the nerves of the brachial plexus, his right arm felt heavy and numb and was giving him exquisite agony, which he was bearing as mutely as a wolf. He knew by trial that he could not throw, but thought he could climb. His honour was engaged. To be known henceforth as the warrior who was lamed by a squaw?—Not he!
He saw that the leaders had stopped, and without visible cause, although Pongu, twospears'-lengths above him, was coughing fast and hard. He could not see their wounds, nor the weapons which had caused them, but the patter of falling blood from the severed artery in Gow-Loo's throat warned him of something amiss. Then an assegai clipped past his own ear very close. Phew! what was this? Whence had this she-lynx weapons?—Was this an old haunt of hers? and had she led them up this cleft to spear them with javelins stored for the occasion? His position, almost exactly beneath his leaders, had its advantages; their bodies screened him; he offered the smallest of marks—but (a fear suddenly gripped him, bred by the silence and immobility of those leaders) what if one of them should fall? He hailed them by name, but elicited no reply. "I must get from under them while I may," thought he, and attempted a traverse, a ticklish piece of work for a man so hampered. If he could but escape from thischeminée, this death-trap, and winaround the buttress to the left, he would, as he reckoned, be under cover. He made the move, and not a moment too soon. Why, oh why, had not one or the other of his mates fought his way up within swing of a tomahawk?—(there is no throwing to be done while scaling a vertical fissure). Tomahawk, indeed? Gow-Loo, being by this time in exceeding evil case, and growing blind and weak, dropped his hatchet, and a moment later, with never a cry of warning, let go altogether; his knees buckled, his body bent, and down he came upon Pongu and took him to the bottom with him. There they lay, their life's business accomplished, the matter disposed of so far as they were concerned.
Then Low-Mah, for almost the first time in his life, knew fear. Yet it no more unnerved him than the proximity of the leading hound relaxes the sinews of a failing fox. Desperately, yet cautiously, he wrought to put that salient overhang of cliff betweenhim and the Master-Girl; it was but a matter of a spear's length; if he gained it he were safe. He had paused in his climb, as who would not?—when the bodies of his friends rushed down past him; quickly he withdrew his eyes from them where they lay, to look too long upon such a sight does a climber no good, and in another step he had won shelter and comparative safety—when—how say it?—his left arm, the one upon which he chiefly depended, was pinned down to its shoulder by a small, but astonishingly hard-thrown assegai! Oh, the pang of it!—and the ignominy of being twice maimed and held-up by a squaw! He gnashed his teeth hearing the clear triumphant laugh of the Master-Girl above him, and then in a wink that laugh had changed to a thrilling, brief scream, and something light came bounding down the fissure, the bent stick the girl had held in hand when she crossed him. He must glance up, knowing his wound, but not yet understanding his luck,nor perceiving that his enemy was already disarmed, and saw that enemy in a very close place, for she, whilst laughing, had been overcome by one of those revulsions which lie in wait for the overstrung. Her desperate exertions, her desperate risk, followed by such unimaginable success, had shaken her; she had leaned too far over watching the effect of her shaft, and had almost followed it.
"And, O husband" (let the Master-Girl tell the adventure in her own words), "then, for the second time, I so nearly gave up! The first time was when Gow-Loo made his last sprint for me. My heart seemed bursting, my legs shook as I raced. He got within throw ... I felt all up my back what was coming. 'This is the end,' I thought,—but his hatchet struck my quiver. Then I took fresh heart, I remembered thee. 'My man shall not starve like a sick badger in his earth. Little Moon, help my man,' I prayed! and newstrength came to my legs, and Gow-Loo dropped back blown. It was after that that I doubled and all came right. But now, for the second time, I thought all was over. I had overbalanced, I stumbled, I let fall my bow and my last arrow, and came down twice my height, scrambling and clutching hard. When I stopped and my eyes cleared I was in a bad place and could find no footholds for ever so long. But, again I thought of thee, and again I cried to my Totem, and lo! at once my right foot was on something, and I was safe."
"Safe?" echoed Pŭl-Yūn hoarsely, catching his breath, "with all thy weapons at the foot of the cliff, and that half-crippled wolf between thee and them?—was there no scraping past him?"
"It was not to be done. He was well-placed astride the outer angle of the buttress with both feet firm; but the only holds for getting down thatcheminéelay close under his hand, and he knew it. I worked downto within my length of him, but it would not do. I had to return to my ledge and wait."
"And he?"
"He made mouths at me and said all the worst that he knew. No, I will not tell thee what he said. This is his scalp, is not that enough?"
"Nay, but Iwillhear. What said he?"
"First he fixed his eyes upon mine and would have charmed me down, and when that would not serve, he must show me point by point what must be the end; this hold, and that hold, and then the one next to him; and that, as I must needs come down feet foremost, he would set his hand or his teeth in me, for he was too badly hurt to get down himself. And it was all—Come down to me, my Little Love, and thou and I will go gently to the bottom together, and thou shalt sleep long (Oh long!) and soundly (very soundly) in my arms!"
"Eh, but he saidthat?" blurted the husband. "Which didst say was his scalp?"
"What matter?—nay, thou must not spoil it! It was almost the last thing he did say. Oh, but we were thirsty, he and I! I sucked the rock!—and cold—we were cold; I could see him shaking. Is he cold now, dost thou think? I hope he is very, very cold!"
"And then?" asked the husband, recovering himself, and prosaically detached from the possible sensations of a dead enemy, but Dêh-Yān paused.
Yes, what then?—for there seemed no way out of this stale-mate. The man might cling on there until the woman above him perished of the night's wind-frost, of exhaustion, or thirst, or made some despairing attempt and met her death so.
But, what of the other, the brute denizens of the glen? The rapid movement of a chase hath a stimulating influence upon whatever is within sight or hearing. Have we not seen the apparition of a pack of hounds in full cry set a whole countryside in motion?—horses at grass, calves, colts,sows, pigs of all sizes, breaking bounds, yea, the heavy-footed Wessex labourer, school-children, the curate upon his rounds, and the village postman upon his, swept out of their several orbits and drawn into the tail of the passing comet?
Yes, these four racing figures had been seen, and noted, and followed as far as appetite prompted or means of progression allowed. A lean, lone wolf with a festering fore-pad struck the trail and limped on at a steady, questing, three-legged trot, in hopes that the end of the matter might provide something toothsome. The rapid movements of parties of men had been known to have such an effect even at that time (as since).
But the chief watchers and followers had been the fowls of the air.
Every mountain peak had then, and many have still, a planetary system of birds of prey. In clear weather these swing in circles at unimaginable heights, scrutinisingin turn every radiating glen, and remarking all that moves therein.
Yes, man and beast, each fly-tormented mule, new-yeaned ibex kid and German botanist climbing economically without a guide, is marked, scrutinised, summed up and kept under day-long observation, and his probabilities of life assessed upon certain grim actuarial tables known only to the tribes who seek their meat from God. You had not thought it? You scarce credit it. "Have never seen them."But they have seen you, and in the Hautes Pyrénées, or the Atlas, your every step has been marked from your rising up to your lying down.
Without counting the buzzards, which are chiefly concerned with mice, there are at least three kinds of watchers of the world below.
First, and most in evidence, is the griffon, a lordly creature to the eye, with vast, square-cut wings and a small woolly head sunk into a snow-white ruff; a vulture he,with a vulture's appetite for carrion—and for nothing else. His interest in a man begins when that man is in the act of falling, and becomes urgent only in the case of the fall proving fatal.
The eagle is smaller, but more powerful; he, too, is a carrion feeder, but will carry off grouse, marmot and red-deer calf. In hard weather Scottish eagles will pack and destroy a full-grown hind, whilst the larger race of Tibet is credited with killing wolf in fair fight. But the fear of man is on him—he learned it long ago, and there is no record of this bird attacking even a small boy. Sooth to say, he is both cowardly and stupid, though all-glorious to see.
Last and most formidable, because incalculable, is the great bearded vulture, or lammergeier (the gypaëte of the Gavarnie izard-hunters), a sly ruffian who makes up in brains what he lacks in weapons. This sort is as fond of carrionas the others, and has ways of his own for providing it.
The Master-Girl and her pursuers had not run three bow-shots before the eye of a watcher was upon them. By the time they had gone a mile the whole planetary system of the nearest peak was disturbed; and before the girl had taken sanctuary a ring of big birds was circling half a mile above her. This might mean business.
Her climbing was watched by the griffons without excitement; their turn might come later, but had not come yet; it was the bearded vulture which dropped out of the blue in bold spirals and marked the four humans disappear into thatcheminée. Then, if a bird of prey ever swears he swore, for a man climbing between the strait walls of a cleft is of no use to him.
When two bodies fell there was commotion, the griffons shut their wings and plunged two thousand feet in a few seconds, but clapped on the brakes and bore up againwith the wind rattling in their great drab quills, for the bodies had not rebounded upon the scree, but lay close under the rock—where something else might fall. Patience, brothers!
Moreover, there were two living figures yet upon that rock, and these the griffons held in fear. They climbed the sky again and waited on, wheeling narrowly and near.
Not so the bearded vulture, playing a lone hand and pursuing the traditional tactics of his race, he skimmed the summit of thataiguilleand took stock of its capabilities. Two humans were still within the cleft. The upper was well sheltered from above, and on both sides. He turned short to keep her in his eye (a wicked crimson eye it was). At that moment she faltered, slipped and was almost gone. Instantly he dipped and edged in, but she recovered herself; out he went again. Whilst turning he once more caught sight of the lower figure; he had lost it for a while. It had shifted, had emergedfrom the cleft, and was clinging to an exposed, projecting buttress, overhung from above, safe from a downright stroke, but from a side-flick, eh?
The human moved slowly, it went short upon one of its fore-legs; it seemed, and was, very lame, very tired and unsure of its footing.
Meanwhile the two humans in question knew nothing of the scrutiny of which they were the subjects, being otherwise and fully engaged. Besides, griffons may guide a hunter to a kill, but signify naught else. The presence of the real danger had clean escaped them, for the bearded vulture is less given to soaring than to gliding along a cliff-face close in, ready for the emergencies of anything that moves thereon.
The light had begun to go; it was abominably cold, a flurry of small snow found its way into the cleft, and ran in little round dry pellets upon the naked back of the Master-Girl crouching for warmth like a harein her form, and hugging herself against the strong shudders which ran through her. To have fought her battle and to have so nearly won, and to lose life and all from such a childish blunder!—If she had but the smallest of weapons, a skinning-knife, a bodkin, she would take her chance; but the bodkin had gone when the kaross went, and her knife had been wrenched from her hand when she struck. There was not one little wee loose stone within reach; she had tried them all, even to breaking her nails.
And that wretch Low-Mah, down there, not six bows'-lengths away, lamed as he was, would be girding at her all the time, breaking off at whiles to work desperately at that crippling arrow. It was certainly loosening. One barb held; but such was the fellow's courage that he would tear it out yet, and then?
Until it drew he could not get back into the cleft, for his pinned-up hand was upon that side. When he rested from his boutsof self-torture he indemnified himself by assailing her with insults and taunts, governing his voice lest she should guess how far he was gone. She did guess, and with chattering teeth gave him fully as good as she took. It was very pitiful, inexpressibly vulgar, this nose-to-nose pitched battle of primeval Billingsgate. Lo, did ye think that passionate hate first found expression in our time?
He played upon her shaken nerves. Could she not see those child-eating boys, sitting at her either elbow, their reddened teeth a-work, click! click! To which sally Dêh-Yān, stroking her own hair and pointing down to his, rejoined that his scalp should hang from her belt ere night with the top-knots of the other two. "And, ah me! I have no knife, Lo-Mah; shall I find it under thine arm?—or am I to borrow thine for our little business?" With other like endearments. Pity them both.
In the middle of one of her ripostes thegirl choked, for the last barb had given, his arm was free. Nodding to her mutely, for he was well-nigh sick with agony, the man brought his hand down; he stripped the feathers, biting the gut whipping, and took the barbs in his teeth; he had but to draw the nock through his forearm and would be not only free but weaponed.
He drew inch by inch, it came, he had it in his hand. "Now, my Heart, I begin. Wait for me, my dove, my love! I am coming for thee!"
He shook the new snow from his ears, shifted his hold, lifted a foot, still grimly nodding his unspoken threat, and—next moment was reeling out into empty air, whilst a huge bird which had dealt the buffet, staggered past and plunged, then opening wide wings regained its balance and swept short zigzags down—down in pursuit of its falling booty.
STALE MATE
But the Master-Girl beat her little fists upon the stone and wept. "I would havekilled him yet," she wailed in that bitterness of spirit which overcomes the bravest when the ideal perfection of some all-but achieved success has been marred at the ultimate moment.
It is always so in life. Napoleon instead of yielding his sword to the conquering Briton, rattles off from his last battle-field in a well-horsedcalèche. Nor did every French ship strike her colours at Trafalgar. Nor did the allies enter Sevastopol on the night of the Alma, as they might have done so easily; nor did Kitchener catch the gallant and adroit De Wet.
Her chaplet lacked the full foliage that is accorded to the victor in fiction only.
Bear not too hardly upon her, ye, who are proudly and perfectly straightforward in all speech and action, if I confess upon her behalf that in after life the Master-Girl made not quite so much of the bearded vulture's intervention as you might have done.
She had achieved an unheard-of andalmost incredible feat, and knew it—but (now came that deadly reaction!)—the Shape-Strength was ebbing from her. Would her luck hold?
She had no fear of her feathered ally. Him, she, craning far over, had watched take seizin of his kill, and then, as the light went suddenly, spread vast wings and racquet-tail and sail forth across the darkening scree and blacker forest-spires to some roosting cranny of his own.
Her knees gave way beneath her, her wrists jerked as she let herself down from ledge to jut and from jut to cranny of thatcheminéeof death; her eyes were set in her head and her jaws cramped with a tongue-drying ague of fear of falling. In a word she was as nearly forespent as a girl of sixteen may be, and has a right to be, who has run as she had run, fought as she had fought, and fasted as she had fasted, and was still fasting.
At last (after what agonies of apprehension and endurance) the tension upon her fingers might be relaxed, for one foot was upon the first loose stone of the scree. Its fellow found something soft and chilly beneath it. At the touch of a dead enemy the Master-Girl's eyes were enlightened as if with food.
The rites of victory must be observed. She fell to, panting thickly as she cut and tugged, not for the horror of her task but from sheer exhaustion, and whilst arising to her feet to utter the three whoops which the occasion demanded,[4]found her legs bending, and dropped asleep upon the stones between her silent foes. So have men fallen asleep upon the rack when the screws were eased.
But the Porter-Soul which seldom sleeps would allow her no long respite. Much remained to do, and was she not still in peril? Before long she suddenly threw thegathering snow off her and glanced around keenly. The night-wind blowing up the crevice was tainted with—what? Four green, shining eyes were watching her. She sniffed, "Fox!" and contemptuously threw a stone and, ere its rattle had ceased, felt her scalp crawl, for over the spruce spires travelled the drear, anti-human menace of the wolf.
Her Totem was obscured and for once seemed far, but there was another resource near at hand and familiar, if only—only—it were propitious! those malignant Boy-Ghosts whose jibbering squeaks and rustlings had added untold horrors to the last hour of her darkling vigil upon the ledge. These, for some cause, had spared her, might she not entreat their continued good-will? She had known and played with all three before her promotion to the tribal governess-ship: there was nothing between herself and the elder two; the eaten child did not count. Doubtless they would behungry—(Oh, how her own vitals pinched!) Quick, then, an offering! Savagely, desperately she hacked the hands from Low-Mah, and (it had been impossible before her sleep) bestowed them upon a ledge some five bows'-lengths up that dark ascent.
"Pen-noo!—Lab-go-nee!—here is meat! See I bring you food!—I bring it in peril of my life! Ye, who kept yourselves from the grey wolf,keep me this night!"
She was down again and tore herself from the place. Partake she would not, though nature cried out for food. A brave of her race would have had no qualms, but—a squaw?—No!
Feebly, and with her spirit riding her reluctant flesh as a ruthless rider urges a failing horse, did Dêh-Yān set her face upon that ghost-guarded journey up the valley, nor did wolf, lynx or worse molest her.
Her foes were the tormenting thoughts which, vulture-like, wheel closely around a spirit encumbered by a weakened body.
Was it worth it? Her man had grown cold and silent and strange to her. Twice the agony of wounded affection superadded to crushing bodily fatigue brought her to a stand beneath dark boughs at some rougher gradient. Then with shut eyes and chin driven hard against a labouring bosom she fought it out. The nurse-spirit triumphed.—"If I lie down and sleep here—I shall not awake again, and he—will die, or at best be a lame man for his life." Then, lifting her face again, she would draw a deep breath and set her jaw to endure the anguish of walking, and so, by a series of shortening spurts, reeling and rocking, she reached the foot of the face. But it was a dog-weary girl, without one spark of the pride of victory alight within her, who crawled in over the cave-sill.
FOOTNOTES:[4]Still given at the breaking-up of a fox, and more ceremoniously, with winded horn as thehallalaiat the death of the German stag.
FOOTNOTES:
[4]Still given at the breaking-up of a fox, and more ceremoniously, with winded horn as thehallalaiat the death of the German stag.
[4]Still given at the breaking-up of a fox, and more ceremoniously, with winded horn as thehallalaiat the death of the German stag.
CHAPTER VI
RENUNCIATIONS
Afterthe recital the woman flagged again, and presently could hardly keep her eyes open. At a sign from her man she lay down and was dead asleep almost before she had drawn up her knees in the posture assumed by the sleeping savage all the world over, the antenatal position in which the pre-dynastic Egyptians buried their dead.
But Pŭl-Yūn could not sleep. He had passed through every phase of mental agony; had spent a long day at the torture-stake of suspense and anticipation, and had been released from it to find himself confronted by a crisis in his domestic relations.
He understood only too well what hadhappened. Since the world and wiving began was there ever such a woman?—Was there ever such a predicament for the husband of a woman? Use and wont and the immemorial practice of his own, and all other tribes, had fixed the relative positions of the sexes. This man believed as firmly as did the Apostle Paul that the Man was made first, and was the Head of the Woman, who was provided for him, for his comfort and use by his Goddess, the Sun, and over whom he, the man, was bound to exercise the rights of mastery and lordship to the very fullest extent. Whilst young and comely the wife was a valuable possession, but, when stringy and past work and child-bearing, it had until recently been a question in times of scarcity whether she might not be eaten. That the Sun-Disc Men had recently decided against the older use is a point in favour of the Sun-Disc Men which we, their descendants, may score to their credit. The Fuegians, at the time of CharlesDarwin's visit, still occasionally dined upon their grandmothers.[5]As to conceding to one of the subject sex equal rights, the thing was extra-revolutionary, it was indeed inconceivable, it was outside the region of discussion.
But, what was this that had happened?—Here, in this chance-begun housekeeping, the whole matter had been turned topsy-turvy; the moccasins were on contrary feet; the hatchet was in the wrong hand. He had come out to capture a wife, and a wife had captured him. He had broken his leg and she had mended it. Twice he had been attacked by a bear and twice she (not he), had beaten it off, killing it—actually killing the monster,—at the second encounter (think of it!—whoever heard the like?) On that occasion he, the man, had borne himself stoutly, and as a brave; he had faced his foe axe in hand, without hope, and had made no moan, and would have taken his mauling,and his death, without a whimper. Thus had he preserved his self-respect, had participated in the fight, and had in some roundabout fashion come to persuade himself that the skin was his, and that the necklace of claws and teeth which was now around his neck had a right to be there. (It did not sit comfortably as yet, but, comfort and assurance would have come in time, never fear. Did not the Prince Regent assert so frequently that as "Major Brown" he had fought at Mont St Jean, that at length, as George the Fourth his gracious Majesty related the story with embellishments at the Waterloo banquet and appealed to Wellington himself for substantiation?—"'Twas I gave the order—'Up Guards and at 'em!'—You heard me, Arthur?")
Such, alack, is poor human nature in these latter days, nor was it more veracious in The Days of Ignorance.
Yes, Pŭl-Yūn had begun to believe that he had killed that bear.
But, who killed the three braves whose raw scalps lay upon the cave floor? Those three scalps were another guess matter, a different story altogether. There was no straight, or even plausible manner of accounting for them. He saw no way of persuading himself now, or in the future, that he had had any hand in the taking of them.
In a word, they were his wife's, every single hair of them—not his, alas, not his!
In a word, this poor ignorant savage man was all to seek in the lore of Modern Officialism,—the Whole Art of Assumption was hid from him; by which I mean the mental and spiritual capacity to appropriate to one's own peculiar credit not only the results of another man's courage, luck or capacity, butthe actual performance itself. This is the recognised modern practice. The pupil paints or plans, the Master signs the drawings and takes the commission.The devil devils, the Leader wins the case. The C.I.V. storms Bavianskloof, the alderman of his ward receives the war-medal. The Stunt-Sahib, squattering through bottomless mud, organises the new annexation, his chief (down at the base under a punkah) gets the thanks of the Governor-General.
This is how we do it to-day. They did it otherwise in days when The All-Seeing Sun was believed to shine with approval upon the Sayer-of-the-thing-that-is, but to hide Her face from the liar, and the sneak, and the tribesman who stole the axe or the honour of another.
So, poor foolish Pŭl-Yūn gnawed his knuckles for long dark hours, wishing that his wife and he were dead, and, but for a soul of goodness in things evil—a red savage, for one—might e'en have brought his wish to the birth by braining the woman as she slept and subsequently pitching himself off the crag. He dreed his weird forthe lee-lang watches of the coldest and blackest night that ever he had known, colder and blacker than those which he had worn through after the breaking of his leg, and before the Master-Girl had found and taken possession of him. He would say in the after years, and did plainly believe, that during that night-watch there were strange visitants to the cave, that two birds flew in out of the darkness and sate with him; the one upon his right hand was a ptarmigan of the scree, winter-white and soft, clucking sweet things, gentle things, about the sleeping girl. The one upon his left hand a raven of the cliff, blacker than the midnight or the shadows of the cave, croaking evil things, showing the poor, hardly-bestead savage all the shame and the ignominy and the laughing scorn of the home-coming to his tribe.
But the longest and blackest of nights wears at last, and the dawn-streak shot aloft and the cold grey peaks took fire andglowed like rosy brands amid the ash of a hearth: then, whilst the dawn brightened and the upper ranges were dyed a colour that had no name to the watcher, nor has gained one yet, for it is not the heart of a rose, nor saffron, nor salmon, nor hath it an earthly counterpart—it was whilst the heavens above him were declaring the Glory of God and the firmament showing His handiwork, that the last struggle took place, the tender clucking mastered the dull croaking! The raven stalked forth to the cave-sill and took wing a-down the gulf of air but, thrice the little snow-white ptarmigan tossed himself aloft into the keen clear morning, and thrice he came circling down again to the cave-sill with stiffly-bent wing and inflated throat singing his song of praise to the Lord who made and warmed him, and then he too was gone and the watcher was alone.
Then Pŭl-Yūn, under the stirring of a new impulse, did a very strange andwonderful thing. Taking the trophy from his own neck he laid it across the throat of the sleeping woman. Her eyes opened, her hand went up, she felt, saw and understood. She arose to her knees, a new and beautiful light was in her eyes, a great and pathetic awe had fallen upon her.
"No—thou shalt not do it!—No!—How shall my husband go home to his people bare-necked whilst his wife walks behind him wearing—these?"
"I—will!" groaned the man.
"You shall not,—you dare not,—you cannot!"
"Be silent!—I say I will!" he groaned more harshly.
Catching up scalps and necklace she cast everything at his feet and bent grovelling before him.
"What are these to me?—I want but thee! But to a brave they are more than father, mother, wife, or life itself." She did not speak in scorn, but fromwhat she had seen and known, yet it hurt.
"Stop,—cease, be still!" he cried abruptly and very fiercely, for how shall a man fight himself if his wife takes sides with his lower nature against the higher? The woman did not understand; she thought him enraged, she knew not why; but, the jealousy which had poisoned their life for weeks past was cause enow. Plainly he must be humoured.
"That is right!—Be master!—What am I?—Thy slave and a Little Moon girl, no more. Thou hast never beaten me yet, beat me now!—take the things! Let us be as we were.... Yes," with a dead-lift of self-renunciation, "I will break my bow!" She reached for the weapon where it lay,—what it meant for her only an inventor, and a successful inventor, can tell. To allay the unreasoning jealousy, the rooted conservatism of her husband, this red girl would have put out of her life the New Thing that she had thought out, brought to the birth, perfectedand tested at the risk of her very heart's blood.
As her hand closed upon the wood, a larger and stronger hand closed over both. Her lover silently drew her to himself.