CHAPTER X
When Ru awoke, the mysterious light had disappeared; and in its place the first pale glimmer of day was newly revealing the world. The night's adventures now seemed so extraordinary that Ru wondered vaguely whether he had not merely dreamed them; and when the heartening morning light had filled all things, he could hardly understand why he had been so frightened.
As by degrees his courage returned, he felt the proddings of that slyest of temptresses, curiosity. What had been the meaning of that which he had seen and heard? Would it not be possible to find out, and find out safely? Might he not even make some marvelous discovery? learn of the existence of some people akin to his own? perhaps even find friends among that unknown people?
Realizing his danger, and yet resolved to tread so cautiously that he might seek refuge in the trees at the first suspicious sign, Ru descended from his leafy perch, regained his club, and warily set out in the direction of the night's terrifying sights and sounds.
At first, as he made his way through those shadow-dim woods, treading noiselessly on the thick matting of dead leaves and scrupulously avoiding the dense clumps of underbrush, Ru observed nothing out of the ordinary. Here and there some little bird, rustling unseen among the shrubs and vines, made him stop short in quickly conquered alarm; here and there some squirrel would flash into view and out again, with bright beady eyes alertly glittering. But, except for such harmless creatures, there was no sign of life, and the great wilderness stretched before him, silent and undisturbed.
He was almost convinced that he should discover nothing—that he had taken the wrong direction, or that there was nothing to be found—when his keen eyes caught a telltale mark in the soft soil. Faintly traced in the midst of a narrow open space was the imprint of a foot—a human foot of gigantic proportions!
For a moment Ru stared in surprise and dread. Fearfully he glanced toward the trees, lest one of a race of giants be watching him unseen; then he began to inspect the ground on all sides, and speedily discovered scores of similar footprints! That they had not all been made by one individual was apparent from their difference in size; and that they had not been left by his tribesmen was evident from the fact that several of the unknowns were lacking in one or more toes.
Tracing the footprints toward what appeared to be their source, he forgot for the moment his own possible peril. Curiosity still led him on blindly—with every step he was finding fresh evidence of unaccountable things. He was appalled at sight of a great blur of clotted blood at the edge of a fallen tree, and at sight of numerous sinister-looking reddish spots and patches. In a secluded little pocket of the glade, he observed that the herbs and grass had been beaten down as though in some terrific struggle, and here too were the same ghastly blots of red; and finally, when an uncanny creeping sensation was running down his spine and his better judgment was counseling him to flee, he beheld that which stabbed his mind with such sudden and overwhelming horror that the memory was not to leave him until his dying day.
Huddled in a cluster of shrubbery at one end of the glade, was a gruesome apparition that seemed half man and half beast—more beast than man, for surely this great motionless hairy bulk could not be human. It lay slumped among the bushes as though it had crept there to breathe its last; an intermittent trail of blood led from it to the open spaces; its huge apelike head drooped almost to the ground, with enormous jaws agape, thick lips slimy with coagulated foam, and glazed little black eyes sightlessly staring. On its broad shaggy chest the crimson gore was matted, while its battered right temple was little more than a clot of red.
With a low cry of alarm, Ru drew back. He did not take time for a second glimpse; in a panic, he raced away, raced straight across the open and toward the farther woods—scarcely knowing where he was going, filled only with a mad desire to escape that bloody terror in the bushes.
But, in his impetuosity, he was to dash directly upon a still more alarming scene.
From the place of the strange footprints and blood-marks, he fled into an adjoining and larger glade. Almost in the center of this grass-covered opening, he stopped short in fresh terror; and his startled eyes surveyed the ground at first without full realization, but with gradually growing comprehension—comprehension of the most fearful deed that even those savage days could boast. The appalling fact was not that the ashes of a camp-fire lay before him, a few of the embers still dully smoldering—this he had half expected to find; it was not that the relics of a feast lay scattered among the weeds and grass, which reeked of the entrails of animals, discarded bits of hide and fat, and crushed and shattered bones. That which made Ru shudder and quail was that the feast had evidently not been confined to animal fare. From a recess between two rocks, a gaunt blood-stained skull leered at him, bits of flesh still clinging to the brow, the brain-cast battered as by a heavy blow.
With a gasp of revulsion, Ru recognized that it was the skull of a man! And on the ground beside it he detected scraps of reddened human skin and hair, split and charred human thigh-bones emptied of marrow, and severed human fingers and toes!
Slowly, like one half stunned by a blow, Ru started to retreat. His horror-stricken eyes searched the borders of the glade for sight of the dread feasters; his limbs began to tremble uncontrollably beneath him. Fortunately, there was no sign of anything menacing; neither beast nor human challenged him before he had gained the bushes and vanished.
But as he stole away into the underbrush, he heard that which seemed to confirm his worst fears. From across the open space a renewed tumult startled him—a tumult as of voices calling. They were heavy and raucous, like the voices of his tribesmen, yet the accentuation was not that of his people—and they had in them a bestial note like that of prowling wild creatures.
But who they might be Ru did not seek to discover. At as rapid a pace as he could maintain without making a telltale noise, he picked his way among the thickets in the direction of the lake. Thorns pricked his hands, sharp stones cut his feet, bloodsucking insects alighted upon his unprotected skin—but he did not notice; in his mind was a ravening dread that drove him on like a goad of fire. Had the terrible unknowns discovered his presence? Hearing him, had they returned? and, observing his footprints, were they even now following on his trail? Were they—though built in his own form—hunting him as man hunts beast? And was there danger that they would overtake him, strike him down, and—
But here Ru's imagination reached a barrier that it would not cross. He recalled the scraps of human skin and flesh scattered about the burnt-out camp-fire—and at this abhorrent memory he shuddered, thought of old tales of men that ate men, and strained to quicken his gait.
From time to time, as he glided beneath the trees and through the tangle of bushes and shrubs, he paused to listen for the sound of possible pursuit. At first he heard no more than the heavy pounding of his own heart; a moment afterwards, he could make out only the fussing and chattering of some gossipy bird; but not much later he detected a suspicious crackling and rustling in the brush.
Was it only the noise of some browsing beast? Ru did not take time to find out. Forgetting all caution in his panic, he darted down the long meandering twilight aisles at the speed of the hounded wild thing, while the squirrels leaped from his path with startled eyes, and frightened flocks of wood-doves made way for him with a heavy flapping of wings.
Somewhat to his surprise, he came out suddenly at the shores of the lake. For a moment he halted in confusion; then recognized the long sandy beach that he had passed only yesterday afternoon.
Straining every muscle, he began to dash along the shore toward the mouth of the Harr-Sizz River. Several minutes passed; he had covered hundreds of yards; all was silent again, and there was no sign of approaching peril. He was just beginning to believe that he would elude his pursuers, when a sudden shrill shouting broke the stillness of the woods....
At that crisis his heart gave a terrific thump. His brain worked with lightning rapidity. If he took once more to the forest, his tracks would be found, the pursuit would be renewed, and, driven to exhaustion, he would probably be overtaken. His only refuge therefore lay in the waters. Not in swimming, for he could not swim far enough or fast enough; the one hope was in his new-found means of propulsion.
And good fortune favored him, for a little distance down the beach lay a fair-sized drifted tree trunk, resting more than half in the water. With an effort, he set the huge mass afloat; then waded in after it and pushed it as far as possible from shore; and finally, equipped with his club as paddle, he climbed to a precarious seat astride the log, and shoved and shoved until he was well out in the lake.
He was perhaps a hundred paces from land, when an enormous shambling shape shouldered out of the woods and halted on the beach. At this distance Ru could hardly be sure that it was not one of his own people; like them, it was thick-set and stocky, with monstrously developed shaggy black limbs. But it was even more hairy than his tribesmen; it wore no clothes at all; and its great form was unusually bent and stooped, while its long arms slid down in front of it almost to its knees.
For an instant the creature paused on the beach, peering about it in all directions as if bewildered. Then, sighting Ru where he was struggling with his unwieldy craft, it let out a long-drawn ferocious bellow of rage; in response to which half a dozen of its fellows, all likewise stooping and unclad, came plunging and snorting out of the woods.
There followed a moment's silence, during which they all stared at Ru in obvious amazement, meanwhile pointing to him significantly with their hairy arms. Then all at once there rang forth a chorus of shrieks and howls such as Ru had rarely heard before. In it was a peculiar blood-curdling note not to be described, except that it had something of the growling menace of the cave-bear, and something of the yelping fierceness of the sabertooth—and Ru knew that it was this cry that had so terrified him last night among the tree tops.
But now the only effect of those screams was to make Ru push even more desperately away from shore. Such was his haste that once or twice he lost his balance and slipped into the water, and several times struck his own legs painfully with the paddle.
Recognizing that all their clamoring was gaining them nothing, the howling ones dropped suddenly into silence; and, picking up small stones and pebbles, began to hurl them furiously at Ru. Their aim was good, and the missiles went hurtling through the air at tremendous speed; but the fugitive was already out of range; and the pebbles splashed harmlessly in a little shower to his rear.
Angry mutterings now sounded from the throats of the stone-throwers. With deep-voiced growls and grumblings, three or four of them strode out into the water after their fleeing prey. Ru's alarm grew by leaps and bounds as the wavelets broke first over their knees, then over their thighs, then almost up to their sloping shoulders and bull-like necks—and his dread turned to actual terror when he observed them swimming, swimming toward him with rapid and powerful strokes! Through the fast-diminishing distance, he could watch their hideous round heads bobbing up and down, could see the gleam of the fiendish little eyes and the brutish lines of the heavy eye-ridges.
On and on they came; their great arms clove the water with the easy, regular strokes of accomplished swimmers; their hairy, baboonish faces were twisted into diabolical grins. And Ru, though he tugged and pushed at his pole with all his force, could not match the speed of his pursuers; the space between them steadily grew less and less until it measured but a stone's throw.
Like a pack of wolves upon a cornered deer, they pressed nearer, still nearer, until he could see the white glittering of their enormous teeth and make out the clotted blood-streaks on their outthrust arms. Then a sudden idea come to Ru. Abruptly he ceased his paddling; carefully he balanced himself on the broadest and flattest part of the log. And into his anxious face and pale gray eyes a grim smile flitted as he stood there and waited.
But his pursuers seemed not to suspect that anything was amiss. An evil leer lighted the eyes of the swiftest of the band as he drew near; he muttered in savage triumph as he stretched out a massive black arm toward the log where Ru stood.
But his arm was never to reach the log. In a flash Ru had swung his paddle from its hiding-place behind him; and with a dull thud the heavy stick came down upon the head of his assailant.
The swimmer sank back with a low piteous moan. His form collapsed helplessly into the waters; there was a sudden floundering of arms, a gurgling, a few bubbles—and one man less was afloat upon the lake.
Still with a grim smile, Ru looked out across the waters. Not fifty feet away, two or three dark bobbing faces were peering at him hesitatingly. Ru held his place firmly on the log, shouted a challenge, and swung his club angrily. And the swimmers, after a moment's indecision, made unexpected response to the threat—of one accord, they turned and energetically splashed their way shoreward.