CHAPTER XXII
After the night attack, the beast-men disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived. Except for the three that lay slain in the cave, no sign of them was to be seen on the following morning—the cañon lay quiet and apparently untenanted, and from the woods there came no suspicious sound. And once again the Umbaddu wondered whether their foes had not finally departed.
It was most necessary that they find out—and find out without delay. The people required water from the river, since that trickling from the cavern walls was not ample; they needed fagots for burning, roots and berries for food, and meat to replenish their dwindling supplies. How procure any of these essentials unless they ventured down into the cañon, where possibly the beast-men were lurking? For the first time, some dim inkling of the danger ahead began to filter into the minds of the tribesfolk; but, as yet, it was merely an inkling, and the men had no thought of possible defeat as they boasted of the exploits of the night and swore to spill their enemies' blood to the last drop.
It was sometime in the afternoon when three of the tribesmen, wearied by the hours of waiting, decided that they might safely descend the cliff and quench their thirst in the river. Cautiously they began to slide down the rocky walls, while their people thronged the terrace above to watch; slowly, with eyes alert and clubs gripped in readiness, they released themselves from boulder to boulder, taking their way in single file down the steep, narrow ledge. As they advanced, they gained in confidence, for the stillness of the woods remained unruffled, and no suspicious murmur or movement startled their eager senses. From above, their tribesfolk cheered and shouted encouragingly, and the farther they descended the more uproarious grew that chorus from the cliff; and they themselves, reassured not less by the clamor of their comrades than by the serenity of the rest of the world, had little fear for the outcome.
At length they stood unharmed at the base of the cliff! At length, picking their way warily over a flat rocky space, they were pressing toward the brink of the river! Now they were actually at the river bank; now the foremost was bending down and sucking in huge gulps of water. And from his tribesmen there sounded an applauding chorus that was like a peal of triumph.
But with disconcerting suddenness that chorus snapped short. Shrieks of alarm and cries of warning shrilled from the watching throng, mingled with sharp exclamations of horror. Then, almost before the three daring ones could wheel about to face the peril, the woods behind them rang with savage whoops and ululations, and a multitude of club-wielding hairy forms swarmed forth.
Caught by surprise, with the woods and the cliff on one side and the river on the other, the three assaulted ones had no chance to flee. Except for a few random strokes as futile as a hare's resistance to an eagle, they had almost no chance even to fight—their foes bore down upon them in a throng that was overwhelming. In an instant one of the men, not finding time even to lift his club, was clutched in the grip of half a dozen iron arms, in which he struggled helplessly as a manacled child; the next moment, swinging their cudgels despairingly, the other two went down moaning before the blows of the beast-men, who pounded and pounded their prostrate forms with the fury of exultant fiends.
And now, while the angered throng on the cliff screamed out their hatred and flung rocks in unavailing showers, the beast-men proceeded to display their true nature. Bearing the two corpses and their one living prisoner as the spoils of battle, they retreated to an open spot at the verge of the woods, within clear view of their foemen, although just out of range of the missiles. Then, building a fire while the howls of the Umbaddu still pursued them, they prepared for a pastime that made their enemies gape in amazement and horror.
At first the Umbaddu did not understand what the beast-men were about when, by means of huge flint knives and axes, they dismembered the bodies of the slain; and even when the severed limbs were placed above the fire to roast and sizzle, the ghastly meaning was not at first clear to the watchers from above. But, from the very beginning, the Umbaddu had little doubt regarding the beast-men's plans for their living captive. Bruised and bleeding, the unfortunate man was dragged to a resting-place near the fire, where he was held full-length upon the ground, each of his hands pinioned to earth by a grimacing foe, his legs helpless beneath the weight of a particularly bulky adversary. And while he lay there like a soon-to-be-slaughtered beast, at times pleading with a fury that awakened only screeches of derision and at times moaning so pitifully as to arouse a low hissing laughter, his captors proceeded to entertain themselves at his expense. All about him, in a jabbering crush, crowded the stooping, hairy rabble; men and women pushed one another fiercely aside for a glimpse of their victim; children were brushed to earth like dirt while their elders stared at the stranger with inquisitive apish eyes, pulling at his hair to discover whether it would come out, lifting up his deerskin mantle to find out what was beneath, poking him in the nose or face or jabbing him with sharp sticks for the pleasure of hearing him scream.
But evidently he was held for some graver purpose. After the people had amused themselves for some time and the captive had been prodded almost into unconsciousness, the sport was stopped abruptly by one of the tallest of the beast-men—a particularly unsightly individual, with face painted red, and body covered so thickly with feathers that he looked almost like a walking bird. Certainly, he was a bird of ill omen—for, after a single scream from his powerful lungs, the mob began edging away from the captive as if from something pestilential, until there remained only the three who pinned the man to earth. Thereupon the feathered one began to speak in a loud and ceremonious drawl, while the others flung themselves to the ground before him; then, rising, they retreated still farther, and, as though at a given signal, burst into a tumult of horrible hoots and howls, leaping up and down with wild gesticulations, and dancing a swift vehement dance of triumph.
At the same time the leader, picking up a long, sharp piece of flint, held it poised and pointed toward the captive, whom he slowly approached with diabolical intent. The man gave a gasp of terror; his eyes rolled and bulged; he strained and struggled as never before, and for an instant had almost wrenched his right arm free. But all his efforts were unavailing—slowly, remorselessly, that pointed bit of flint drew near. When it was within a foot of the intended victim, the feathered one suddenly paused and flung both hands skyward as if in supplication to some unseen divinity; then, almost as suddenly, he emitted a scream that made his hearers' blood run chill, turned about, bent down, and plunged the flint—into the captive's heart!
Furious yells and shouts of rejoicing burst from hundreds of lips.... But from the watchers on the cliff there came growls of rage and defiance blent with a low wailing of dismay.
That evening the beast-men made their camp at the verge of the woods, in full sight of the Umbaddu. Uncannily their fires blazed and flickered, while above the tree tops the skies glowed an angry red; uncannily the huge shadowy shapes flitted about the flames, surging back and forth vaguely, like a rout of festive demons; uncannily sounded their mutterings and cries, their babbling merriment, their hissing laughter, the crackling of bones and the crunching of the powerful jaws of unseen feasters....
When morning came, they had not gone. The fires still burned, although now smoldering low; hundreds of shaggy forms were sprawled at every angle upon the ground. Soon after dawn they were all astir, quenching their thirst at the river or chewing at the few scattered bones that still told of the night's repast. But they showed no intention of leaving; and though a violent storm came up, and the wind blew and blustered frenziedly and the rain came down in torrents, apparently it never occurred to them to seek quarters elsewhere. They strolled about in the rain as indifferently as if it had escaped their notice; when it was over, they shook the water nonchalantly off their hairy bodies and seated themselves in the gathering sunlight to dry—but still they had evidently no thought of going away. And the Umbaddu, watching through the slow hours from their safe perch on the cliff, felt an impatience that gradually expanded into dread; for now at last, though they could not have stated the peril in words, they realized that they were besieged!
That evening a conference of all the tribe was held, attended by every member with the exception of Ru, who was still inexplicably missing. While four or five of the men kept guard with clubs at the cavern entrance (which was too large to be blocked with boulders), the others convened about the fire, not more than a stone's throw from the gateway. They were not quite so numerous now as when they had assembled in that other cave many months' travel away; not less than thirty-five or forty of their number had succumbed to the attacks of the beast-men, to wild animals, to accident and to disease; and the losses had in no way been equalized by the few babes born during the migration. Yet, as the people gathered near the flames in whispering, furtive-eyed groups, they seemed to understand that the losses they had suffered were slight beside those which threatened. And such was their apprehension that their usual lively spirits had deserted them; their chattering was low-toned and suppressed, their cackling laughter infrequent; they had scarcely the energy even to quarrel; and for the most part their feelings were expressed by low moans, plaints, and wailings.
Nor was their depression relieved after Zunzun the Marvel-Worker had opened the meeting and lifted his voice to entreat the aid of the fire-god. His supplications had little of the air of conviction; he had something of the manner of one who implores a favor that must inevitably be denied. And though the people joined him in his incantations, at times even reaching a pitch of fervor, yet their enthusiasm was short-lived; and, as soon as he had gone shuffling away from the fire, their faces resumed a look of half-understood fear, of blank and uncomprehending misery.
"My people, what would you have us do?" asked Grumgra, when, in a less aggressive mood than usual, he took his place in the firelight. "The bad spirits of the woods have entered the hearts of the beast-men, so that they want to kill us all. They will not go away—and they know that we cannot always stay here. We have meat enough till the sun goes down, and then goes down once more, and then once again. But that is all—after that, the black demon of hunger will be with us, and we will cry out, and there will be terrible pains within us; but the more we cry out the more terrible the pains will be. What would you have us do, my people? Would you have us all wait here till the hunger-pain comes?"
"No! No! No!" rang out a chorus of despairing cries.
"No! No! No!" shouted a hoarse, deep-toned voice. And Woonoo the Hot-Blooded, springing up from somewhere among the shadows to the rear, plunged forward with the earnest appeal: "Let us not wait! Let us take our clubs and go down the rocks, and fight the beast-people and kill them all! Let us kill them all, O chief!"
"Let us kill them all!" echoed scores of voices.
But Grumgra, unimpressed, stood regarding Woonoo contemptuously. "And would you have them kill us instead?" he flung back. "Would you have them do to us as they did today to our tribesman? Hit us with big rocks, and then eat us like wolves?"
Incoherent oaths and mutterings greeted these words. And still mumbling, "Let us not wait! Let us not wait!" Woonoo slipped back into the shadows.
But, unexpectedly, Woonoo's cause found an able sponsor. "The Hot-Blooded speaks wisely," declared Zunzun the Marvel-Worker, as he shambled unsteadily forward. "What can we do but take our clubs and go down the rocks in a great crowd to fight the beast-men? The cave-spirits will do nothing for us if we stay here. And we have seen what they will do if we try to go down in small bands. So let us go down all together! That is what the fire-god told me when I prayed to him!"
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Let us go down all together!" pleaded a dozen excited voices, led by that of Woonoo.
"How can we go down all together?" demanded Grumgra, his brow contracted in an anxious frown. "The beast-men are as many as the hands of all our people—and two clubs are stronger than one."
"Sometimes one club is stronger!" denied Zunzun. "The gods put more power in one crafty club than in two clubs swung by foolish hands."
Grumgra still glowered fiercely. "A big club is stronger than a crafty one!" he growled. And he brandished his own lovingly, as if by way of proof.
"This is what we should do," continued Zunzun hastily, in disregard of Grumgra's last remark. "If we fight where they can see us and when the sun shines, the gods of the big clubs will be with the beast-men. But if we come upon them in the dark, when they do not know how many we are and cannot see us, the gods of the big clubs will be with us. We will then make a noise like fighting wild beasts, and kill many of our enemies and frighten the rest away. This also the fire-god told me when I spoke to him."
"Let us do as Zunzun says! Do as Zunzun says!" the people began to clamor—and so insistent were their mutterings that before long even Grumgra felt obliged to bow to public opinion and commend the Marvel-Worker's plans.
Excitedly, with the enthusiasm of hope regained, the people commenced to scheme for that night attack which was to be the all-decisive test between them and the beast-men.