Tales of Space and Time
scene, the gorge and the bears and Eudena seemed things remote, things
dreamt of.
He stopped at the bank and stood regarding the tribe. His mathematical
abilities were of the slightest, but it was certain there were fewer.
The men might be away, but there were fewer women and children. He gave
the shout of home-coming. His quarrel had been with Uya and Wau--not
with the others. "Children of Uya!" he cried. They answered with his
name, a little fearfully because of the strange way he had come.
For a space they spoke together. Then an old woman lifted a shrill
voice and answered him. "Our Lord is a Lion."
Ugh-lomi did not understand that saying. They answered him again several
together, "Uya comes again. He comes as a Lion. Our Lord is a Lion. He
comes at night. He slays whom he will. But none other may slay us,
Ugh-lomi, none other may slay us."
Still Ugh-lomi did not understand.
"Our Lord is a Lion. He speaks no more to men."
Ugh-lomi stood regarding them. He had had dreams--he knew that though he
had killed Uya, Uya still existed. And now they told him Uya was a Lion.
The shrivelled old woman, the mistress of the fire-minders, suddenly
turned and spoke softly to those next to her. She was a very old woman
indeed, she had been the first of Uya's wives, and he had let her live
beyond the age to which it is seemly a woman should be permitted to
live. She had been cunning from the first, cunning to please Uya and to
get food. And now she was great in counsel. She spoke softly, and
Ugh-lomi watched her shrivelled form across the river with a curious
distaste. Then she called aloud, "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi."
A girl suddenly lifted up her voice. "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi," she
said. And they all began crying, "Come over to us, Ugh-lomi."
It was strange how their manner changed after the old woman called.
He stood quite still watching them all. It was pleasant to be called,
and the girl who had called first was a pretty one. But she made him
think of Eudena.
"Come over to us, Ugh-lomi," they cried, and the voice of the shrivelled
old woman rose above them all. At the sound of her voice his hesitation
returned.
He stood on the river bank, Ugh-lomi--Ugh the Thinker--with his thoughts
slowly taking shape. Presently one and then another paused to see what
he would do. He was minded to go back, he was minded not to. Suddenly
his fear or his caution got the upper hand. Without answering them he
turned, and walked back towards the distant thorn-trees, the way he had
come. Forthwith the whole tribe started crying to him again very
eagerly. He hesitated and turned, then he went on, then he turned again,
and then once again, regarding them with troubled eyes as they called.
The last time he took two paces back, before his fear stopped him. They
saw him stop once more, and suddenly shake his head and vanish among
the hawthorn-trees.
Then all the women and children lifted up their voices together, and
called to him in one last vain effort.
Far down the river the reeds were stirring in the breeze, where,
convenient for his new sort of feeding, the old lion, who had taken to
man-eating, had made his lair.
The old woman turned her face that way, and pointed to the hawthorn
thickets. "Uya," she screamed, "there goes thine enemy! There goes thine
enemy, Uya! Why do you devour us nightly? We have tried to snare him!
There goes thine enemy, Uya!"
But the lion who preyed upon the tribe was taking his siesta. The cry
went unheard. That day he had dined on one of the plumper girls, and his
mood was a comfortable placidity. He really did not understand that he
was Uya or that Ugh-lomi was his enemy.
So it was that Ugh-lomi rode the horse, and heard first of Uya the lion,
who had taken the place of Uya the Master, and was eating up the tribe.
And as he hurried back to the gorge his mind was no longer full of the
horse, but of the thought that Uya was still alive, to slay or be slain.
Over and over again he saw the shrunken band of women and children
crying that Uya was a lion. Uya was a lion!
And presently, fearing the twilight might come upon him, Ugh-lomi began
running.
IV--UYA THE LION
The old lion was in luck. The tribe had a certain pride in their ruler,
but that was all the satisfaction they got out of it. He came the very
night that Ugh-lomi killed Uya the Cunning, and so it was they named him
Uya. It was the old woman, the fire-minder, who first named him Uya. A
shower had lowered the fires to a glow, and made the night dark. And as
they conversed together, and peered at one another in the darkness, and
wondered fearfully what Uya would do to them in their dreams now that he
was dead, they heard the mounting reverberations of the lion's roar
close at hand. Then everything was still.
They held their breath, so that almost the only sounds were the patter
of the rain and the hiss of the raindrops in the ashes. And then, after
an interminable time, a crash, and a shriek of fear, and a growling.
They sprang to their feet, shouting, screaming, running this way and
that, but brands would not burn, and in a minute the victim was being
dragged away through the ferns. It was Irk, the brother of Wau.
So the lion came.
The ferns were still wet from the rain the next night, and he came and
took Click with the red hair. That sufficed for two nights. And then in
the dark between the moons he came three nights, night after night, and
that though they had good fires. He was an old lion with stumpy teeth,
but very silent and very cool; he knew of fires before; these were not
the first of mankind that had ministered to his old age. The third night
he came between the outer fire and the inner, and he leapt the flint
heap, and pulled down Irm the son of Irk, who had seemed like to be the
leader. That was a dreadful night, because they lit great flares of fern
and ran screaming, and the lion missed his hold of Irm. By the glare of
the fire they saw Irm struggle up, and run a little way towards them,
and then the lion in two bounds had him down again. That was the last of
Irm.
So fear came, and all the delight of spring passed out of their lives.
Already there were five gone out of the tribe, and four nights added
three more to the number. Food-seeking became spiritless, none knew who
might go next, and all day the women toiled, even the favourite women,
gathering litter and sticks for the night fires. And the hunters hunted
ill: in the warm spring-time hunger came again as though it was still
winter. The tribe might have moved, had they had a leader, but they had
no leader, and none knew where to go that the lion could not follow
them. So the old lion waxed fat and thanked heaven for the kindly race
of men. Two of the children and a youth died while the moon was still
new, and then it was the shrivelled old fire-minder first bethought
herself in a dream of Eudena and Ugh-lomi, and of the way Uya had been
slain. She had lived in fear of Uya all her days, and now she lived in
fear of the lion. That Ugh-lomi could kill Uya for good--Ugh-lomi whom
she had seen born--was impossible. It was Uya still seeking his enemy!
And then came the strange return of Ugh-lomi, a wonderful animal seen
galloping far across the river, that suddenly changed into two animals,
a horse and a man. Following this portent, the vision of Ugh-lomi on the
farther bank of the river.... Yes, it was all plain to her. Uya was
punishing them, because they had not hunted down Ugh-lomi and Eudena.
The men came straggling back to the chances of the night while the sun
was still golden in the sky. They were received with the story of
Ugh-lomi. She went across the river with them and showed them his spoor
hesitating on the farther bank. Siss the Tracker knew the feet for
Ugh-lomi's. "Uya needs Ugh-lomi," cried the old woman, standing on the
left of the bend, a gesticulating figure of flaring bronze in the
sunset. Her cries were strange sounds, flitting to and fro on the
borderland of speech, but this was the sense they carried: "The lion
needs Eudena. He comes night after night seeking Eudena and Ugh-lomi.
When he cannot find Eudena and Ugh-lomi, he grows angry and he kills.
Hunt Eudena and Ugh-lomi, Eudena whom he pursued, and Ugh-lomi for whom
he gave the death-word! Hunt Eudena and Ugh-lomi!"
She turned to the distant reed-bed, as sometimes she had turned to Uya
in his life. "Is it not so, my lord?" she cried. And, as if in answer,
the tall reeds bowed before a breath of wind.
Far into the twilight the sound of hacking was heard from the
squatting-places. It was the men sharpening their ashen spears against
the hunting of the morrow. And in the night, early before the moon
rose, the lion came and took the girl of Siss the Tracker.
In the morning before the sun had risen, Siss the Tracker, and the lad
Wau-Hau, who now chipped flints, and One Eye, and Bo, and the
Snail-eater, the two red-haired men, and Cat's-skin and Snake, all the
men that were left alive of the Sons of Uya, taking their ash spears and
their smiting-stones, and with throwing-stones in the beast-paw bags,
started forth upon the trail of Ugh-lomi through the hawthorn thickets
where Yaaa the Rhinoceros and his brothers were feeding, and up the bare
downland towards the beechwoods.
That night the fires burnt high and fierce, as the waxing moon set, and
the lion left the crouching women and children in peace.
And the next day, while the sun was still high, the hunters
returned--all save One Eye, who lay dead with a smashed skull at the
foot of the ledge. (When Ugh-lomi came back that evening from stalking
the horses, he found the vultures already busy over him.) And with them
the hunters brought Eudena bruised and wounded, but alive. That had been
the strange order of the shrivelled old woman, that she was to be
brought alive--"She is no kill for us. She is for Uya the Lion." Her
hands were tied with thongs, as though she had been a man, and she came
weary and drooping--her hair over her eyes and matted with blood. They
walked about her, and ever and again the Snail-eater, whose name she had
given, would laugh and strike her with his ashen spear. And after he had
struck her with his spear, he would look over his shoulder like one who
had done an over-bold deed. The others, too, looked over their shoulders
ever and again, and all were in a hurry save Eudena. When the old woman
saw them coming, she cried aloud with joy.
They made Eudena cross the river with her hands tied, although the
current was strong and when she slipped the old woman screamed, first
with joy and then for fear she might be drowned. And when they had
dragged Eudena to shore, she could not stand for a time, albeit they
beat her sore. So they let her sit with her feet touching the water, and
her eyes staring before her, and her face set, whatever they might do or
say. All the tribe came down to the squatting-place, even curly little
Haha, who as yet could scarcely toddle, and stood staring at Eudena and
the old woman, as now we should stare at some strange wounded beast and
its captor.
The old woman tore off the necklace of Uya that was about Eudena's neck,
and put it on herself--she had been the first to wear it. Then she tore
at Eudena's hair, and took a spear from Siss and beat her with all her
might. And when she had vented the warmth of her heart on the girl she
looked closely into her face. Eudena's eyes were closed and her features
were set, and she lay so still that for a moment the old woman feared
she was dead. And then her nostrils quivered. At that the old woman
slapped her face and laughed and gave the spear to Siss again, and went
a little way off from her and began to talk and jeer at her after her
manner.