Tales of Space and Time
Then something stirred in Eudena; something that had never stirred in
her before; and, thinking all of little Si and nothing of her fear, she
sprang up from her ambush and ran swiftly forward. The old woman did not
see her, for she was busy beating little Si's face with her hand,
beating with all her heart, and suddenly something hard and heavy struck
her cheek. She went reeling, and saw Eudena with flaming eyes and cheeks
between her and little Si. She shrieked with astonishment and terror,
and little Si, not understanding, set off towards the gaping tribe. They
were quite close now, for the sight of Eudena had driven their fading
fear of the lion out of their heads.
In a moment Eudena had turned from the cowering old woman and overtaken
Si. "Si!" she cried, "Si!" She caught the child up in her arms as it
stopped, pressed the nail-lined face to hers, and turned about to run
towards her lair, the lair of the old lion. The old woman stood
waist-high in the reeds, and screamed foul things and inarticulate rage,
but did not dare to intercept her; and at the bend of the path Eudena
looked back and saw all the men of the tribe crying to one another and
Siss coming at a trot along the lion's trail.
She ran straight along the narrow way through the reeds to the shady
place where Ugh-lomi sat with his healing thigh, just awakened by the
shouting and rubbing his eyes. She came to him, a woman, with little Si
in her arms. Her heart throbbed in her throat. "Ugh-lomi!" she cried,
"Ugh-lomi, the tribe comes!"
Ugh-lomi sat staring in stupid astonishment at her and Si.
She pointed with Si in one arm. She sought among her feeble store of
words to explain. She could hear the men calling. Apparently they had
stopped outside. She put down Si and caught up the new club with the
lion's teeth, and put it into Ugh-lomi's hand, and ran three yards and
picked up the first axe.
"Ah!" said Ugh-lomi, waving the new club, and suddenly he perceived the
occasion and, rolling over, began to struggle to his feet.
He stood but clumsily. He supported himself by one hand against the
tree, and just touched the ground gingerly with the toe of his wounded
leg. In the other hand he gripped the new club. He looked at his healing
thigh; and suddenly the reeds began whispering, and ceased and whispered
again, and coming cautiously along the track, bending down and holding
his fire-hardened stabbing-stick of ash in his hand, appeared Siss. He
stopped dead, and his eyes met Ugh-lomi's.
Ugh-lomi forgot he had a wounded leg. He stood firmly on both feet.
Something trickled. He glanced down and saw a little gout of blood had
oozed out along the edge of the healing wound. He rubbed his hand there
to give him the grip of his club, and fixed his eyes again on Siss.
"Wau!" he cried, and sprang forward, and Siss, still stooping and
watchful, drove his stabbing-stick up very quickly in an ugly thrust. It
ripped Ugh-lomi's guarding arm and the club came down in a counter that
Siss was never to understand. He fell, as an ox falls to the pole-axe,
at Ugh-lomi's feet.
To Bo it seemed the strangest thing. He had a comforting sense of tall
reeds on either side, and an impregnable rampart, Siss, between him and
any danger. Snail-eater was close behind and there was no danger there.
He was prepared to shove behind and send Siss to death or victory. That
was his place as second man. He saw the butt of the spear Siss carried
leap away from him, and suddenly a dull whack and the broad back fell
away forward, and he looked Ugh-lomi in the face over his prostrate
leader. It felt to Bo as if his heart had fallen down a well. He had a
throwing-stone in one hand and an ashen stabbing-stick in the other. He
did not live to the end of his momentary hesitation which to use.
Snail-eater was a readier man, and besides Bo did not fall forward as
Siss had done, but gave at his knees and hips, crumpling up with the
toothed club upon his head. The Snail-eater drove his spear forward
swift and straight, and took Ugh-lomi in the muscle of the shoulder, and
then he drove him hard with the smiting-stone in his other hand,
shouting out as he did so. The new club swished ineffectually through
the reeds. Eudena saw Ugh-lomi come staggering back from the narrow path
into the open space, tripping over Siss and with a foot of ashen stake
sticking out of him over his arm. And then the Snail-eater, whose name
she had given, had his final injury from her, as his exultant face came
out of the reeds after his spear. For she swung the first axe swift and
high, and hit him fair and square on the temple; and down he went on
Siss at prostrate Ugh-lomi's feet.
But before Ugh-lomi could get up, the two red-haired men were tumbling
out of the reeds, spears and smiting-stones ready, and Snake hard behind
them. One she struck on the neck, but not to fell him, and he blundered
aside and spoilt his brother's blow at Ugh-lomi's head. In a moment
Ugh-lomi dropped his club and had his assailant by the waist, and had
pitched him sideways sprawling. He snatched at his club again and
recovered it. The man Eudena had hit stabbed at her with his spear as he
stumbled from her blow, and involuntarily she gave ground to avoid him.
He hesitated between her and Ugh-lomi, half turned, gave a vague cry at
finding Ugh-lomi so near, and in a moment Ugh-lomi had him by the
throat, and the club had its third victim. As he went down Ugh-lomi
shouted--no words, but an exultant cry.
The other red-haired man was six feet from her with his back to her, and
a darker red streaking his head. He was struggling to his feet. She had
an irrational impulse to stop his rising. She flung the axe at him,
missed, saw his face in profile, and he had swerved beyond little Si,
and was running through the reeds. She had a transitory vision of Snake
standing in the throat of the path, half turned away from her, and then
she saw his back. She saw the club whirling through the air, and the
shock head of Ugh-lomi, with blood in the hair and blood upon the
shoulder, vanishing below the reeds in pursuit. Then she heard Snake
scream like a woman.
She ran past Si to where the handle of the axe stuck out of a clump of
fern, and turning, found herself panting and alone with three motionless
bodies. The air was full of shouts and screams. For a space she was sick
and giddy, and then it came into her head that Ugh-lomi was being killed
along the reed-path, and with an inarticulate cry she leapt over the
body of Bo and hurried after him. Snake's feet lay across the path, and
his head was among the reeds. She followed the path until it bent round
and opened out by the alders, and thence she saw all that was left of
the tribe in the open, scattering like dead leaves before a gale, and
going back over the knoll. Ugh-lomi was hard upon Cat's-skin.
But Cat's-skin was fleet of foot and got away, and so did young Wau-Hau
when Ugh-lomi turned upon him, and Ugh-lomi pursued Wau-Hau far beyond
the knoll before he desisted. He had the rage of battle on him now, and
the wood thrust through his shoulder stung him like a spur. When she saw
he was in no danger she stopped running and stood panting, watching the
distant active figures run up and vanish one by one over the knoll. In a
little time she was alone again. Everything had happened very swiftly.
The smoke of Brother Fire rose straight and steady from the
squatting-place, just as it had done ten minutes ago, when the old woman
had stood yonder worshipping the lion.
And after a long time, as it seemed, Ugh-lomi reappeared over the knoll,
and came back to Eudena, triumphant and breathing heavily. She stood,
her hair about her eyes and hot-faced, with the blood-stained axe in her
hand, at the place where the tribe had offered her as a sacrifice to the
lion. "Wau!" cried Ugh-lomi at the sight of her, his face alight with
the fellowship of battle, and he waved his new club, red now and hairy;
and at the sight of his glowing face her tense pose relaxed somewhat,
and she stood sobbing and rejoicing.
Ugh-lomi had a queer unaccountable pang at the sight of her tears; but
he only shouted "Wau!" the louder and shook the axe east and west. He
called manfully to her to follow him and turned back, striding, with the
club swinging in his hand, towards the squatting-place, as if he had
never left the tribe; and she ceased her weeping and followed quickly as
a woman should.
So Ugh-lomi and Eudena came back to the squatting-place from which they
had fled many days before from the face of Uya; and by the
squatting-place lay a deer half eaten, just as there had been before
Ugh-lomi was man or Eudena woman. So Ugh-lomi sat down to eat, and
Eudena beside him like a man, and the rest of the tribe watched them
from safe hiding-places. And after a time one of the elder girls came
back timorously, carrying little Si in her arms, and Eudena called to
them by name, and offered them food. But the elder girl was afraid and
would not come, though Si struggled to come to Eudena. Afterwards, when
Ugh-lomi had eaten, he sat dozing, and at last he slept, and slowly the
others came out of the hiding-places and drew near. And when Ugh-lomi
woke, save that there were no men to be seen, it seemed as though he had
never left the tribe.
Now, there is a thing strange but true: that all through this fight
Ugh-lomi forgot that he was lame, and was not lame, and after he had
rested behold! he was a lame man; and he remained a lame man to the end
of his days.
Cat's-skin and the second red-haired man and Wau-Hau, who chipped flints
cunningly, as his father had done before him, fled from the face of
Ugh-lomi, and none knew where they hid. But two days after they came and
squatted a good way off from the knoll among the bracken under the
chestnuts and watched. Ugh-lomi's rage had gone, he moved to go against
them and did not, and at sundown they went away. That day, too, they
found the old woman among the ferns, where Ugh-lomi had blundered upon
her when he had pursued Wau-Hau. She was dead and more ugly than ever,
but whole. The jackals and vultures had tried her and left her;--she was
ever a wonderful old woman.
The next day the three men came again and squatted nearer, and Wau-Hau
had two rabbits to hold up, and the red-haired man a wood-pigeon, and
Ugh-lomi stood before the women and mocked them.
The next day they sat again nearer--without stones or sticks, and with
the same offerings, and Cat's-skin had a trout. It was rare men caught
fish in those days, but Cat's-skin would stand silently in the water for
hours and catch them with his hand. And the fourth day Ugh-lomi suffered
these three to come to the squatting-place in peace, with the food they
had with them. Ugh-lomi ate the trout. Thereafter for many moons
Ugh-lomi was master and had his will in peace. And on the fulness of
time he was killed and eaten even as Uya had been slain.
A Story of the Days to Come
A STORY OF THE DAYS TO COME
I--THE CURE FOR LOVE
The excellent Mr. Morris was an Englishman, and he lived in the days of
Queen Victoria the Good. He was a prosperous and very sensible man; he
read the _Times_ and went to church, and as he grew towards middle age
an expression of quiet contented contempt for all who were not as
himself settled on his face. He was one of those people who do
everything that is right and proper and sensible with inevitable
regularity. He always wore just the right and proper clothes, steering
the narrow way between the smart and the shabby, always subscribed to
the right charities, just the judicious compromise between ostentation
and meanness, and never failed to have his hair cut to exactly the
proper length.
Everything that it was right and proper for a man in his position to