The world below
large scale. The impression was not as is that of a moving picture, but
of great actual distances opening before us. Or, in another place, the
view might be blocked immediately by rising ground, by trees, or by
buildings. There did not appear to be any selection either of place or
time. They were not scenes of dramatic moment, or of selected beauty:
they were not seen from any position of special advantage. They appeared
to develop at the same rate that they had done in original fact, so
that, if you should wish to know what would happen next month you must
watch or return at that interval, to observe it.
I tried to place my hand on the wall, expecting to encounter some
substance of a glassy smoothness, but I felt no physical contact
whatever.--Only an inability to move my hand farther forward.
My companion, more sensitive than myself to any neighbouring substance,
could only tell me that she had an impression as of a transparent
solidity, but of a substance which she had never previously encountered.
It was another point of interest, for which I have no explanation, that
these scenes, or pictures, were not continuous, nor were they divided
sharply from one another, but the outlines would become faint and
blurred, till they were no more than faintly-coloured mist, which, as we
continued to move beside it, would again show blurred outlines that
would develop, farther on, into a quite different scene.
The view which we now beheld was that of a sunny downland, unfenced and
green, beside which we might not have paused but for the sight of a mass
of rock, the memento doubtless of some volcanic or glacial activity,
which rose from the level green. It was flat-sided at its nearest view,
and a figure crouched before it, with his back towards us, but somewhat
sideways. He was man-like in shape and size, quite naked, olive-green in
colour, with a round blue patch, of the size of a tea-plate, stained or
painted between his shoulders. It may have been a mark of honour, or a
sign of servitude, or of merely ornamental significance. His hair, which
was thickly coarse, and black, was drawn over one shoulder in a heavy
plait.
He was sitting on doubled legs, the feet showing clearly. They were
strangely long, and slender. The middle toe was the longest, and ended
in a strong curving claw.
He was carving on the face of the rock with some rude tool that I could
not see plainly. He was so absorbed in his work that a small bird, which
was hovering restlessly near, took courage, and slipped into a thorny
gorse-like bush, which grew against the stone, doubtless to the rescue
of eggs that were chilling. I cannot say that it was gorse. It was not
in flower. But the grass might have grown on the downs of my own time. I
saw the fragile blue of harebells among it, and only one plant, a
clover-like copper-coloured herbage, which I could not recognise. Yet
the man, if such I may call him, was strange enough, and so was a small
rabbit-like creature, with a long tail, thick at the root, which slapped
the ground as it moved, which was feeding nearer and nearer to the
silent figure,--only to disappear with a series of zig-zag rushes when
the man sat back suddenly.
But he had only paused to consider his work. He showed his face now,
low, broad, angular, but not uncomely, or unintelligent, having very
prominent black brows that balanced the sharp projecting tusk-like teeth
at the mouth-corners.
He sat back now to survey his work, with eyes that were yellow and very
bright. He was evidently absorbed in it, to the exclusion of other
consciousness. As he sat and considered it, he bent round a flexible leg
and scratched his belly absently with the long central toe. It was not a
human action. I could see what he had drawn now. It was a bird, in shape
somewhat like a hen, of the old-English game-fowl breed, not with the
distorted lankiness of the show-pen monstrosities which succeeded it.
But it had an impression of great size, and, rudely though it was drawn,
the head and beak had an expression of vulture-like rapacity. There were
no spurs on its legs.
And then we saw the bird itself, advancing quietly over the down behind
him.
It must have been eight or nine feet in height, possibly more. It was
obviously stalking him, moving with careful slowness, foot by foot, its
neck stretched before it, its great beak half-open, its wings (which
were short, and showed a mass of fluffy feathers, somewhat like those of
an ostrich) lifted, but not moving.
He was absorbed in his work again, and appeared unaware of the
approaching danger. I felt an impulse to call, to warn him. It was all
so near, so real, watching the sunny scene, and seeing the grass move as
the wind stirred it.
The great bird was within twenty yards now, a greedy anticipation in the
eyes that never left the prey they were stalking. I knew that the lifted
wings and the stretched neck were in a tremor of anticipation for the
final rush, when it should have crept so near that to attempt escape
would be hopeless. Would nothing warn him? Had those long, queer
flexible legs the power to outdistance such a creature? Or had he any
means of defence should the warning come?
The twenty yards were ten now,--and the rush came. It was too swift and
sudden for the eye to follow, and yet it failed of its object. The
bird’s impetus simply dashed against the bare rock, on which itself was
depicted. The expected victim--had he really heard the approach and
feigned his ignorance till the last second?--had leapt straight upward,
more, I thought, like a kangaroo than a man, touched a moment upon the
top of the stone, and descended upon the farther side.
The bird rushed round it. So did the man. The circuit was so short, the
speed so great, that it was difficult to say which was pursuing the
other. I thought that if the man increased his speed but a trifle he
would be on the flying heels of his pursuer. In fact, that happened. The
bird knew it, and tried to turn, but was a half-second too late, as it
had been previously. The man had leapt on to its back. Its beak was
twisted round to tear him, but his two hands gripped the scraggy
feathered throat and held it off. The long neck jerked desperately. But
the man’s grip was inexorable. It found that, with all its wrenching, it
could not break clear: with all its efforts it could not get its beak
near enough to tear him.
Balancing on one leg, it raised the other to pull him off, as a hen
scratches her eye. An olive-green thigh reddened where a long claw
caught it, but then the man’s leg, that seemed so strangely flexible,
was twisted round the attacking limb, and had gained control of the
danger.
The bird staggered, and its leg came to ground again. As it did so, I
saw the man reach up his other foot, the long central claw catching in
the skinny throat, just below where he had gripped it beneath the beak.
He drove it in, and tore downward. The bird plunged violently. Bird and
man came to the ground together in a flurry of feathers. Then the man
leapt clear. He leapt far forward, over its head, a bound of twenty
feet, if not thirty, with a head that looked back as he did so. But the
bird did not follow. It lay where it had fallen. Blood poured from the
opened throat, a bright scarlet on the green grass. The legs kicked, and
were still.
The man came back cautiously. The bird had died just beneath the picture
which he had made. He looked from one to the other, and his gaze was
troubled. He picked up the head, and raised it with the limp neck till
it was at the height of his shoulder. He appeared to compare it with his
drawing, and was not contented.
It was only after this that he showed consciousness of his own wound.
There was a long gash on the side of the thigh, and the blood ran to his
foot. Probably it was not deep. He jumped twice, and the bleeding
increased. He threw back his head, and his mouth opened widely. We
supposed that he was calling loudly, though we could hear nothing. He
did this several times. Then he sat down by the dead bird, and waited.
We stood there for a few minutes longer, but nothing happened, and we
passed on.
I was puzzled by the sight of creatures different from anything of which
bone or fossil had told us, and yet seeming to be of an earlier world
than mine. But perhaps they were later. There had been time for many
changes since then.
Then I caught sight of my companion’s foot, with its central toe. A
grotesque resemblance struck me between the two feet. Had I witnessed a
link which connected her through the changing millenniums with my
earlier humanity? No, there was no other resemblance. The idea was
absurd.
Yet I gave her the thought when she asked it, though I meant it for her
amusement only.
She took it with an abstract seriousness, pausing before she answered,
“You are giving me new thoughts, as you often do. The resemblance seems
slight, and the connection unlikely. What is the shape of a foot,
considered beside the other differences? In many ways we are less unlike
to each other than is either to the creature we have been watching. But
I have not thought of these changes. In many centuries there has been
little difference in the sea-creatures. Perhaps such changes take place
more rapidly on the land. Yet there have been changes in the sea, enough
to show that such things are.
“And if they be, they must have been in every grade of difference, and
in others beyond thought or counting. Can we, who are the thoughts of
God, imagine what He had not thought? Must it not be, if we think it?”
I answered, “I cannot follow that. To the thinking of my kind, we are,
in part at least, alien from, and displeasing to our Creator, Whose
thoughts are very different from ours.”
She replied, “You may be right. I have no opinion on that. For, to me,
your thought has no meaning.”
CHAPTER XI
WAR
I do not think that I should have been content to leave the argument,
for it was ever our way to continue through disagreement or
misunderstanding until we had arrived at a point of harmony, but that,
at the moment, we both became aware of steps that were approaching to
meet us.
We had not gone many yards from the lighted doorway, and we withdrew
against the wall in a common impulse of silence.
The steps were evidently those of another of the Dwellers, and as he
passed without apparently becoming aware of our presence in the
darkness, and continued along the passage, we should probably have gone
on our proposed way, as soon as the dangers of detection were over, had
he not turned in at the open doorway, on seeing which we were at one in
our inclination to return sufficiently to observe what would happen.
We were well content that we had done this, when we observed him go to
the living ball, and bend down beside it, putting a hand to the ground
after removing the imprisoning ring, on which it began at once to
clamber up the slanting arm, turning over with a ball-like motion, and
perching on his shoulder, in the manner which we had observed already.
We noticed that the newcomer was much less in height than were the
Dwellers, either man or woman, that we had observed previously, and from
this, and other youthful indications, it was not difficult to understand
that we were watching a youth who had not yet gained his full stature.
The sleeping figure did not stir, nor did he address himself to her, and
I suppose that he would have gone on to the library to which the book
was to be returned (for we had been right in this supposition, as the
event proved, excepting only that it was the work of a subordinate, and
not of the Librarian herself), but that, as he turned to leave the