In the Morning of Time

TROYING

clutched to her bosom. She fell at Gr?m's feet, gibbering breathlessly, and plainly imploring his protection. Both she and the child were strea

t manner of adversary the fugitive was like to bring upon him. At the same time,

a copper-red; and 199 she was neither so hairy on the body nor of so ape-like proportions. She was sufficiently hideous, however, and of some race plainly inferior to the People of the Caves. The natural instinct of a Cave Man would have been to knock her and her offspring on the head without ceremony––an effective method of guarding his more highly developed breed from the mixture of an inferior blood. But Gr?m, the Chief and the wise man, had m

Gr?m noted with keen interest that the child also had one of those terrible, cup-shaped wounds, almost obliterating its fat, copper-colored shoulder. He saw, also, that the woman's face, though uncomely, was more intelligent and human than the 200 bestial faces of the Bow-legs' women. It was a broad face, with very small, deep-set eyes, high cheek bones, a tiny nose, and a very wide mouth, and it looked as if some one had sa

other wounds, deep, narrow punctures, like stabs. He guessed that they could not be much less than an hour old. The Thing, whatever it was, which had inflicted them––the Thing with so strange a mouth, and so strange a way of using it––had apparently given up the pursuit. Gr?m's curiosity burned within him, and he was angry at the woman because she could not speak to him in

r who at this moment came running up to him. It was A-ya's young brother, M?, Gr?m's favorite follower and hunting mate; and he had come at speed, being v

ave People, tried his own hand at questioning the woman. He got a flow of chatter in reply, but, being able to make nothing out of it, he imagined it was not speech at all, and turned away angri

hat it is that has bitten the woman. It i

erilous one, and who loved to do dangerous things in a prudent manner, looked to his bow-string and saw that his arrows were handy in his girdle, before he started on the venture. Beside

from which she had so hardly escaped. To Gr?m's keen intelligence her gestures were eloquent. She managed to convey to him the idea of great numbers, and the impossibility of his dealing with them. When he attempted to pass her, she threw herself down and clu

d five of the woman's companions. The information gave him pause. Adventurous as 203 he was, he had small respect for mere

us two. They have killed five of her people. We will go back to the Caves, and after t

e gathered, from the stranger's signs, that the dreadful and destroying Thing was something that flew––therefore, a great flesh-eating bird. But she gathered, also, that it was something which in some way bore a resemblance to fire––for the woman, after getting over her first terror of the dancing flames, kept pointing to them and then to her wounds in a most suggestive way. This, however, as Gr?m rather scornfully pointed o

spite of her tried courage and her unwavering trust in Gr?m's prowess. The mystery of it daunted her. She feared it in the same way that she feared the dark. But she kept her fears to herself, and claimed her long-established right to go with Gr?m on the expediti

apparently no hiding-place, making himself indistinguishable from the surroundings like a squatting partridge. Each one carried a bow, two light spears, and a club––except 205 A-ya, who had no club, and only one spear. The weapon she chiefly relied upon was the bow, which she loved with pa

ide a spring to drink and breathe themselves and to look to the precious fires in the fire-baskets. When it wanted perhaps an hour of noon, they came to a little patch of meadow surrounding a solitary Judas-tree covered with bloom. Here they built a fire, for the replenishing of the coals in the fire-baskets, and as a menace to prowling b

rowth fringing the meadow. The gorgeous bloom seemed to rise out of a black, curiously gnarled elbow of branch or trunk which thrust itself out through the leafage. Gr?m's eyes dwelt for a time, unheeding, upon this piece

ight was always dim and feeble, could not see him distinctly, and was in all probability staring in stupid wonder at the dancing flames of the camp-fire. As long as no smell of man should reach the brute's sensitive nostrils to rouse its rage, it was not likely to charge. There was no wind, and the air about him was ful

parently puzzled it. After a moment or two, it took a step forward, so that half of its huge, black, shaggy bulk projected from the banked greenery as fro

ed, indeed, for the yell of warning which should wake the sleepers and send them leaping into the tree. But he checked himself in time. The monster, for once in its life, seemed to be abashed. The curling red flames were too elusive a foe for it. With a grunt of uneasiness, it drew back

rung up with excitement, suspense and curiosity, there was little sleep. For the most part he perched on his woven platform with his arms about his knees, listening to the sounds of the night––the occasional sudden rush of a hunting beast, the agonized sc

h flared up suddenly. Gr?m had a glimpse of huge shapes and startled, savage eyes backing away from the circle of light. The blaze died down as quickly as it had arisen; and thereafter the ni

he fugitive, the rest of the party keeping him in view and peering ahead for some sign of the unknown Terror. The 209 red woman in her flight had left a sharp trail enough; but in the lapse of three days it had been so obliterated that all Gr?m's wood-craft

ing insects arose from them. They were picked minutely clean, except for a portion of the skull, where the long, strong, densely matted hair seemed to have served as an effective armor. The bones were not pulled about, or crushed for their mar

time glancing up into the tree-tops apprehensively. But Gr?m did not thin

et here and there with scattered trees. From a little way ahead came a gleam of calm water through the greenery. It was a scene of peace

M? to remain and tend the fires and not to leave the circle unless he should summon them. Loob, the cunning scout, he sent off to the left through the underbrush. He himself followed the trail of the fugitive––now doub

blue-green flame, shooting over the surface of the water. A memory of what A-ya had professed to gather from the stranger woman rushed into his mind. Perhaps the Destroying Thing was like a bird, and nevertheless, at the same time, something like fire. He felt himself co

ed by a globe of rose-pink mist, shot by and vanished from his narrow field of vision. He was just about to thrust out his head and crane his neck to follow the gorgeous apparitio

ansparent, crystal-shining, colorless wings was even greater than the length of its body. Its enormous eyes, wells of purple fire which took up the whole of the top

g in the clutch of its six slender, jointed legs the body of one of those black, rat-like animals which Gr?m knew so well as infesting the grass of all meadows near the water. The captor flew to a naked branch near the waterside, alighted upon it, and proceeded to make its meal, holding up the body between the end joints of its front pair of legs and turning it over and over deftly while its appa

torm by, as if with the rainbow entangled in their wings. He wondered upon what foray they were bent; and now for the first time he realized, with a creeping of the flesh, what it was that had overtaken the man whose skeleton he had

hick as his wrist, and ended at the tail with a formidable double claw. Its six legs, arranged in three pairs under the thorax, were armed on the inner sides with powerful spines, needle-pointed and steel hard, with which to grip and hold its victims. The thorax, from the back of which sprouted the four great wings, was of the thickness of Gr?m's forearm, while its head was as big as Gr?m's two great fists put together. It

with the back of its head. Then, very deliberately, it turned its head completely around, without moving its body a hair-breadth, till its

r the other, so as either to cut cleanly or to grind. They were working, slowly, now––and Gr?m felt suddenly that he must put a stop to it, that he must put out the awful light in those monstrous devil eyes. Stealthily, a

f-way through its thorax, bounded into the air. It darted straight at Gr?m, who had prudently edged in among a tangle of stems. Its fury carried it through the screen of leafage––but then, its wings impeded by the branches, and the arrow hampering it, 215 it dashed itself to the earth. Instantly Gr?m was upon

shore he heard the voice of Loob, shouting for help. The shouting changed at once to a scream of terror, and Gr?m started to the rescue on the full run––taking care, however, to keep within cover of the thickets. But before he had

t, something dropped upon him. He felt 216 his head instantly caged by six steel-like legs which gripped like jaws, their spines sinking deep into the flesh of neck and cheek. He reached up his left hand, caught his dreadful assailant just where the head and thorax join, and strove to throttle it. This was impossible, by reason of the insect's armor, but he succeeded in holding off those horrid jaws from his face as he

long in their ferocity that both Gr?m and M? were kept busy beating them off with spears, while A-ya fed the fires; and the ground inside the circle was littered with the radiant bodies of the dying insects, which, even in dying,

d 217 presently. "They can't fly in where th

y shoulders and thighs were already covered w

sunshine vanished the destroyers seemed to forget their fury. All the life and energy went out of them. They simply flocked to the ne

commanded Gr?m, leading t

m all!" pleaded young M?

ss quickly," said he. "We must be far from

ng their strange trophies on their spear-heads they went on. The monsters, clinging sullenly to their perches, rolled baleful eyes of emerald and rose and amethyst upon them as they went, but lifted 218 never a wing to follow them. Ten minutes later the sun came out again. Then the monsters all sprang hurtling into