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05 - Before Adam by Jack London · Before Adam

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twelve of Before Adam by Jack London. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain recording by Tom Weiss
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  Speaker 1: Tom's audiobooks dot Com. Chapter twelve. I have no idea
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  Speaker 1: how long Loppier and I wandered in the land north
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  Speaker 1: of the river. We were like mariners wrecked under desert Isle.
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  Speaker 1: So far as concerned the likelihood of our getting home again,
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  Speaker 1: we turned our backs upon the river, and for weeks
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  Speaker 1: and months adventured in that wilderness where there were no folk.
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  Speaker 1: It is very difficult for me to reconstruct our journeying,
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  Speaker 1: and impossible to do it from day to day. Most
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  Speaker 1: of it is hazy and indistinct, though here and there
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  Speaker 1: I have vivid recollections of things that happened. Especially do
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  Speaker 1: I remember the hunger we endured on the mountains between
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  Speaker 1: Long Lake and Far Lake, and the calf we caught
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  Speaker 1: sleeping in the thicket. Also there are the tree people
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  Speaker 1: who dwelled the forest between Long Lake and the mountains.
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  Speaker 1: It was they who chased us into the mountains and
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  Speaker 1: compelled us to travel on to Far Lake. First. After
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  Speaker 1: we left the river, we worked towards the west till
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  Speaker 1: we came to a small stream that flowed through marsh lands.
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  Speaker 1: Here we turned away toward the north, skirting the marshes,
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  Speaker 1: and after several days arriving at what I have called
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  Speaker 1: Long Lake, we spent some time around its upper end,
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  Speaker 1: where we found food in plenty, And then one day
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  Speaker 1: in the forest we ran foul of the tree people.
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  Speaker 1: These creatures were ferocious apes, nothing more. And yet they
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  Speaker 1: were not so different from us. They were more hairy,
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  Speaker 1: it is true, Their legs were a trifle more twisted
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  Speaker 1: and gnarly, their eyes a bit smaller, their necks a
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  Speaker 1: bit thicker and shorter, and their nostrils slightly more like
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  Speaker 1: orifices in the sunken surface. But they had no hair
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  Speaker 1: on their faces and on the palms of their hands
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  Speaker 1: and the soles of their feet. And they made sounds
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  Speaker 1: similar to ours, with somewhat similar meanings. After all, the
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  Speaker 1: tree people and the folk were not so on like.
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  Speaker 1: I found him first, a little withered, dried up old fellow,
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  Speaker 1: wrinkly faced and bleary eyed, and tottery. He was legitimate
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  Speaker 1: prey in our world. There was no sympathy between the kinds,
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  Speaker 1: and he was not our kind. He was a tree man,
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  Speaker 1: and he was very old He was sitting at the
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  Speaker 1: foot of a tree, evidently his tree, for we could
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  Speaker 1: see the tattered nest in the branches in which he
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  Speaker 1: slept aad night. I pointed him out to lop ear,
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  Speaker 1: and we made a rush for him. He started to climb,
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  Speaker 1: but was too slow. I caught him by the leg
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  Speaker 1: and dragged him back. Then we had fun. We pinched him,
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  Speaker 1: pulled his hair, tweaked his ears, and poked twigs into him,
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  Speaker 1: and all the while we laughed with streaming eyes. His
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  Speaker 1: feudle anger was most absurd. He was a comical sight,
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  Speaker 1: striving to thin into flame the cold ashes of his youth,
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  Speaker 1: to resurrect his strength, dead and gone through the oozing
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  Speaker 1: of the years, making woeful faces in place of the
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  Speaker 1: Ferocians ones. He intended, grinding his worn teeth together, beating
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  Speaker 1: his meager chest with feeble fists. Also, he had a cough,
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  Speaker 1: and he gasped and hacked and spluttered prodigiously every time
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  Speaker 1: he tried to climb the tree. We pulled him back,
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  Speaker 1: until at last he surrendered to his weakness and did
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  Speaker 1: no more than sit and weep and Loafia and I
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  Speaker 1: sat with him, our arms around each other, and laughed
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  Speaker 1: at his wretcheousness. From weeping he went to whining, and
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  Speaker 1: from whining to wailing, until at last he achieved his scream.
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  Speaker 1: This alarmed us, but the more we tried to make
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  Speaker 1: him cease, the louder he screamed. And then from not
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  Speaker 1: far away in the forest came ghek to our ears.
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  Speaker 1: To this there were answering cries, several of them, and
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  Speaker 1: from very far off we could hear a big bass
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  Speaker 1: ghak ghek. Also, the woo woo call was rising in
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  Speaker 1: the forest all around us. Then came the chase. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed it would never end. They raced us through the trees.
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  Speaker 1: The whole tribe of them had nearly caught us. We
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  Speaker 1: were forced to take to the ground and hear. We
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  Speaker 1: had the advantage, for they were truly the tree people,
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  Speaker 1: and while they outclimbed us, we outfooted them on the ground.
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  Speaker 1: We broke away toward the north, the tribe howling on
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  Speaker 1: our track. Across the open spaces, we gained and in
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  Speaker 1: the brush they caught up with us, and more than
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  Speaker 1: once it was nip and tuck. And as the chase continued,
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  Speaker 1: we realized that we were not their kind either, and
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  Speaker 1: that the bonds between us were anything but sympathetic. They
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  Speaker 1: ran us for hours. The forest seemed interminable. We kept
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  Speaker 1: to the glades as much as possible, but they always
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  Speaker 1: ended in more thick forest. Sometimes we thought we had
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  Speaker 1: escaped and sat down to rest, but always before we
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  Speaker 1: could recover our breath, we would hear the hateful woo
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  Speaker 1: woo cries and the terrible ghek gek ghek, This latter
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  Speaker 1: sometimes terminated in a savage ha ha ha, and in
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  Speaker 1: this fashion where we hunted through the forest by the
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  Speaker 1: exasperated tree people. At last, by mid afternoon, the slopes
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  Speaker 1: began rising higher and higher, and the trees were becoming smaller.
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  Speaker 1: Then we came out on the grassy flanks of the mountains.
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  Speaker 1: Here was where we could make time, and here the
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  Speaker 1: tree people gave up and returned to their forest. The
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  Speaker 1: mountains were bleak and inhospitable, and three times that afternoon
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  Speaker 1: we tried to regain the woods, but the tree people
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  Speaker 1: were lying in wait, and they drove us back. LaPier
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  Speaker 1: and I slept that night in a dwarf tree, no
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  Speaker 1: larger than a bush. Here was no security, and we
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  Speaker 1: would have been easy prey for any hunting animal that
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  Speaker 1: chanced along in the morning. What of our new gain
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  Speaker 1: respect for the tree people we faced into the mountains
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  Speaker 1: that we had no definite plan or even idea. I
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  Speaker 1: am confident we were merely driven on by the danger
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  Speaker 1: we had escaped. Of our wanderings through the mountains, I
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  Speaker 1: have only misty memories. We were in that bleak region
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  Speaker 1: many days, and we suffered much, especially from fear. It
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  Speaker 1: was all so strange and new. Also we suffered from
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  Speaker 1: the cold, and later from hunger. It was a desolate
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  Speaker 1: land of rocks and foaming streams and clattering cataracts. We
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  Speaker 1: climbed the descended mighty canyons and gorges, and ever from
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  Speaker 1: every viewpoint there spread out before us in all directions,
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  Speaker 1: range upon range, the unceasing mountains. We slept at night
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  Speaker 1: in holes and crevices, and on one cold night we
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  Speaker 1: perched on top a slender pinnacle of rock that was
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  Speaker 1: almost like a tree. And then, at last, one hot midday,
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  Speaker 1: dizzy with hunger, we gained the divide from this high
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  Speaker 1: backbone of earth to the north. Across the diminishing, downfalling ranges,
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  Speaker 1: we caught a glimpse of a far lake, the sun
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  Speaker 1: shone upon it, and about it were open, level grass lands,
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  Speaker 1: while to the eastward we saw the dark line of
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  Speaker 1: a wide, stretching forest. We were two days in gaining
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  Speaker 1: the lake, and we were weak with hunger. But on
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  Speaker 1: its shore, sleeping snugly in a thicket, we found a
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  Speaker 1: part grown calf. It gave us much trouble, for we
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  Speaker 1: knew no other way to kill than with our hands.
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  Speaker 1: When we had gorged our fill, we carried the remainder
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  Speaker 1: of the meat to the eastward forest and hid it
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  Speaker 1: in a tree. We never returned to that tree, for
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  Speaker 1: the shore of the stream that drained far lake was
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  Speaker 1: packed thick with salmon that had come up from the
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  Speaker 1: sea to spawn. Westward from the lake stretched the grass lands,
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  Speaker 1: and here were multitudes of bison and wild cattle. Also
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  Speaker 1: were there many packs of wild dogs. And as there
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  Speaker 1: were no trees, it was not a safe place for us.
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  Speaker 1: We followed north along the stream for days. Then, and
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  Speaker 1: for what reason I do not know, we abruptly left
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  Speaker 1: the stream and swung to the east and then to
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  Speaker 1: the southeast through a great forest. I shall not bore
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  Speaker 1: you with our journey, I but indicated to show how
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  Speaker 1: we finally arrived at the fire people's country. We came
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  Speaker 1: out upon the river, but we did not know it
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  Speaker 1: for our river. We had been lost so long that
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  Speaker 1: we had come to accept the condition of being lost
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  Speaker 1: as habitual. As I look back, I can clearly see
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  Speaker 1: how our lives and destinies are shaped by the mirest chance.
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  Speaker 1: We did not know it was our river. There was
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  Speaker 1: no way of telling, and if we had never crossed it,
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  Speaker 1: we would most probably have never returned to the Horde,
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  Speaker 1: and I, the modern the thousand creatures yet to be born,
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  Speaker 1: would never have been born. And yet Loppier and I
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  Speaker 1: wanted greatly to return. We had experienced homesickness on our journey,
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  Speaker 1: the yearning for our own kind and land, and often
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  Speaker 1: had I had recollections of the swift One, the young
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  Speaker 1: female who made soft sounds, whom it was good to
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  Speaker 1: be with, and who lived by herself. Nobody knew where.
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  Speaker 1: My recollections of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger,
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  Speaker 1: and these I felt when I was not hungry, and
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  Speaker 1: when I had just eaten. But to come back to
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  Speaker 1: the river. Food was plentiful, principally berries and succulent roots,
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  Speaker 1: And on the river bank we played and lingered for days,
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  Speaker 1: and then the idea came to lop ear. It was
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  Speaker 1: a visible process, the coming of the idea. I saw it.
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  Speaker 1: The expression in his eyes became plaintive and querulous, and
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  Speaker 1: he was greatly perturbed. Then his eyes went muddy, as
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  Speaker 1: if he had lost his grip on the enchoed thought.
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  Speaker 1: This was followed by the plaintive, querulous expression. As the
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  Speaker 1: idea persisted and he clutched it anew. He looked at
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  Speaker 1: me and at the river and the far shore. He
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  Speaker 1: tried to speak, but had no sounds with which to
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  Speaker 1: express the idea. The result was a gibberish that made
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  Speaker 1: me laugh. This angered him, and he grabbed me suddenly
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  Speaker 1: and threw me on my back. Of course, we fought,
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  Speaker 1: and in the end I chased him up a tree
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  Speaker 1: where he secured a long branch and poked me every
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  Speaker 1: time I tried to get at him. And the idea
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  Speaker 1: had gone glimmering. I did not know, and he had forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: But the next morning it awoke in him again. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: it was the homing instinct in him asserting itself that
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  Speaker 1: made the idea persist. At any rate, it was there
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  Speaker 1: and clearer than before. He led me down to the
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  Speaker 1: water where a log had ground it in an eddy.
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  Speaker 1: I thought he was minded to play as we had
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  Speaker 1: played in the mouth of the slough. Nor did I
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  Speaker 1: change my mind as I watched him tow up a
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  Speaker 1: second log from farther down the shore. It was not
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  Speaker 1: until we were on the logs side by side and
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  Speaker 1: holding them together, and had paddled out into the current
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  Speaker 1: that I earned its intention. He paused to point at
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  Speaker 1: the far shore and resumed his paddling, at the same
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  Speaker 1: time uttering loud and encouraging cries. I understood, and we
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  Speaker 1: paddled energetically. The swift current caught us flung us towards
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  Speaker 1: the south shore, but before we could make a landing
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  Speaker 1: flung us back to the north shore. Here arose dissension.
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  Speaker 1: Seeing the north shore so near, I began to paddle
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  Speaker 1: for it. Loppier tried to paddle for the south shore.
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  Speaker 1: The logs swung around in circles, and we got nowhere,
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  Speaker 1: and all the time the forest was flashing past as
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  Speaker 1: we dripped down the stream. We could not fight. We
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  Speaker 1: knew better than to let go the grips of our
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  Speaker 1: hands and feet that held the logs together. But we
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  Speaker 1: chattered and abused each other with our tongues until the
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  Speaker 1: current flung us towards the south bank again. That was
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  Speaker 1: now the nearest coal, and together inamicably we paddled for it.
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  Speaker 1: We landed in an eddy and climbed directly into the
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  Speaker 1: trees to reconnoiter. End of Chapter twelve, Chapter thirteen. It
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  Speaker 1: was not until the night of our first day on
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  Speaker 1: the south bank of the river that we discovered the
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  Speaker 1: fire people. What must have been a band of wandering hunters,
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  Speaker 1: went into camp not far from the tree in which
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  Speaker 1: Lopier and I had elected to roost for the night.
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  Speaker 1: The voices of the fire people at first alarmed us,
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  Speaker 1: but later, when darkness had come, we were attracted by
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  Speaker 1: the fire. We crept cautiously and silently from tree to
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  Speaker 1: tree till we got a good view of the scene.
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  Speaker 1: In an open space among the trees near to the river,
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  Speaker 1: the fire was burning. About it were half a dozen firemen.
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  Speaker 1: Lopier clutched me suddenly, and I could feel him tremble.
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  Speaker 1: I looked more closely and saw the wizened little old
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  Speaker 1: hunter who had shot broken tooth out of the tree
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  Speaker 1: years before. When he got up and walked about throwing
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  Speaker 1: fresh wood upon the fire I saw that he limped
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  Speaker 1: with his crippled leg. Whatever it was, it was a
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  Speaker 1: permanent injury. He seemed more dried up and wizzen than ever,
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  Speaker 1: and the hair on his face was quite gray. The
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  Speaker 1: other hunters were young men. I note it, lying near
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  Speaker 1: them on the ground their bows and arrows, and I
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  Speaker 1: knew the weapons for what they were. The fire men
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  Speaker 1: wore animal skins around their waists and across their shoulders.
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  Speaker 1: Their arms and legs, however, were bare, and they wore
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  Speaker 1: no foot here. As I have said before, they were
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  Speaker 1: not quite so hairy as we of the folk. They
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  Speaker 1: did not have large heads, and between them and the
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  Speaker 1: folk there was very little difference in the degree of
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  Speaker 1: slant of the head back from the eyes. They were
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  Speaker 1: less stoop than we, less springy in their movements. Their
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  Speaker 1: backbones and hips and knee joints seemed more rigid. Their
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  Speaker 1: arms were not so long as ours, either, and I
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  Speaker 1: did not notice that they ever balanced themselves when they
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  Speaker 1: walked by touching the ground on either side with their hands. Also,
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  Speaker 1: their muscles were more rounded and symmetrical than ours, and
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  Speaker 1: their faces were more pleasing surfices opened downward. Likewise, the
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  Speaker 1: bridges of their noses were more developed, did not look
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  Speaker 1: so squat nor crushed as ours. Their lips were less
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  Speaker 1: flabby and pendent, and their eye teeth did not look
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  Speaker 1: so much like fangs. However, they were quite as thin
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  Speaker 1: hipped as we, and did not weigh much more. Take
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  Speaker 1: it all in all, they were less different from us
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  Speaker 1: than were we from the tree people. Certainly, all three
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  Speaker 1: kinds were related, and not so remotely related at that.
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  Speaker 1: The fire around which they sat was especially attractive. LaPier
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  Speaker 1: and I sat for hours watching the flames and smoke.
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  Speaker 1: It was most fascinating when fresh fuel was thrown on
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  Speaker 1: and showers as sparks went flying upward. I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: come closer and look at the fire, but there was
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  Speaker 1: no way. We were crouching in the forks of a
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  Speaker 1: tree on the edge of the open space, and we
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  Speaker 1: did not dare run the risk being discovered. The firemen
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  Speaker 1: squatted around the fire and slept with their heads bowed
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  Speaker 1: forward on their knees. They did not sleep soundly. Their
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  Speaker 1: ears twitched in their sleep, and they were restless. Every
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  Speaker 1: little while, one or another got up and threw more
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  Speaker 1: wood upon the fire. About the circle of light in
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  Speaker 1: the forest. In the darkest beyond roamed hunting animals. Loppier
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  Speaker 1: and I could tell them by their sounds. There were
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  Speaker 1: wild dogs in a hyena, and for a time there
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  Speaker 1: was a great yelping and snarling that awakened on the
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  Speaker 1: instant the whole circle of sleeping firemen. Once a lion
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  Speaker 1: and a lioness stood beneath our tree and gazed out
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  Speaker 1: with bristling hair and blinking eyes. The lion licked his
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  Speaker 1: chops and was nervous with eagerness, as if he wanted
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  Speaker 1: to go forward and make a meal, but the lioness
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  Speaker 1: was more cautious. It was she that discovered us, and
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  Speaker 1: the pair stood and looked up at us silently with twitching,
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  Speaker 1: scenting nostrils. Then they growled, looked once again at the fire,
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  Speaker 1: and turned away into the forest. For a much longer time,
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  Speaker 1: LaPier and I remained and watched. Now and again we
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  Speaker 1: could hear the crashing of heavy body in the thickets
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  Speaker 1: and underbrush, and from the darkness of the other side
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  Speaker 1: across the circle, we could see eyes gleaming in the firelight.
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  Speaker 1: In the distance, we heard a lion roar, and from
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  Speaker 1: far off came the scream of some stricken animal, splashing
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  Speaker 1: and floundering in a drinking place. Also from the river
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  Speaker 1: came a great grunting of rhinoceroses. In the morning, after
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  Speaker 1: having had our sleep, we crept back to the fire.
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  Speaker 1: It was still smoldering, and the firemen were gone. We
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  Speaker 1: made a circle through the forest to make sure, and
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  Speaker 1: then we ran to the fire. I wanted to see
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  Speaker 1: what it was like, and between thumb and finger I
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  Speaker 1: picked up a glowing coal. My cry of pain and
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  Speaker 1: fear as I dropped it stampeded LaPier into the trees,
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  Speaker 1: and his flight brightening after him. The next time we
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  Speaker 1: came back more cautiously, and we avoided the glowing coals.
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  Speaker 1: We fell to imitating the fire men. We squatted down
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  Speaker 1: by the fire, and with heads bent forward on our knees,
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  Speaker 1: made believe to sleep. Then we mimicked their speech, talking
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  Speaker 1: to each other in their fashion and making a great gibberish.
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  Speaker 1: I remembered seeing the wizened old hunter poke the fire
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  Speaker 1: with a stick. I poked the fire with a stick,
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  Speaker 1: turning up masses of live coals and clouds of white ashes.
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  Speaker 1: This was great sport, and soon we were coated white
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  Speaker 1: with the ashes. It was inevitable that we should imitate
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  Speaker 1: the firemen in replenishing the fire. We tried it first
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  Speaker 1: with small pieces of wood. It was a success. The
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  Speaker 1: wood flamed up and crackled, and we danced and gibbered
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  Speaker 1: with delight. Then we began to throw on larger pieces
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  Speaker 1: of wood. We put on more and more, until we
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  Speaker 1: had a mighty fire. We dashed excitedly back and forth,
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  Speaker 1: dragging dead limbs and branches from out the forest. The
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  Speaker 1: flames soared higher and higher, and the smoke column out
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  Speaker 1: towered the trees. There was a tremendous snapping and crackling
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  Speaker 1: and roaring. It was the most monumental work we had
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  Speaker 1: ever affected with our hands, and we were proud of it.
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  Speaker 1: We too were firemen, we thought, as we danced. There
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  Speaker 1: white gnomes in the conflagration. The dried grass and underbrush
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  Speaker 1: caught fire, but we did not notice it. Suddenly, a
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  Speaker 1: great tree on the edge of the open space burst
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  Speaker 1: into flames. We looked at it with startled eyes. The
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  Speaker 1: heat of it drove us back. Another tree caught, and another,
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  Speaker 1: and then half a dozen. We were frightened. The monster
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  Speaker 1: had broken loose. We crouched down in fear, while the
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  Speaker 1: fire ate around the circle and hemmed us in. Into
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  Speaker 1: Lafir's eyes came the plaintive look that always accompanied incomprehension,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and I knew that in my eyes must have been
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the same look. We huddled with our arms around each
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: other until the heat began to reach us and the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: odor of burning hair was in our nostrils. Then we
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: made a dash of it and fled away westward through
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the forest, looking back and laughing as we ran. By
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the middle of the day we came to a neck
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of land, made, as we afterward discovered by a great
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: curve of the river that almost completed a circle. Right
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: across the neck lay bunched several low and partly wooded hills.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Over these we climbed, looking backward at the forest, which
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: had become a sea of flame that swept eastward before
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: a rising wind. We continued to the west, following the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: river bank, and before we knew it, we were in
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the midst of the abiding Place of the fire people.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: This abiding place was a splendid strategic selection. It was
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a peninsula protected on three sides by the curving river.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: On only one side was it accessible by land. This
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: was the narrow neck of the peninsula, and here the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: several low hills were a natural obstacle, practically isolated from
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world. The fire people must have
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: here lived and prospered for a long time. In fact,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I think that it was their prosperity that was responsible
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: for the subsequent migration that worked such calamity upon the folk.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: The fire people must have increased in numbers until they
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: pressed uncomfortably against the bounds of their habitat. They were expanding,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and in the course of their expanding they drove the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: folk before them and settled down themselves in the caves
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: and occupied territory that we had occupied. But Lopier and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I little dreamed of all this. When we found ourselves
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: in the fire people's stronghold. We had but one idea,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and that was to get away, though we could not
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: forbear humoring our curiosity. By peeping out upon the village
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: for the first time, we saw the women and children
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of the fire people. The latter ran for the most
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: part naked, though the former were skins of wild animals.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: The fire people, like ourselves, lived in caves. The open
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: space in front of the caves sloped down to the river,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and in the open space burned many spires. But whether
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: or not the fire people cooked their food, I do
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: not know. Lopier and I did not see them cook,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: yet it is my opinion that they surely must have
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: performed some sort of rude cookery like us. They carried
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: water in gorge from the river. There was much coming
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and going, and loud cries made by the women and children.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: The latter played about and cut up antics quite in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the same way as did the children of the folk,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and they more nearly resembled the children of the folk
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: than did the grown fire people resemble the grown folk.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: LaPier and I did not linger long. We saw some
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: of the part grown boys shooting with bow and arrow,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and we sneaked back into the thicker forest and made
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: our way to the river. And there we found a catamaran,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: a real catamaran, one evidently made by some fireman. The
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: two logs were small and straight, and were lashed together
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: by means of tough fruits and cross pieces of wood.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: This time the idea occurred simultaneously to us. We were
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: trying to escape out of the fire people's territory. What
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: better way than by crossing the river on these logs,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: we climbed on board and shoved off. A sudden something
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: gripped the catamaran and flung it down stream violently against
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the bank. The abrupt stoppage almost whipped us off into
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the water. The catamaran was tied to a tree by
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a rope of twisted roots. This we untied before shoving
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: off again. By the time we had paddled well out
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: into the current, we had dripped so far down stream
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: that we were in full view of the fire people's
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: abiding place. So occupied were we with our paddling, our
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: eyes fixed upon the other bank, that we knew nothing
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: until aroused by a yell from the shore. We looked round.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: There were the fire people, many of them looking at
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: us and pointing at us, and more were crawling out
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of the caves. We sat up to watch and forgot
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: all about. There was a great hullabaloo on the shore.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Some of the firemen discharged their bows at us, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a few of the arrows fell near us, but the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: range was too great. It was a great day for
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: LaPier and me. To the east, the conflagration we had
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: started was filling half the sky with smoke and here
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: we were perfectly safe, in the middle of the river,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: encircling the fire people's stronghold. We sat and laughed at
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: them as we dashed by, swinging south and southeast, to east,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and even to northeast, and then east again, southeast and south,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and on around to the west, a great double curve
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: where the river nearly tied a knot in itself. As
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: we swept on to the west the fire people far behind,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a familiar scene flashed upon our eyes. It was the
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: drinking place where we had wandered once or twice to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: watch the circus of the animals when they came down
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to drink. Beyond it, we knew was the carrot patch,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and beyond that the caves and the abiding place of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the whar. We began to paddle for the bank that
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: slid swiftly passed, and before we knew it, we were
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: down upon the drinking places used by the Horde. There
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: were the women and children, the water carriers, a number
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of them filling their gourds. At sight of us, they
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: stampeded madly up the runways, leaving behind them a trail
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of gourds they had dropped. We landed, and of course
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: we neglected to tie up the catamaran, which floated off
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: down the river. Right cautiously we crept up a runway.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: The folk had all disappeared into their holes, though here
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and there we could see a face peering out at us.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: There was no sign of Red Eye. We were home again,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and that night we slept in our own little cave
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: high up on the cliff, though first we had to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: evict a couple of pugnacious youngsters who had taken possession.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: End of chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen. The months came and went.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: The drama and tragedy of the future were yet to
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: come upon the stage, and in the meantime we pounded
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: nuts and lived. It was a good year I remember
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: for nuts. We used to fill gorge with nuts and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: carry them to the pounding places. We placed them in
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: depressions in the rock, and with a piece of rock
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: in our hands, we cracked them and ate them as
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: we cracked. It was the fall of the year when
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Lopier and I returned from our long adventure journey, and
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the winter that followed was mild. I made frequent trips
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to the neighborhood of my old home Tree, and frequently
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I searched the whole territory that lay between the Blueberry
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Swamp and the mouth of the slough, where Lopier and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I had learned navigation. But no clue could I get
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of the swift one. She had disappeared, and I wanted her.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I was impelled by that hunger which I have mentioned,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and which was akin to physical hunger. Albeit it came
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: often upon me when my stomach was full, but all
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: my search was in vain. Life was not monotonous at
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the caves, however, there was Red Eye to be considered.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Lopier and I never knew a moment's peace, except when
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: we were in our own little cave. In spite of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the enlargement of the entrance we had made, it was
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: still a tight squeeze for us to get in, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: though from time to time we continued to enlarge, it
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: was still too small for Red eyes monstrous body. But
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: he never stormed our cave again. He had learned the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lesson well, and he carried on his neck a bulging
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: lump to show where I had hit him with the rock.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: This lump never went away, and it was prominent enough
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to be seen at a distance. I often took great
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: delight in watching that evidence of my handiwork, and sometimes,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: when I was myself assuredly safe, the sight of it
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: caused me to laugh. While the other folk would not
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: have come to our rescue had Red Eye proceeded to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: tear Lopier and Me to pieces before their eyes. Nevertheless,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: they sympathized with us. Possibly it was not sympathy but
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the way they expressed their hatred for Red Eye. At
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: any rate, they always warned us of his approach, whether
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in the forest, at the drinking places, or in the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: open space before the caves, they were always quick to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: warn us. Thus we had the advantage of many eyes
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: in our feud with Red Eye the Atavism. Once he
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: nearly got me, it was early in the morning and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the folk were not yet up. The surprise was complete.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I was cut off from the way up the cliff
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to my cave. Before I knew it, I had dashed
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: into the Double Cave, the cave where lop Ear had
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: first eluded me long years before, and where Old Sabretooth
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: had come to discomfiture when he pursued the two folk.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: By the time I had got through the connecting passage
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: between the two caves, I discovered that red Eye was
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: not following me. The next moment he charged into the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: cave from the outside. I slipped back through the passage,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and he charged out and around and in upon me again.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I merely repeated my performance as slipping through the passage.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: He kept me there half a day before he gave up.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: After that, when Loppier and I were reasonably sure of
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: gaining the double cave, we did not retreat up the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: cliff to our own cave. When red Eye came upon
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the scene. All we did was to keep an eye
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: on him and see that he did not cut across
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: our line of retreat. It was during this winter that
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: red Eye killed his latest wife with abuse and repeated beatings.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I have called him anatomism, but in this he was
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: worse than an ativism. For the males of the lower
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: animals do not maltreat and murder their mates. In this
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I take it that red Eye, in spite of his
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: tremendous atavistic tendencies, foreshadowed the coming of man. For it
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: is the males of the human species only that murder
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: their mates. As was to be expected. With the doing
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: away of one wife, red Eye proceeded to get another.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: He decided upon the Singing One. She was the granddaughter
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: of Old marrow Bone, and the daughter of the Hairless One.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: She was a young thing greatly given to singing at
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the mouth of her cave in the twilight, and she
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: had but recently made it with Crooked Leg. He was
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: a quiet individual, molesting no one, and not given to
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: bickering with his fellows. He was no fighter anyway. He
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was small and lean, and not so active on his
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: legs as the rest of us. Red Eye never committed
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a more outrageous deed. It was in the quiet at
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, when we began to congregate
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: in the open space before climbing into our caves. Suddenly
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the Singing One dashed up a runway from a drinking place.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Pursued by Red Eye. She ran to her husband. Poor
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: little Crooked Leg was terribly scared, but he was a hero.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: He knew that death was upon him, yet he did
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: not run away. He stood up and chattered, bristled, and
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: showed his teeth. Red Eye roared with rage. It was
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: an offense to him that any of the folk should
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: dare to withstand him. His hand shot out and clutched.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Crooked leg by the neck. The latter sank his teeth
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: into Red Eye's arm, but the next moment, with a
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: broken neck, crooked leg was floundering and squirming on the ground,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the singing One screeched and gibbered. Red Eye seized her
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: by the hair of her head and dragged her towards
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: his cave. He handled her roughly when the climb began,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and he dragged and hauled her up into the cave.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: We were very angry, insanely vociferously angry, beating our chests
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: bristly and gnashing our teeth. We gathered together in our rage.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: We felt the proud of Gregaria's instinct, the drawing together
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: as though for united action, the impulse toward cooperation. In
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: dim ways, this need for united action was impressed upon us,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: but there was no way to achieve it, because there
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: was no way to express it. We did not turn
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: too all of us and destroy Red Eye because we
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: lacked a vocabulary. We were vaguely thinking thoughts for which
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: there were no thought symbols. These thought symbols were yet
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to be slowly and painfully invented. We tried to freight
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: sound with the vague thoughts that flitted like shadows through
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: a consciousness. The hairless one began to chatter loudly while
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: his noises he expressed anger against red eye and desired
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to hurt Red eye. Thus far he got, and thus
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: far we understood. But when he tried to express the
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: cooperative impulse that stirred within him, his noises became gibberish.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Then big Face, with brow bristling and chest pounding, began
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to chatter. One after another of us joined in the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: orgy of rage, until even old Marrowbone was mumbling and
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: spluttering with his cracked voice and withered lips. Someone seized
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: a stick and began pounding a log. In a moment,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: he had struck a rhythm. Unconsciously, our yells and exclamations
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: yielded to this rhythm. It had a soothing of us,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and before we knew it, our rage forgotten. We were
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: in the full swing of a he he council. These
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: he he councils splendidly illustrate the inconsecutiveness and inconsequentiality of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the folk. Here we were drawn together by mutual rage,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and the impulse toward cooperation led off into forgetfulness by
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the establishment of a rude rhythm. We were sociable and gregarious,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: and these singing and laughing councils satisfied us in ways.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: The he He Council was an admiration of the councils
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: of primitive man, and of the great national assemblies and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: international conventions of latter day man. But we folk of
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the younger world lack speech, and whenever we were so
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: drawn together, we precipitated babble, out of which arose a
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: unanimity of rhythm that contained within itself the essentials of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: art yet to come. It was art Nasson. There was
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: nothing long continued about these rhythms that we struck. A
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: rhythm was soon lost, and pandemonium reigned until we could
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: find the rhythm again or start a new one. Sometimes
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: half a dozen rhythms would be swinging simultaneously, each rhythm
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: backed by a group that strove ardently to drown out
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the other rhythms. In the intervals of pandemonium, each chattered,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: cut up, poot it, screeched, and danced himself sufficient unto himself,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: filled with his own ideas and volitions, to the exclusion
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of all others, a veritable center of the universe divorced
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: for the time being from any unanimity, with the other
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: universe centers leaping and yelling around him. Then would come
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the rhythm, a clapping of the hands, the beating of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a stick upon a log, the example of one that
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: leaped with repetitions, or the chanting of one that uttered
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: explosively and regularly, with inflection that rose and fell a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: bang a bang, a bang a bang. One after another
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: of the self centered folk would yield to it, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: soon all would be dancing or chatting in chorus. Ha
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: ha ha ha ha ha was one of our favorite choruses,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and another was e wah e wah e wa ha.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: And so, with matt antics, leaping, reeling and overbalancing, we
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: danced and sang in the somber twilight of the primeval world,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: inducing forgetfulness, achieving unanimity, and working ourselves up into sensuous frenzy.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And so it was that our rage against Red Eye
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: was soothed away by art, and we screamed the wild
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: choruses of the he He Council until the night warned
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: us of its terrors, and we crept away to our
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: holes in the rocks, calling softly to one another while
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the stars came out and darkness settled down. We were
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: only afraid of the dark. We had no germs of religion,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: no conceptions of an unseen world. We knew only the
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: real world and the things we feared. With the real things,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the concrete dangers, the flesh and blood animals that prayed.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: It was they that made us afraid of the dark,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: For darkness was the time of the hunting animals. It
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: was then that they came out of their lairs and
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: pounced upon one from the dark, wherein they lurked invisible.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Possibly it was out of this fear of the real
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: denizens of the dark that the fear of the unreal
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: denizens was later to develop and to culminate in a
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: whole and mighty unseen world. As imagination grew, it is
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: likely that the fear of death increased until the folk
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that were to come projected this fear into the dark
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and peopled it with spirits. I think the fire people
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: had already begun to be afraid of the dark in
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: this fashion. But the reasons we folk had for breaking
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: up our he he councils and fleeing to our holes
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: were old saber tooth The lions and the jackals, the
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: wild dogs in the wolves, and all the hungry meat
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: eating breeds. End of Chapter fourteen. Recording by Tom Weiss
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Tom's Audio Books dot com SA