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04 - Before Adam by Jack London · Before Adam

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine 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 nine. Red Eye was a nativism.
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  Speaker 1: He was the great discordant element in our hoard. He
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  Speaker 1: was more primitive than any of us. He did not
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  Speaker 1: belong with us. Yet we were still so primitive ourselves
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  Speaker 1: that we were incapable of a cooperative effort strong enough
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  Speaker 1: to kill him or cast him out. Rude as was
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  Speaker 1: our social organization, he was nevertheless too rude to live
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  Speaker 1: in it. He tended always to destroy the hoard by
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  Speaker 1: his unsocial acts. He was really a reversion to an
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  Speaker 1: earlier type, and his place was with the tree people
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  Speaker 1: rather than with us, who were in the process of
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  Speaker 1: becoming men. He was a monster of cruelty, which is
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  Speaker 1: saying a great deal in that day. He beat his wives,
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  Speaker 1: not that he ever had more than one wife at
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  Speaker 1: a time, but that he was married many times. It
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  Speaker 1: was impossible for any woman to live with him, and
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  Speaker 1: yet they did live with him out of compulsion. There
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  Speaker 1: was no gainsaying him. No man was strong enough to
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  Speaker 1: stand against him. Often do I have visions of the
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  Speaker 1: quiet hour before the twilight from drinking place in carrot
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  Speaker 1: Patch and berry Swamp. The folk are trooping into the
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  Speaker 1: open space before the caves. They dare linger no later
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  Speaker 1: than this, for the dreadful darkness is approaching, in which
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  Speaker 1: the world is given over to the carnage of the
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  Speaker 1: hunting animals. While the forerunners of man hide tremblingly in
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  Speaker 1: their holes. There yet remained to us a few minutes
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  Speaker 1: before we climb to our caves. We are tired from
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  Speaker 1: the play of the day, and the sounds we make
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  Speaker 1: are subdued. Even the cubs, still greedy for fun and antics,
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  Speaker 1: play with restraint. The wind from the sea has died down,
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  Speaker 1: and the shadows were lengthening with the last of the
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  Speaker 1: sun's descent. And then suddenly from Red Eye's cave breaks
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  Speaker 1: a wild screaming and the sound of blows. He is
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  Speaker 1: beating his wife. At first, an odd silence comes upon us,
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  Speaker 1: but as the blows and screams continue, we break out
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  Speaker 1: into an insane gibbering of helpless rage. It is plain
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  Speaker 1: that the men resent Red Eye's actions, but they are
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  Speaker 1: too afraid of him. The blows cease, and a low
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  Speaker 1: groaning dies away, while we chatter among ourselves, and the
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  Speaker 1: sad twilight creeps upon us. We to whom most happenings
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  Speaker 1: were jokes, never laughed during Red Eye's wife beatings. We
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  Speaker 1: knew too well the tragedy of them. On more than
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  Speaker 1: one morning, at the base of the cliff did we
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  Speaker 1: find the body of his latest wife. He had tossed
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  Speaker 1: her there after she had died from his cave mouth.
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  Speaker 1: He never buried his dead. The task of carrying away
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  Speaker 1: the bodies that else would have polluted our abiding place
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  Speaker 1: he left to the Horde. We usually flung them into
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  Speaker 1: the river below the last drinking place. Not alone did
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  Speaker 1: red Eye murder his wives, but he also murdered for
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  Speaker 1: his wives in order to get them. When he wanted
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  Speaker 1: a new wife and selected the wife of another man,
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  Speaker 1: he promptly killed that man. Two of these murders I
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  Speaker 1: saw myself. The whole Horde knew, but could do nothing.
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  Speaker 1: We had not yet developed any government to speak of.
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  Speaker 1: Inside the Horde, we had certain customs and visited our
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  Speaker 1: wrath upon the unlucky ones who violated those customs. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: for example, the individual who defiled the drinking place would
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  Speaker 1: be attacked by every onlooker, while one who deliberately gave
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  Speaker 1: a false alarm was the recipient of much rough usage
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  Speaker 1: at our hands. But Red Eye walked roughshod over all
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  Speaker 1: our customs, and we so feared him that we were
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  Speaker 1: incapable of the collective action necessary to punish him. It
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  Speaker 1: was during the sixth winter in our cave that Lopier
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  Speaker 1: and I discus that we were really growing up. From
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  Speaker 1: the first it had been squeeze to get in through
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  Speaker 1: the entrance crevice. This had had its advantages, however, it
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  Speaker 1: had prevented the larger folk from taking our cave away
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  Speaker 1: from us, and it was the most desirable cave, the
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  Speaker 1: highest on the bluff, the safest, and in winter the
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  Speaker 1: smallest and warmest. To show the stage of the mental
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  Speaker 1: development of the folk, I may state that it would
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  Speaker 1: have been a simple thing for some of them to
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  Speaker 1: have driven us out and enlarged the crevice opening, but
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  Speaker 1: they never thought of it. Loppier and I did not
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  Speaker 1: think of it either, until our increasing size compelled us
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  Speaker 1: to make an enlargement. This occurred when summer was well
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  Speaker 1: along and we were fat with better forage. We worked
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  Speaker 1: at the crevice and spells when the fancy struck us
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  Speaker 1: at first, we dug the crumbling rocks away with our
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  Speaker 1: fingers until our nails got sore. When I accidentally stumbled
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  Speaker 1: upon the idea of using a piece of wood on
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  Speaker 1: the rock. This worked well. Also it worked woe. One
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  Speaker 1: morning early we had scratched out of the wall quite
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  Speaker 1: a heap of fragments. I gave the heap a shove
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  Speaker 1: over the lip of the entrance. The next moment there
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  Speaker 1: came up from below a howl of rage. There was
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  Speaker 1: no need to look. We knew the voice only too well.
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  Speaker 1: The rubbish had descended upon red eye. We crouched down
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  Speaker 1: in the cave in consternation. A minute later he was
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  Speaker 1: at the entrance, hearing it at us, with his inflamed
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  Speaker 1: eyes and raging like a demon. But he was too large,
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  Speaker 1: he could not get into us. Suddenly he went away.
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  Speaker 1: This was suspicious by all we knew of folk nature.
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  Speaker 1: He should have remained and had out his rage. I
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  Speaker 1: crept to the entrance and peeped down. I could see
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  Speaker 1: him just beginning to melt the bluff again. In one
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  Speaker 1: hand he carried a long stick. Before I could divine
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  Speaker 1: his plan, he was back at the entrance and savagely
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  Speaker 1: jabbing the stick in at us. His thrust were prodigiou
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  Speaker 1: they could have disemboweled us. We shrank back against the
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  Speaker 1: side walls, where we were almost out of range. But
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  Speaker 1: by industrious poking he got us now and again cruel
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  Speaker 1: scraping jabs with the end of the stick that raked
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  Speaker 1: off the hide and hair. When we screamed with the hurt,
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  Speaker 1: he roared his satisfaction a jab the harder. I began
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  Speaker 1: to grow angry. I had a temper of my own
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  Speaker 1: in those days, and pretty considerable courage too, oubit it
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  Speaker 1: was largely the courage at the cornered rat. I caught
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  Speaker 1: hold of the stick with my hands, with such was
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  Speaker 1: his strength that he jerked me into the crevice. He
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  Speaker 1: reached for me with his long arm, and his nails
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  Speaker 1: tore my flesh. As they leaped back from the clutch
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  Speaker 1: and gained the comparative safety of the sidewalk. He began
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  Speaker 1: poking again and caught me a painful blow in the shoulder.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond shivering with fright and yelling when he was hit,
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  Speaker 1: Loppier did nothing. I looked for a stick with which
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  Speaker 1: the jab back, but found only the end of a
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  Speaker 1: branch an inch through and a foot long. I threw
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  Speaker 1: this at Red Eye. It did no damage, though he
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  Speaker 1: howled with a sudden increase of rage at my daring
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  Speaker 1: to strike back, he began jabbing furiously. I found a
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  Speaker 1: fragment of rock and threw it at him, striking him
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  Speaker 1: on the chest. This emboldened me, and besides, I was
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  Speaker 1: now as angry as he and had lost all fear.
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  Speaker 1: I ripped fragment of rock from the wall. The piece
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  Speaker 1: must have weighed two or three pounds. With my strength,
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  Speaker 1: I slammed it full into Red Eye's face. It nearly
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  Speaker 1: finished him. He staggered backward, dropping his stick, and almost
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  Speaker 1: fell off the cliff. He was a ferocious sight. His
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  Speaker 1: face was covered with blood, and he was starling and
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  Speaker 1: gnashing his fangs like a wild boar. He wiped the
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  Speaker 1: blood from his eyes, caught sight of me, and roared
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  Speaker 1: with fury. His stick was gone, so he began ripping
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  Speaker 1: out chunks of trumbling rock and throwing them in at me.
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  Speaker 1: This supplied me with ammunition. I gave him as good
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  Speaker 1: as he sent, and better, for he presented a good target.
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  Speaker 1: While he caught only glimpses of me. As I snuggled
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  Speaker 1: against the side wall. Suddenly he disappeared again from the
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  Speaker 1: lip of the cave. I saw him descending. All the
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  Speaker 1: horde had gathered outside, and in awed silence, was looking on.
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  Speaker 1: As he descended. The more timid ones scurried for their caves.
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  Speaker 1: I could see Old Marrowbone tottering along as fast as
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  Speaker 1: he could. Red Eye sprang out from the wall and
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  Speaker 1: finished the last twenty feet through the air. He landed
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  Speaker 1: alongside a mother who was just beginning the ascent. She
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  Speaker 1: screamed with fear, and the two year old child that
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  Speaker 1: was clinging to her released its grip and rolled at
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  Speaker 1: Red Eye's feet. Both he and the mother reached for it,
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  Speaker 1: and he got it. The next moment, the frail little
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  Speaker 1: body had whirled through the air and shattered against the wall.
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  Speaker 1: The mother ran to it, caught it up in her arms,
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  Speaker 1: and crouched over it, crying. Red Eye started over to
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  Speaker 1: pick up the stick Old Marrowbone had tottered into his way.
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  Speaker 1: Red Eye's great hands shot out and clutched the old
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  Speaker 1: man by the back of the neck. I looked to
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  Speaker 1: see his neck broken. His body went lip As he
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  Speaker 1: surrendered himself to his fate. Red Eye hesitated a moment,
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  Speaker 1: and Marrowbone, shivering terribly, bowed his head and covered his
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  Speaker 1: face with his crossed arms. Then Red Eye slammed him
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  Speaker 1: face downward to the ground. Old Marrowbone did not struggle.
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  Speaker 1: He lay there, crying with the fear of death. I
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  Speaker 1: saw the hairless one out in the open space, beating
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  Speaker 1: his chest and bristling, but afraid to come forward. And then,
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  Speaker 1: in obedience to some whim of his erratic spirit, Red
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  Speaker 1: Eye let the old man alone and passed on and
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  Speaker 1: recovered the stick. He returned to the wall and began
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  Speaker 1: to climb up. Lop Ear, who was shivering and peeping
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  Speaker 1: alongside of me, scrambled back into the cave. It was
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  Speaker 1: plain that Red Eye was bent upon murder. I was
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  Speaker 1: desperate and angry, and fairly cool. Running back and forth
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  Speaker 1: along the neighbor ledges, I gathered a heap of rocks
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  Speaker 1: at the cave entrance. Red Eye was now several yards
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  Speaker 1: beneath me, concealed for the moment by an output of
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  Speaker 1: the cliff. As he climbed, his head came into view,
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  Speaker 1: and I banged a rock down. It missed, striking the
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  Speaker 1: wall and shattering, but the flying dust and grit filled
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  Speaker 1: his eyes, and he drew back out of view. A
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  Speaker 1: chuckling and chattering arose from the horde that played the
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  Speaker 1: part of audience. At last, there was one of the
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  Speaker 1: folk who dared to face Red Eye. As their approval
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  Speaker 1: and acclamation arose on the air, Red Eye snarled down
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  Speaker 1: at them, and on the instant they were subdued to silence.
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  Speaker 1: Encouraged by this evidence of his power, he thrust his
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  Speaker 1: head into view, and by scowling and snarling and gnashing
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  Speaker 1: his fangs, tried to intimidate me. He scowled horribly, contracting
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  Speaker 1: the scalp strongly over the brows and bringing the hair
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  Speaker 1: down from the top of the head until each hare
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  Speaker 1: stood apart and pointed straight forward. The sight chilled me,
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  Speaker 1: but I mastered my fear, and with a stone poised
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  Speaker 1: in my hand, threatened him back. He still tried to advance.
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  Speaker 1: I drove the stone down at him and made a
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  Speaker 1: sheer miss. The next shot was a success. The stone
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  Speaker 1: struck him on the neck. He slipped back out of sight,
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  Speaker 1: but as he disappeared I could see him clutching for
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  Speaker 1: a grip on the wall with one hand and with
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  Speaker 1: the other clutching at his throat. The stick fell clattering
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  Speaker 1: to the ground. I could not see him any more,
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  Speaker 1: though I could hear him choking and strangling and coughing.
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  Speaker 1: The audience kept a death like silence. I crouched on
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  Speaker 1: the lip of the entrance and waited. The strangling and
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  Speaker 1: coughing died down, and I could hear him now and
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  Speaker 1: again clearing his throat. A little later he began to
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  Speaker 1: climb down. He went very quietly, pausing every moment or
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  Speaker 1: so to stretch his neck or to feel it with
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  Speaker 1: his hand. At the sight of him descending, the whole
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  Speaker 1: horde with wild screams and yells stampeded for the woods.
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  Speaker 1: Old marrow bone hobbling and tottering followed behind. Red Eye
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  Speaker 1: took no notice of the flight. When he reached the ground,
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  Speaker 1: he skirt at the base of the bluff and climbed
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  Speaker 1: up and into his own cave. He did not look around.
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  Speaker 1: Once I stared at Lopier, and he stared back. We
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  Speaker 1: understood each other immediately, and with great caution and quietness,
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  Speaker 1: we began climbing up the cliff. When we reached the top,
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  Speaker 1: we looked back. The abiding place was deserted. Red Eye
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  Speaker 1: remained in his cave, and the Horde had disappeared in
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  Speaker 1: the depths of the forest. We turned and ran. We
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  Speaker 1: dashed across the open spaces and down the slopes, unmindful
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  Speaker 1: of possible snakes in the grass, until we reached the woods.
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  Speaker 1: Up into the trees, we went, and on and on,
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  Speaker 1: swinging our arboreal flight, until we had put miles between
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  Speaker 1: us and the caves. And then, and not till then,
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  Speaker 1: in the security of a great fork, we paused, looking
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  Speaker 1: at each other, and began to laugh. We held onto
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  Speaker 1: each other arms and legs, our eyes streaming tears, our
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  Speaker 1: sides aching, and laughed and laughed and laughed. End of
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  Speaker 1: chapter nine, Chapter ten. After we had had out our laugh,
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  Speaker 1: Loppier and I curved back in our flight and got
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  Speaker 1: breakfast in the Blueberry swamp. It was the same swamp
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  Speaker 1: to which I had made my first journeys in the
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  Speaker 1: world years before, accompanied by my mother. I had seen
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  Speaker 1: little of her in the intervening time, usually when she
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  Speaker 1: visited the Horde at the caves. I was away in
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  Speaker 1: the forest. I had once or twice caught glimpses of
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  Speaker 1: the chatterer in the open space, and had had the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure of making faces at him and angering him from
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  Speaker 1: the mouth of my cave. Beyond such amenities, I had
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  Speaker 1: left my family severely alone. I was not much interested
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  Speaker 1: in it, and anyway, I was doing very well by myself.
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  Speaker 1: After eating our fill of berries and two nestfules of
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  Speaker 1: partly hatched quail eggs for dessert, Lopier and I wondered
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  Speaker 1: circumspectfully into the woods toward the river. Here was where
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  Speaker 1: stood my old tree home, out of which I had
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  Speaker 1: been thrown by the chatterer. It was still occupied. There
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  Speaker 1: had been increase in the family. Clinging tight to my
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  Speaker 1: mother was a little baby. Also there was a girl
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  Speaker 1: partly grown, who cautiously regarded us from one of the
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  Speaker 1: lower branches. She was evidently my sister, or half sister rather.
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  Speaker 1: My mother recognized me, but she warned me awake. When
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  Speaker 1: I started to climb into the tree. LaPier, who was
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  Speaker 1: more cautious by far than I, beat a retreat, nor
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  Speaker 1: could I persuade him to return. Later in the day, however,
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  Speaker 1: my sister came down to the ground, and there, and
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  Speaker 1: in neighboring trees, we ropped and played all afternoon, and
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  Speaker 1: then came trouble. She was my sister but that did
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  Speaker 1: not prevent her from treating me abominably, for she had
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  Speaker 1: inherited all the viciousness of the chatterer. She turned upon
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  Speaker 1: me suddenly in a petty rage, and scratched me, tore
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  Speaker 1: my hair, and sank her sharp little teeth deep into
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  Speaker 1: my forearm. I lost my temper. I did not injure her,
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  Speaker 1: but it was undoubtedly the soundest spanking she had received
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  Speaker 1: up to that time. How she yelled and squalled. The chatterer,
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  Speaker 1: who had been away all day and who was only
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  Speaker 1: then returning, heard the noise and rushed for the spot.
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  Speaker 1: My mother also rushed, but he got there first. Lopier
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  Speaker 1: and I did not wait his coming. We were off
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  Speaker 1: and away, and the chatterer gave us the chase of
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  Speaker 1: our lives through the trees. After the chase was over,
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  Speaker 1: and Lopier and I had had our laugh, we discovered
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  Speaker 1: that twilight was falling. Here was night with all its
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  Speaker 1: terrors upon us, and to return to the caves was
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  Speaker 1: out of the question. Red eye made that impossible. We
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  Speaker 1: took refuge in a tree that stood apart from other trees,
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  Speaker 1: and high up in a fork. We passed through night.
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  Speaker 1: It was a miserable night. For the first few hours
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  Speaker 1: it rained heavily. Then it turned cold, and a chill
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  Speaker 1: wind blew upon us. Soaked through with shivering bodies and
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  Speaker 1: chattering teeth, we huddled in each other's arms. We missed
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  Speaker 1: the snug, dry cave that so quickly warmed with the
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  Speaker 1: heat of our bodies. Morning found us wretched and resolved
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  Speaker 1: we would not spend another such night. Remembering the tree
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  Speaker 1: shoulders of our elders, we set to work to make
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  Speaker 1: one for ourselves. We built the framework of a rough nest,
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  Speaker 1: and on higher force overhead even got in several ridge
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  Speaker 1: poles for the roof. Then the sun came out, and
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  Speaker 1: under its benign influence we forgot the hardships of the
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  Speaker 1: night and went off in search of breakfast. After that,
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  Speaker 1: to show the inconsequentiality of life in those days, we
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  Speaker 1: fell to plane. It must have taken us all of
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  Speaker 1: a month, working intermittently to make our treehouse, and when
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  Speaker 1: it was completed we never used it again. But I
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  Speaker 1: run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing
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  Speaker 1: after breakfast on the second day, away from the caves,
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  Speaker 1: Lopier led me a chase through the trees and down
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  Speaker 1: to the river. We came out upon it, where a
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  Speaker 1: large slough entered from the Blueberry Swamp. The mouth of
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  Speaker 1: this slough was wide, while the slough itself was practically
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  Speaker 1: without a current in the dead water. Just inside its
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  Speaker 1: mouth lay a tangled mass of tree trunks. Some of these,
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  Speaker 1: what of the wear and tear of freshettes and of
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  Speaker 1: being stranded long summers on sand bars, were seasoned and
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  Speaker 1: dry and without branches. They floated high in the water
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  Speaker 1: and bobbed up and down, or rolled over when we
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  Speaker 1: put our weight upon them. Here and there between the
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  Speaker 1: trunks were water cracks, and through them we could see
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  Speaker 1: schools a small fish like minnows, darting back and forth.
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  Speaker 1: Lopier and I became fishermen at once, lying flat on
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  Speaker 1: the logs, keeping perfectly quiet, waiting till the minnows came close.
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  Speaker 1: We would make swift passes with our hands our prizes.
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  Speaker 1: We ate on the spot, wriggling and moist. We did
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  Speaker 1: not notice the lack of salt. The mouth of the
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  Speaker 1: slough became our favorite playground. Here we spent many hours
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  Speaker 1: each day catching fish and playing on the logs, And
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  Speaker 1: here one day we learned our first lessons in navigation.
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  Speaker 1: The log on which Lopier was lying got adrift. He
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  Speaker 1: was curled up on his side asleep. A light fan
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  Speaker 1: of air slowly drifted the log away from the shore,
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  Speaker 1: and when I noticed his predicament, the distance was already
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  Speaker 1: too great for him to leap. At first, the episode
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  Speaker 1: seemed merely funny to me, But when one of the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: vagrant impulses of fear common in that age of perpetual insecurity,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: moved within me, I was struck with my own loneliness.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I was made suddenly aware of Lapier's remoteness out there
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: on that alien element a few feet away. I called
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: loudly to him, a warning cry. He awoke, frightened, and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: shifted his weight rashly on the log. It turned over,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: sousing him under three times. Again. It soused him under
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: as he tried to climb out upon it. Then he succeeded,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: crouching upon it and chattering with fear. I could do nothing,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: nor could he. Swimming was something of which we knew nothing.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: We were already too far removed from the lower life
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: forms to have the instinct for swimming, and we had
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: not yet become sufficiently manlike to undertake it. As the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: working out of a problem. I roamed disconsolately up and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: down the bank, keeping as close to him and as
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: involuntary travels as I could, while he wailed and cried,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: till it was a wonder that he did not bring
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: down upon us every hunting animal within a mile. The
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: hours passed, the sun climbed overhead and began its descent
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to the west. The light wind died down and left
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Lopier on his logs, floating around one hundred feet away.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And then, somehow, I know not how, Lopier made the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: great discovery. He began paddling with his hands. At first,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: his progress was slow and erratic. Then he straightened out
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and began laboriously to paddle nearer and nearer. I could
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: not understand. I sat down and watched and waited until
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: he gained the shore. But he had learned something which
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: was more than I had done. Later in the afternoon,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: he deliberately launched out from shore in the log. Still
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: later he persuaded me to join him, and I too
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: learned the trick of paddling. For the next several days
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we could not tear ourselves away from the slough, so
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: absorbed were we in our new game that we almost
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: neglected to eat. We even roosted in a nearby tree
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: at night, and we forgot that red eye existed. We
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: were always trying new logs and learned that the smaller
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the log, the faster we could make it go. Also,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: we learned that the smaller the log, the more liable
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it was to roll over and give us a ducking.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Still another thing about small logs we learned. One day
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: we paddle our individual logs alongside each other, and then,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: quite by accident, in the course of play, we discovered
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: that when each with one hand and foot held onto
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the other's log, the logs were steadied and did not
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: turn over. Lying side by side. In this position, our
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: outside hands and feet were left free for paddling. Our
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: final discovery was that this arrangement enabled us to use
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: still smaller logs and thereby gained greater speed. And there
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: our discoveries ended. We had invented the most primitive catamaran,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and we did not have sense enough to know it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It never entered our heads to lash the logs together
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: with tough vines of stringy roots. We were content to
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: hold the logs together with our hands and fee It
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: was not until we got over our first enthusiasm for
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: navigation and had begun to return to our tree shelter
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to sleep at night, that we found the swift one.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I saw her first gathering young acorns from the branches
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: of a large oak near our tree. She was very
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: timid at first, she kept very still, but when she
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: saw that she was discovered, she dropped the ground and
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: dashed wildly away. We caught occasional glimpses of her from
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: day to day, and came to look for her when
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: we traveled back and forth between our tree and the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: mouth of the slough. And then one day she did
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: not run away. She waited our coming and made soft
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: peace sounds. We could not get very near. However, when
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: we seemed to approach too close, she darted suddenly away
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and from a safe distance, uttered the soft sounds again.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: This continued for some days. It took a long while
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to get acquainted with her, and finally it was accomplished,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and she joined us sometimes in our play. I liked
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: her from the first. She was of the most pleasing appearance.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: She was very mild. Her eyes were the mildest I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: had ever seen. In this she was quite Unlike the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: rest of the girls and women of the folk who
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: were born Viragos, she never made harsh, angry cries, and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: it seemed to be her nature to flee away from
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: trouble rather than to remain and fight. The mildness I
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: have mentioned seemed to emanate from her whole being. Her
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: bodily as well as facial appearance, was the cause of this.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Her eyes were larger than most of her kind, and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: they were not so deep set, while the lashes were
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: longer and more regular. Nor was her nose so thick
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and squat. It had quite a bridge, and the nostrils
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: opened downward. Her incisors were not large, nor was her
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: upper lip long and down hanging, nor her lower lip protruding.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: She was not very hairy, except on the outsides of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: arms and life legs and across the shoulders. And while
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: she was thin hipped, her calves were not twisted and gnarly.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I have often wondered looking back upon her from the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: twentieth century through the medium of my dreams, and it
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: has always occurred to me that possibly she may have
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: been related to the fire people. Her father or mother
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: might well have come from that higher stop. While such
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: things were not common. Still they did occur, and I
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: have seen the proof of them with my own eyes,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: even to the extented members of the Horde, turning renegade
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: at going to live with the tree people, all of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: which is neither here nor there. The swift one was
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: radically different from any of the females of the Horde,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and I had a liking for her from the first.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Her mildness and gentleness attracted me. She was never rough,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and she never fought. She always ran away, and right
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: here maybe noted the significance of the naming of her.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: She was a better climber than Loppier or I. When
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: we played tag, we could never catch her except by accident,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: while she could catch us at will. She was remarkably
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: swift in all her movements, and she had a genius
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: for judging distances that was equaled only by her daring.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Excessively timid in all other matters. She was without fear
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: when it came to climbing or running through the trees,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and Lopier and I were awkward and lumbering and cowardly
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: in comparison. She was an orphan. We never saw her
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: with any one, and there was no telling how long
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: she had lived alone in the world. She must have
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: lured early in her helpless childhood that safety lay only
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: in flight. She was very wise and discreet. It became
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a sort of game with Lopier and me to try
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: to find where she lived. It was certain that she
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: had a tree sheltered somewhere and not very far away,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: buttrail her as we would, we could never find it.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: She was willing enough to join with us at play
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: in the daytime, but the secret of her abiding place
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: she guarded jealously. End of Chapter ten, Chapter eleven. It
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: must be remembered that the description I have just given
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of the swift One is not the description that would
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: have been given by Big Tooth, my other self, of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: my dreams, my prehistoric ancestor. It is by the medium
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of my dreams that I, the modern man, look through
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the eyes of Big Tooth and see. And so it
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: is with much that I narrate of the events of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that far off time. There is a duality about my
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: impressions that is too confusing to inflict upon my readers.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I share merely pause here in my narrative to indicate
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: this duality, this perplexing mixing of personality, it is I,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the modern, who look back across the centuries and weigh
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and analyze the emotions and motives of Big Tooth. My
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: other self. He did not bother to weigh and analyze.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: He was simplicity itself. He just lived events without ever
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: pondering why he lived them in his particular and oft
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: an erratic way. As I, my real self, grew older,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I entered more and more into the substance of my dreams.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: One may dream, and even in the midst of the dream,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: be aware that he is dreaming, and if the dream
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: be bad, comfort himself with the thought that it is
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: only a dream. This is a common experience with all
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of us. And so it was that I, the modern,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: often entered into my dreaming, and in the consequent strange
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: dual personality was both actor and spectator, and right often
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: have I, the modern been perturbed and vexed by the foolishness, illogic, obtuseness,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and general all around stupendous stupidity of myself the primitive?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And one more thing before I end this digression, have
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you ever dreamed that you dreamed? Dog's dream, horse's dream,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: all anim dream? In Big Tooth day, the half men dreamed,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and when the dreams were bad, they howled in their sleep.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Now I, the modern have lain down with Big Tooth
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and dreamed his dreams. This is getting almost beyond the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: grip of the intellect, I know, But I do know
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that I have done this thing. And let me tell
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: you that the flying and crawling dreams of Big Tooth
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: were as vivid to him as the falling through space
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: dream is to you. For Big Tooth also had another self,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and when he slept, that other self dreamed back into
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the past, back to the winged reptiles and the clash,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and the oddset of dragons, and beyond that to the scurrying,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: rodent like life of the tiny mammals, and far remoter
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: still to the shore slime of the primegle sea. I cannot,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I dare not say more. It is all too vague
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and complicated and awful. I can only hint of those
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: vast and terrific vistas through which I appeared hazily at
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the progression of life, not upward from the ape to man,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: but upward from the worm. And now to return to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: my tail, I Bigtooth knew not the swift one as
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a creature of piner facial and bodily symmetry, with long
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: lashed eyes and a bridge to her nose and down
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: opening nostrils that made toward beauty. I knew her only
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: as the mild eyed young female who made soft sounds
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and did not fight. I'd like to play with her.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I knew not why to seek food in her company
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and to go bird nesting with her. And I must
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: confess she taught me things about tree climbing. She was
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: very wise, very strong, and no clinging skirts impeded her movements.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: It was about this time that a slight defection arose
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in the part of lop Ear. He got into the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: habit of wandering off in the direction of the tree
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: where my mother lived. He had taken a liking to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: my vicious sister, and the chatterer had come to tolerate him. Also.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: There were several other young people progeny of the monogamic
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: couples that lived in the neighborhood, and Lopier played with
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: these young people. I could never get the swift one
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to join with them. Whenever I visited them, she dropped
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: behind and disappeared. I remember once making a strong effort
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: to persuade her but she cast backward anxious glances, then retreated,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: calling to me from a tree. So it was that
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I did not make a practice of accompanying Lopier when
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: he went to visit his new friends. The swift One
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: and I were good comrades, but try as I would,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I could never find her tree shelter. Undoubtedly, had nothing happened,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: we would have soon made it, for our liking was mutual.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: But the something did happen. One morning, the swift One,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: not having put in an appearance, Lopier and I were
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: down at the mouth of the slough, playing on the logs.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: We had scarcely got out on the water when we
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: were startled by a roar of rage. It was Red Eye.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: He was crouching on the edge of the timber jam
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and glowering his hatred at us. We were badly frightened,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: for here was no narrow mouthed cave for refuge. But
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the twenty feet of water that intervened gave us temporary safety,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and we plucked up our courage. Red Eye stood up
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: erect and began beating his hairy chest with his fist.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Our two laws were side by side, and we sat
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: on them and laughed at him. At first our laughter
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: was half hearted, tinged with fear, But as we became
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: convinced of his impudence, we waxed uproarious. He raged and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: raged at us, and ground his teeth and helpless fury,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and in our fancy security we mocked and mocked him.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: We were ever short sighted, we folk. Red Eye abruptly
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: ceased his breastbeating and toothbriding, and ran across the timber
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: jam to the shore, And just as abruptly, our merriment
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: gave way to consternation. It was not Red Eye's way
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: to forego revenge so easily. We waited in fear and
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: trembling for whatever was to happen. It never struck us
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to paddle away. He came back with great leaps across
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the jam, one huge hand filled with round, water washed pebbles.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I am glad that he was unable to find larger missiles,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: say stones weighing two or three pounds, for we were
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: no more than a score of feet away, and he
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: surely would have killed us. As it was, we were
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: in no small danger. Zip a tiny pebble world passed
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: with a force almost of a bullet, lopier and I
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: began paddling frantically with zip bang. Lopier screamed with sudden anguish.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: The pebble had struck him between the shoulders. Then I
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: got one and yelled. The only thing that saved us
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: was the exhausting of Red Eye's ammunition. He dashed back
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to the gravel bed for more, while Lopier and I
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: paddled away. Gradually we drew out of range, though Red
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Eye continued making trips for more ammunition, and the pebbles
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: continued to whiz about us. Out in the center of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the slough, there was a slight current, and in our
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: excitement we failed to notice that it was drifting us
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: into the river. We paddled, and Red Eye kept as
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: close as he could to us by following along the shore.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Then he discovered larger rocks such ammunition increased his range.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: One fragment, fully five pounds in weight crashed on the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: log alongside of me, and such was its impact that
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it drove a score of splendors like fiery needles into
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: my leg. Had it struck me, it would have killed me.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And then the river current caught us. So wildly were
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we paddling that Red Eye was the first to notice it,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: and our first warning was his's yellow triumph. Where the
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: edge of the current struck the slough water was a
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: series of eddies, or small whirlpools. These caught our clumsy
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: logs and whirled them end and back and forth and around.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: We quit paddling and devoted our whole energy to holding
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the logs together alongside each other. In the meanwhile, Red
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Eye continued to bombard us, the rock fragments falling about us,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: splashing water on us, and menacing our lives. At the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: same time he gloated over us wildly and vociferously. It
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: happened that there was a sharp turn in the river
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: at the point where the slough entered, and the whole
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: main current of the river was deflected to the other bank,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and toward that bank, which was the north bank. We
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: drifted rapidly at the same time going downstream. This quickly
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: took us out of range of Red Eye, and the
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: last we saw of him was far out on the
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: point of land, where he was jumping up and down
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and chanting a pea in a victory. Beyond holding the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: two logs together, Wapiir and I did nothing. We were
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: resigned to our fate, and we remained resigned until we
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: aroused to the fact that we were drifting along the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: north shore, not one hundred feet away. We began to
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: paddle for it. Here the main force of the current
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: was flung back toward the south shore, so all of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: our paddling was that we crossed the current where it
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: was swiftest and narrowest. Before we were aware we were
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: out of it, and in a quiet eddy, Our logs
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on the bank.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Lop ear and I crept ashore. The logs drifted on
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: out of the eddy and swept away down the stream.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: We looked at each other that we did not last.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: We were in a strange land, and it did not
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: enter our minds that we could return to our own
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: land in the same manner that we had come. We
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: had learned how to cross a river, though we did
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: not know it, and this was something that no one
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: else of the folk had ever done. We were the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: first of the folk to set foot on the north
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: bank of the river, and for that matter, I believe
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the last that they would have done so in the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: time to come is undoubted. But the migration of the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: fire people and the consequent migration of the survivors of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the folk set back our revolution for centuries. Indeed, there
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: is no telling how disastrous was to be the outcome
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: of the fire people's migration. Personally, I am prone to
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: believe that it brought about the destruction of the folk,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: that we, a branch of lower life, budding towards the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: human were nipped short off and perished down by the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: roaring surf where the river entered the sea. Of course,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: in such an eventuality, I remained to be accounted for,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: But I outrun my story, and such accounting will be
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: made before I am done. End of Chapter eleven. Recording
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: by Tom Weiss Tom's audiobooks dot Com.