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06 - Before Adam by Jack London · Before Adam

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen 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 fifteen, Lopier got married. It
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  Speaker 1: was the second winner after our adventure journey, and it
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  Speaker 1: was most unexpected. He gave me no warning. The first
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  Speaker 1: I knew was one twilight when I climbed the cliff
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  Speaker 1: to our cave. I squeezed into the entrance, and there
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  Speaker 1: I stopped. There was no room for me. Lopier and
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  Speaker 1: his mate were in possession, and she was none other
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  Speaker 1: than my sister, the daughter of my stepfather, the chatterer.
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  Speaker 1: I tried to force my way in. There was space
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  Speaker 1: only for two, and that space was already occupied. Also,
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  Speaker 1: they had me at a disadvantage. And what of the
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  Speaker 1: scratching and hair pulling I received, I was glad to retreat.
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  Speaker 1: I slept that night and for many nights in the
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  Speaker 1: connecting passage of the double cave. From my experience, it
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  Speaker 1: seemed reasonably safe. As the two folk had dodged old Sabretooth,
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  Speaker 1: and as I had dodged Red Eye, so it seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me that I could dodge the hunting animals by
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  Speaker 1: going back and forth between the two caves, I had
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  Speaker 1: forgotten the wild dogs. They were small enough to go
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  Speaker 1: through any passage that I could squeeze through. One night
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  Speaker 1: they nosed me out. Had they entered both caves at
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  Speaker 1: the same time, they would have got me. As it
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  Speaker 1: was followed by some of them through the passage, I
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  Speaker 1: dashed out the mouth of the other cave. Outside were
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the wild dogs. They sprang for me.
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  Speaker 1: As I sprang for the cliff wall and began to climb,
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  Speaker 1: one of them, A lean and hungry brute caught me
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  Speaker 1: at midleap. His teeth sank into my thigh muscles, and
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  Speaker 1: he nearly dragged me back. He held on, but I
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  Speaker 1: made no effort to dislodge him, devoting my whole effort
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  Speaker 1: to climbing out breach of the rest of the brutes.
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  Speaker 1: Not until I was safe from them did I turn
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  Speaker 1: my attention to that live agony on my thigh, and
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  Speaker 1: then a dozen feet above the snapping pack that leaped
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  Speaker 1: and scrambled against the wall and fell back. I got
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  Speaker 1: the dog by the throat and slowly throttled him. I
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  Speaker 1: was a long time doing it. He clawed and ripped
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  Speaker 1: my hair and hied with his hindcaws, and ever he
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  Speaker 1: jerked and lunged with his weight to drag me from
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  Speaker 1: the wall. At last his teeth opened and released my
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  Speaker 1: torn flesh. I carried his body up the cliff with
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  Speaker 1: me and perched out the night in the entrance of
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  Speaker 1: my old cave, wherein were Lopier and my sister. But
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  Speaker 1: first I had to endure a storm of abuse from
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  Speaker 1: the aroused horde for being the cause of the disturbance.
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  Speaker 1: I had my revenge. From time to time, as the
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  Speaker 1: noise of the pack below eased down, I dropped a
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  Speaker 1: rock and started it up again, whereupon, from all around
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  Speaker 1: the abuse of the exasperated folk began afresh. In the warning,
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  Speaker 1: I shared the dog with Lopier and his wife, and
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  Speaker 1: for several days the three of us were neither vegetarians
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  Speaker 1: nor fruitarians. Lapier's marriage was not a happy one, and
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  Speaker 1: the consolation about it is that it did not last
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  Speaker 1: very long. Neither he nor I was happy during that period.
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  Speaker 1: I was lonely. I suffered the inconvenience of being out
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  Speaker 1: of my safe little cave, and somehow I did not
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  Speaker 1: make it up with any of the other young males
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  Speaker 1: I suppose my long continued chumming with Lopier had become
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  Speaker 1: a habit, I might have married. It is true, and
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  Speaker 1: most likely I should have married, had it not been
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  Speaker 1: for the dearth of females in the Horde. This dearth,
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  Speaker 1: it is fair to assume, was caused by the exorbitants
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  Speaker 1: of red Eye, and it illustrates the menace he was
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  Speaker 1: to the existence of the Horde. Then there was the
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  Speaker 1: swift one, whom I had not forgotten at any rate.
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  Speaker 1: During the period of Lapier's marriage, I knocked about from
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  Speaker 1: pillar to post in danger every night that I slept,
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  Speaker 1: and never comfortable. One of the folk died, and his
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  Speaker 1: widow was taken into the cave of another of the folk.
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  Speaker 1: I took possession of the abandoned cave, but it was
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  Speaker 1: wide mouthed, and after red Eye nearly trapped me in
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  Speaker 1: it one day, I returned to sleeping in the passage
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  Speaker 1: of the double cave. During the summer, however, I used
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  Speaker 1: to stay away from the caves for weeks, sleeping in
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  Speaker 1: a tree shelter I made near the mouth of the slough.
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  Speaker 1: I have said that Lopier was not happy. My sister
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  Speaker 1: was the daughter of the chatterer, and she made Lopier's
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  Speaker 1: life miserable for him. In no other cave was there
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  Speaker 1: so much squabbling and bickering. If Red Eye was a bluebeard,
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  Speaker 1: lop Ear was hen pecked, and I imagined that red
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  Speaker 1: Eye was too shrewd ever to covet Lopier's wife. Fortunately
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  Speaker 1: for Lopier, she died. An unusual thing happened that summer. Late,
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  Speaker 1: almost at the end of it, a second crop of
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  Speaker 1: the stringy rooted carrots sprang up. These unexpected second drop
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  Speaker 1: roots were young and juicy and tender, and for some
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  Speaker 1: time the carrot patch was the favorite feeding place of
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  Speaker 1: the Horde. One morning early several score of us were
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  Speaker 1: there making our breakfast. On one side of me was
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  Speaker 1: the hairless one. Beyond him were his father and son,
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  Speaker 1: Old marrow Bone, and long Lip. On the other side
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  Speaker 1: of me were my sister and lop Ear, she being
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  Speaker 1: next to me. There was no warning. On the sudden
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  Speaker 1: both the hairless one of my sisters sprang and screamed.
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  Speaker 1: At the same instant I heard the thud of the
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  Speaker 1: arrows that transfixed them. The next instant they were down
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  Speaker 1: on the ground, floundering and gasping. And the rest of
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  Speaker 1: us were stampeding for the trees. An arrow drove past
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  Speaker 1: me and entered the ground, its feathered shap vibrating and
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  Speaker 1: oscillating from the impact of its arrested flight. I remember
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  Speaker 1: clearly how I swerved as I ran to go past it,
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  Speaker 1: and that I gave it a needlessly wine berth. I
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  Speaker 1: must have shied at it as a horse shy, said
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  Speaker 1: an object it fears. Lopier took a smashing fall as
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  Speaker 1: he ran beside me. An arrow had driven through the
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  Speaker 1: cap of his leg and tripped him. He tried to run,
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  Speaker 1: but was tripped and thrown by it a second time.
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  Speaker 1: He sat up, crouching, trembling with fear, and called to
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  Speaker 1: me pleadingly. I dashed back. He showed me the arrow.
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  Speaker 1: I caught hold of it to pull it out, but
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  Speaker 1: the consequent hurt made him squeeze my hand and stop me.
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  Speaker 1: A flying arrow passed between us, another struck a rock
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  Speaker 1: splintered and fell to the ground. This was too much,
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  Speaker 1: I pulled suddenly with all my might. Lopier screamed as
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  Speaker 1: the arrow came out and struck at me angrily. But
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  Speaker 1: the next moment we were in full flight again. I
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  Speaker 1: looked back. Old Marrowbone, deserted and far behind, was tottering
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  Speaker 1: silently along in his handicapped race with death. Sometimes he
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  Speaker 1: almost fell, and once he did fall, but no more
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  Speaker 1: arrows were coming. He scrambled to his feet. Age burdened
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  Speaker 1: him heavily, but he did not want to die. The
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  Speaker 1: three firemen, who were now running forward from their forest ambush,
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  Speaker 1: could easily have got him, but they did not try.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps he was too old and tough, but they did
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  Speaker 1: want the hairless one and my sister. For as I
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  Speaker 1: looked back from the trees, I could see the firemen
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  Speaker 1: beating in their heads with rocks. One of the firemen
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  Speaker 1: was the wizened old hunter, who limped. We went on
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  Speaker 1: through the trees toward the caves, an excited and disorderly
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  Speaker 1: mob that drove before it to their holes all the
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  Speaker 1: small life of the forest, and that set the blue
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  Speaker 1: jays screaming impudently. Now that there was no immediate danger,
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  Speaker 1: Longlet waited for his grandfather marrow Bone, and with the
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  Speaker 1: gap of the generation between them, the old fellow and
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  Speaker 1: the youth brought up our rear. And so it was
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  Speaker 1: that lop Ear became a bachelor once more. That night
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  Speaker 1: I slept with him in the old cave, and her
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  Speaker 1: old life of chumming began again. The loss of his
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  Speaker 1: mate seemed to cause him no grief, at least he
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  Speaker 1: showed no signs of it, nor of need for her.
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  Speaker 1: It was the wound in his leg that seemed to
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  Speaker 1: bother him, and it was all of a week before
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  Speaker 1: he got back again to his old stryness. Marrow Bone
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  Speaker 1: was the only old member in the horgue. Sometimes, on
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  Speaker 1: looking back upon him, when the vision of him is
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  Speaker 1: most clear, I noticed striking resemblance between him and the
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  Speaker 1: father of my father's gardener. The gardener's father was very old,
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  Speaker 1: very wrinkled and withered, and for all the world, when
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  Speaker 1: he peered through his tiny bleary eyes and mumbled with
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  Speaker 1: his toothless gums, he looked and acted like old marrow Bone.
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  Speaker 1: This resemblance, as a child used to frighten me. I
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  Speaker 1: always ran when I saw the old man tottering along
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  Speaker 1: on his two canes. Old marrow Bone even had a
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  Speaker 1: bit of sparse and straggly white beard that seemed identical
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  Speaker 1: with the whiskers of the old man. As I have said,
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  Speaker 1: Marrowbone was the only old member of the Horde. He
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  Speaker 1: was an exception. The folk never lived to old age.
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  Speaker 1: Middle age was fairly rare. Death by violence was the
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  Speaker 1: common way of death. They died as my father had died,
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  Speaker 1: as broken Tooth had died as my sister, and the
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  Speaker 1: hairless One had just died, abruptly and brutally, in the
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  Speaker 1: full possession of their faculties, in the full swing and
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  Speaker 1: rush of life. Natural death. To die violently was the
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  Speaker 1: natural way of dying in those days. No one died
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  Speaker 1: of old age among the folk. I never knew of
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  Speaker 1: a case. Even marrow Bone did not die that way,
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  Speaker 1: and he was the only one in my generation who
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  Speaker 1: had the chance. A bad rippling, any serious accidental or
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  Speaker 1: temporary impairment of the faculties mence with death. As a rule,
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  Speaker 1: these deaths were not witnessed. Members of the hordes simply
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  Speaker 1: dropped out of sight. They left the caves in the morning,
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  Speaker 1: and they never came back. They disappeared into the ravenous
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  Speaker 1: maws of the hunting creatures. This inroad of the fire
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  Speaker 1: people on the carriage patch was the beginning of the end,
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  Speaker 1: though we did not know it. The hunters of the
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  Speaker 1: fire people began to appear more frequently as the time
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  Speaker 1: went by. They came in twos and threes, creeping silently
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  Speaker 1: through the forest with their flying arrows, able to annihilate
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  Speaker 1: distance and bring down prey from the top of the
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  Speaker 1: loftiest tree without themselves climbing into it. The bow and
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  Speaker 1: arrow was like an enormous extension of their leaping and
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  Speaker 1: striking muscles, so that virtually they could leap and kill
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  Speaker 1: at a hundred feet or more. This made them far
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  Speaker 1: more terrible than Sabretooth himself. And then they were very wise.
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  Speaker 1: They had speech that enabled them more effectively to reason,
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  Speaker 1: and in addition, they understood cooperation. We folk came to
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  Speaker 1: be very circumspect when we were in the forest. We
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  Speaker 1: were more alert and vigilant and timid. No longer were
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  Speaker 1: the trees of protection to be relied upon. No longer
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  Speaker 1: could we perch on a branch and laugh down at
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  Speaker 1: our carnivorous enemies on the ground. The fire people were carnivorous,
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  Speaker 1: with claws and fangs one hundred feet long, the most
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  Speaker 1: terrible of all the hunting animals that ranged the primeval world.
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  Speaker 1: One morning, before the folk had dispersed to the forest,
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  Speaker 1: there was a panic among the water carriers and those
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  Speaker 1: who had gone down to the river to drink. The
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  Speaker 1: whole horde fled to the caves. It was our habit
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  Speaker 1: at such times to fleet first and investigate afterward. We
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  Speaker 1: waited in the mouth of the caves and watched. After
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  Speaker 1: some time a fireman stepped cautiously into the open space.
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  Speaker 1: It was a little wizened old hunter. He stood for
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  Speaker 1: a long time and watched us looking our caves in
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  Speaker 1: the cliff wall up and down. He descended one of
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  Speaker 1: the runways to a drinking place, returning a few minutes
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  Speaker 1: later by another runway. Again he stood and watched as
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  Speaker 1: carefully for a long time. Then he turned on his
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  Speaker 1: heel and limped into the forest, leaving us calling querulously
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  Speaker 1: and plaintively to one another from the cave mouse end
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  Speaker 1: of chapter fifteen. Chapter sixteen. I found her in the
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  Speaker 1: old neighborhood, near the BlackBerry Swamp, where my mother lived
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  Speaker 1: and where Loppier and I had built our first tree shelter.
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  Speaker 1: It was unexpected. As I came under the tree, I
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  Speaker 1: heard the familiar soft sound and looked up. There she was,
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  Speaker 1: the swift one, sitting on a limb and swinging her
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  Speaker 1: legs back and forth as she looked at me. I
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  Speaker 1: stood still for some time. The sight of her had
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  Speaker 1: made me very happy, and then an unrest and a
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  Speaker 1: pain began to creep in on this happiness. I started
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  Speaker 1: to climb the tree after her, and she retreated slowly
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  Speaker 1: out the limb. Just as I reached for her, she
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  Speaker 1: sprang through the air and landed in the branches of
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  Speaker 1: the next tree. From amid the rustling leaves, she peeped
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  Speaker 1: out of me and made soft sounds. I leaped straight
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  Speaker 1: for her, and after an exciting chase, the situation was duplicated,
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  Speaker 1: for there she was making soft sounds and peeping out
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  Speaker 1: from the leaves of a third tree. It was borne
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  Speaker 1: in upon me that somehow it was different now from
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  Speaker 1: the old days before Loppier and I had gone on
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  Speaker 1: our adventure journey. I wanted her, and I knew that
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  Speaker 1: I wanted her, and she knew it too. That was
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  Speaker 1: why she would not let me come near her. I
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  Speaker 1: pursued her from tree to tree, and ever she eluded me,
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  Speaker 1: peeping back at me with kindly eyes, making soft sounds,
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  Speaker 1: and dancing and leaping and teetering before me just out
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  Speaker 1: of reach. The more she eluded me, the more I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to catch her, and the lengthening shadows of the
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  Speaker 1: afternoon bore witness to the futility of my effort. As
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  Speaker 1: I pursued her, or sometimes rested in an adjoining tree
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  Speaker 1: and watched her, I noticed the change in her. She
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  Speaker 1: was larger, heavier, more grown up, her line to round her,
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  Speaker 1: her muscles fuller, and there was about her that indefinite,
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  Speaker 1: something of maturity that was new to her, and that
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  Speaker 1: incited me on three years. She had been gone three
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  Speaker 1: years at the very least, and the change in her
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  Speaker 1: was marked. I say three years. It is as near
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  Speaker 1: as I can measure the time a fourth year may
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  Speaker 1: have elapsed, which I have confused with the happenings of
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  Speaker 1: the other three years. The more I think of it,
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  Speaker 1: the more confident I am that it must be four
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  Speaker 1: years that she went away. Where she went, why she went,
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  Speaker 1: and what happened to her during that time, I do
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  Speaker 1: not know. There was no way for her to tell
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  Speaker 1: me any more than there was a way for lop
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  Speaker 1: Ear and me to tell the folk what we had
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  Speaker 1: seen when we were away. Like us, the chance is
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  Speaker 1: she had gone off on an adventure journey, and by herself.
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  Speaker 1: On the other hand, it is possible that Red Eye
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  Speaker 1: may have been the cause of her going. It is
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  Speaker 1: quite certain that he must have come upon her from
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  Speaker 1: time to time wondering in the woods, and if he
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  Speaker 1: had pursued her, there was no question but that it
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  Speaker 1: would have been sufficient to drive her away. From subsequent events,
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  Speaker 1: I am led to believe that she must have traveled
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  Speaker 1: far to the south, across a range of mountains, and
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  Speaker 1: down the banks of a strange river, away from any
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  Speaker 1: of her kind. Many tree people lived down there, and
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  Speaker 1: I think it must have been they who finally drove
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  Speaker 1: her back to the Horde, and to me. My reasons
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  Speaker 1: for this I shall explain later. The shadows grew longer,
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  Speaker 1: and I pursued more ardently than ever, and still I
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  Speaker 1: could not catch her. She made believe that she was
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  Speaker 1: trying desperately to escape me, and all the time she
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  Speaker 1: managed to keep just beyond reach. I forgot everything time,
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  Speaker 1: the oncoming of night, and my meat eating enemies. I
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  Speaker 1: was insane with love of her, and with anger too,
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  Speaker 1: because she would not let me come up with her.
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  Speaker 1: It was strange how this anger against her seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be part of my desire for her. As I have said,
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  Speaker 1: I forgot everything. In racing across an open space. I
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  Speaker 1: ran full tilt upon a colony of snakes. They did
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  Speaker 1: not deter me. I was mad. They struck at me,
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  Speaker 1: but I ducked and dodged and ran on. Then there
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  Speaker 1: was a python that ordinarily would have sent me screeching
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  Speaker 1: to a tree top. He did run me into a tree,
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  Speaker 1: but the swift one was going out of sight, and
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  Speaker 1: I sprang back to the ground and went on. It
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  Speaker 1: was a close shade. Then there was my old enemy,
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  Speaker 1: the hyena. From my conduct, he was sure something was
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  Speaker 1: going to happen, and he followed me for an hour.
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  Speaker 1: Once we exasperated a band of wild pigs, and they
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  Speaker 1: took after us. The swift one dared a wide leap
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  Speaker 1: between trees that was too much for me. I had
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  Speaker 1: to take to the ground. There were the pigs. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't care. I struck the earth within a yard of
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  Speaker 1: the nearest one. They flanked me as I ran, and
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  Speaker 1: chased me into two different trees out of the line
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  Speaker 1: of my pursuit of the swift one. I ventured the
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  Speaker 1: ground again, doubled back and crossed a wide open space
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  Speaker 1: with the whole band grunting, bristling, and tusk gnashing at
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  Speaker 1: my heels. If I had tripped or stumbled in that
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  Speaker 1: open space, there would have been no chance for me.
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  Speaker 1: But I didn't and I didn't care whether I did
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  Speaker 1: or not. I was in such mood that I would
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  Speaker 1: have faced Old Sabretooth himself or a score of arrow
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  Speaker 1: shooting fire people. Such was the madness of love with me.
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  Speaker 1: With the swift one, it was different. She was very wise.
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  Speaker 1: She did not take any real risk, And I remember,
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  Speaker 1: on looking back across the sentries to that wild love chase,
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  Speaker 1: that when the pigs delayed me, she did not run
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  Speaker 1: away very fast, but waited rather for me to take
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  Speaker 1: up the pursuit again. Also, she directed her retreat before me,
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  Speaker 1: going always in the same direction she wanted to go.
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  Speaker 1: At last came the dark. She led me around the
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  Speaker 1: mosy shoulder of a canyon wall that out jutted among
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  Speaker 1: the trees. After that we penetrated a dense mass of
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  Speaker 1: underbrush that scraped and ripped me in passing. But she
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  Speaker 1: never ruffled the hair. She knew the way. In the
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  Speaker 1: midst of the thicket was a large oak. I was
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  Speaker 1: very close to her when she climbed it, and in
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  Speaker 1: the forks in the nest shelter I had sought so
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  Speaker 1: long and vainly I caught her. The hyena had taken
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  Speaker 1: our trail again, and he now sat down on the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: ground and made hungry noises. But we did not mind,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and we laughed at him when he snarled and went
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: away through the thicket. It was the springtime, and the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: night noises were many and varied, As was the custom
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: at that time of the year, there was much fighting
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: among the animals. From the nest, we could hear the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: squealing and neighing of wild horses, the trumpeting of elephants,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and the roaring of lions. But the moon came out
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and the air was warm, and we laughed and were unafraid.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I remember next morning that we came upon two ruffled
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: cockbirds that thought so ardently that I went right up
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to them caught them by their next Thus did the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: swift one and I get our wedding breakfast. They were delicious.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: It was easy to catch birds in the spring of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the year. There was one night that year when two
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: elk fought in the moonlight, while the swift One and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I watched from the trees, and we saw lion and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: lioness crawl up to them unheeded, and killed them as
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: they fought. There was no telling how long we might
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: have lived in the swift One's tree shelter. But one day,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: while we were away, the tree was struck by lightning.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Great limbs were riven, and the nest was demolished. I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: started to rebuild, but the swift One would have nothing
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: to do with it, as I was to learn, she
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: was greatly afraid of lightning, and I could not persuade
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: her back into the tree. So it came about our
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: honeymoon over that we went to the caves to live.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: As LaPier had evicted me from the cave when he
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: got married, I now evicted him, and the swift One
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and eight settled down in it while he slept at
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: night in the connecting passage of the double Cave. And
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: with her coming to live with the Horde, came trouble.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Red Eye had had I don't know how many wives
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: since the Singing One. She had gone the way of
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the rest. At present he had a little, soft, spiritless
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: thing that whimpered and wept all the time, whether he
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: beat her or not, and her passing was a question
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of very little time before she passed, even red Eye
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: set his eyes on the swift One. And when she passed,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the persecution of the swift One began well for her.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: That she was the swift One, that she had that
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: amazing aptitude for swift flight through the trees. She needed
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: all her wisdom and daring in order to keep out
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of the clutches of Red Eye. I could not help her.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: He was so powerful a monster that he could have
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: torn me limb from limb, as it was to my death.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I carried an injured shoulder that ached and went lame
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: in raining weather, and that was a mark of his handiwork.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: This swift One was sick at the time I received
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: this injury. It must have been a touch of the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: malaria from which we sometimes suffered. But whatever it was,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it made her dull and heavy. She did not have
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the accustomed spring to her muscles, and was indeed in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: poor shape for flight when Red Eye cornered her near
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the layer of the wild Dogs, several miles south from
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the caves. Usually she would have circled around, beaten him
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in the straightaway, and gained the protection of our small
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: mouth cave but she could not circle him. She was
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: too dull and slow. Each time he headed her off
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: until she gave over the attempt and devoted her energies
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: wholly to keeping out of his clutches. Had she not
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: been sick, it would have been child's play for her
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to elude him, but as it was, it required all
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: her caution and cunning. It was to her advantage that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: she could travel on thinner branches than he and make
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: wider leaps. Also, she was an unerring judge of distance,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and she had an instinct for knowing the strength of twigs, branches,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and limbs. It was an interminable chase, round and round
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and back and forth, for long stretches through the forest
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: they dashed. There was great excitement among the other folk.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: They set up a wild chattering that was loudest when
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Red Eye was at a distance, and that hushed when
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the chase led him near. They were impotite onlookers. The
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: females screeched and gibbered, and the males beat their chest
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in helpless rage. Big Face was especially angry, and though
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: he hushed his racket when Red Eye drew near, he
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: did not hush it to the extent The others did.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: As for me, I played no brave part. I know
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I was anything but a hero. Besides, of what use
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: would it have been for me to encounter Red Eye?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: He was the mighty monster, the abysmal brute, and there
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: was no hope for me. In a conflict of strength.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: He would have killed me, and the situation would have
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: remained unchanged. He would have caught the swift One before
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: she could have gained the cave. As it was, I
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: could only look on in helpless fury and dodge out
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: of the way and cease my raging when he came
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: too near. The hours passed. It was late afternoon, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: still the chase went on. Red Eye was bent upon
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: exhausting the swift One. He deliberately ran her down. After
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: a long time, she began to tire and could no
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: longer maintain her headlong flight. Then it was that she
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: began going far out on the thinnest branches, where he
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: could not follow. Thus she might have got a breathing spell,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: but Red Eye was fiendish. Unable to follow her, he
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: dislodged her by shaking her rock with all his strength
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and weight. He would shake the branch back and forth
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: until he snapped her off as one would snap a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: fly from a whiplash. The first time, she saved herself
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: by falling into branches lower down. Another time, though they
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: did not save her from the ground, they broke her fall.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Still another time, so fiercely did he snap her from
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the branch she was flung clear across a gap into
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: another tree. It was remarkable the way she gripped and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: saved herself. Only when driven to it did she seek
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the temporary safety of the thin branches. But she was
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: so tired that she could not otherwise avoid him, and
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: time after time she was compelled to take to the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: thin branches. Still the chase went on, and still the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: folk screeched, beat their chest and gnashed their teeth. Then
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: came the end. It was almost twilight. Trembling, panting, struggling
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: for breath, the swift one clung pitiably to a high,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: thin branch. It was thirty feet to the ground, and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: nothing intervened. Red Eye swung back and forth on the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: branch farther down. It became a pendulum, swinging wider and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: wider with every lunge of his weight. Then he reversed suddenly,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: just before the downward swing was completed, her grips were
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: torn loose and screaming. She was hurled toward the ground,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: but she righted herself in mid air and descended feet first. Ordinarily,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: from such a height, the spring on her legs would
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: have eased the shock of impact with the ground, but
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: she was exhausted she could not exercise the spring. Her
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: legs gave out under her, having only partly met the shock,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and she crashed on over on her side. This, as
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: it turned out, did not injure her, but it did
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: knock the breath from her lungs. She lay helpless and
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: struggling her air. Red Eye rushed upon her and seized
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: her with his gnarly fingers twisted into the hair of
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: her head. He stood up and roared in triumph and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: defiance at the odd folk that watched from the trees.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Then it was that I, when mad caution was thrown
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: to the winds, forgotten was the will to live of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: my flesh. Even as Red Eye roared from behind, I
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: dashed upon him. So unexpected was my charge that I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: knocked him off his feet. I twined my arms and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: legs around him, and strove to hold him down. This
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: would have been impossible to accomplish had he not held
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: tightly with one hand in the swift One's hair. Encouraged
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: by my conduct, Big Face became a sudden ally. He
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: charged in, sank his teeth in Red Eye's arm, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: ripped and toward his face. This was the time for
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the rest of the folk to have joined in. It
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: was a chance to do for Red Eye for all time,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: but they remained afraid in the trees. It was inevitable
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that Red Eye should win in the struggle against the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: two of us. The reason he did not finish us
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: off immediately was that the swift One clogged his movements.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: She had regained her breath and was beginning to resist.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: He would not release his clutch on her hair, and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: this handicapped him. He got a grip on my arm.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: It was the beginning of the end for me. He
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: began to draw me toward him into a position where
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: he could sink his teeth into my throat. His mouth
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was open and he was grinning. And yet though he
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: had just begun to exert his strength in that moment,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: he wrenched my shoulder so that I suffered from it
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: for the remainder of my life, and In that moment,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: something happened. There was no warning. A great body smashed
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: down upon the four of us locked together, we were
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: driven violently apart and rolled over and over, and in
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the suddenness of surprise, we released our holes on one another.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: At the moment of the shock, Big Face screamed terribly.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I did not know what had happened, though I smelled
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: tiger and caught a glimpse of the striped fur. As
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I sprang for a tree. It was old saber Tooth,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: aroused in his lair by the noise we had made.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: He had crept upon us unnoticed. The swift one gained
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the tree next to mine, and I immediately joined her.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I put my arms around her and held her close
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to me while she whimpered and cried softly. From the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: ground came a snarling and a crunching of bones. It
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: was Sabertude making his supper off of what had been
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Big Face. From beyond, with inflamed rims and eyes, red
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Eye peered down. Here was a monster mightier than he
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the swift. When I turned and went away quietly through
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the trees toward the cave, while the folk gathered overhead
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: and showered down abuse and twigs and branches upon their
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: ancient enemy. He lashed his tail and snarled, but went
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: on eating, And in such fashion were we saved. It
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: was a mere accident, the sheerest accident. Else would I
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: have died there in red eyes clutch, and there would
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: have been no bridging of time to the tune of
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: a thousand centuries down to a progeny that reads newspapers
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: and rides on electric cars, ay, and that writes narratives
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of bygone happenings. Even as this is written, end of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: chapter sixteen, Chapter seventeen. It was in the early fall
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: of the following year that had happened. After his failure
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: to get the swift one, Red Eye had taken another wife,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and strange to relate. She was still alive, stranger still.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: They had a baby several months old, Red Eye's first child.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: His previous wives had never lived long enough to bear
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: him children. The year had gone well for all of us.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: The weather had been exceptionally mild, and food plentiful. I
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: remember especially the turnips of that year. The nut crop
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: was also very heavy, and the wild plums were larger
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and sweeter than usual. In short, it was a golden year,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And then it happened. It was in the early morning,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and we were surprised in our caves in the chill,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: gray light. We awoke from sleep, most of us to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: encounter death. The swift one and I were aroused by
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a pandemonium of screeching and gibbering. Arcade was the highest
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of all on the cliff, and we crept to the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: mouth and peered down. The open space was filled with
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the fire people. Their cries and yells were added to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the clamor. But they had order and plan, while we
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: folk had none. Each one of us fought and acted
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: for himself, and no one of us knew the extent
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: of the calamity that was befalling us. By the time
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: we got to stone throwing, the fire people had masked
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: thick at the base of the cliff. Our first volley
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: must have matched some heads, for when they sweared back
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: from the cliff, three of their number were left upon
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the ground. These were struggling and floundering, and one was
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: trying to crawl away, but we fixed them. By this
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: time we males were roaring with rage, and we rained
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: rocks upon the three men that were down. Several of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the firemen returned to drag them into safety, but our
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: rocks drove the rescuers back. The fire people became enraged. Also,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: they became cautious. In spite of their angry yells. They
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: kept at a distance and sent flights of arrows against us.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: This put an end to the rock throwing. By the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: time half a dozen of us had been killed and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a score injured. The rest of us retreated inside our caves.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I was not out of range in my lofty cave,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: but the distance was great enough to spoil effective shooting,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and the fire people did not waste many arrows on me. Furthermore,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I was curious. I wanted to see well the swift
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: one remained well inside the cave, trembling with fear and
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: making low wailing sounds. Because I would not come in,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I crouched at the entrance and watched. The fighting had
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: now become intermittent. It was a sort of deadlock. We
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: were in the caves, and the question with the fire
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: people was how to get us out. They did not
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: dare come in after us, and in general we would
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: not expose ourselves to their arrows. Occasionally, when one of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: them drew in close to the base of the cliff,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: one or another of the folk would smash a rock down.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: In return, he would be transfixed by half a dozen arrows.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: This ruse worked well for some time, but finally the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: folk no longer were inveigled into showing themselves. The deadlock
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: was complete. Behind the fire people, I could see the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: little wizened old hunter directing at all. They obeyed him
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and went here and there at his commands. Some of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: them went into the forest and returned with loads of
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: dry wood, leaves, and grass. All the fire people drew
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: in closer, while most of them stood by with bows
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and arrows, ready to shoot any of the folk that
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: exposed themselves. Several of the firemen heaped the dry grass
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and wood at the mouths of the lower tier of caves.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Out of these heats that conjured the monster. We feared fire.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: At first, whistless smoke arose and curled up the cliff.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Then I could see the red tongued flames darting in
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and out through the wood like tiny snakes. The smoke
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: grew thicker and thicker, at times, shrouding the whole face
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: of the cliff. But I was high up and it
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: did not bother me much, though it stung my eyes,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and I rubbed them with my knuckles. Old marrow bone
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: was the first to be smoked out. A light fan
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: of air drifted the smoke away at the time, so
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: that I saw it clearly. He broke out through the smoke,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: stepping on a burning coal and screaming with the sudden
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: herd of it. An essayed to climb up the cliff.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: The arrows showered about him. He came to a pause
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: on a ledge, clutching a knob of rock for support.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Gasping and sneezing and shaking his head, he swayed back
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: and forth. The feathered ends of a dozen arrows were
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: sticking out of him. He was an old man, and
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: he did not want to die. He swayed wider and wider,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: his knees giving under him, and as he swayed he
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: wailed most plaintively. His hand released his grip, and he
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: lurched outward to the fall. His old bones must have
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: been sadly broken. He groaned and strove feebly to rise,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: but a fireman rushed in upon him and brained him
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: with the club. And as it happened with marrowbone, so
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it happened, with many of the folk unable to endure
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the smoke suffocation, they rushed out to fall beneath the arrows.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Some of the women and children remained in the caves
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to strangle to death, but the majority met death outside.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: When the firemen had in this fashion cleared the first
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: tier of caves, they began making arrangements to duplicate the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: operation of the second tier of caves. It was while
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: they were climbing up with their grass and wood that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Red Eye, followed by his wife, with the baby holding
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: to her tightly, made a successful flight up the cliff.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: The firemen must have concluded that in the interval between
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the smoking out operations, we would remain in our caves,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: so that they were unprepared, and their arrows did not
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: begin to fly till Red Eye and his wife were
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: well up the wall. When he reached the top, he
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: turned about and glared down at them, roaring and beating
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: his chest. They arched their arrows at him, and though
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: he was untouched, he fled on. I watched the third
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: tears smoke doubt and a fourth. A few of the
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: folk escaped up the cliff, but most of them were
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: shot off the face of it. As they strove to climb,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I remember long lip. He got as far as my ledge,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: crying piteously. An arrow clear through his chest, the feathered
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: shafts sticking out behind, the bonehead sticking out before shot
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: through the back. As he climbed, he sank down on
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: my ledge, bleeding profuse at the mouth. It was about
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: this time that the upper tears seemed to empty themselves spontaneously.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Nearly all the folk not yet smoked out, stampeded up
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the cliff at the same time. This was the saving
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: and many the fire people could not shoot arrows fast enough.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: They filled the air with arrows, and scores of the
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: stricken folk came tumbling down. But still there were a
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: few who reached the top and got away. The impulse
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: of flight was now stronger in me than curiosity. The
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: arrows had ceased flying, the last of the folk seeing gone,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: though there may have been a few still hiding in
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the upper caves. The Swift One and I started to
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: make a scramble for the cliff top. At sight of us,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: a great cry went up from the fire people. This
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: was not caused by me, but by the swift One.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: They were chattering excitedly and pointing her out to one another.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: They did not try to shoot her. Not an arrow
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: was discharged. They began calling softly and coaxingly. I stopped
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: and looked down. She was afraid, and whimpered and urged
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: me on, So we went up over the top and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: plunged into the trees. This event has often caused me
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to wonder and speculate. If she really were of their kind,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: she must have been lost from them at a time
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: when she was too young to remember. Else would she
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: not have been afraid of them. On the other hand,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: it may well have been that while she was their kind,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: she had never been lost from them, that she had
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: been born in the wild forest, far from their haunts.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Her father may be a renegade fireman, her mother may
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: be one of my own kind, one of the folk.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: But who shall say? These things are beyond me? And
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the swift one knew no more about them than I did.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: We lived through a day of terror. Most of the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: survivors fled through the Blueberry Swamp and took refuge in
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the forest in that neighborhood, and all day hunting parties
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: of the fire people that ranged the forest, killing us
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: wherever they found us. It must have been a deliberately
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: executed plan. Increasing beyond the limits of their own territory,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: they had decided on making a conquest the VARs sorry
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: for the conquest. We had no chance against them. It
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: was slaughter, indiscriminate slaughter, for they spared none, killing old
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and young, effectively ridding the land of our presence. It
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: was like the end of the world to us. We
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: fled to the trees as the last refuge, only to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: be surrounded and killed family by family. We saw much
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of this during that day, and besides, I wanted to
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: see the swift One and eight never remained long in
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: one tree, and so escaped being surrounded. But there seemed
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: no place to go. The firemen were everywhere, bent on
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: their task of extermination. Every way we turned we encountered them,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and because of this we saw much of their handiwork.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I did not see what became of my mother, but
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I did see the chatterer shot down out of the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: old home tree, and I am afraid that at the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: sight I did a bit of joyous teetering. Before I
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: leave this portion of my narrative, I must tell of
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Red Eye. He was caught with his wife in a
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: tree down by the blueberry swamp. The swift One and
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I stopped long enough in our flight to see. The
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: firemen were too intent upon their work to notice us.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: And furthermore we were well screened by the thicket in
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: which we crouched fully. A score of the hunters were
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: under the tree, discharging arrows into it. They always picked
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: up their arrows when they fell back to worth. I
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: could not see Red Eye, but I could hear him
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: howling from somewhere in the tree. After a short interval,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: his howling grew muffled. He must have crawled into a
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: hollow in the trunk. But his wife did not win
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: this shelter. An arrow brought her to the ground. She
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: was severely hurt, for she made no effort to get away.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: She crouched in a sheltering way over her baby, which
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: clung tightly to her, and made pleading signs and sounds
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: to the firemen. They gathered about her and laughed at her.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Even as Loppier and I had laughed at the old
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: tree man, and even as we had poked him with
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: twigs and sticks, so did the firemen with Red Eyes wife.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: They poked her with the ends of their bows and
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: prodded her in the ribs, But she was poor fun
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: She would not fight, nor for that matter, would she
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: get angry. She continued to crouch over her baby and
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: to plead. One of the firemen stepped close to her.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: In his hand was a club. She saw and understood,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: but she made only the pleading sounds until the blow fell.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Red Eye, in the hollow of the trunk, was safe
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: from their arrows. They stood together and debated for a while.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Then one of them climbed into the tree. What happened
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: up there I could not tell, but I heard him
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: yell and saw the excitement of those that remained beneath.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: After several minutes, his body crashed down to the ground.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: He did not move. They looked at him and raised
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: his head, but it fell back limply. When they let go,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: red Eye had accounted for himself. They were very angry.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: There was an opening into the trunk close to the ground.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: They gathered wood and grass and build a fire. The
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: swift one and I, our arms around each other, waited
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and watched in a thicket. Sometimes they threw upon the
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: fire green branches with many leaves, whereupon the smoke became
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: very thick. We saw them suddenly swerve back from the tree.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: They were not quick enough. Red eyes, flying body landed
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: in the midst of them. He was in a frightful rage,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: smashing about with his long arms right and left. He
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: pulled the face off of one of them, literally pulled
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: it off with those gnarly fingers of his and those
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: tremendous muscles. He bit another through the neck. The firemen
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: fell back with wild, fierce yells, then rushed upon him.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: He managed to get hold of a club and began
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: crushing heads like eggshells. He was too much for them,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: and they were compelled to fall back again. This was
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: his chance, and he turned his back upon them and
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: ran forth, still howling wrathfully. A few arrows sped after him,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: but he plunged into a thicket and was gone. The
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: swift one and I crept quietly away, only to run
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: foul of another party of firemen. They chased us into
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the blueberry swamp, but we knew the tree pass across
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the farther morasses where they could not follow on the ground,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and so we escaped. We came out on the other
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: side into a narrow strip of forest that separated the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Blueberry Swamp from the great Swamp that extended westward. Here
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: we met Lopier. How he had escaped I can not imagine.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Unless he had not slept the preceding night at the caves.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Here in the strip of forest, we might have built
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: tree shelters and settled down, But the fire people were
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: performing the work of extermination thoroughly. In the afternoon, hair
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Face and his wife fled out from among the trees
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: to the east past us, and were gone. They fled
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: silently and swiftly, with alarm in their faces. In the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: direction from which they had come. We heard the cries
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and yells of the hunters, and the screeching of somewhat
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: of the folk. The fire people had found their way
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: across the swamp, the swift one. Loppier and I followed
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: on the heels of hair Face and his wife. When
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: we came to the edge of the great swamp, we stopped.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: We did not know its pass. It was outside our territory,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and it had always been avoided by the folk. None
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: had ever gone into it, at least to return. In
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: our minds, it represented mystery and fear, the terrible unknown.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: As I say, we stopped at the edge of it.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: We were afraid. The cries of the firemen were drawing nearer.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: We looked at one another. Hair Face ran out on
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the quaking morass and gained the firmer footing of a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: grass hummock a dozen yards away. His wife did not follow.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: She tried to, but shrank back from the treacherous surface
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and cowered down. The swift one did not wait for me,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: nor did she pause till she had passed beyond hair
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Face one hundred yards and gained a much larger hummu.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: By the time Loppier and I had caught up with her,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: the firemen appeared among the trees. Hair Face's wife, driven
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: by them into panic terror, dashed after us. But she
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: ran blindly, without caution, and broke through the crust. We
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: turned and watched, and saw them shoot her with arrows.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: As she sank down in the mud. The arrows began
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: falling about us. Hair Face had now joined us, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the four of us plunged on. We knew not whither
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into the swamp. End of Chapter seventeen.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen of our wanderings in the Great Swamp, I
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: have no clear knowledge. When I strive to remember I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: have a riot of unrelated impressions and a loss of
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: time value. I have no idea of how long we
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: were in that vast everglade, but it must have been
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: for weeks. My memories of what occurred invariably take the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: form of nightmare for untold ages, oppressed protean fear. I
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: am aware of wandering endlessly, wandering through a dank and
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: soggy wilderness, where poisonous snakes struck at us, and animals
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: roared around us, and the mud quaked under us and
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: sucked at our heels. I know that we were turned
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: from our course countless times by streams and lakes and
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: slimy seas. Then there were storms and risings of the
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: water over great areas of the low lying lands, and
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: there were periods of hunger and misery, when we were
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: kept prisoners in the trees for days and days by
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: these transient floods. Very strong upon me is one picture.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: For large trees are about us, and from their branches
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: hang gray filaments of moss, while great creepers, like monstrous serpents,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: curl around the trunks and writhe in tangles through the air,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: And all about is the mud, soft mud, that bubbles
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: forth gases, and that heaves and sighs with internal agitations.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: And in the midst of all this are a dozen
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: of us. We are lean and wretched. On our bones
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: show through our tight stretched skins. We do not sing
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: and chatter and laugh. We play no pranks. For once
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: our volatile and exuberant spirits are hopelessly subdued. We make plaintive,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: querulous noises, look at one another, and cluster close together.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: It is like the meeting of the handful of survivors
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: after the day of the end of the world. This
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: event is without connection with the other events in the swamp.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: How we ever, managed to cross it, I do not know.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: But at last we came out where a low range
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: of hills ran down to the bank of the river.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: It was our river, emerging like our cells from the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: great swamp. On the south bank, where the river had
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: broken its way through the hills, we found many sandstone caves.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Beyond toward the west, the ocean boomed on the bar
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: that lay across the river's mouth, and here in the
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: caves we settled down in our biding place by the sea.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: There were not many of us. From time to time,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: as the days went by, more of the folk appeared.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: They dragged themselves from the swamp singly, and in twos
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and threes, more dead than alive, mere perambulating skeletons, until
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: at last there were thirty of us. Then no more
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: came from the swamp, and Red Eye was not among us.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: It was noticeable that no children had survived the frightful journey.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: I shall not tell in detail of the years we
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: lived by the sea. It was not a happy, a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: biting place. The air was raw and chill, and we
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: suffered continually from coughing in coals. We could not survive
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: in such an environment. True, we had children, but they
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: had little hold in life and died early, while we
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: died faster than new ones were born. Our number steadily diminished.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Then the radical change in our diet was not good
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: for us. We got few vegetables and fruits and became
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: fish eaters. There were mussels and abalonies, and clams, and
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: rotten boisters and great ocean crabs that were thrown upon
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the beach in stormy weather. Also we found several kinds
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: of seaweed that were good to eat. But the change
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: in diet caused us stomach troubles, and none of us
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: ever waxed fat. We were all lean and dyspeptic looking.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: It was in getting the big apollonies that lop ear
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: was lost. One of them closed upon his fingers at
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: low tide, and then the flood tide came in and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: drowned him. We found his body the next day, and
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: it was a lesson to us. Not another one of
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: us was ever caught in the closing shell of an abalone.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: The swift One and I managed to bring up one child,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: a boy. At least we managed to bring him along
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: for several years, but I am quite confident he could
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: never have survived that terrible climate. And then one day
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the fire people appeared again. They had come down the river,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: not on a catamaran, but in a rude dugout. There
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: were three of them that paddled in it, and one
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: of them was the little wizzened old hunter. They landed
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: on our beach and he limped across the sand and
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: examined our caves. They went away in a few minutes,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: but the swift One was badly scared. We were all frightened,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: but none of us to the extent that she was.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: She whimpered and cried and was restless all that night.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: In the morning, she took the child in her arms,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and by sharp prize gestures and example, started me on
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: our second long flight. There were eight of the folk,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: all that was left of the horde that remained behind
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: in the caves. There was no hope for them, without doubt,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: even if the fire people did not return, they must
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: soon have perished. It was a bad climate down there
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: by the sea. The folk were not constituted for the coast,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: dwelling light. We traveled south for days, skirting the Great
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Swamp but never venturing into it. Once we broke back
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: to the westward, crossing a range of mountains and coming
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: down to the coast, but it was no place for us.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: There were no trees, only bleak headlands, a thundering surf,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: and strong winds that seemed never to cease from blowing.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: We turned back across the mountains, traveling east and south
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: until we came in touch with the Great Swamp again.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Soon we gained the southern extremity of the swamp and
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: we continued our course south and east. It was a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: pleasant land. The air was warm, and we were again
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: in the forest. Later on we crossed a low lying
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: range of hills and found ourselves in an even better
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: forest country. The farther we penetrated from the coast, the
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: warmer we found it, And we went on and on
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: until we came to a large river that seemed familiar
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: to the swift One. It was where she must have
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: come from during the four years absence from the war.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: This river we crossed on logs, landing on side at
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the large bluff. High up on the bluff, we found
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: our new home, most difficult of access, and quite hidden
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: from any eye beneath. There was little more of my
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: tale to tell. Here, the swift One and I lived
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: and reared our family, and here my memories end. We
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: never made another migration. I never dreamed beyond our high,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: inaccessible cave, And here must have been born the child
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: that inherited the stuff of my dreams, that it molded
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: into its being, all the impressions of my life, or
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the life of Big Tooth. Rather, who is my other
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: self and not my real self? But who is so
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: real to me that often I am unable to tell
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: what age I am living in. I often wonder about
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: this line of descent. I the modern am incontestably a man.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Yet I Big Tooth, the primitive, am not a man. Somewhere,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: and by straight line of descent, these two parties to
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: my dual personality were connected. Were the folk before the
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: destruction in the process of becoming men? And did I
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and mine carry through this process? On the other hand,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: may not some descenditive mind have gone into the fire
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: people and become one of them? I do not know.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: There is no way of learning. One thing is certain,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: and that is that Big Tooth did stamp into the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: cerebral constitution of one of his progeny, all the impressions
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: of his life, and stamped them in so indelibly that
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the hosts of intervening generations have failed to obliterate them.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: There is one other thing of which I must speak
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: before I close. It is a dream that I dream often,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and in point of time. The real event must have
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: occurred during the period of my living in the high
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: inaccessible cave. I remember that I wandered far in the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: forest toward the east. There I came upon a tribe
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: of tree people. I crouched in a thicket and watched
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: them at play. They were holding a laughing council jumping
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: up and down and screeching rude choruses. Suddenly they hushed
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: their noise and ceased their capering. They shrank down in
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: fear and quested anxiously about with their eyes for a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: way of retreat. Then Red Eye walked in among them.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: They cowered away from him. All were frightened, but he
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: made no attempt to hurt them. He was one of them,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: at his heels on stringy bended legs, supporting herself with
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: knuckles to the ground. On either side walked an old
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: female of the tree people, his latest wife. He sat
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: down in the midst of the circle. I can see
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: him now as I write this, scowling, his eyes inflamed,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: as he peers about him at the circle of the
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: tree People. And as he peers he crooks one monstrous
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: leg and with his gnarly toes, scratches himself on the stomach.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: He is Red Eye, the Atavism. This is the end
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: of Before Adam by Jack London, recorded by Tom Weiss
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Tom's Audio Books dot Com.