by J. H. Rosny
Their way was barred by a lake, which made them turn aside from the river, and they found themselves at the foot of a mountain. It was not a high one. After walking for a quarter of a day, they reached a plateau, which began with a savannah, and became a forest; it stretched from Northeast to South-west, and was dominated on the Northeast by another chain of mountains where two rivers, which fed another lake, took their rise.
Aoun and Zouhr did not get close to the forest till near sunset. A crevice in a porphyry rock gave them shelter and they barricaded the opening with branches. Then they lit a great fire on the savannah and roasted an iguanoid. The heat was not so great as on the plains, and a breeze which blew from the neighbouring mountains refreshed the air of the plateau. The two men enjoyed the coolness after so many torrid nights; it reminded them of the watches of the Oulhamrs. They took almost as much pleasure in breathing it in as they did in eating. The rustling of the forest was like the sound of running water in the distance. At times they heard the roar of a wild best, the hyenas’ sinister laugh, or the howling of a pack of dholes.
A sudden clamour arose, then strange forms appeared in the trees. They resembled dogs and at the same time Red Dwarfs. Their over-mobile faces were lit up by round eyes placed too close together. Their four legs ended in hands.
Aoun and Zouhr recognized them. They were the rhesus monkeys, who have green hair on their backs, and yellow on their chests, and whose faces are as red as the setting sun. They looked at the fire. The son of Earth did not dislike them. In one sense he considered them like himself, as he did the Men-Devourers. Aoun shared this belief. Since their arrival in this new country, the wanderers had met them almost every day, and knew that they were inoffensive. But on account of their resemblance to the Red Dwarfs, the rhesus inspired them with a vague uneasiness.
About a dozen of them could be seen in the last rays of daylight. Having watched the flames for a moment, they bounded from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, with giddy rapidity; then they stopped and again began to take note of the unusual spectacle. At last a big male—he was like a wolf in build—slowly descended to the ground and advanced towards the fire. When he had covered a distance of about ten ells, he stopped and gave a sort of gentle whimper, which was at the same time an appeal.
Aoun had lifted his spear, remembering the treachery of the Red Dwarfs, who were hardly larger than the rhesus. He let it fall again when he heard the cry. After waiting a moment the monkey advanced another few ells. Then he seemed to have stopped for good, rendered motionless by a combination of fear and curiosity.
Loud howls resounded; three wolves appeared on the summit of a mound. As the wind blew away from them neither the men nor the rhesus had noticed their approach.
The rhesus tried to reach the trees. The most active of the wolves got ahead of him, the two others barred his retreat. Only the way to the fire remained free. The great monkey stood for a moment distracted, while his companions in the trees chattered despairingly. He turned his anxious face towards the men, saw that the wolves were drawing nearer, and mad with terror, dashed forward.
At the moment when he got near the fire, the three pursuers were converging upon him; the most active of them was only ten ells distant. The rhesus gave a mournful cry. There was no space left between the flesh-eaters and the fierce flames. Death was before him and the simian felt its cold horror. He turned first towards the forest, towards that ocean of leaves where he could so easily have escaped from the teeth of his enemies . . . then a second time his distressed face was turned imploringly towards the men.
Zouhr rose, his spear held high in his hand. A race instinct boiled within him; he bounded towards the monkey. The wolf recoiled before the man’s form, and Aoun in his turn sprang to his feet. The wolves howled; though they still kept their distance, they feigned attack, with lips turned up menacingly.
Aoun disdainfully threw a stone. Struck in the shoulder the nearest wolf fell back towards the others.
"Wolves are not worthy of spears or javelins,” mocked the son of Urus.
Among the trees one could see the other monkeys bounding from branch to branch, while the motionless fugitive looked anxiously at the men who had just saved his life. His long arms trembled. Fear had taken possession of him; he was afraid of the unknown fire, afraid of the wolves, afraid also of those forms which stood up so straight, and of that strange voice which differed from any of the voices of the forest or the steppes. By degrees his heart beat less quickly, and his round eyes sought those of the men. He began to feel reassured; when the stronger one does not strike first, after a little while the feebler one thinks that he will not strike at all. The rhesus was now afraid only of the fire and the wolves. Then the fire ceased to alarm him, as it remained within the pile of heaped-up branches.
Aoun and Zouhr, having chased away the wild beasts, took stock of their guest. He was sitting down like a child, and his little hands completed the resemblance; also his chest, which was nearly flat.
“The wolves shall not eat the little green dwarf,” said Aoun with a laugh which made the monkey start.
“Aoun and Zouhr will take him back to the trees!” added the Wah. He began to tremble again as they approached him. Their slow movements, the tones of their voices, no longer loud as when they were threatening the wolves, calmed the rhesus, and there was a feeling of gentleness between them. For Aoun and Zouhr there was pleasure in the thought of having a new companion, who excited their curiosity and made life less bleak.
Time passed. The wolves still watched; they howled at intervals; they were furious with the fire, the men, and the prey that had escaped them, not by cunning or swiftness, but through an incomprehensible intervention. At last they disappeared. They faded into the night and, as they were no longer down wind, it was impossible for their approach to be unobserved should they return.
The rhesus did not go away at once. He began to grow accustomed to the fire: the breeze blew more chill from the mountains; the sky was too clear, it absorbed the heat; the beast imitated man and took pleasure in the hot breath which came from the flames.
Then the rhesus gave a little cry, looked fixedly at his hosts and bounded towards the trees.
Aoun and Zouhr regretted his departure.
The next day the two men returned to the forest. It astonished them by the enormous size of its trees and undergrowth. There were fewer serpents than on the plains; the tribe of white-headed crows croaked in the tops of the trees; gaurs passed across the clearing, while black bears shewed themselves on the forks of the big branches. Sometimes a leopard would come forth towards the close of day, without daring to attack the men. Then a horde of long-tailed entellus monkeys, with bearded faces, would appear. They assembled in clusters in the branches, with weird cries, enjoying the feeling of companionship and the sense of security which they derived from uniting to defend themselves and their territory.
On the fourth night, Aoun became aware of a peculiar smell. No other odour which he had smelt since his arrival in this new land so much resembled the human effluvia. He shuddered; fear made his hair stand on end. Neither the odour of the tiger, the lion, the sabre-tooth, nor that of the giant feline would have seemed so alarming to him.
He wakened Zouhr so that they might be ready to fight, and both of them kept all their senses on the alert. The Wah’s power of smell was not so strongly developed as that of the Oulhamr, he only noticed a faint odour, but Aoun affirmed with dilated nostrils, “The smell is that of the Kzamms.”
The Kzamms were the most ferocious of men. Tufts of fur, in colour like that of the fox, covered their faces and bodies; their arms were as long as those of the Tree Men, their legs were short and bowed, their thighs hung in three fleshy folds and their toes were enormous. They ate the vanquished Oulhamrs, and had devoured the few Men-without-Shoulders who had escaped extermination.
For a little while the smell seemed to grow weaker, the mysterious being appeared to be going farther away. Then it became stronge
r again and finally Zouhr whispered, “The son of Urus speaks truly; it is like the smell of the Kzamms.”
An agony of impatience made Aoun breathe quickly. His club was at his feet; he made ready his bow, in order to shoot to a great distance. . . .
It now became certain that more than one of the mysterious creatures was near; the smell came from two directions.
He said, 'They see us and we do not see them. . . . We must see them ourselves!”
Zouhr, always more in favour of temporizing than the Oulhamr, hesitated.
“The light of the fire shows us up,” continued Aoun.
He had picked up his club. The Wah once more tried to pierce the darkness; he could discern nothing, and thinking that the unknown enemies might attack them unexpectedly, he approved the action.
The son of Urus went forward, and Zouhr followed him in silence. They bent down and carefully examined every detail of the ground as they passed, stopping at intervals. Aoun swept their surroundings minutely with his eyes, his ears, and above all with his delicate sense of smell. He held his club in one hand, and his bow with the arrow ready strung in the other. He advanced, observing the odours all the time, and was gradually convinced that there were only two beings. . . .
There was a rustling sound. A bush moved, then a light step was heard upon the mould. Aoun and Zouhr could could discern an indistinct shape in the low underwood, but it was so dim that they could not tell whether it was standing upright or on all fours. The sound of footsteps, however, was that of only two paws; neither the rhesus, the longtailed monkeys nor even the gibbons would have fled in this manner.
Aoun said in a low voice, “They are men.”
They stopped as if transfixed. The shadowy form took on a terrible significance. In face of this new peril Aoun suddenly and almost involuntarily shouted his war cry. Then a second set of footsteps was heard parallel to the first; after that the sound and the smell diminished. The Oulhamr started in pursuit. He was stopped first by some creepers, then by a marsh; Zouhr asked, “Why did Aoun shout his war-cry? Perhaps those men do not wish to fight us."
“They smelt like the Kzamms!”
"The smell of the Blue-Haired Men is also like that of the Kzamms.”
The Oulhamr was struck by this reflection. An instinct of prudence kept him motionless for a moment; he sniffed for a long time in the half darkness and said, "They are gonel"
“They know the forest and we do not!" said Zouhr. “We shall not see them tonight. We must wait for morning."
Aoun did not reply. He made a few steps to the left and lay down with his ear to the ground. He became aware of all sorts of faint noises, and among them the son of Urus could only just distinguish the footsteps of the unknown beings. They grew fainter and became indistinguishable, while the sound of a small pack of prowling dholes came nearer.
‘The Men-of-the-Forest did not dare fight!” he said rising to his feet, “or else they have gone to warn their brothers.”
They came back to the fire and threw on more branches: their hearts were ill at ease. Then silence settled down on the world of trees; the danger seemed very far away; the Oulhamr slept, while Zouhr watched by the crimson flames.
Morning found them irresolute. Should they continue their journey or turn back? Zouhr, always less ready for adventure, wished to return once more to the bank of the river, by the chain of rocks, where the alliance with the great feline rendered them invincible. Aoun however, elated by what he had already accomplished, was averse to retreat.
He said, "Will not the Men of the Forest know how to follow us if we go back? Why should there not be others in the country through which we have passed?”
Zouhr was all the more ready to agree to these ideas because they had occurred to him before Aoun had given expression to them. He knew well that men wandered further than jackals, wolves, or dholes. Only birds roamed over greater distances. That they had met no hordes on their way, did not prove that there had been none on their right hand or their left, and that they would not find them in the path of their return.
Zouhr agreed to take the risk. He was more foreseeing than Aoun, less ready to fight; his courage was equal to that of his companion, but he was more willing to accept the inevitable. The fatality of his race lived in him; all his own people having perished, he sometimes wondered at finding himself still alive. He would have been quite alone without Aoun; all his happiness was bound up in his alliance with the young Oulhamr, and there was no danger he might encounter which could compare with the loneliness of living without his companion.
The day passed without any alarms: when they had chosen their resting place no peculiar presence was revealed.
It was in the depths of the forest, but the lightning had set many of the trees on fire and burnt up the grass. Three blocks of schist supplied a refuge which could be sufficiently strengthened with thorns. Aoun and Zouhr roasted a leg of antelope, the flavour of which was pleasant to them; then they laid themselves down beneath the stars. Dawn was near when Aoun awoke. He saw that the Wah was standing up, listening intently, his head inclined towards the south.
“Has Zouhr heard the lion or the tiger pass?” he asked.
Zouhr did not know; he thought he had smelt a suspicious odour. . . . Aoun sniffed the air and affirmed, “The Men of the Forest have returned.”
He pushed aside the thorn barricade, and went slowly towards the south. The smell had vanished; it was only the trail left by the mysterious beings. It was impossible to pursue them in the dusk. The two men went back into the refuge and waited for daylight. A grey light began to spread among the clouds in the east. A bird filled its little chest and twittered. Shifting fights appeared among the clouds. Then day dawned. Amber-coloured lakes, emerald rivers, and purple mountains were bom and died in the land of trees. Then a scarlet shape appeared, glinting through the forest groves. . . .
The Wah and the Oulhamr had already started. They were going towards the South, attracted by the unknown. The danger of being taken by surprise appeared to them greater than that of going in pursuit of those who were spying upon them. Their instinct told them that they must know the nature and strength of those beings, so that they might organize their defense, and Zouhr’s prudence agreed with Aoun’s ardour.
They walked quickly. There was little to impede their progress. It seemed as if paths had been made by the frequent passage of individuals or hordes. Aoun continued to wind the trail. For a long time the scent remained weak, then in the middle of the day, it strengthened. Aoun pursued his course impatiently. The forest began to grow fighter. A moor appeared, studded with trees, bushes and ferns at rare intervals, and with a few stagnant pools. . . .
Aoun hesitated for one moment, then suddenly he gave a cry: he had discovered quite fresh foot prints in the soft earth. Traces of broad feet with five toes were there, which more resembled men’s feet than the feet of the dryopithecus.
The son of Urus stooped down and examined these footprints for a long time: then he announced, “The Men of the Forest are near, they have not yet regained their covert.”
The companions started once more. Their hearts beat fast, they did not go near any bush without having first made the circuit of it. When they had gone three or four thousand ells, Aoun pointed out a thicket of mastic trees, and said in a low voice, "They are there!”
A shudder ran through them; the sympathy which united them after so many days spent together was now blended with profound anxiety. They had no means of gauging the enemy’s strength. All that Aoun knew was that there were only two of them. He considered himself as strong as Naoh, the strongest of all the Oulhamrs, but Zouhr was feeble; nearly all the warriors of the tribe could wield heavier clubs, and move more rapidly. They must try to carry on the fight from a distance; and if the others had no bows, the advantage would be on the side of the Oulhamr and the Wah.
"Is Zouhr ready to fight?” asked Aoun with gentle anxiety.
“Zouhr is ready. . . . but we must try first to
make an alliance with the Men-of-the-Forest, like the Wahs did in old days with the Oulhamrs."
“Both hordes were enemies of the Red Dwarfs.”
Aoun advanced first, as he had the keenest sense of smell and he wanted to stand the first shock. His fighting instinct, and the wish to preserve his companion’s life, made him desire this.
When they were about a hundred ells distant, they began to make a circuit round the mastic trees, stopping from time to time so as to get a good view of the clear spaces in the thicket. No animal form became visible among the trunks or branches.
At last the Oulhamr lifted up his loud voice, “The Men-of-the-Forest think they are hidden from us, but we know their retreat. Aoun and Zouhr are strong—they have killed the red beast and the tiger!”
The thicket kept its secret. Not a, sound excepting the fight sough of the breeze, the droning of the flies and the far off song of a bird broke the silence. Aoun grew impatient.
"The Oulhamrs have the noses of jackals and the hearing of wolves! Two Men of the Forest are hidden among the mastic trees.”
Yellow-headed cranes fluttered down close to a lotus-covered pool, a hawk hovered above the crests of the trees, and the glaring sunlight, which burnt up the grass, revealed a herd of graceful antelopes passing in the distance. Fear, prudence or cunning counselled the unknown beings to keep silence.
Aoun had fitted an arrow to his bow. Thinking better of it, he gathered some thin branches and trimmed them. Zouhr did the same.
When they had finished their work they did not at once make up their minds as to further action. Zouhr would have preferred to wait. Even Aoun was full of indecision. . . . The idea of latent danger became unbearable to him, he fitted one of the sticks to the bow and shot it off. It produced no effect. Three times they renewed their efforts without any more success. A dull cry was heard after the flight of the fifth missile; the branches were pushed aside, and a hairy being came into view in front of the mastic trees.