Quest of The Dawn Man

by J. H. Rosny

  The rainy season was now only five weeks distant. Aoun thought more often of his horde, of Naoh, the conqueror of the Kzamms, the Red Dwarfs and Aghoo the Hairy, of the evening fires, and of his rough companions, of whose ferocity, however, he did not approve.

  One morning he said to Ouchr, “Listen: Aoun and Zouhr are going to visit their horde; the Wolf-Women will choose a cave close to the mountains. . . After the cold weather, the Oulhamrs will come. . . . They will be the wolf-Women’s allies.”

  Ouchr and the other Wolf-Women felt the weight of impending destiny. They were on the plain near the bank of the river. They thronged round the son of Urus; the younger ones wailed . . . Djeha had bounded to her feet. Her breast heaved, her great eyes were full of tears. Aoun, deeply moved, regarded her for some time in silence.

  He said, “Ouchr has promised that Djeha shall be Aoun’s wife. Djeha will obey.”

  He turned towards Ouchr, and trembling slightly murmured, “Give me Djeha as my companion.”

  Ouchr threw Aoun a long melancholy glance, then she seized Djeha by the back of her neck and flung her on the ground. With a pointed stone she then made a long wound, which reached from the shoulder to the middle of the girl’s chest. Blood gushed out, and Aoun put his lips to it. Ouchr pronounced the words which their ancestors had used long ago, and which gave the woman to the man.

  The next day the little band started off. Aoun and Zouhr had left the giant feline sadly. The Wah felt the parting more than his companion, having no love of woman in his heart. His race would die out with him; he bitterly regretted leaving the cave and that alliance with the great wild beast which he had made. Nothing attached him to the Oulhamr horde; he was a stranger in it, and the young Oulhamrs despised him. . . .

  They passed the place where the yellow lions had fled before the elephants; they passed close to the granite ridge where the sabre-tooth had devoured the rhinoceros and where Aoun had killed the sabre-tooth; then they came to the rugged promontory which the mountains threw out towards the land of the Chellians.

  From that high promontory they had discovered the river, and the strange red beast which lived before the time of the giant feline, itself a precursor of the lion and tiger. It was there that the Wolf-Women chose a spacious cave in which to pass the rainy season. Then they helped Aoun and Zouhr to find a way towards the mountain.

  The separation was a hard one. The women would no longer have near them that strength which had delivered them from the Chellians; they would be alone in a world full of dangers. When they reached the foot of the ravine, where the travellers were to leave them, they made a long lamentation. Aoun cried out, “We will come back to the banks of the great river.”

  His own heart was heavy. The land he was leaving was indeed full of ambushes and enemies, but he had triumphed, he had overcome the perils; men and beasts had given way before his strength. He was carrying off Djeha.

  Zouhr dreamed of no other joy than that of returning to the chain of rocks.

  One day succeeded another. Aoun, Zouhr and Djeha went up the rugged mountain paths. Aoun was impatient to see his horde again. Every stage they accomplished brought back the remembrance of former joys to his young soul.

  The time came when they found again the lofty defile through which they had passed when they left the mountain; then they arrived before the fissure. As it had grown larger they had less trouble in passing through it. The caverns were there, re-echoing the sound of water. In them they slept, and two days passed before they could find the horde.

  They found them at last at the decline of day, at the foot of a hill, under an enormous over-hanging porphyry rock. The women were heaping up dry branches, which Naoh was to set a light to. Their watchers shouted, and Aoun was the first to appear before the son of the Leopard. There was a great silence. The women gazed at Djeha with malevolent eyes.

  Naoh said gravely, "A whole season has passed since you went away.”

  "We have crossed the mountain and we have discovered vast hunting grounds,” replied Aoun.

  Naoh’s face lit up. He remembered the fierce days when he set off with Nam and Gaw to reconquer fire; he lived over again his battle with the grey wolf and the tigress, his pursuit of the Men-Devourers, his alliance with the chief of the mammoths, the perfidy of the Red Dwarfs and the gentleness of the Wahs, the forest of the Blue-Haired men, the surprise of the Bear of the Caves, and, on their return, the terrible encounter with Aghoo the Hairy. . . . He had brought back fire, and the secret of extracting it from stones, which he had learnt from the Men-without-Shoulders.

  “Go on,” he said, "Naoh listens to the son of Urus.”

  He set fire to the pile of branches and encouraged his son to speak.

  Gradually, as he heard the recital, his adventurous soul became excited. The red beast filled him with surprise, but he revolted when Aoun maintained that the elephants were bigger than mammoths, “No beast is bigger than the mammoth, with whom Naoh lived in the country of the Kzamms.”

  He recognized the wild beast which lived among the chain of rocks, and asked Aoun, "Does he not kill the tiger as easily as the lion kills the panther?”

  He was full of enthusiasm over the alliance with the giant feline. He turned his benevolent face towards Zouhr and said, "The Wahs were the most clever among men. It was they who found out the secret of obtaining fire from stones. They could traverse rivers by means of interlaced branches, and they knew the waters which flow underground!"

  His breast heaved with excitement as they told of their fights with the Chellians; his eyes sparkled, he laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder saying, "Aoun has the heart and the strength of a chief!”

  The Oulhamrs around them were listening, but they remained full of distrust; they were thinking that Naoh had reconquered the secret of fire, and saved the horde when they were dying of cold on the rocks, while Aoun had only brought back a strange girl with him, and that weakly companion whom no one liked.

  Khouam, son of Aegager exclaimed, "Did not Aoun say that those lands were much hotter than ours? . . . The Oulhamrs will not be able to live in them. . . . When we traversed the Burnt Plain, the warriors and women died like grasshoppers in autumn.”

  Dull voices approved his words. Aoun understood that the horde loved him even less than before he went away.

  For a week, the son of Urus tasted the sweetness of being among the men of his race. He hunted with the others, or else stayed near Djeha, to whom the women of the horde would not speak. Little by little sadness took possession of his breast. He felt he had accomplished a task which was as great as that of Naoh, for though he had not brought back the secret of fire, he had told his horde that an immense land, teeming with animal life, existed beyond the mountains. He knew himself to be superior to all the young men, and as strong as the chief. He could see that the Oulhamrs did not admire him at all. All of them preferred Khouam, whose club and spear could not have fought against those of Aoun. Khouam would be chief if the son of the Leopard died, and he would have to obey Khouam. That would be hard for Aoun, for Khouam would incite hatred towards him, Djeha and Zouhr, which would grow rapidly.

  Even before his departure they had reproached the son of Urus with preferring the Wah’s company, and now he had united himself to a maiden from a country into which they had never penetrated. Thus he became a stranger to them. The women especially hated him. They turned away from

  Djeha with insulting words, and when several of them passed her together a hoarse murmur showed their dislike. Even Aoun’s sisters fled from her.

  When he found himself alone in the twilight with the young Wolf-Woman and the Wah, Aoun felt his humiliation most keenly. Terrible impatience burnt in his veins.

  After a few days he revolted. He no longer tried to draw closer to the others, but obstinately isolated himself with Zouhr and Djeha; when they were hunting he went off alone whenever he had received no special order from Naoh to stay with the horde. He wandered for days together near the underground
river, and often, compelled by an impulse which was too strong for him, he found himself again by that fissure which led to the land of adventure.

  One morning he set out in pursuit of a leopard. Leopards abounded in the neighbouring forests. Powerful, circumspect and audacious, voracious and active, they exterminated the deer, antelopes and onagers, and even killed young aurochs. Naoh did not hunt them, being bound to them by an obscure totemism; many Oulhamrs feared them, because they defended themselves madly when wounded; few solitary hunters dared to attack them.

  Aoun prowled for a long time in the forest without finding the trace of one. A small water course trickled on a flinty bed; the wanderer became aware of the smell of a leopard. He lay down among the ferns and waited, motionless.

  He noticed up stream, under long leafy arcades, a little rocky eminence, the advanced part of which formed a sort of cave. A beast lay asleep there in profound security, its head on its paws. Despite the distance and the waning light, Aoun could see it was a leopard. About twelve hundred ells separated the man from the beast. The warrior advanced eight hundred ells before the beast was disturbed from its slumbers. As he plunged into a tangle of high grass, the round head was raised, two fires of amber and emerald were lit up in the shadow of the rocks.

  Aoun lay flat on the ground, while the wild beast sniffed the air for a long time. The sparkling eyes gazed round for a moment, then the muzzle dropped, and the spotted body again became inert. Aoun allowed many minutes to elapse before moving on. He had still about two hundred ells to cover. Then he could shoot an arrow from his bow. His weapon could not inflict a mortal wound at that distance, even if it reached its mark, but Aoun hoped that the beast, becoming enraged, would accept battle.

  A gentle breeze sprang up, which carried the smell of the hunter away from the animal. He hastened his steps and gained a hundred and fifty ells, then he hid behind a tree.

  Again the leopard lifted its head to listen. Then it came out of its lair, the better to sniff the suspicious smell.

  Suddenly a belling was heard, a doe bounded out between the sycamores and the leopard dashed after it. The doe took a turn towards the tree which hid Aoun from view; the warrior rose, his bow twanged. The leopard, wounded at the back of its neck, gave a frenzied howl. It hesitated, gazed at its adversary and slipped away among the ferns.

  Aoun placed himself in an open space, in order to guard against a surprise, holding his club in one hand and a spear in the other. The leopard seemed unable to make up its mind to attack him. It could distinctly see the man through the thick vegetation, and it tried to find a way of approaching him under cover and leaping on his back.

  Its fury had abated; it hardly felt its wound, and although it had proved itself too clever for all the Oulhamrs’ traps, it realized that it now had to do with a dangerous adversary. It tried to improve its position, but found itself several bounds length from its enemy in whichever direction it turned. Aoun, having a good view of its spotted fur, flung his spear. It fell among the ferns and the leopard retreated into the deep thickets.

  Other creatures had for some time been moving in the forest; the hunter became aware of the approach of a band of men. Shouting a rallying cry he dashed off in pursuit of the leopard. Heads appeared here and there; spears were flung without result. Suddenly Khouam shewed his muscular body, and brandishing his bow let fly an arrow. Hit in the flank, the leopard sprang up and turned, ready for battle. . . . Khouam had vanished; all the other heads had hidden themselves; only Aoun remained visible.

  The leopard hesitated no longer; it was within reach of the son of Urus in three bounds, then it sprang. . . . Aoun’s club stopped it and threw it to the ground; he shattered its skull, and the beast rolled over and expired with a hoarse cry.

  Then Khouam and his companions ran up. Aoun watched them come, leaning on his club. He thought that they would admire his strength; an amiable gentleness and the attraction of race rose in him. But the faces were hard. One of the men who followed Khouam, like Zouhr followed Aoun, exclaimed, “Khouam has conquered the leopard!”

  There were loud grunts of approval. Khouam drew himself up by the body and showed his arrow, which was deeply imbedded in the beast’s ribs. Aoun revolted, “Khouam did not conquer the leopard.”

  The Oulhamrs mocked him and displayed the arrow; the man who had first spoken went on, “It was Khouam! Aoun only finished the victory.”

  The son of Urus raised his club; anger raged within him; he shouted disdainfully, “What is a leopard? Aoun has conquered the red beast, the tiger and the Dhole-Men. Only Naoh is as strong as he!”

  Khouam did not give way. He felt the support of his companions’ presence around him.

  “Khouam fears neither the lion nor the tiger!”

  A bitter sorrow gnawed at Aoun’s heart. He was like a stranger to the men of his race. Seizing the carcass he flung it towards them, “There. The son of Urus will not strike the Oulhamrs. He gives them the leopard.”

  They no longer mocked him; their ferocious eyes were fixed on his tall stature and his enormous club; they were all cunningly aware that his strength was like that of the great carnivores. But they detested it, and disdained his gentleness.

  Aoun returned to the camp full of disgust and annoyance.

  When he got near to the overhanging rock, he found Djeha all alone, crouched upon a rock. She rose when she saw him, with a wail . . . her cheek was bleeding.

  "Djeha has hurt herself?” said he passing his arm round her shoulders.

  She replied in a low voice, “The women threw stones.”

  “They threw stones at Djeha?”

  She nodded her head;. a shudder ran through the wanderer; and seeing that the camp was deserted, "Where are they?” he asked.

  I do not know.”

  He bowed his head sullenly. The pain which he felt became intolerable. In the silence which succeeded he realized that he no longer wished to live with the horde:

  “Would Djeha like to return to the Wolf-Women with Aoun and Zouhr?” he murmured.

  She lifted her face towards him full of joy, which she tried to hide. She was a submissive and timid creature. She suffered acutely among the Oulhamrs; she endured their hate, the disdain and mocking laughs of the women, and was the more overcome because she hardly understood their language. She dared not complain, and would not have spoken of her wound if Aoun had not interrogated her.

  She exclaimed, “Djeha will go with Aoun wherever he goes.”

  “Does she not prefer to live with her horde?”

  "Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then we will go back to the bank of the great river.”

  She gave a sigh of relief and leant her head on the man’s shoulder.

  When the Wah returned from the underground lands, the son of Urus drew him to a distance from the camp, for the women and the hunters had returned.

  “Listen,” he said abruptly, “Aoun wants to see the Wolf-Women, the Kzamm tiger and the high cave again.”

  Zouhr lifted his vague eyes; his lips opened with a laugh. He knew that his companion was living through bad days in the horde, and his own heart was heavy, “Zouhr will be happy in the high cave,” he said.

  His words dissipated the wanderer’s last indecision. He went to Naoh, who was resting apart from the horde, under a jutting rock of porphyry, and declared, "The warriors do not like the son of Urus. He wishes to go back to the other side of the mountain. He will live with the Wolf-Women and be the ally of the Oulhamrs.”

  Naoh listened gravely. He was fond of the young man, but he was aware of the horde’s aversion for him, and foresaw painful struggles:

  "The horde is displeased to see Aoun consorting with strangers,” he said, “if he stays with the horde they will not forgive bim. The Oulhamrs respect their allies. They have fought with the Men-without-Shoulders. They will like Aoun better when he has left the horde. Listen! In the spring Naoh will conduct his people to the other side of the mountain. He will occupy the plateau whil
e the Wolf-Women occupy the plain. If he comes down to the plain during the cold season, he will not hunt on the same side of the river as Aoun. So the alliance will be secure!”

  He laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and added, “The son of Urus would have been a great chief among the Oulhamrs, if he had not preferred the Wah to his own men, and a strange woman to the women of his tribe!”

  The son of Urus understood the truth of those words. He however regretted nothing: more than ever he preferred Zouhr and Djeha. The separation from Naoh would be his only sorrow.

  “Aoun will bring teeth and shining stones to the Son of the Leopard,” he murmured.

  Twilight came on. A sweet melancholy feeling came over the two men; their souls were as much alike as their destinies were different; each one had carried his strength and audacity very far. Yet almost identical acts had made a chief of the father and an exile of the son.

  EPILOGUE

  Since the previous day a couple of sabre-tooth tigers had established themselves among the rocks, three hundred paces from the Wolf-Women’s cave. They knew the agility, strength, cunning and audacity of these devourers of pachyderms. None of the women dared venture out. During the night the red beasts had prowled for a long time about their refuge. Sometimes they came nearer, and their snarls and rough growls could be heard. Then the women shouted all together and threw sharp stones. The projectiles had no effect, however, and were lost among the boulders, thorns and branches accumulated for the defense of the cave. At last other prey claimed the attention of the tigers, but during the day, the male or the female would return, between two sleeps, to watch the enigmatical beings.