Helgvor of the Blue River

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Then, having secured the leaves and herbs on his companion’s chest, he took him on his back and started to walk. The journey was a hard one, because he had also to carry the weapons, but Aoun had inherited the strength of Faouhm, Naoh, and the Hairy Men. He walked for a long time, obstinately fighting his fatigue. Frequently he laid Zouhr down in the shade and without losing sight of him mounted a knoll or a boulder and surveyed the landscape.

  The morning was passing, the heat became intolerable, and still no line of rocks revealed itself to him.

  “Zouhr is thirsty,” said the Man-without-Shoulders, who was shivering with fever.

  The son of Urus directed his steps towards the river. At this sweltering time of day, only a few crocodiles were to be seen spreading their scaly bodies on an island, or some hippopotami would appear for a moment above the surface of the yellow water.

  The river rolled on into the far distance. Its fertile waters had given birth to age-old forests, perennial grasses, and animals without number. Father of life, it had life’s untiring energy; it hurried forward its hordes of waves over rapids and cataracts.

  Aoun fetched some water in the hollow of his hands and gave the wounded man a drink. He asked anxiously, “Does Zouhr suffer?”

  “Zouhr is very weak! Zouhr would like to sleep.”

  Aoun’s muscular hand was laid lightly on his companion’s head, “Aoun will make a shelter” he said.

  The Oulhamrs knew how to protect themselves in the forest by an arrangement of interlacing branches. Aoun set himself to look for creepers, which he cut with his hatchet, and having chosen three palm-trees which grew on a little eminence, he cut notches in their stems and interlaced the flexible stalks from one trunk to the other. This formed a triangular enclosure, the latticework sides of which offered a supple but solid resistance. The son of Urus worked hard, and the shadows had grown long on the river before he took any rest. It was necessary that the shelter should be covered with creepers sufficiently strong to resist the weight of a wild beast until his stomach should be slit or his heart pierced by the point of a spear.

  Zouhr’s fever continued to run high; green lights traversed his pupils; he dozed at intervals and woke up with a start, muttering incoherent words. Still he watched Aoun’s work attentively, and gave him advice, for the Men-without-Shoulders were more ingenious constructors than the Oulhamrs or than any other men.

  Before resuming his work Aoun ate some of the meat which lad been roasted the previous day. Then he collected some thick creepers which made a roof for the refuge, and prepared two great branches which were intended to close the opening.

  The Sun was approaching the crest of the highest ebony-trees when the men took refuge in their hut. It dominated the surrounding country. The river could be distinctly seen through the latticework, 300 ells away.

  It was the hour of life. The monstrous hippopotami came up from their submerged pastures and clambered onto the islands. A long troop of wild cattle were drinking on the other bank. A file of gangetic dolphins, with pointed snouts, could be seen parting the water. A crocodile with two crests appeared out of the rushes and shut his jaws on the slim neck of a chital. The graceful creature struggled with death in the fearsome jaws, which gradually decapitated it. Rhesus monkeys were distractedly agitating their miniature human bodies among the branches, while pheasants of emerald sapphire and golden hues alighted among the rushes, and snowy flight of egrets fluttered on the flowered islands. At times, seized with panic, a horde of nilgai or axis would pass, fleeing before a pack of Dholes or a couple of cheetahs. Then some horses appeared, wild-eyed, anxious and tumultuous creatures, whose prudence kept all their muscles tense. They came on with sudden prancings which swayed the whole troop, pricking their nervous ears—terrified at every noise. A string of gayals gravely skirted a little forest of bamboos.

  Suddenly a loud roar was heard and five lions bounded towards the river. Solitude resulted. The broad-chested beasts caused the herbivores to vanish into space. Only the crocodile who had torn off its victim’s head had not fled. It was impossible to say whether it scented danger. Its body, covered with thick scales, measured 12 ells; it was as broad as a log, and its glassy eyes and stupid head seemed an uncouth mixture of animal and mineral. A confused instinct however, impelled its huge jaws towards the newcomers. It hesitated—then, seizing its prey by the middle of the body with its long rows of teeth, it plunged among the lotuses.

  Two of the lions had manes. They were thickset males, whose heads were like blocks of shale, and though heavy in repose they could bound 20 ells at a time when hunting. The lionesses were not so tall, but they were longer and more lithe, and appeared to be more cunning. All of them had large yellow eyes, which looked straight before them like the eyes of man.

  They watched the stampede of the magnificent flocks from afar, and filled with disappointment halted to growl and roar. The sound of the male lions’ tremendous voice traveled over the surface of the river and made even the dolphins tremble. Panic was rife amongst the palm groves, the rushes and the banyan-trees; it reached to the little landing bays, the promontories, and onward to the confluence of the stream and the river. The monkeys chattered frenziedly among the branches.

  When the carnivores had given vent to their anger they continued their way. The males sniffed the faint breeze, the more nervous lionesses stretched their muzzles towards the earth. One of them winded the men. She advanced crouching towards the hut, half hidden by the high grasses; the other two females followed her while the male lions waited.

  Aoun watched the brutes come towards him. Each of them had five times the strength of a man; their claws were sharper than arrow heads, and their teeth were more efficacious than harpoons. He realized his weakness and the horror of being alone, and he regretted having left the country where his kind had numerical strength in their favor.

  Zouhr lifted up his head; in his wounded breast fear mingled with pain and regret that he was unable to fight.

  The first lioness was now close to them. She could not get a good view of the singular animals sheltered by the creepers, so she circled warily around the enclosure. Now that she was so close to him the son of Urus was no longer afraid; the blood of the warriors who knew how to die under fierce claws without ceasing to fight, coursed tumultuously through his veins; his eyes glowed as fiercely as the lioness’, and brandishing an axe, he shouted from his deep chest the defiance of the human, “Aoun will scatter abroad the lions’ vitals!”

  But Zouhr said to him, “Let the son of Urus be prudent! Lions do not fear death when once their blood is up. You must hit him on the nostrils while you shout your war-cry!”

  Aoun realized the Wah’s wisdom; it was greater even than that of Goun of the Dry Bones. Craft veiled the light in his eyes.

  Motionless now, the lioness tried to see the being distinctly from which that menacing voice proceeded. First one of the lions roared, then the other; Aoun responded mightily; all five brutes were now in front of the creeper covered arbor. They were aware of the superiority of their strength and of their numbers, and yet they delayed the attack because their prey defied them and remained hidden.

  It was the youngest lioness who attempted to force her way through. She came quite close, sniffed and gave a blow with her claws. The creeper yielded but did not break, while the blunt end of a harpoon struck hard against her nostrils; she leapt back with a mew of rage and pain, her companions surveying her with anxious surprise. There was a pause. The five motionless lions seemed no longer to be thinking of the men. Then one of the males snarled, and with a terrific bound the tawny mass landed on the creeper roof, which sagged.

  Aoun had stooped down. He waited till he could reach the beast’s muzzle; then he succeeded in inflicting three blows on its nostrils. Mad with pain the animal rolled about as if it were blinded and finally fell back to the ground and crawled away.

  The son of Urus threatened, “If another lion bounds onto the men’s heads Aoun will tear out his eye
s.”

  But the lions remained pensive. Those who had not attacked retreated like the others. The hidden human beings appeared more enigmatical to them than ever, and altogether terrible. Neither in their way of fighting nor in their voices did they in the least resemble the prey which the lions were accustomed to attack in their ambushes or at the drinking places. The blows which they dealt were strangely intolerable.

  The lions were afraid to approach the hut, but tenacious rancor kept them on the watch. Couched among the tall grasses or under the arches of a banyan-tree, they waited with their peculiar nonchalant and terrible patience. From time to time one or other of them would go down to the river to drink, and the herbivores were already reappearing in the distance.

  Birds teemed. The pale bodies and black heads of the ibis could be seen outlined against the hollow of the bays, the marabous danced ridiculously on the islands, the cormorants made sudden dives, a flotilla of teal passed furtively, cranes flew noisily over a band of white-headed crows, while the parrots hidden among the palm-trees made a deafening clamor…

  Slowly an ever-increasing sound arose in the west. One of the lions bent his head to listen to it, then a lioness sat up quivering. They all growled; the thunderous roar of the males seemed to tear the air.

  Aoun listened in his turn; he thought he heard the tramp of a herd, but his attention always came back to the carnivore. Their excitement increased, they assembled by the hut and began to attack it all together. Aoun’s voice stopped them; those who had been struck on the nostrils drew back; a reverberation rose up from the depths of the earth.

  Then the son of Urus realized that an immense herd was advancing towards the river. He thought of the aurochs which pastured on the plains beyond the mountains, then of the mammoths with whom Naoh had made an alliance, in the land of the Devourers-of-Men.

  A sound of trumpeting was heard.

  “It is the mammoths!” declared Aoun.

  Despite the fever which made him shiver, Zouhr listened attentively.

  “Yes, it is the mammoths,” he repeated, but with less conviction.

  The lions had all risen. For a moment their massive heads were bent towards the west, then with slow steps they went downwind, and their tawny bodies were lost in the brushwood.

  Aoun was not afraid of the mammoths. They crush neither men nor grass-eaters, not even wolves or leopards; it is only necessary to remain motionless when they pass, and to keep silence. But would they not be irritated to find men hidden in this bower of creepers? With a single blow one of these colossi could break through the enclosure and annihilate the son of Urus.

  “Must Aoun and Zouhr leave the creeper cavern?” asked the Oulhamr.

  “Yes,” replied the Man-without-Shoulders.

  Then Aoun moved the creepers arranged over the opening, crawled out onto the plain and helped Zouhr to follow him. Trees crashed. In the distance massive forms, gray in color like clay, became visible. Trunks stood out at the end of their heads, which were like rocks. The herd formed into three groups, preceded by six colossal males. They pounded the earth, crushed the cannas, and pierced the curtains of the banyan-trees. Their skin was like the bark of old cedar-trees, their legs were as thick as Aoun’s body, their bodies like the bodies of ten aurochs.

  The Oulhamr said, “They have no manes, their tusks are almost straight, they are larger than the largest mammoths!”

  “They are not mammoths!” said the Man-without-Shoulders. “They are the fathers of mammoths!”

  For the Men-without-Shoulders, knowing their own feebleness, believed in the superior strength of ancestral life.

  Aoun felt his insignificance much more than when he was in the presence of the lions. He felt himself as defenseless as an ibis confronted with crocodiles. His pride was annihilated; motionless, stooping over his wounded comrade, he waited.

  The advance guard was near. The six leaders approached the refuge; their brown eyes never ceased gazing at Aoun, but they showed no distrust, perhaps they knew human beings.

  Death or life—the decision was near; if the leaders did not turn aside, it would require but ten steps before the men were pounded into the earth like woodlice, and the creeper enclosure swept away. Aoun gazed fixedly at the most powerful male elephant. Fifteen ells high, his trunk would have stifled a buffalo as easily as a python would have strangled an axis.

  He stopped in front of the men. As it was he who gave the line of march all the other leaders imitated him, and an army of giants spread out in a vast heaving curve. His club at his feet, with head bent low, Aoun accepted his fate.

  At last the chief trumpeted, and turned towards the right of the enclosure.

  All followed. Each full-grown elephant, because those ahead of him had stepped aside, stepped aside in his turn; none, not even the youngest ones, touched the men or their refuge. The earth trembled for a long time. The grass had become a green pulp, the reeds and lotus perished under the tread of the advance guard, the hippopotami had fled; a crocodile 20 ells long, had been thrown aside like a frog, and on a rising ground the five lions could be seen lifting their roaring muzzles towards the red Sun.

  Very soon the whole herd had plunged into the river. The waves ebbed, the trunks sucked up the water and threw it back in douches, then these moving rocks submerged themselves: the monstrous heads and huge spines seemed like erratic blocks washed down from the mountains with the glaciers, the torrents, and the avalanches.

  “Naoh made an alliance with the mammoths,” murmured Aoun. “Could not the son of Urus make an alliance with the ancestors of the mammoths?”

  The day was dying, the lions disappeared from the rising ground; the ponderous gaurs and the graceful axis hastened towards their nocturnal shelters. Then the Sun touched the hills beyond the further bank of the river, and the carnivores awoke in their lairs. Aoun went into the creeper hut and dragged the Man-without-Shoulders in after him.

  V. The Python

  Three days passed; the lions had not returned and the elephants had disappeared down the river. Under the rays of the terrible Sun and with the help of the nocturnal vapors, the crushed grasses and shrubs were busy remaking their green flesh. Inexhaustible life, that outstripped all the hunger of the herbivores, sprang up from the damp soil and spread itself upon the waters of the inlets. Prey was so abundant that Aoun had only to throw a javelin or dart a harpoon each day to ensure their subsistence. Naoh’s spirit was upon him, forbidding him to kill more than was necessary to stay his hunger.

  His companion’s shivering fits and delirium troubled Aoun for a long time. But his wounds were healing and the green light was leaving his eyes. On the fourth day they were joyful. The shade of the creepers and palm-trees made a pleasant freshness. Seated at the entrance of their shelter, the Oulhamr and the Man-without-Shoulders enjoyed a sense of complete repose and the luxury of abundance. The sight of the teeming animal life around moved them deeply, for it gave promise that they would not starve, and there is satisfaction in beholding the world’s strength. Purple herons swooped down on the water chestnuts, two black storks got up on the opposite bank of the river, a marabou danced in a strange and unmeaning manner, and the pendant legs of a flight of yellow-headed cranes were visible, while black-footed geese with thick wattles and scarlet ibis were seeking adventures among the lotus.

  A python emerged from the mud and climbed on the bank, unfolding his lithe body, as thick as a man’s and five times as long. The wanderers gazed with disgust at the loathsome beast, which was unknown to the Oulhamrs. Although it was capable of the speed of a wild boar, it progressed heavily and uncertainly, still numbed by sleep and more suited to the night than to the day.

  Aoun and Zouhr had taken refuge in the creeper hut. No previous experience enabled them to judge the strength of the reptile, or to know whether its fangs were poisonous, like those of the serpents which they had met in western countries. It might be as strong as a tiger or as venomous as a viper…

  Little by little it approach
ed the enclosure. Aoun kept his club and spear in readiness but did not think of shouting his war-cry. He was conscious of life which resembled his own in the great brutes, but this long slimy body without any limbs, the head which was too small in proportion—the motionless eyes, seemed stranger to him than grubs and earthworms.

  When the python was close to the refuge it reared itself up and opened its flat jaws.

  “Should I strike now?” asked the son of Urus.

  Zouhr hesitated; in his country the Men-without-Shoulders killed serpents by crushing their skulls, but what were the serpents he knew in comparison to this huge monster?

  “Zouhr does not know,” he replied. “He would not strike until the beast attacks the hut.”

  Its head had reached the creepers and was seeking for an opening. Aoun pricked its muzzle with the point of a spear. The python bounded back with a loud hissing noise, twisted itself dizzily together and started off to return to the river. At the same moment a young antelope crossed the plain. Either the reptile saw it or it gave way to its natural indolence: it became motionless. The antelope lifted up its humped forehead, the smell of man made it anxious and it left the neighborhood of the refuge. Then only did it see the python; a trembling seized its limbs, its eyes became fixed on the cold eyes before it, it was paralyzed. The scene was short. The antelope tried to escape, but the long soft body flung forward with the rapidity of a panther. The antelope tripped over a stone and was knocked down by the attack of the reptile. It recovered itself before the python could envelop it and fled at random. This brought it to the edge of a creek, where the sinuous brute again barred its way.