Chapter 3
When I awoke, it was daylight, and I found Ajor squatting before a finebed of coals roasting a large piece of antelope-meat. Believe me, thesight of the new day and the delicious odor of the cooking meat filledme with renewed happiness and hope that had been all but expunged bythe experience of the previous night; and perhaps the slender figure ofthe bright-faced girl proved also a potent restorative. She looked upand smiled at me, showing those perfect teeth, and dimpling withevident happiness--the most adorable picture that I had ever seen. Irecall that it was then I first regretted that she was only a littleuntutored savage and so far beneath me in the scale of evolution.
Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there shepointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear--a hugesaber-tooth tiger, its fine coat and its flesh torn to ribbons, lyingdead a few paces from our cave, and beside it, equally mangled, anddisemboweled, was the carcass of a huge cave-bear. To have had one'slife saved by a saber-tooth tiger, and in the twentieth century intothe bargain, was an experience that was to say the least unique; but ithad happened--I had the proof of it before my eyes.
So enormous are the great carnivora of Caspak that they must feedperpetually to support their giant thews, and the result is that theywill eat the meat of any other creature and will attack anything thatcomes within their ken, no matter how formidable the quarry. Fromlater observation--I mention this as worthy the attention ofpaleontologists and naturalists--I came to the conclusion that suchcreatures as the cave-bear, the cave-lion and the saber-tooth tiger, aswell as the larger carnivorous reptiles make, ordinarily, two kills aday--one in the morning and one after night. They immediately devourthe entire carcass, after which they lie up and sleep for a few hours.Fortunately their numbers are comparatively few; otherwise there wouldbe no other life within Caspak. It is their very voracity that keepstheir numbers down to a point which permits other forms of life topersist, for even in the season of love the great males often turn upontheir own mates and devour them, while both males and femalesoccasionally devour their young. How the human and semihuman raceshave managed to survive during all the countless ages that theseconditions must have existed here is quite beyond me.
After breakfast Ajor and I set out once more upon our northwardjourney. We had gone but a little distance when we were attacked by anumber of apelike creatures armed with clubs. They seemed a littlehigher in the scale than the Alus. Ajor told me they were Bo-lu, orclubmen. A revolver-shot killed one and scattered the others; butseveral times later during the day we were menaced by them, until wehad left their country and entered that of the Sto-lu, or hatchet-men.These people were less hairy and more man-like; nor did they appear soanxious to destroy us. Rather they were curious, and followed us forsome distance examining us most closely. They called out to us, andAjor answered them; but her replies did not seem to satisfy them, forthey gradually became threatening, and I think they were preparing toattack us when a small deer that had been hiding in some low brushsuddenly broke cover and dashed across our front. We needed meat, forit was near one o'clock and I was getting hungry; so I drew my pistoland with a single shot dropped the creature in its tracks. The effectupon the Bo-lu was electrical. Immediately they abandoned all thoughtsof war, and turning, scampered for the forest which fringed our path.
That night we spent beside a little stream in the Sto-lu country. Wefound a tiny cave in the rock bank, so hidden away that only chancecould direct a beast of prey to it, and after we had eaten of thedeer-meat and some fruit which Ajor gathered, we crawled into thelittle hole, and with sticks and stones which I had gathered for thepurpose I erected a strong barricade inside the entrance. Nothingcould reach us without swimming and wading through the stream, and Ifelt quite secure from attack. Our quarters were rather cramped. Theceiling was so low that we could not stand up, and the floor so narrowthat it was with difficulty that we both wedged into it together; butwe were very tired, and so we made the most of it; and so great was thefeeling of security that I am sure I fell asleep as soon as I hadstretched myself beside Ajor.
During the three days which followed, our progress was exasperatinglyslow. I doubt if we made ten miles in the entire three days. Thecountry was hideously savage, so that we were forced to spend hours ata time in hiding from one or another of the great beasts which menacedus continually. There were fewer reptiles; but the quantity ofcarnivora seemed to have increased, and the reptiles that we did seewere perfectly gigantic. I shall never forget one enormous specimenwhich we came upon browsing upon water-reeds at the edge of the greatsea. It stood well over twelve feet high at the rump, its highestpoint, and with its enormously long tail and neck it was somewherebetween seventy-five and a hundred feet in length. Its head wasridiculously small; its body was unarmored, but its great bulk gave ita most formidable appearance. My experience of Caspakian life led meto believe that the gigantic creature would but have to see us toattack us, and so I raised my rifle and at the same time drew awaytoward some brush which offered concealment; but Ajor only laughed, andpicking up a stick, ran toward the great thing, shouting. The littlehead was raised high upon the long neck as the animal stupidly lookedhere and there in search of the author of the disturbance. At last itseyes discovered tiny little Ajor, and then she hurled the stick at thediminutive head. With a cry that sounded not unlike the bleat of asheep, the colossal creature shuffled into the water and was soonsubmerged.
As I slowly recalled my collegiate studies and paleontological readingsin Bowen's textbooks, I realized that I had looked upon nothing lessthan a diplodocus of the Upper Jurassic; but how infinitely differentwas the true, live thing from the crude restorations of Hatcher andHolland! I had had the idea that the diplodocus was a land-animal, butevidently it is partially amphibious. I have seen several since myfirst encounter, and in each case the creature took to the sea forconcealment as soon as it was disturbed. With the exception of itsgigantic tail, it has no weapon of defense; but with this appendage itcan lash so terrific a blow as to lay low even a giant cave-bear,stunned and broken. It is a stupid, simple, gentle beast--one of thefew within Caspak which such a description might even remotely fit.
For three nights we slept in trees, finding no caves or other places ofconcealment. Here we were free from the attacks of the large landcarnivora; but the smaller flying reptiles, the snakes, leopards, andpanthers were a constant menace, though by no means as much to befeared as the huge beasts that roamed the surface of the earth.
At the close of the third day Ajor and I were able to converse withconsiderable fluency, and it was a great relief to both of us,especially to Ajor. She now did nothing but ask questions whenever Iwould let her, which could not be all the time, as our preservationdepended largely upon the rapidity with which I could gain knowledge ofthe geography and customs of Caspak, and accordingly I had to asknumerous questions myself.
I enjoyed immensely hearing and answering her, so naive were many ofher queries and so filled with wonder was she at the things I told herof the world beyond the lofty barriers of Caspak; not once did she seemto doubt me, however marvelous my statements must have seemed; anddoubtless they were the cause of marvel to Ajor, who before had neverdreamed that any life existed beyond Caspak and the life she knew.
Artless though many of her questions were, they evidenced a keenintellect and a shrewdness which seemed far beyond her years or herexperience. Altogether I was finding my little savage a mightyinteresting and companionable person, and I often thanked the kind fatethat directed the crossing of our paths. From her I learned much ofCaspak, but there still remained the mystery that had proved sobaffling to Bowen Tyler--the total absence of young among the ape, thesemihuman and the human races with which both he and I had come incontact upon opposite shores of the inland sea. Ajor tried to explainthe matter to me, though it was apparent that she could not conceivehow so natural a condition should demand explanation. She told me thatamong the Galus there were a few babies,
that she had once been a babybut that most of her people "came up," as he put it, "_cor sva jo_," orliterally, "from the beginning"; and as they all did when they usedthat phrase, she would wave a broad gesture toward the south.
"For long," she explained, leaning very close to me and whispering thewords into my ear while she cast apprehensive glances about and mostlyskyward, "for long my mother kept me hidden lest the Wieroo, passingthrough the air by night, should come and take me away to Oo-oh." Andthe child shuddered as she voiced the word. I tried to get her to tellme more; but her terror was so real when she spoke of the Wieroo andthe land of Oo-oh where they dwell that I at last desisted, though Idid learn that the Wieroo carried off only female babes andoccasionally women of the Galus who had "come up from the beginning."It was all very mysterious and unfathomable, but I got the idea thatthe Wieroo were creatures of imagination--the demons or gods of herrace, omniscient and omnipresent. This led me to assume that the Galushad a religious sense, and further questioning brought out the factthat such was the case. Ajor spoke in tones of reverence of Luata, thegod of heat and life. The word is derived from two others: _Lua_,meaning sun, and _ata_, meaning variously _eggs_, _life_, _young_, and_reproduction_. She told me that they worshiped Luata in several forms,as fire, the sun, eggs and other material objects which suggested heatand reproduction.
I had noticed that whenever I built a fire, Ajor outlined in the airbefore her with a forefinger an isosceles triangle, and that she didthe same in the morning when she first viewed the sun. At first I hadnot connected her act with anything in particular, but after we learnedto converse and she had explained a little of her religioussuperstitions, I realized that she was making the sign of the triangleas a Roman Catholic makes the sign of the cross. Always the short sideof the triangle was uppermost. As she explained all this to me, shepointed to the decorations on her golden armlets, upon the knob of herdagger-hilt and upon the band which encircled her right leg above theknee--always was the design partly made up of isosceles triangles, andwhen she explained the significance of this particular geometricfigure, I at once grasped its appropriateness.
We were now in the country of the Band-lu, the spearmen of Caspak.Bowen had remarked in his narrative that these people were analogous tothe so-called Cro-Magnon race of the Upper Paleolithic, and I wastherefore very anxious to see them. Nor was I to be disappointed; Isaw them, all right! We had left the Sto-lu country and literallyfought our way through cordons of wild beasts for two days when wedecided to make camp a little earlier than usual, owing to the factthat we had reached a line of cliffs running east and west in whichwere numerous likely cave-lodgings. We were both very tired, and thesight of these caverns, several of which could be easily barricaded,decided us to halt until the following morning. It took but a fewminutes' exploration to discover one particular cavern high up the faceof the cliff which seemed ideal for our purpose. It opened upon anarrow ledge where we could build our cook-fire; the opening was sosmall that we had to lie flat and wriggle through it to gain ingress,while the interior was high-ceiled and spacious. I lighted a faggotand looked about; but as far as I could see, the chamber ran back intothe cliff.
Laying aside my rifle, pistol and heavy ammunition-belt, I left Ajor inthe cave while I went down to gather firewood. We already had meat andfruits which we had gathered just before reaching the cliffs, and mycanteen was filled with fresh water. Therefore, all we required wasfuel, and as I always saved Ajor's strength when I could, I would notpermit her to accompany me. The poor girl was very tired; but shewould have gone with me until she dropped, I know, so loyal was she.She was the best comrade in the world, and sometimes I regretted andsometimes I was glad that she was not of my own caste, for had shebeen, I should unquestionably have fallen in love with her. As it was,we traveled together like two boys, with huge respect for each otherbut no softer sentiment.
There was little timber close to the base of the cliffs, and so I wasforced to enter the wood some two hundred yards distant. I realize nowhow foolhardy was my act in such a land as Caspak, teeming with dangerand with death; but there is a certain amount of fool in every man; andwhatever proportion of it I own must have been in the ascendant thatday, for the truth of the matter is that I went down into those woodsabsolutely defenseless; and I paid the price, as people usually do fortheir indiscretions. As I searched around in the brush for likelypieces of firewood, my head bowed and my eyes upon the ground, Isuddenly felt a great weight hurl itself upon me. I struggled to myknees and seized my assailant, a huge, naked man--naked except for abreechcloth of snakeskin, the head hanging down to the knees. Thefellow was armed with a stone-shod spear, a stone knife and a hatchet.In his black hair were several gay-colored feathers. As we struggledto and fro, I was slowly gaining advantage of him, when a score of hisfellows came running up and overpowered me.
They bound my hands behind me with long rawhide thongs and thensurveyed me critically. I found them fine-looking specimens ofmanhood, for the most part. There were some among them who bore aresemblance to the Sto-lu and were hairy; but the majority had massiveheads and not unlovely features. There was little about them tosuggest the ape, as in the Sto-lu, Bo-lu and Alus. I expected them tokill me at once, but they did not. Instead they questioned me; but itwas evident that they did not believe my story, for they scoffed andlaughed.
"The Galus have turned you out," they cried. "If you go back to them,you will die. If you remain here, you will die. We shall kill you;but first we shall have a dance and you shall dance with us--the danceof death."
It sounded quite reassuring! But I knew that I was not to be killedimmediately, and so I took heart. They led me toward the cliffs, andas we approached them, I glanced up and was sure that I saw Ajor'sbright eyes peering down upon us from our lofty cave; but she gave nosign if she saw me; and we passed on, rounded the end of the cliffs andproceeded along the opposite face of them until we came to a sectionliterally honeycombed with caves. All about, upon the ground andswarming the ledges before the entrances, were hundreds of members ofthe tribe. There were many women but no babes or children, though Inoticed that the females had better developed breasts than any that Ihad seen among the hatchet-men, the club-men, the Alus or the apes. Infact, among the lower orders of Caspakian man the female breast is buta rudimentary organ, barely suggested in the apes and Alus, and only alittle more defined in the Bo-lu and Sto-lu, though always increasinglyso until it is found about half developed in the females of thespear-men; yet never was there an indication that the females hadsuckled young; nor were there any young among them. Some of theBand-lu women were quite comely. The figures of all, both men andwomen, were symmetrical though heavy, and though there were some whoverged strongly upon the Sto-lu type, there were others who werepositively handsome and whose bodies were quite hairless. The Alus areall bearded, but among the Bo-lu the beard disappears in the women.The Sto-lu men show a sparse beard, the Band-lu none; and there islittle hair upon the bodies of their women.
The members of the tribe showed great interest in me, especially in myclothing, the like of which, of course, they never had seen. Theypulled and hauled upon me, and some of them struck me; but for the mostpart they were not inclined to brutality. It was only the hairierones, who most closely resembled the Sto-lu, who maltreated me. Atlast my captors led me into a great cave in the mouth of which a firewas burning. The floor was littered with filth, including the bones ofmany animals, and the atmosphere reeked with the stench of human bodiesand putrefying flesh. Here they fed me, releasing my arms, and I ateof half-cooked aurochs steak and a stew which may have been made ofsnakes, for many of the long, round pieces of meat suggested them mostnauseatingly.
The meal completed, they led me well within the cavern, which theylighted with torches stuck in various crevices in the light of which Isaw, to my astonishment, that the walls were covered with paintings andetchings. There were aurochs, red deer, saber-tooth tiger, cave-bear,hyaenadon and many other examples of
the fauna of Caspak done incolors, usually of four shades of brown, or scratched upon the surfaceof the rock. Often they were super-imposed upon each other until itrequired careful examination to trace out the various outlines. Butthey all showed a rather remarkable aptitude for delineation whichfurther fortified Bowen's comparisons between these people and theextinct Cro-Magnons whose ancient art is still preserved in the cavernsof Niaux and Le Portel. The Band-lu, however, did not have the bow andarrow, and in this respect they differ from their extinct progenitors,or descendants, of Western Europe.
Should any of my friends chance to read the story of my adventures uponCaprona, I hope they will not be bored by these diversions, and if theyare, I can only say that I am writing my memoirs for my own edificationand therefore setting down those things which interested meparticularly at the time. I have no desire that the general publicshould ever have access to these pages; but it is possible that myfriends may, and also certain savants who are interested; and to them,while I do not apologize for my philosophizing, I humbly explain thatthey are witnessing the gropings of a finite mind after the infinite,the search for explanations of the inexplicable.
In a far recess of the cavern my captors bade me halt. Again my handswere secured, and this time my feet as well. During the operation theyquestioned me, and I was mighty glad that the marked similarity betweenthe various tribal tongues of Caspak enabled us to understand eachother perfectly, even though they were unable to believe or even tocomprehend the truth of my origin and the circumstances of my advent inCaspak; and finally they left me saying that they would come for mebefore the dance of death upon the morrow. Before they departed withtheir torches, I saw that I had not been conducted to the farthestextremity of the cavern, for a dark and gloomy corridor led beyond myprison room into the heart of the cliff.
I could not but marvel at the immensity of this great undergroundgrotto. Already I had traversed several hundred yards of it, from manypoints of which other corridors diverged. The whole cliff must behoneycombed with apartments and passages of which this communityoccupied but a comparatively small part, so that the possibility of themore remote passages being the lair of savage beasts that have othermeans of ingress and egress than that used by the Band-lu filled mewith dire forebodings.
I believe that I am not ordinarily hysterically apprehensive; yet Imust confess that under the conditions with which I was confronted, Ifelt my nerves to be somewhat shaken. On the morrow I was to die somesort of nameless death for the diversion of a savage horde, but themorrow held fewer terrors for me than the present, and I submit to anyfair-minded man if it is not a terrifying thing to lie bound hand andfoot in the Stygian blackness of an immense cave peopled by unknowndangers in a land overrun by hideous beasts and reptiles of thegreatest ferocity. At any moment, perhaps at this very moment, somesilent-footed beast of prey might catch my scent where it laired insome contiguous passage, and might creep stealthily upon me. I cranedmy neck about, and stared through the inky darkness for the twin spotsof blazing hate which I knew would herald the coming of my executioner.So real were the imaginings of my overwrought brain that I broke into acold sweat in absolute conviction that some beast was close before me;yet the hours dragged, and no sound broke the grave-like stillness ofthe cavern.
During that period of eternity many events of my life passed before mymental vision, a vast parade of friends and occurrences which would beblotted out forever on the morrow. I cursed myself for the foolish actwhich had taken me from the search-party that so depended upon me, andI wondered what progress, if any, they had made. Were they stillbeyond the barrier cliffs, awaiting my return? Or had they found a wayinto Caspak? I felt that the latter would be the truth, for the partywas not made up of men easily turned from a purpose. Quite probable itwas that they were already searching for me; but that they would everfind a trace of me I doubted. Long since, had I come to the conclusionthat it was beyond human prowess to circle the shores of the inland seaof Caspak in the face of the myriad menaces which lurked in everyshadow by day and by night. Long since, had I given up any hope ofreaching the point where I had made my entry into the country, and so Iwas now equally convinced that our entire expedition had been worsethan futile before ever it was conceived, since Bowen J. Tyler and hiswife could not by any possibility have survived during all these longmonths; no more could Bradley and his party of seamen be yet inexistence. If the superior force and equipment of my party enabledthem to circle the north end of the sea, they might some day come uponthe broken wreck of my plane hanging in the great tree to the south;but long before that, my bones would be added to the litter upon thefloor of this mighty cavern.
And through all my thoughts, real and fanciful, moved the image of aperfect girl, clear-eyed and strong and straight and beautiful, withthe carriage of a queen and the supple, undulating grace of a leopard.Though I loved my friends, their fate seemed of less importance to methan the fate of this little barbarian stranger for whom, I hadconvinced myself many a time, I felt no greater sentiment than passingfriendship for a fellow-wayfarer in this land of horrors. Yet I soworried and fretted about her and her future that at last I quiteforgot my own predicament, though I still struggled intermittently withmy bonds in vain endeavor to free myself; as much, however, that I mighthasten to her protection as that I might escape the fate which had beenplanned for me. And while I was thus engaged and had for the momentforgotten my apprehensions concerning prowling beasts, I was startledinto tense silence by a distinct and unmistakable sound coming from thedark corridor farther toward the heart of the cliff--the sound ofpadded feet moving stealthily in my direction.
I believe that never before in all my life, even amidst the terrors ofchildhood nights, have I suffered such a sensation of extreme horror asI did that moment in which I realized that I must lie bound andhelpless while some horrid beast of prey crept upon me to devour me inthat utter darkness of the Band-lu pits of Caspak. I reeked with coldsweat, and my flesh crawled--I could feel it crawl. If ever I camenearer to abject cowardice, I do not recall the instance; and yet itwas not that I was afraid to die, for I had long since given myself upas lost--a few days of Caspak must impress anyone with the utternothingness of life. The waters, the land, the air teem with it, andalways it is being devoured by some other form of life. Life is thecheapest thing in Caspak, as it is the cheapest thing on earth and,doubtless, the cheapest cosmic production. No, I was not afraid todie; in fact, I prayed for death, that I might be relieved of thefrightfulness of the interval of life which remained to me--thewaiting, the awful waiting, for that fearsome beast to reach me and tostrike.
Presently it was so close that I could hear its breathing, and then ittouched me and leaped quickly back as though it had come upon meunexpectedly. For long moments no sound broke the sepulchral silenceof the cave. Then I heard a movement on the part of the creature nearme, and again it touched me, and I felt something like a hairless handpass over my face and down until it touched the collar of my flannelshirt. And then, subdued, but filled with pent emotion, a voice cried:"Tom!"
I think I nearly fainted, so great was the reaction. "Ajor!" Imanaged to say. "Ajor, my girl, can it be you?"
"Oh, Tom!" she cried again in a trembly little voice and flung herselfupon me, sobbing softly. I had not known that Ajor could cry.
As she cut away my bonds, she told me that from the entrance to ourcave she had seen the Band-lu coming out of the forest with me, and shehad followed until they took me into the cave, which she had seen wasupon the opposite side of the cliff in which ours was located; andthen, knowing that she could do nothing for me until after the Band-luslept, she had hastened to return to our cave. With difficulty she hadreached it, after having been stalked by a cave-lion and almost seized.I trembled at the risk she had run.
It had been her intention to wait until after midnight, when most ofthe carnivora would have made their kills, and then attempt to reachthe cave in which I was imprisoned and rescue me. She explained
thatwith my rifle and pistol--both of which she assured me she could use,having watched me so many times--she planned upon frightening theBand-lu and forcing them to give me up. Brave little girl! She wouldhave risked her life willingly to save me. But some time after shereached our cave she heard voices from the far recesses within, andimmediately concluded that we had but found another entrance to thecaves which the Band-lu occupied upon the other face of the cliff.Then she had set out through those winding passages and in totaldarkness had groped her way, guided solely by a marvelous sense ofdirection, to where I lay. She had had to proceed with utmost cautionlest she fall into some abyss in the darkness and in truth she hadthrice come upon sheer drops and had been forced to take the mostfrightful risks to pass them. I shudder even now as I contemplate whatthis girl passed through for my sake and how she enhanced her peril inloading herself down with the weight of my arms and ammunition and theawkwardness of the long rifle which she was unaccustomed to bearing.
I could have knelt and kissed her hand in reverence and gratitude; noram I ashamed to say that that is precisely what I did after I had beenfreed from my bonds and heard the story of her trials. Brave littleAjor! Wonder-girl out of the dim, unthinkable past! Never before hadshe been kissed; but she seemed to sense something of the meaning ofthe new caress, for she leaned forward in the dark and pressed her ownlips to my forehead. A sudden urge surged through me to seize her andstrain her to my bosom and cover her hot young lips with the kisses ofa real love, but I did not do so, for I knew that I did not love her;and to have kissed her thus, with passion, would have been to inflict agreat wrong upon her who had offered her life for mine.
No, Ajor should be as safe with me as with her own mother, if she hadone, which I was inclined to doubt, even though she told me that shehad once been a babe and hidden by her mother. I had come to doubt ifthere was such a thing as a mother in Caspak, a mother such as we know.From the Bo-lu to the Kro-lu there is no word which corresponds withour word mother. They speak of _ata_ and _cor sva jo:, meaning_reproduction_ and _from the beginning_, and point toward the south; but noone has a mother.
After considerable difficulty we gained what we thought was our cave,only to find that it was not, and then we realized that we were lost inthe labyrinthine mazes of the great cavern. We retraced our steps andsought the point from which we had started, but only succeeded inlosing ourselves the more. Ajor was aghast--not so much from fear ofour predicament; but that she should have failed in the functioning ofthat wonderful sense she possessed in common with most other creaturesCaspakian, which makes it possible for them to move unerringly fromplace to place without compass or guide.
Hand in hand we crept along, searching for an opening into the outerworld, yet realizing that at each step we might be burrowing moredeeply into the heart of the great cliff, or circling futilely in thevague wandering that could end only in death. And the darkness! Itwas almost palpable, and utterly depressing. I had matches, and insome of the more difficult places I struck one; but we couldn't affordto waste them, and so we groped our way slowly along, doing the best wecould to keep to one general direction in the hope that it wouldeventually lead us to an opening into the outer world. When I struckmatches, I noticed that the walls bore no paintings; nor was thereother sign that man had penetrated this far within the cliff, nor anyspoor of animals of other kinds.
It would be difficult to guess at the time we spent wandering throughthose black corridors, climbing steep ascents, feeling our way alongthe edges of bottomless pits, never knowing at what moment we might beplunged into some abyss and always haunted by the ever-present terrorof death by starvation and thirst. As difficult as it was, I stillrealized that it might have been infinitely worse had I had anothercompanion than Ajor--courageous, uncomplaining, loyal little Ajor! Shewas tired and hungry and thirsty, and she must have been discouraged;but she never faltered in her cheerfulness. I asked her if she wasafraid, and she replied that here the Wieroo could not get her, andthat if she died of hunger, she would at least die with me and she wasquite content that such should be her end. At the time I attributedher attitude to something akin to a doglike devotion to a new masterwho had been kind to her. I can take oath to the fact that I did notthink it was anything more.
Whether we had been imprisoned in the cliff for a day or a week I couldnot say; nor even now do I know. We became very tired and hungry; thehours dragged; we slept at least twice, and then we rose and stumbledon, always weaker and weaker. There were ages during which the trendof the corridors was always upward. It was heartbreaking work forpeople in the state of exhaustion in which we then were, but we clungtenaciously to it. We stumbled and fell; we sank through pure physicalinability to retain our feet; but always we managed to rise at last andgo on. At first, wherever it had been possible, we had walked hand inhand lest we become separated, and later, when I saw that Ajor wasweakening rapidly, we went side by side, I supporting her with an armabout her waist. I still retained the heavy burden of my armament; butwith the rifle slung to my back, my hands were free. When I too showedindisputable evidences of exhaustion, Ajor suggested that I lay asidemy arms and ammunition; but I told her that as it would mean certaindeath for me to traverse Caspak without them, I might as well take thechance of dying here in the cave with them, for there was the otherchance that we might find our way to liberty.
There came a time when Ajor could no longer walk, and then it was thatI picked her up in my arms and carried her. She begged me to leaveher, saying that after I found an exit, I could come back and get her;but she knew, and she knew that I knew, that if ever I did leave her, Icould never find her again. Yet she insisted. Barely had I sufficientstrength to take a score of steps at a time; then I would have to sinkdown and rest for five to ten minutes. I don't know what force urgedme on and kept me going in the face of an absolute conviction that myefforts were utterly futile. I counted us already as good as dead; butstill I dragged myself along until the time came that I could no longerrise, but could only crawl along a few inches at a time, dragging Ajorbeside me. Her sweet voice, now almost inaudible from weakness,implored me to abandon her and save myself--she seemed to think only ofme. Of course I couldn't have left her there alone, no matter how muchI might have desired to do so; but the fact of the matter was that Ididn't desire to leave her. What I said to her then came very simplyand naturally to my lips. It couldn't very well have been otherwise, Iimagine, for with death so close, I doubt if people are much inclinedto heroics. "I would rather not get out at all, Ajor," I said to her,"than to get out without you." We were resting against a rocky wall,and Ajor was leaning against me, her head on my breast. I could feelher press closer to me, and one hand stroked my arm in a weak caress;but she didn't say anything, nor were words necessary.
After a few minutes' more rest, we started on again upon our utterlyhopeless way; but I soon realized that I was weakening rapidly, andpresently I was forced to admit that I was through. "It's no use,Ajor," I said, "I've come as far as I can. It may be that if I sleep,I can go on again after," but I knew that that was not true, and thatthe end was near. "Yes, sleep," said Ajor. "We will sleeptogether--forever."
She crept close to me as I lay on the hard floor and pillowed her headupon my arm. With the little strength which remained to me, I drew herup until our lips touched, and, then I whispered: "Good-bye!" I musthave lost consciousness almost immediately, for I recall nothing moreuntil I suddenly awoke out of a troubled sleep, during which I dreamedthat I was drowning, to find the cave lighted by what appeared to bediffused daylight, and a tiny trickle of water running down thecorridor and forming a puddle in the little depression in which itchanced that Ajor and I lay. I turned my eyes quickly upon Ajor,fearful for what the light might disclose; but she still breathed,though very faintly. Then I searched about for an explanation of thelight, and soon discovered that it came from about a bend in thecorridor just ahead of us and at the top of a steep incline; andinstantly I realized that Ajor
and I had stumbled by night almost tothe portal of salvation. Had chance taken us a few yards further, upeither of the corridors which diverged from ours just ahead of us, wemight have been irrevocably lost; we might still be lost; but at leastwe could die in the light of day, out of the horrid blackness of thisterrible cave.
I tried to rise, and found that sleep had given me back a portion of mystrength; and then I tasted the water and was further refreshed. Ishook Ajor gently by the shoulder; but she did not open her eyes, andthen I gathered a few drops of water in my cupped palm and let themtrickle between her lips. This revived her so that she raised herlids, and when she saw me, she smiled.
"What happened?" she asked. "Where are we?"
"We are at the end of the corridor," I replied, "and daylight is comingin from the outside world just ahead. We are saved, Ajor!"
She sat up then and looked about, and then, quite womanlike, she burstinto tears. It was the reaction, of course; and then too, she was veryweak. I took her in my arms and quieted her as best I could, andfinally, with my help, she got to her feet; for she, as well as I, hadfound some slight recuperation in sleep. Together we staggered upwardtoward the light, and at the first turn we saw an opening a few yardsahead of us and a leaden sky beyond--a leaden sky from which wasfalling a drizzling rain, the author of our little, trickling streamwhich had given us drink when we were most in need of it.
The cave had been damp and cold; but as we crawled through theaperture, the muggy warmth of the Caspakian air caressed and confrontedus; even the rain was warmer than the atmosphere of those darkcorridors. We had water now, and warmth, and I was sure that Caspakwould soon offer us meat or fruit; but as we came to where we couldlook about, we saw that we were upon the summit of the cliffs, wherethere seemed little reason to expect game. However, there were trees,and among them we soon descried edible fruits with which we broke ourlong fast.
The People That Time Forgot Page 3