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Ugh-Lomi and Uya:
H.G. Wells:
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Stories of the Stone Age
1. Ugh-lomi and Uya
by
H.G. Wells
PGA e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
ILLUSTRATED BY COSMO ROWE (1877-1952)
First published in The Idler, May 1897,
in the series "Stories of the Stone Age"
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2024
THIS story is of a time beyond the
memory of man, before the beginning of history, before
the beginning of speech almost, when men still eked out
their scarce words by gestures, and talked together as
the animals do, by the passing of simple thoughts from
mind to mind—being themselves indeed still of the
brotherhood of the beasts. Of a time when one might have
walked dryshod from France (as we call it now) to England,
and when a broad and sluggish Thames flowed through its
marshes to meet its father Rhine, flowing through a wide
and level country that is under water in these latter days,
and which we know by the name of the North Sea. In that
remote age the valley which runs along the foot of the
Downs did not exist, and the south of Surrey was a range
of hills, fir-clad on the middle slopes, and snow-capped
the better part of the year. The cores its summits still
remain as Leith Hill, and Pitch Hill, and Hindhead. On the
lower slopes of the range below the grassy spaces where the
wild horses grazed were forests of yew and sweet-chestnut
and elm, and the thickets and dark places hid the grizzly
bear and the hyæna, and the grey apes clambered
through the branches. And still lower amidst the woodland
and marsh and open grass along the Wey did this little
drama play itself out to the end that I have to tell. Fifty
thousand years ago it was, fifty thousand years—if
the estimates of the geologists are correct.
And in those days the spring-time was as joyful as it is
now, and sent the blood coursing in just the same fashion.
The afternoon sky was blue with piled white clouds sailing
through it, and the south-west wind came like a soft
caress. The new-come swallows drove to and fro. The reaches
of the river were spangled with white ranunculus, the
marshy places were starred with lady's-smock and lit with
marsh-mallow wherever the regiments of the sedges lowered
their swords, and the northward moving hippopotami, shiny
black monsters, sporting clumsily, came floundering and
blundering through it all, rejoicing dimly and possessed
with one clear idea, to splash the river muddy.
Farther up the river and well in sight of the
hippopotami, a number of little buff-coloured animals
dabbled in the water. There was no fear, no rivalry, and
no enmity between them and the hippopotami. As the great
bulks came crashing through the reeds and smashed the
mirror of the water into silvery splashes, these little
creatures shouted and gesticulated with glee. It was the
surest sign of high spring. "Boloo!" they cried.﹃Baayah.
Boloo!﹄They were the children of the men folk, the smoke
of whose encampment rose from the knoll at the river's
bend. Wild-eyed youngsters they were, with matted hair and
little broad-nosed impish faces, covered (as some children
are covered even nowadays) with a delicate down of hair.
They were narrow in the loins and long in the arms. And
their ears had no lobes, and had little pointed tips, a
thing that still, in rare instances, survives. Stark-naked
vivid little gipsies, as active as monkeys and as full of
chatter, though a little wanting in words.
Their elders were hidden from the wallowing hippopotami
by the crest of the knoll. The human squatting-place was
a trampled area among the dead brown fronds of Royal
Fern, through which the crosiers of this year's growth
were unrolling to tie light and warmth. The fire was a
smouldering heap of char, light grey and black, replenished
by the old women from time to time with brown leaves. Most
of the men were asleep—they slept sitting with their
foreheads on their knees. They had killed that morning a
good quarry, enough for all, a deer that had been wounded
in a rutting fight; so that there had been no quarrelling
among them, and some of the women were still gnawing the
bones that lay scattered about. Others were making a heap
of leaves and sticks to feed Brother Fire when the darkness
came again, that he might grow strong and tall therewith,
and guard them against the beasts. And two were piling
flints that they brought, an armful at a time, from the
bend of the river where the children were at play.
None of these buff-skinned savages were clothed, but
some wore about their hips rude girdles of adder-skin or
crackling undressed hide, from which depended little bags,
not made, but torn from the paws of beasts, and carrying
the rudely-dressed flints that were men's chief weapons
and tools. And one woman, the mate of Uya the Cunning Man,
wore a wonderful necklace of perforated fossils—that
others had worn before her. Beside some of the sleeping
men lay the big antlers of the elk, with the tines chipped
to sharp edges, and long sticks, hacked at the ends with
flints into sharp points. There was little else save
these things and the smouldering fire to mark these human
beings off from the wild animals that ranged the country.
But Uya the Cunning did not sleep, but sat with a bone in
his hand and scraped busily thereon with a flint, a thing
no animal would do. He was the oldest man in the tribe,
beetle-browed, prognathous, lank-armed; he had a beard
and his cheeks were hairy, and his chest and arms were
black with thick hair. And by virtue both of his strength
and cunning he was master of the tribe, and his share was
always the most and the best.
Eudena had hidden herself among the alders, because
she was afraid of Uya. She was still a girl, and her eyes
were bright and her smile pleasant to see. He had given
her a piece of the liver, a man's piece, and a wonderful
treat for a girl to get; but as she took it the other woman
with the necklace had looked at her, an evil glance, and
Ugh-lomi had made a noise in his throat. At that, Uya had
looked at him long and steadfastly, and Ugh-lomi's face had
fallen. And then Uya had looked at her. She was frightened
and she had stolen away, while the feeding was still going
on, and Uya was busy with the marrow of a bone. Afterwards
he had wandered about as if looking for her. And now she
crouched among the alders, wondering mightily what Uya
might be doing with the flint and the bone. And Ugh-lomi
was not to be seen.
He had given her a piece of the liver.
Presently a squirrel came leaping through the alders,
and she lay so quiet the little man was within six feet of
her before he saw her. Whereupon he dashed up a stem in a
hurry and began to chatter and scold her.﹃What are you
doing here,﹄he asked, "away from the other men beasts?"
"Peace," said Eudena, but he only chattered more, and then
she began to break off the little black cones to throw at
him. He dodged and defied her, and she grew excited and
rose up to throw better, and then she saw Uya coming down
the knoll. He had seen the movement of her pale arm amidst
the thicket—he was very keen-eyed.
At that she forgot the squirrel and set off through
the alders and reeds as fast as she could go. She did
not care where she went so long as she escaped Uya. She
splashed nearly knee-deep through a swampy place, and saw
in front of her a slope of ferns—growing more slender
and greener as they passed up out of the light into the
shade of the young chestnut trees. She was soon amidst the
trees—she was very fleet of foot, and she ran on and
on, until the forest was old and the trees great, and the
vines about their stems where the light came were thick
as young trees, and the ropes of ivy stout and tight. On
she went, and she doubled and doubled again, and then at
last lay down amidst some ferns in a hollow place near
a thicket, and listened with her heart beating in her
ears.
She heard footsteps presently rustling among the
dead leaves, far off, and they died away and everything
was still again, except the scandalising of the
midges—for the evening was drawing on—and the
incessant whisper of the leaves. She laughed silently
to think the cunning Uya should go by her. She was not
frightened. Sometimes, playing with the other girls and
lads, she had fled into the wood, though never so far as
this. It was pleasant to be hidden and alone.
She lay a long time there, glad of her escape, and then
she sat up listening.
It was a rapid pattering growing louder and coming
towards her, and in a little while she could hear grunting
noises and the snapping of twigs. It was a drove of the
lean grisly wild swine. She turned about her, for a boar
is an ill fellow to pass too closely, on account of the
sideway slash of his tusks, and she made off slantingly
through the trees. But the patter came nearer, they were
not feeding as they wandered, but going fast—or
else they would not overtake her—and she caught the
limb of a tree, swung on to it, and ran up the stem with
something of the agility of a monkey.
Down below the sharp bristling backs of the swine were
already passing when she looked down. And she knew the
short, sharp grunts they made meant fear. What were they
afraid of? A man? They were in a great hurry for just a
man.
And then, so suddenly it made her grip on the branch
tighten involuntarily, a fawn started in the brake and
rushed after the swine. Something else went by, low and
grey, with a long body; she did not know what it was,
indeed she saw it only momentarily through the interstices
of the young leaves; and then there came a pause.
She remained stiff and expectant, rigid almost as though
she was a part of the tree she clung to, peering down.
Then, far away among the trees, clear for a moment,
then hidden, then visible knee-deep in ferns, then gone
again, ran a man. She knew it was young Ugh-lomi by the
fair colour of his hair, and there was red upon his face.
Somehow his frantic flight and that scarlet mark made her
feel sick. And then nearer, running heavily and breathing
hard, came another man also running. At first she could
not see, and then she saw, foreshortened and clear to her,
Uya, running with great strides and his eyes staring. He
was not going after Ugh-lomi. His face was white. It was
Uya—afraid! He passed, and was still loud hearing,
when something else, something large and with grizzled fur,
swinging along with soft swift strides, came rushing in
pursuit of him.
Eudena suddenly became rigid, ceased to breathe, her
clutch convulsive, and her eyes starting.
She had never seen the thing before she did not even see
him clearly now, but, she knew at once it was the Terror of
the Woodshade. His name was a legend, the children would
frighten one another, frighten even themselves with his
name and run screaming to the squatting place. No man had
ever killed any of his kind. Even the mighty mammoth feared
his Anger. It was the grizzly bear, the lord of world as
the world went then.
As he ran he made a continuous growling rumble.﹃Men in
my very lair! Fighting and blood. At the very mouth of my
lair. Men, men, men. Fighting and blood.﹄For he was the
lord of the wood and of the caves.
Long after he had passed she remained, a girl of stone,
staring down through the branches. All her power of action
had gone from her. She gripped by instinct with hands and
knees and feet. It was some time before she could think,
and then only one thing was clear in her mind, that the
Terror was between her and the tribe—that it would be
impossible to descend.
Presently when her fear was a little abated she
clambered into a more comfortable position, where a great
branch forked. The trees rose about her, so that she could
see nothing of Brother Fire, who is black by day. Birds
began to stir about her, and things that had gone into
hiding for fear of her movements crept out. . . .
After a time the blue overhead deepened, and the taller
branches flamed out at the touch of the sunset. High
overhead the rooks, who were wiser than men, went cawing
home to their squatting-places among the elms. Looking
down, things were clearer and darker. Eudena thought of
going back to the squatting-place; she let herself down
some way, and then the fear of the Terror of the Woodshade
came again. While she hesitated a rabbit squealed dismally,
and she dared not descend farther.
The shadows gathered, and the deeps of the forest
began stirring. Eudena went up the tree again to be
nearer the light. Down below the shadows came out of
their hiding-places and walked abroad. Overhead the blue
deepened. A dreadful stillness came, and then the leaves
began whispering. Eudena shivered and thought of Brother
Fire.
The shadows now were gathering in the trees, they sat
on the branches and watched her. Branches and leaves were
turned to ominous, quiet black shapes that would spring on
her if she stirred. Then the white owl, flitting silently,
came ghostly through the shades. Darker grew the world and
darker, until the leaves and twigs against the sky were
black, and the ground was hidden.
She remained there all night, an age-long vigil,
straining her ears for the things that went on below in the
darkness, and keeping motionless lest some stealthy beast
should discover her. Man in those days was never alone in
the dark, save for such rare accidents as this. Age after
age he had learnt the lesson of its terror—a lesson
we poor children of his have nowadays painfully to unlearn.
Eudena, though in age a woman, was in heart like a little
child. She kept as still, poor little animal, as a hare
before it is started.
The stars gathered and watched her—her one grain
of comfort. In one bright one she fancied there was
something like Ugh-lomi. Then she fancied it was Ugh-lomi.
And near him, red and duller, was Uya, and as the night
passed Ugh-lomi fled before him up the sky.
She tried to see Brother Fire, who guarded the
squatting-place from beasts, but he was not in sight. And
far away she heard the mammoths trumpeting as they went
down to the drinking-place, and once some huge bulk with
heavy paces hurried along, making a noise like a calf, but
what it was she could not see. But she thought from the
voice it was Yaaa the rhinoceros, who stabs with his nose,
goes always alone, and rages without cause.
At last the little stars began to hide, and then the
larger ones. It was like all the animals vanishing before
the Terror. The Sun was coming, lord of the sky, as the
grizzly was lord of the forest. Eudena wondered what would
happen if one star stayed behind. And then the sky paled to
the dawn.
When the daylight came the fear of lurking things
passed, and she could descend. She was stiff, but not so
stiff as you would have been, dear young lady (by virtue
of your upbringing), and as she had not been trained to
eat at least once in three hours, but instead had often
fasted three days, she did not feel uncomfortably hungry.
She crept down the tree very cautiously, and went her way
stealthily through the wood, and not a squirrel sprang or
deer started but the terror of the grizzly bear froze her
marrow.
Her desire was now to find her people again. Her dread
of Uya the Cunning was consumed by a greater dread of
loneliness. But she had lost her direction. She had run
heedlessly overnight, and she could not tell whether the
squatting-place was sunward or where it lay. Ever and again
she stopped and listened, and at last, very far away, she
heard a measured chinking. It was so faint even in the
morning stillness that she could tell it must be far away.
But she knew the sound was that of a man sharpening a
flint.
Presently the trees began to thin out, and then came
a regiment of nettles barring the way. She turned aside,
and then she came to a fallen tree that she knew, with a
noise of bees about it. And so presently she was in sight
of the knoll, very far off, and the river under it, and
the children and the hippopotami just as they had been
yesterday, and the thin spire of smoke swaying in the
morning breeze. Far away by the river was the cluster of
alders where she had hidden. And at the sight of that the
fear of Uya returned, and she crept into a thicket of
bracken, out of which a rabbit scuttled, and lay awhile to
watch the squatting-place.
The men were mostly out of sight, saving Wau, the
flint-chipper; and at that she felt safer. They were away
hunting—food, no doubt. Some of the women, too, were
down in the stream, stooping intent, seeking mussels,
crayfish, and water-snails, and at the sight of their
occupation Eudena felt hungry. She rose, and ran through
the fern, designing to join them. As she went she heard a
voice among the bracken calling softly. She stopped. Then
suddenly she heard a rustle behind her, and turning, saw
Ugh-lomi rising out of the fern. There were streaks of
brown blood and dirt on his face, and his eyes were fierce,
and the white stone of Uya, the white Fire Stone, that none
but Uya dared to touch, was in his hand. In a stride he was
beside her and gripped her arm. He swung her about, and
thrust her before him towards the woods. "Uya," he said,
and waved his arms about. She heard a cry, looked back, and
saw all the women standing up, and two wading out of the
stream. Then came a nearer howling, and the old woman with
the beard, who watched the fire on the knoll, was waving
her arms, and Wau, the man who had been chipping the flint,
was getting to his feet. The little children too were
hurrying and shouting.
"Come!" said Ugh-lomi, and dragged her by the arm.
She still did not understand.
"Uya," said Ugh-lomi, and she glanced back again at the
screaming curve of figures, and dimly understood.
Wau and all the women and children were coming towards
them, a scattered array of buff shock-headed figures,
howling, leaping, and crying. Over the knoll two youths
hurried. Down among the ferns to the right came a man,
heading them off from the wood. Ugh-lomi left her arm, and
the two began running side by side, leaping the bracken and
stepping clear and wide. Eudena, knowing her fleetness and
the fleetness of Ugh-lomi, laughed aloud at the unequal
chase. They were an exceptionally straight-limbed couple
for those days.
They soon cleared the open, and drew near the wood of
chestnut trees again—neither afraid now because
neither was alone. They slackened their pace, already not
excessive. And suddenly Eudena cried and swerved aside,
pointing, and looking up through the tree-stems. Ugh-lomi
saw the feet and legs of men running towards him. Eudena
was already running off at a tangent. And as he too turned
to follow her they heard the voice of Uya coming through
the trees, and roaring out his rage at them.
Then terror came in their hearts, not the terror that
numbs, but the terror that makes one silent and swift.
They were cut off now on two sides. They were in a sort of
corner of pursuit. On the right hand, and near by them,
came the men swift and heavy, with bearded Uya, antler
in hand, leading them; and on the left, scattered as one
scatters corn, yellow dashes among the fern and grass, ran
Wau and the women; and even the little children from the
shallow had joined the chase. The two parties converged
upon them. Off they went, with Eudena ahead.
They knew there was no mercy for them. There was no
hunting so sweet to these ancient men as the hunting of
men. Once the fierce passion of the chase was lit, the
feeble beginnings of humanity in them were thrown to the
winds. And Uya in the night had marked Ugh-lomi with the
death word. Ugh-lomi was the day's quarry.
They ran straight—it was their only
chance—taking whatever ground came in the way—a
spread of stinging nettles, an open glade, a clump of grass
out of which a hyæna fled snarling. Then woods again,
long stretches of shady leaf-mould and moss under the green
trunks. Then a stiff slope, tree-clad, and long vistas of
trees, a glade, a succulent green area of black mud, a wide
open space again, and then a clump of lacerating brambles,
with beast tracks through it. Behind them the chase trailed
out and scattered, with Uya ever at their heels. Eudena
kept the first place, running light and with her breath
easy, for Ugh-lomi carried the Fire Stone in his hand.
It told on his pace—not at first, but after a
time. His footsteps behind her suddenly grew remote.
Glancing over her shoulder as they crossed another open
space, Eudena saw that Ugh-lomi was many yards behind her,
and Uya close upon him, with antler already raised in the
air to strike him down. Wau and the others were but just
emerging from the shadow of the woods.
Seeing Ugh-lomi in peril, Eudena ran sideways, looking
back, threw up her arms and cried aloud, just as the antler
flew. And young Ugh-lomi, expecting this and understanding
her cry, ducked his head, so that the missile merely struck
his scalp lightly, making but a trivial wound, and flew
over him. He turned forthwith, the quartzite Fire Stone
in both hands, and hurled it straight at Uya's body as
he ran loose from the throw. Uya shouted, but could not
dodge it. It took him under the ribs, heavy and flat, and
he reeled and went down without a cry. Ugh-lomi caught up
the antler—one tine of it was tipped with his own
blood—and came running on again with a red trickle
just coming out of his hair.
It took him under the ribs, heavy and flat.
Uya rolled over twice, and lay a moment before he got
up, and then he did not run fast. The colour of his face
was changed. Wau overtook him, and then others, and he
coughed and laboured in his breath. But he kept on.
At last the two fugitives gained the bank of the river,
where the stream ran deep and narrow, and they still had
fifty yards in hand of Wau, the foremost pursuer, the man
who made the smiting stones. He carried one, a large flint,
the shape of an oyster and double the size, chipped to a
chisel edge, in either hand.
They sprang down the steep bank into the stream, rushed
through the water, swam the deep current in two or three
strokes, and came out wading again, dripping and refreshed,
to clamber up the farther bank. It was undermined, and
with willows growing thickly therefrom, so that it needed
clambering. And while Eudena was still among the silvery
branches and Ugh-lomi still in the water—for the
antler had encumbered him—Wau came up against the
sky on the opposite bank, and the smiting stone, thrown
cunningly, took the side of Eudena's knee. She struggled to
the top and fell.
They heard the pursuers shout to one another, and
Ugh-lomi, climbing to her and moving jerkily to mar Wau's
aim, felt the second smiting stone graze his ear, and heard
the water splashing below him.
Then it was Ugh-lomi, the stripling, proved himself to
have come to man's estate. For running on, he found Eudena
fell behind, limping, and at that he turned, and crying
savagely and with a face terrible with sudden wrath and
trickling blood, ran swiftly past her back to the bank,
whirling the antler round his head. And Eudena kept on,
running stoutly still, though she must needs limp at every
step, and the pain was already sharp.
So that Wau, rising over the edge and clutching the
straight willow branches, saw Ugh-lomi towering over him,
gigantic against the blue; saw his whole body swing round,
and the grip of his hands upon the antler. The edge of the
antler came sweeping through the air, and he saw no more.
The water under the osiers whirled and eddied and went
crimson six feet down the stream. Uya following, stopped
knee-high across the stream, and the man who was swimming
turned about.
The other men who trailed after—they were none of
them very mighty men (for Uya was more cunning than strong,
brooking no sturdy rivals)—slackened momentarily at
the sight of Ugh-lomi standing there above the willows,
bloody and terrible, between them and the halting girl,
with the huge antler waving in his hand. It seemed as
though he had gone into the water a youth, and come out of
it a man full grown.
He knew what there was behind him. A broad stretch of
grass, and then a thicket, and in that Eudena could hide.
That was clear in his mind, though his thinking powers
were too feeble to see what should happen thereafter. Uya
stood knee-deep, undecided and unarmed. His heavy mouth
hung open, showing his canine teeth, and he panted heavily.
His side was flushed and bruised under the hair. The other
man beside him carried a sharpened stick. The rest of the
hunters came up one by one to the top of the bank, hairy,
long-armed men clutching flints and sticks. Two ran off
along the bank down stream, and then clambered down to the
water, where Wau had come to the surface struggling weakly.
They gibbered at him without any sane attempt to help,
and presently he went under again. Two others threatened
Ugh-lomi from the bank.
He answered back, shouts, vague insults, gestures. Then
Uya, who had been standing hesitating, roared with rage,
and whirling his fists came plunging through the water. His
followers came splashing after him.
Ugh-lomi glanced over his shoulder and found Eudena
already vanished into the thicket. He would perhaps have
waited for Uya, but Uya preferred to spar in the water
below him until the others were beside him. Human tactics
in those days, in all serious fighting, were the tactics
of the pack. Prey that turned at bay they gathered around
and rushed. Ugh-lomi felt the rush coming, and hurling the
antler at Uya, turned about and fled.
When he halted to look back from the shadow of the
thicket, he found only three of his pursuers had followed
him across the river, and they were going back again. Uya,
with a bleeding mouth, was on the farther side of the
stream again, but lower down, and he held his hand to his
side. The others were in the river dragging something to
shore. For a time at least the chase was intermitted.
Ugh-lomi stood watching for a space, and snarled at
the sight of Uya. Then he turned and plunged into the
thicket.
In a minute, Eudena came hastening to join him, and
they went on hand in hand. He dimly perceived the pain
she suffered from the cut and bruised knee, and chose the
easier ways. But they went on all that day, mile after
mile, through wood and thicket, until at last they came
to the chalk land, open grass with rare woods of beech,
and the birch growing near water, and they saw the Wealden
mountains nearer, and groups of horses grazing together.
They went circumspectly, keeping always near thicket and
cover, for this was a strange region—even its ways
were strange. Steadily the ground rose, until the chestnut
forests spread wide and blue below them, and the Thames
marshes shone silvery, high and far. They saw no men, for
in those days men were still only just come into this
part of the world, and were moving but slowly along the
river-ways. Towards evening they came on the river again,
but now it ran in a gorge, between high cliffs of white
chalk that sometimes overhung it. Down the cliffs was a
scrub of birches and there were many birds there. And high
up the cliff was a little shelf by a tree, whereon they
clambered to pass the night.
They had had scarcely any food; it was not the time
of year for berries, and they had no time to go aside to
snare or waylay. They tramped in a hungry weary silence,
gnawing at twigs and leaves. But over the surface of the
cliffs were a multitude of snails, and in a bush were the
freshly laid eggs of a little bird, and then Ugh-lomi
threw at and killed a squirrel in a beech tree, so that
at last they fed well. Ugh-lomi watched during the night,
his chin on his knees; and he heard young foxes crying
hard by, and the noise of mammoths down the gorge, and the
hyænas yelling and laughing far away. It was chilly,
but they dared not light a fire. Whenever he dozed, his
spirit went abroad, and straightway met with the spirit of
Uya, and they fought. And always Ugh-lomi was paralysed so
that he could not smite nor run, and then he would awake
suddenly. Eudena, too, dreamt evil things of Uya, so that
they both awoke with the fear of him in their hearts, and
by the light of the dawn they saw a woolly rhinoceros go
blundering down the valley.
During the day they caressed one another and were glad
of the sunshine, and Euderia's leg was so stiff she sat on
the ledge all day. Ugh-lomi found great flints sticking
out of the cliff face, greater than any he had seen, and
he dragged some to the ledge and began chipping, so as to
be armed against Uya when he came again. And at one he
laughed heartily, and Eudena laughed, and they threw it
about in derision. It had a hole in it. They stuck their
fingers through it, it was very funny indeed. Then they
peeped at one another through it. Afterwards, Ugh-lomi
got himself a stick, and thrusting by chance at this
foolish flint, the stick went in and stuck there. He had
rammed it in too tightly to withdraw it. That was still
stranger—scarcely funny, terrible almost, and for a
time Ugh-lomi did not greatly care to touch the thing. It
was as if the flint had bit and held with its teeth. But
then he got familiar with the odd combination. He swung it
about, and perceived dimly that the stick with the heavy
stone on the end struck a better blow than anything he
knew. He went to and fro swinging it, and striking with
it; but later he tired of it and threw it aside. In the
afternoon he went up over the brow of the white cliff, and
lay watching by a rabbit-warren until the rabbits came out
to play. There were no men thereabouts, and the rabbits
were heedless. He threw a smiting stone he had made and got
a kill.
That night they made a fire from flint sparks and
bracken fronds, and talked and caressed by it. And in
their sleep Uya's spirit came again, and suddenly, while
Ugh-lomi was trying to fight vainly, the foolish flint on
the stick came into his hand, and struck Uya with it, and
behold! it killed him. But afterwards came other dreams of
Uya—for spirits take a lot of killing, and he had to
be killed again' Then after that the stone would not keep
on the stick. He awoke tired and rather gloomy, and was
sulky all the forenoon, in spite of Eudena's kindliness,
and instead of hunting he sat chipping a sharp edge to the
singular flint, and looking strangely at her. Then he bound
the perforated flint on to the stick with strips of rabbit
And afterwards he walked up and down the ledge, striking
with it, and muttering to himself, and thinking of Uya. It
felt very fine and heavy in the hand.
Several days, more than there was any counting in those
days, five days, it may be, or six, did Ugh-lomi and Eudena
stay on that shelf in the gorge of the river, and they lost
all fear of men, and their fire burnt redly of a night. And
they were very merry together; there was food every day,
sweet water, and no enemies. Eudena's knee was well in a
couple of days, for those ancient savages had quick-healing
flesh. Indeed, they were very happy. On one of those days,
although it has little to do with this story, Ugh-lomi
dropped a chunk of flint on the cliff. He saw it fall, and
go bounding across the river bank into the river, and after
laughing and thinking it over a little he tried another.
This smashed a bush of hazel in the most interesting
way. They spent all the morning dropping stones from the
ledge and in the afternoon they discovered this new and
interesting pastime was also possible from the cliff brow.
The next day they had forgotten this delight. Or at least,
it seemed they had forgotten.
But Uya came in dreams to spoil the paradise. Three
nights he came fighting Ugh-lomi. In the morning after
these dreams Ugh-lomi would walk up and down, threatening
him and swinging the axe, and at last came the night after
Ugh-lomi brained the otter, and they had feasted. Uya went
too far. Ugh-lomi awoke, scowling under his heavy brows,
and he took his axe, and extending his hand towards Eudena
he bade her wait for him upon the ledge. Then he clambered
down the white declivity, glanced up once from the foot of
it and flourished his axe, and without looking back again
went striding along the river bank until the overhanging
cliff at the bend hid him.
Two days and nights did Eudena sit alone by the fire
on the ledge waiting, and in the night the beasts howled
over the cliffs and down the valley, and on the cliff over
against her the hunched hyænas prowled black against
the sky. But no evil thing came near her save fear. Once,
far away, she heard the roaring of a lion, following the
horses as they came northward over the grass lands with the
spring. All that time she waited—the waiting that is
pain.
And the third day Ugh-lomi came back, up the river.
The plumes of a raven were in his hair. The axe was
red—stained, and had long dark hairs upon it, and
he carried the necklace that had marked the favourite of
Uya in his hand. He walked in the soft places, giving no
heed to his trail. Save a raw cut below his jaw there was
not a wound upon him. "Uya!" cried Ugh-lomi exultant, and
Eudena saw it was well. He put the necklace on Eudena, and
they ate and drank together. And after eating he began to
rehearse the whole story from the beginning, when Uya had
cast his eyes on Eudena, and Uya and Ugh-lomi, fighting
in the forest, had been chased by the bear, eking out his
scanty words with abundant pantomime, springing to his
feet and whirling the stone axe round when it came to the
fighting. The last fight was a mighty one, stamping and
shouting, and once a blow at the fire that sent a torrent
of sparks up into the night. And Eudena sat red in the
light of the fire, gloating on him, her face flushed and
her eyes shining, and the necklace Uya had made about her
neck. It was a splendid time, and the stars that look down
on us looked down on her, our ancestor—who has been
dead now these fifty thousand years.
THE END
Project Gutenberg Australia