“Are you going to give him food,” asked Balal, “and treat him well as I promised you would?”
“Yes,” said Scurv, but his tone was sullen and his shifty eyes looked neither at Balal nor Tanar as he replied.
In the center of the ledge, opposite the mouth of the cave, a small fire was burning beneath an earthen bowl, which was supported by three or four small pieces of stone. Squatting close to this was a female, who, in youth, might have been a fine looking girl, but now her face was lined by bitterness and hate as she glared sullenly into the caldron, the contents of which she was stirring with the rib of some large animal.
“Tanar is hungry, Sloo,” said Balal, addressing the woman. “When will the food be cooked?”
“Have I not enough to do preparing hides and cooking food for all of you without having to cook for every enemy that you see fit to bring to the cave of your father?”
“This is the first time I ever brought any one, mother,” said Balal.
“Let it be the last, then,” snapped the woman.
“Shut up, woman,” snapped Scurv, “and hasten with the food.”
The woman leaped to her feet, brandishing the rib above her head. “Don’t tell me what to do, Scurv,” she shrilled. “I have had about enough of you anyway.”
“Hit him, mother!” screamed a lad of about eleven, jumping to his feet and dancing about in evident joy and excitement.