They bathed away the clotted blood and bandaged the arm not unskilfully. Allan pressed the hand of Zangamon, then that of his companion.
“No thanks of mine can tell you what I feel!” he exclaimed straight from the heart. “Only for you to guide me, to drive the man-brute, to strike it down when it was just about to throttle me--only for you, both she and I--”
He could not finish. The words choked him. He felt, as never before, a sudden, warm, human touch of kinship with the Merucaans--a strong, nascent affection. Till now they had been savages to him--inferiors.
Now he perceived their inner worth--the strong and manly stamina of soul and body; and through him thrilled a love for these strange men, his saviors and the girl's.
Once more he seemed to see a vision of the future--a world peopled by the descendants of this hardy and resourceful folk, “without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the married harmony of form and function”--and, as with a gesture, he dismissed them wondering, not understanding in the least why he should thank them, he knew the world already had begun once more to come back under the hand, under the strong control of man.
“Sleep now, master,” Bremilu entreated. “We who are new to this strange world will sit outside the door upon the rock and watch those fires so far above that you call stars. And the big sun-fire that is coming, too--we would see that!”
“No, not yet!” Stern commanded. “You cannot bear it for a while. Stay within and roll the rock against the door and sleep. The great fire might injure you or even kill you, as it did the--”
He checked himself just in time, for “the patriarch” had all but escaped him. Zangamon, with sudden understanding, once more advanced toward him as he sat there by the girl.
“O master! You mean the ancient man? He is dead?”
Stern nodded.