A Woman of the Ice Age

by L. P. Gratacap

As Lhatto finished, Ogga, who stood by her side, bent upon her and kissed her on the neck. Lagk had his eyes fixed on Lhatto; the movement and action of Ogga seemed to bewilder and infuriate him. He drew aside hastily, his black eyes glittering, his mobile mouth drawn into a scowl, and his nervous hands clenched hard upon one another as if under some superhuman control to restrain them. The next instant, as if seized with a sudden resolve, he leaped through some juniper bushes and disappeared.

Lhatto and Ogga were alone. Ogga knelt by the woman’s side and took her hands and drew her face and body nearer to his own. “Lagk loves you,” he said.

Lhatto smiled. Who shall measure the subtle sense of joy which comes to a woman, even to a wild emancipated creature like Lhatto, from a man’s admiration! “Perhaps,” answered Lhatto. “I know it,” persisted Ogga, and he raised her hands and placed them upon his shoulders, and a darkness passed over his visage that surrendered its impotent suspicions as Lhatto flung her face upon his own, and held him closer and closer, and the whisper crept into his ear: “He may love me, but I love you, Ogga, and it is all well with us.”

Lagk reappeared, his face was at the aperture of the parted junipers; behind him the horse was standing, and his head above Lagk’s seemed to peer forward with almost the same frightened eagerness as his master. Lagk had seen, had heard all and the momentary agony that creased his face with frowns, passed into a sullen contraction of the brows, a settled, determined, half pre-occupied glance at Ogga as he led the horse upon the upland table—its back covered by thongs and lassos laid there by Lagk.

He left the horse and approached Ogga and Lhatto, yet oblivious of his presence. They rose instantly, their eyes filled with that light that in the savage, as in the modern, does most certainly send its throbbing fires of passion and yearning and rapture into those strange organs from whose windows man’s soul looks out upon the world.

Lagk seemed almost unconcerned. He motioned to Ogga to follow him. The two went out through the junipers, that sprang back again, and Lhatto was left alone. Lagk led Ogga through some scattered woods and brought him out upon a higher upland sparsely clothed in grass. There the two men became engaged in earnest talk. Lagk motioned to the horizon and his gesticulations became vehement and rapid. Ogga listened, his arms folded, the braids of his hair framing the brown face, thrown slightly forward, while the half bent shoulders expressed his interest in the recital of his friend. At length the appeal prevailed, if appeal it was, and Ogga walked on, out upon the upland, his ivory spear in his hand, the nephrite knife about his neck, and the stone sledge in his belt.

It was curious and not altogether reassuring then to watch Lagk. He threw his hands backward upon his deformed shoulders, lifted them in the air, and brought them back upon his breast with the spread fingers buried in the exposed flesh of his bosom. His face, capable of violent changes in expression, became sombre and thoughtful, and then there stole over it an increasing smile, that seemed fed by some anticipation of pleasure, and lit his face with a wicked and baleful joy. Lagk watched Ogga until the receding form disappeared, dropping down behind rocks and trees. Lagk stood for an instant longer, as if gathering his thoughts for the execution of his plans.

Then he stole back through the juniper trees and saw Lhatto had resumed her first posture, her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees, and her face turned in reverie to the distant sea. The horse was pulling upon the branches of a maple. Lagk stepped quietly in upon the place that was soon to become the stage of so much terror. He moved noiselessly to the side of Lhatto, holding a leathern thong of considerable length in his hand. He leaned upon her. She hastily drew herself upward. With an inarticulate shout, Lagk threw in rapid coils the thong about her, pinning her arms closely to her side. They were drawn tight and strongly; like a vise they held her arms helpless and motionless. The action was so daring, so unexpected that Lhatto almost yielded to it without resistance. An instant later she looked at Lagk. His face was close to hers, his breath brushed her cheeks, a strange gleam of exultation shone in his eyes. He seized her in his arms and pushed his lips upon her with the violence of ravenous desire. Lhatto jumped to her feet and struck him away with a savage kick.

It was not well aimed. It hurt, but the hurt incensed Lagk. The color had rushed to Lhatto’s face, her chest rose and fell with the tumult of her own anger and disgust, but the flaming of her temper made her more beautiful, more desirable, and Lagk felt the tension of his craven thoughts. Lhatto was motionless. She made no attempt to escape. She looked at Lagk—her arms straightened to her side, giving her a strained uprightness—with a curious interest, her eyes wide apart and her lips compressed, and a red spot in her cheeks that spread to the spaces beneath her eyes, glowing darkly under her bronzed skin.

But Lagk waited no longer. A leathern thong gathered in his hands, snatched from the horse’s back, with bowed body he sped like a ferret forward, and whirled the cord about Lhatto’s legs. He ran on around her, drawing nearer and nearer with every loop of his circuit tightening the web that held her rigid like an imprisoned fly, until he had come quite close to her absolutely still form. He stopped in front of her and as he turned his face to hers she spat upon it. It was like a spark to a magazine. The hidden revolt which Lagk nursed, which made him rebellious against the humiliation of his deformity, which defiled the springs of his good nature and had fed the poisonous growths of envy and malice and discontent, burst furiously into flame. From his jagged lips, malediction started.