CHAPTER VIII.
The Chase.
In prehistoric time the camp was the stopping place, a few boughs, a few skins, a fire amongst stones, perhaps a shelter under a rock. In the southern land where they now were and in the summer, the young hardihood and trained activity of these youths required little else, and as the streams and ponds, or the life of the woods, furnished them food, when inland, or the shores of the sea, sustenance, when on the coast, their ease of movement was unlimited. In this respect also, Ogga and Lhatto had been exceptional.
The early man roves but with stealth and with slowness along rivers and coast lines. He finds his bearings by their familiar configuration, and only furtively enters the untrodden and pathless wilderness. But Ogga and Lhatto were not aimless, though in these first weeks of indulgence, and from that superior loftiness of nature which had fitted them for new tasks, they had been adventuresome. They intended to fix their destination southward on the sea coast, and had at no time, in these days of wandering, forgotten their intention. Lagk, who was more familiar with the interior, had guided them, but with many vacillations. Their steps had tended southward along the mountain ridges. They calculated they were not now far distant from their rest.
Ogga pushed aside a wavering branch and stepped on the little cleared space where for a few days he and Lhatto had lingered, feeling the charm of its elevation in the clear salubrity of the air, the haunting wonders of the distant view of the ocean, and those many laxative and gentle interests that arise with lovers in solitude and remoteness.
Ogga, in the moonlight which made everything visible, saw that the camp was deserted, and a sudden shadow darkened his face, the blood surged to his cheeks, and he stood looking about him with a curious inquietude. The horse that with Lagk had been their companion and had proven not unuseful in their wanderings, was also gone. No trace of thong or lasso which commonly hung from the branches, or lay tangled and displayed on the rocks, was there and—he began to move rapidly to and fro over the ledge—the skins that Lagk had prepared, which formed a rude alleviation to their primitive condition, had also disappeared.
Ogga stopped, his head hung forward, he knelt and gazed at impressions in the scanty soil at one side of the rock, where infiltrating and creeping mosses, with a film of earth, formed a green carpet. He saw the hoof marks of the horse, and the long foot marks of Lagk, but nothing else. The slighter thin steps of Lhatto were not there, and yet Lhatto also was gone. With a new accession of excitement Ogga rushed to the opposite side, and throwing himself upon the ground that appeared there, and which was part of the encroaching upland-field which he had just crossed, looked for the telltale steps. There were none. Again he leaped to his feet, and stood irresolute.
Fast swarming thoughts filled his mind. He recalled Lhatto’s confession, he remembered the clinging constancy of Lagk to Lhatto, he weighed well Lagk’s resentment for himself, he recurred to his own distrust and wonder over Lagk’s importunate insistency that he should go alone to hunt the sloth, and then there stole into his brooding thoughts the hitherto suppressed suspicions of Lhatto’s faith. He remembered—how vividly the images rose in quiet succession to taunt and tempt his patience—when Lhatto asked so anxiously if it was not late for Lagk to return from some hunt he had undertaken for her sake, how she sat with Lagk and listened to his long stories of the birds and beasts, how she had wandered away with him to see some nest or wild flower, how she had helped him dress the skins, and had amused herself with so much archness and tenderness, sticking bright feathers in his hair, while he worked at his nets, or strengthened and stiffened and lengthened his lassos. He remembered—could it be pain that spread like an aching ulcer over his heart—how Lhatto had pitied Lagk’s deformity, and once Lagk had held her in his arms and kissed her, and Lhatto did not repel him, and once again—Ogga strode to the edge of the ledge and looked down the steep sides of the rock, even leaning forward over the peril below him—he found her bending over Lagk sleeping, and she touched his face with her lips.