But when, after an hour’s sullen tramping, they suddenly grew merry at their task, and fell to marching with a child-like cheer under their repulsive and groaning burden, he was surprised, and made inquiry as to the reason for this sudden complaisance. It turned out that one of the warriors, accounted more discerning than his fellows, had suggested that the captive was to be nursed back to health in order that he might be made an acceptable sacrifice to the Shining One. As this notion seemed to meet with such hearty approval, the wise Chief did not think it worth while to cast any doubt upon it. In fact, as he thought, such a solution might very well arrive, in the end, in case Grôm’s design should fail to come up to his expectations.
To the presence of the hideous and repulsive stranger in her dwelling, A-ya, as was natural, raised warm objection. But when Grôm had explained his purpose to her, and the imminence of the peril that threatened, she yielded readily enough, the dread of Mawg being yet vivid in her imagination. She lent herself cheerfully to the duty of caring for the captive’s wounds and of helping Grôm to teach him the simple speech of the tribe.
As for the captive, for some days he was possessed 134 by a morose anticipation of being brained at any moment––an anticipation, however, which did not seem to interfere with his appetite. He would clutch eagerly all the food offered him, and crouch, huddled over it, with his face to the rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and bestial noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable kindness, he began to develop an anxious gratitude and docility. On A-ya’s tall form his little round eyes, shy and fierce at the same time, came to rest with an adoring awe. The smell of him being extremely offensive to all this cleanly tribe, and especially to A-ya and Grôm, who were more fastidious than their fellows, A-ya had taken advantage of her office as priestess of the Shining One to establish a little fire within the precincts of her own dwelling, and by the judicious use of aromatic barks upon the blaze she was able to scent the place to her taste. And the Bow-leg, seeing her mastery of the mysterious and dreadful scarlet tongues which licked upwards from the hollow on their rocky pedestal, regarded her less as a woman than as a goddess––a being who, for her own unknown reasons, chose to be beneficent toward him, but who plainly could become destructive if he should in any way transgress. Toward Grôm––who regarded him altogether impersonally as a means to an end, a pawn to be played prudently in a game of vast import––his attitude was that of the submitted slave, his fate lying in the hollow of his master’s hand. Toward the rest of the tribe––who, till their curiosity was sated, kept crowding in to stare and jeer and 135 curse––he displayed the savage fear and hate of a lynx at bay.
But the babe on A-ya’s arm seemed to him something peculiarly precious. It was not only the son of Grôm, his grave and distant master, but also of that wonderful, beautiful, enigmatic deity, his mistress, the fashioner and controller of the flames. The adoration which soon grew up in his heart for A-ya’s beauty, but which his awe of her did not suffer him even to realize to himself, was turned upon the babe, and speedily took the form of a passionate and dog-like devotion. A-ya, with her mother instinct, was quick to understand this, and also to realize the possible value to her child of such a devotion, in some future emergency. Moreover, it softened her heart toward the hideous captive, so that she busied herself not only to help Grôm teach him their language, but also to reform his manners and make him somewhat less unpleasant an associate. His wounds soon healed, thanks to the vitality of his youthful stock; and the bones of the broken leg soon knit themselves securely. But Grôm’s surgery having been hasty and something less than exact, the leg remained so crooked that its owner could do no more than hobble about with a laborious, dragging gait. It being obvious that he could not run away, there was no guard set upon him.
But it soon became equally obvious that nothing would induce him to remove himself from the neighborhood of A-ya’s baby. He was like a gigantic watchdog squatting at Grôm’s doorway, chained to it by 136 links stronger than any that hands could fashion. And those of the tribe who had been hoping to do honor to the Shining One, as well as to the spirits of their slain kinsmen back in the barrow on the windy hills, by a great and bloody sacrifice, began to realize with discontent that their hopes were like enough to be disappointed.
II
The captive said his name was Ook-ootsk––a clicking guttural which none but A-ya was able to master. When he had learned to make himself understood, he proved eager to repay Grôm’s protection by giving all the information that he possessed. Simple-minded, but with much of a child’s shrewdness, he quickly came to regard himself as of some importance when both the Chief and Grôm would spend hours in interrogating him. His own people he repudiated with bitterness, because, when he had fallen among the rocks and shattered his leg, his party had refused to burden their flight by helping him. It became his pride to identify himself with the interests of his master, and to call himself the slave of his master’s baby.
The information which he was able to give was such as to cause the Chief and Grôm the most profound disquietude. It appeared that the Bow-legs, having gradually recovered from the panic of their appalling defeat in the Pass of the Little Hills, had made up their minds that the disaster must be avenged. But 137 no longer did they hold their opponents cheap on account of their scanty numbers. They realized that if they would hope to succeed in their next attack they must organize, and prepare themselves by learning how to employ their forces better. To this end, therefore, when Mawg and his fellow-renegades fell into their hands, instead of tearing them to pieces in bestial sport, they had spared them, and made much of them, and set themselves diligently to learn all that the strangers could teach. And Mawg, seeing here his opportunity both for vengeance on Grôm and for the gratification of that mad passion for A-ya which had so long obsessed him, had gone about the business with shrewd foresight and a convincing zeal.
It was apparent from the accounts which Ook-ootsk was able to give that the invasion would take place as soon as possible after their hordes were adequately armed with the new weapons. This, said Ook-ootsk, would be soon after the dry season had set in. In any case, he said, the hordes were bound to wait for the dry season, because the way from their country to the Valley of Fire lay through a region of swamps which became impassable for any large body of migrants during the month of rains.
As the dry season was already close upon them, Bawr and Grôm now set themselves feverishly to the arrangement of their defenses. Counting the older boys who had grown into sizable youths since the last great battle and all the able-bodied women and girls, they could muster no more than about six score 138 of actual combatants. They knew that defeat would mean nothing less than instant annihilation for the tribe, and for the women a foul captivity and a loathsome mating. But they knew also that a mere successful defense would avail them only for the moment. Unless they could inflict upon the invaders such a defeat as would amount to a paralyzing catastrophe, they would soon be worn down by mere force of numbers, or starved to death in their caves. It was not only for defense, therefore, but for wholesale attack––the attack of six score upon as many thousand––that Bawr planned his strategy and Grôm wove unheard-of devices.