In the Morning of Time

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

When Grôm lowered his eyes to earth again he started. On the side of the stump of a fallen tree, out in the glade not more than eight or ten yards distant, clung one of the monsters, scintillating blue-green and amethyst in the full blaze of the sun. Its wings, exquisitely netted and of crystal transparency, were tinged with an ineffable purple iridescence. Its jointed body, slightly longer than Grôm’s arm, was nearly as thick as his wrist, and ended at the tail with a formidable double claw. Its six legs, arranged in three pairs under the thorax, were armed on the inner sides with powerful spines, needle-pointed and steel hard, with which to grip and hold its victims. The thorax, from the back of which sprouted the four great wings, was of the thickness of Grôm’s forearm, while its head was as big as Grôm’s two great fists put together. It was this head which held Grôm’s fascinated gaze, giving him more of the sensation of cold fear than he had ever known before. More than two-thirds of the head consisted of a pair of huge, globose eyes, without pupil, ethereally transparent, yet unfathomable. From the depths of them flamed a ceaselessly changing radiance of blue-green, purple and violet. Grôm found the stare of those blank, pupilless eyes almost intolerable.

It was plainly straight at him, through the ineffectual screen of the leafage, that the dreadful insect was staring. 214 At first it stared with the back of its head. Then, very deliberately, it turned its head completely around, without moving its body a hair-breadth, till its mouth was in the same plane with its back. This gave Grôm a sense of disgust, and his shrinking dread began to give way to a sort of rage.

Then he took note of the monster’s mouth––and understood those great cup-shaped wounds on the woman and the child. The mouth took up the remaining third of the head, and seemed to consist of globular discs working one over the other, so as either to cut cleanly or to grind. They were working, slowly, now––and Grôm felt suddenly that he must put a stop to it, that he must put out the awful light in those monstrous devil eyes. Stealthily, almost imperceptibly, he fitted an arrow to his bow, raised it, drew it, and took a long, steady aim. He must not miss. The shaft flew––and the great fly was pinned, through the thorax, to the soft, rotten wood of its perch.

To Grôm’s horror that stroke, which to any beast he knew would have at once been fatal, did not kill the monstrous fly. Its struggles, and the beating of its four great wings were so violent that the arrow-head was presently wrenched loose from its hold in the wood, and the raging splendor, with the shaft half-way through its thorax, bounded into the air. It darted straight at Grôm, who had prudently edged in among a tangle of stems. Its fury carried it through the screen of leafage––but then, its wings impeded by the branches, and the arrow hampering it, 215 it dashed itself to the earth. Instantly Grôm was upon it, stamping its slim body, as it lay there blazing and quivering, into the soil. The violet light in the huge, pupilless eyes still stared up at him implacable, from a head turned squarely over the back. But in a cold fury Grôm shattered the gleaming head with his club. Then he trod the silver wings to dust.

Having slaked his wrath effectually, Grôm turned to stare forth again at those destroying splendors darting and glittering above the surface of the lake. To his surprise there were no more of them to be seen. Then far off down the shore he heard the voice of Loob, shouting for help. The shouting changed at once to a scream of terror, and Grôm started to the rescue on the full run––taking care, however, to keep within cover of the thickets. But before he had gone a quarter of a mile he heard A-ya’s voice calling him, wildly, insistently, mingled with excited yells from Mô. He shouted in reply and dashed madly for the fires. The peril of A-ya put all other considerations out of his mind.

As he burst forth into the glade of refuge, he saw A-ya and young Mô leaping about frantically among their fires, now trying to stir the fires to a fiercer blaze, now beating upwards with their spears, while above them darted and gleamed and swooped and scintillated, with a horrid dry rustling of their silver wings, shoal upon shoal of the devouring monsters. As he burst into the open, with a great shout of encouragement, something dropped upon him. He felt 216 his head instantly caged by six steel-like legs which gripped like jaws, their spines sinking deep into the flesh of neck and cheek. He reached up his left hand, caught his dreadful assailant just where the head and thorax join, and strove to throttle it. This was impossible, by reason of the insect’s armor, but he succeeded in holding off those horrid jaws from his face as he dashed for the circle. Another monster swooped and struck its spines into his back, and bit a great mouthful out of his shoulder. But he gained the fires, and, holding his breath, sprang right through the fiercest flame. The wings of his assailants shrivelled instantly, and the flame, drawn into the mouth of their breathing tubes, sealed them up. Grôm tore them off, and slammed the writhing, wingless bodies into the fire.

Inside the circle, now that the fires were burning high, it was possible to defend oneself effectually, as the bulk of the assailants seemed to realize that the flames were fatal to their frail wings. But there were enough so headlong in their ferocity that both Grôm and Mô were kept busy beating them off with spears, while A-ya fed the fires; and the ground inside the circle was littered with the radiant bodies of the dying insects, which, even in dying, bit like bull-dogs if foot or leg came within reach. Grôm noticed that their supply of fuel was all but gone, and his heart sank. He measured with his eyes the distance to the nearest thickets that looked dense enough for a shelter.

“We’ll have to run for those bushes,” he said 217 presently. “They can’t fly in where the branches are thick. It breaks their wings.”

“Good,” said young Mô. But A-ya, whose shapely shoulders and thighs were already covered with hideous wounds, trembled at the prospect.

At that moment, however an amazing change came over the scene. A black thunder-cloud passed across the face of the sun. The moment the sunshine vanished the destroyers seemed to forget their fury. All the life and energy went out of them. They simply flocked to the nearest trees and hung themselves up, gigantic, jewelled blooms, upon the branches. In less than a minute every dreadful wing was stilled.