In the Morning of Time

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

The three were among the swiftest runners of the tribe; but Grôm soon saw that the utmost they could hope was to maintain their distance. And there was the imminent risk that the bees, disturbed by the noise of flight and pursuit, might take umbrage. To lessen this frightful risk, he swerved out till he was some thirty or forty paces distant from the belt of woods. And he noticed, too, that the pursuing herd seemed to 268 have no great anxiety to approach the frontiers of the Bee People. They were following on a slant that gave the woods a wide berth.

About a mile further on the woods came to an end, and Grôm, though he feared the pace might be beginning to tell on A-ya, and though there was no refuge in sight, breathed more freely. He feared the bees more than the yellow monsters, because they were something he could not fight. The grass-land now ran clear to the river’s edge, and gave firm footing; and the fugitives raced on, breathing carefully, and trusting to come to trees again before they should be spent.

At last a curve of the bank showed them the woods sweeping down again to the water, but three or four miles ahead! Grôm, looking back over his shoulder, realized that their pursuers were now gaining upon them appreciably. With an effort he quickened his pace still further. Loob responded without difficulty. But A-ya’s face showed signs of distress, and at this Grôm’s heart sank. He began to scan the water, weighing the chances of the crocodiles. It looked as if they were trapped beyond escape.

Perhaps half a mile up the shore a spit of land ran out against the current, and behind its shelter an eddy had collected a mass of uprooted trees and other flood refuse, all matted with green from the growth of wind-borne seeds. It was in reality a great natural raft, built by the eddy and anchored behind the little point. For this Grôm headed with new hope. It might be strong enough––parts of it at least––to bear 269 up the three fugitives. But their furious pursuers would surely not venture their giant bulks upon it.

Approaching the point he slackened his pace, and steadied A-ya with one hand. At the edge of the eddy he stopped, casting an appraising eye over the collection of débris, in order to pick out a stable retreat and also the most secure path to it. In this pause the monsters swept up with a thunder of trampling hooves and windy snortings. They had their victims at last where there was no escape.

The raging brutes were not more than a dozen paces behind, when Grôm led the way out upon the floating mass, picking his steps warily and leaping from trunk to trunk. Loob and A-ya followed with like care. Certain of the trunks gave and sank beneath their feet, but their feet were already away to surer footing. And at the very outermost point of that old collection of débris, where the current and the eddy wavered for mastery, on a toughly interwoven tangle of uprooted trunks and half-dead vines, they found a refuge which did not yield beneath them. Here, steadying themselves by upthrust branches, they turned and looked back, half apprehensive and half defiant, at their mighty pursuers.

“They’ll never dare to try to follow us here,” gasped A-ya.

But she was wrong. Quite blind with rage through that galling shaft in his muzzle, the giant bull came plunging on, and half a dozen of his closest followers, infected with his madness, came with him. The 270 inner edge of the mass gave way at once beneath them––and the bank at this point was straight up and down. The monsters floundered in deep water, snorting and spluttering, while their fellows on the shore checked themselves violently and drew back bawling with bewilderment. As the drowning monsters battled to get their front legs up upon the raft, the edges gave way continually beneath them, plunging them again and again beneath the surface, while A-ya stabbed at them vengefully with her spear, and Loob shot arrows into them till Grôm stopped him, saying that the arrows were too precious to waste. Thereupon Loob tripped delicately over the surging trunks and smote at the struggling monsters’ heads with his light club.

The anchorage of this natural raft having been broken, the weight of the monsters striving to gain a foothold upon it soon thrust its firm outer portion forth into the grip of the current. In a minute or two more this solid portion was torn away from the rest, and went sailing off slowly down stream with its living freight. The incoherent remnant was left in the eddy, where the snorting monsters struggled and threshed about amongst it, now climbing half-way out upon some great trunk, which forthwith reared on end and slid them off, now vanishing for a moment beneath the beaten stew of leaves and vines.

A couple of the horned giants, being close to the bank, now seemed to recover their wits sufficiently to turn and clamber ashore. But the others were mad with terror. And in a moment more the fascinated 271 watchers on the raft perceived the cause of this madness. All round the scene of the turmoil the water seethed with lashing tails and snapping jaws; and then one of the monsters, which had struggled out into clear water, was dragged down in a boiling vortex of jaws and bloody foam. A few moments more and the whole eddy became a bubbling hell of slaughter, and great broad washes of crimson streamed out upon the current. The monsters, for all their giant strength, and the pile-driving blows of their huge hoofs, were as helpless as rabbits against their swarming and ravenous assailants; and the battle––which indeed was no battle at all––soon was over. The eddy had become but a writhing nest of crocodiles.