I turned her about, and looked at the arrow in the hump, and shouted for joy. The head had passed through but a little beneath the skin, and she who was my mate was almost unharmed. I drew the arrow sharply forward by the head, and out, and there remained but a wound which would soon be healed.
“I knew she would seek to kill me,” said Humpback.
But how she could know such a thing I could not understand. Woman can tell many things of which men know nothing.
So I took Humpback with me to the hut, and helped her dress her wound, and all was well again. I took my stone axe, and went into the cave of Black Bow, but Dark Eyes was not there. I know not what would have happened had I found her. I had promised Humpback that I would not kill her, but I know not. Perhaps Dark Eyes had gone mad, and it was not our custom to kill those who were mad and do not know. Yet was I afraid of Dark Eyes.
And the season went, and all was good. The seeds were ripening in the fenced places, we had captured more horses, and the hunting was good; so the bellies of the little children were plump, and there was nothing to fear from the winter, though the snow might come, and the game flee to the southward, and the ice lie thick upon the fishing places. It was good.
Better than the acorns, better even than the dried berries, do I like the nuts of the beech tree; and Humpback, my mate, knowing this, had gone often to the great beech forest which lay far up the river, and had brought a store of nuts for the winter. But still more I wanted; and so one day, at the time when the seeds were ripe, and the nuts were nearly fallen, I told her to gather yet more of the beechnuts, and went with her, for sometimes there was good hunting there, the grouse and bustard and the wild hogs coming to eat the nuts, which they liked as well as I. The land was high and rolling, and there were pleasant open spaces down into which the sun shone, making them warm, but sometimes bringing out a little brown snake, the bite of which was deadly.
These spaces had always been avoided by Humpback, my wise mate; and as I started to cross one of them she warned me, but I only laughed. I was standing in the midst of the opening even as she called to me, and, even as I laughed, I felt a sharp sting upon my ankle. I leaped aside, and, looking downward, saw one of the terrible little snakes gliding away through the thin grass. I struck blindly with my bow, and broke its back, killing it; but what could that avail me? I yelled aloud in fear, and ran to where Humpback, frightened, was standing beneath the trees. I told her what had happened, and she shrieked and put her arms about me. So we stood for a little time, and soon there came a numbness in my ankle, where I had been bitten, and then in my leg, and soon the deadness seemed to reach farther and farther all over me, and then came a dimness as I drew closer still to Humpback, and then all knowing passed!
CHAPTER VIII
THE DELUGE
Bees were humming in my head, and I did not like it. The humming hurt me. I opened my eyes and passed my hand across my forehead and brought it away with blood upon it. I began to understand now the humming of the bees, for I remembered dimly having heard them hum in my head at other times and of what hurt had been the cause. I must have struck there heavily. Yet all seemed strange. I looked about me, and looked upon what, assuredly, I had never seen before.
I was seated, I found, upon a thick cloak of bearskin, with my back against a rock, apparently some distance up the slope of a mountainside. This slope, which had a forest upon it here and there, and areas of dense thickets, fell toward the south and west to a wide lowland extending beyond the sight, and reaching, I thought, to the great sea, for now, vaguely, there came a recollection of happenings close at hand, all, as it seemed, of but an hour ago, or, it might be, of yesterday. The sun was streaming upon me warmly and my strength was coming to me slowly. I crawled to the side of the rock, where I could have a view to the north and east, and saw what I had expected; the ascent was steady though irregular and continued to a great height, the forests gradually disappearing, while above, in the far distance, rose bald ranges. All this I saw, and it had to me some slight familiarity, as if I had looked upon it before for a little time. My effort in moving had been a little too great for me, and I crept back to my couch, where I rested with closed eyes. I would soon be myself again. Already the bees were humming in my head less noisily.