The clay floor and the clay above it were well baked when we came to the tree in the morning, though not yet enough, Hammer said, yet he did not at once rebuild the fire, but sent for a slender and knowing lad of the village to whom he gave a task of merit. The youth was to wriggle his slim body through the opening and ascend and plaster the trunk inside from bottom to top! It was a feat, but the youngster was equal to it, with the aid provided him. The men cut down a tree and from it took a long slender limb equal to the height of the dead trunk, and sheared off its twigs and many side branches, leaving always enough of each to make a foothold. They climbed the trunk and drew up the limb and let it down inside and thus provided the boy with a sort of ladder from which to do his work. The clay was passed up to him at first and later slung down to him from the top in a skin pouch which one of the men drew up. Two days it required for the resolute lad to complete the work well, but at its end he had bestowed upon him such spear-head and arrows and knife and hatchet of glittering copper as made him mightiest of small warriors and loftiest of men among a thousand. Then in the clay-bottomed and lined old tree trunk a mighty fire was built by Hammer and kept going until the clay was turned to brick. He had made a furnace! The fire roared up the opening as if drawn by all the demons of the sky in time of storm.
Now Hammer took a lump of the clay and, working very carefully, pressed down into it, to half its thickness, a copper axe; upon this he laid a part, exceedingly thin, of the bladder of a stag, and afterward he pressed down more of the clay, so that the axe was all embedded save a portion of its handle; he then left the mess to dry for a time in the sun, and later heated it for a long time in a fire outside. When he drew it forth and it had cooled, the wooden handle outside the clay was burned away, and, by a little careful prying, the two halves of the mould which had been separated by the bladder came apart. These he fitted together again and enclosed in another mass of clay, leaving open only the opening into the hollow mould. The clay was set upon the ground, with the hole upward.
Next Hammer brought from the village a covered earthen pot, not very deep, into one side of which he made a hole to receive the end of a long handle of wood, though before he put the handle in he covered it also with clay which he baked about it in a long fire. He had now a vessel which he could thrust unharmed into even such a dreadful furnace as he had made within the base of the tree. Into it he placed half a dozen ingots of the purest copper and thrust it, with its lid on, into the white-red heart of the flaming coals. The long handle was propped into place upon a crotch near the flames, and then we fed the fire, and waited!
The day passed into the night, one of us awake at all times and feeding the raging furnace as it needed. Morning came, and then Hammer, who had been sleeping last, arose and looked at me and beckoned. Together we neared the white-hot mass of coals and embers and, taking hold of the long handle very carefully, withdrew the pot from where it rested in the eye-blistering furnace. We took it away from the fire and rested it a moment on the ground, while, with a long stick in hand, Hammer lifted off the still red cover. Then rose such a yell of triumph as had not been heard since we found the copper in the forest. The metal had melted! We did not speak. Carefully as men had ever performed an action, and holding the ungainly handle firmly, we poured the molten stuff into the hole in the awaiting mold. It filled and overflowed and ran upon the ground, but we cared not. What was left we poured into a hollow in the soil and then threw ourselves upon the ground to wait again. It was noon when we broke away the clay, and later, when the mould had cooled enough to be handled, the two parts separated easily and there came forth a copper axe! The great thing was accomplished! It was not a perfect axe, but it would be so after a little grinding and polishing. Henceforth the making of copper things would be done in a new and easier way. Furthermore, one man, two men indeed, would die something more content. The tribe—the whole world—had a part in what had come that day!
And now for a time there were life and labour and clamour in the old village again, because of the tree furnace and the convenient clay, but later we learned to build a better furnace and to provide at the forest village all things required for easier casting. With the training to the labour from the getting of the copper to the time when it was made into weapons or other things, there came, too, a new orderliness and sense of what was best among us, and we established what was something like a government; in a council of the older men, and less like the ways of the barbarian, we sometimes met who had no law save that of might. We feared them not, though once the ever-dreaded westward drift from we know not where brought to our doors a small horde of barbarians who thought to overrun us easily, but who fell in windrows at our barricades before such archery as ours, or died beneath our copper spears and axes and fled, a remnant, to seek somewhere an easier conquest. There were not too many left for such adventure, and the tribe next to us, a strong and warlike one, received them fiercely and finished them completely.
But Hammer and I were growing old now and, to me especially, came a weakness which I could not overcome. I was sick long and was well tended, though it did not avail, I know not why, for I had but little pain and still helped to advise, as was my duty as one of the elder council, and still felt every interest in the welfare of my prosperous tribe. Prosperous indeed it was, for now we and what we possessed were known to all. From far and wide came the riches of the time to us—many things—deep furs from the north, amber from the western sea, and a host of other things of worth. And, as the barter grew, so did a greater acquaintance between the tribes of all the land, and all learned much and came to understand each other better and what was beyond the region of each. All this because of our great discovery and of what we had done with it!
And might there not yet, I dreamed, be hidden in the rocks other and even more useful metals which men would sometimes find and smelt? These thoughts pleased me much in the days when I lay helpless and weakening from day to day, and much I spoke of them in the times when Hammer sat beside me after bringing such food as I could eat. But it was not for long!
CHAPTER XII
THE SAILORS
I had been sleeping, pleasantly enough, though dreaming of a noisy clanging of hammers in a forest. I awoke to find myself stretched lazily upon the sand, to hear the lapping of waves and look out upon blue waters to the westward, it must be, for it seemed afternoon and the sun was not far above the waters, a little to the left as I faced it. I rose to my feet and looked toward the east and there saw a host of palm trees, beyond them green hills, and beyond these, mountains. From the beach the land lay level to the hills and, not far from the shore and among the palm trees, were many huts with people moving about among them. Near where I had been lying were a number of boats hauled out upon the sand, which boats I studied curiously. They did not seem unknown to me, but I was still half-sleeping, for the sea and the air and the day were drowsy, and the leaves upon the palm trees were idle.
Not from the trunk of some great tree had any one of these boats been hewn and hollowed. They were made in quite another manner, with a framework, and keel and ribs of heavy wood, and a sheathing, with the seams made water-tight by caulking, and carried oars instead of paddles. Very good boats they seemed to me, and fit for riding rough water, and, as my sleep-clogged senses cleared, I knew, for had I not helped to build them? Most excellent boats they were, and I could see still larger and finer ones drawn to the beach at a greater distance from me, and others riding the waters of the fair harbour made by the semicircling curve of land. From where the larger boats were hauled up to the shore there came a shout: