Ab looked and, in an instant, realized how wise had been Oak's alarming cry and how well it was for them that they were so distant from the clump of trees so near the river. What he saw was that which would have made the boys' fathers flee as swiftly had they been in their children's place. Yet what Ab looked upon was only a waving, in sinuous regularity, of the rushes between the tree clump and the river and the lifting of a head some ten or fifteen feet above the reed-tops. What had so alarmed the boys was what would have disturbed a whole tribe of their kinsmen, even though they had chanced to be assembled, armed to the teeth with such weapons as they then possessed. What they saw was not of the common. Very rarely indeed, along the Thames, had occurred such an invasion. The father of Oak had never seen the thing at all, and the father of Ab had seen it but once, and that many years before. It was the great serpent of the seas!
Safely concealed in the branches of a tree overlooking the little valley, the boys soon recovered their normal breathing capacity and were able to converse again. Not more than a couple of minutes, at the utmost, had passed between their departure from their place of labor and their establishment in this same tree. The creature which had so alarmed them was still gliding swiftly across the morass between the lowland and the river. It came forward through the marsh undeviatingly toward the tree clump, the tall reeds quivering as it passed, but its approach indicated by no sound or other token of disturbance. The slight bank reached, there was uplifted a great serpent head, and then, without hesitation, the monster swept forward to the trees and soon hung dangling from the branches of the largest one, its great coils twined loosely about trunk and limb, its head swinging gently back and forth just below the lower branch. It was a serpent at least sixty feet in length, and two feet or more in breadth at its huge middle. It was queerly but not brilliantly spotted, and its head was very nearly that of the anaconda of to-day. Already the sea-serpent had become amphibious. It had already acquired the knowledge it has transmitted to the anaconda, that it might leave the stream, and, from some vantage point upon the shore, find more surely a victim than in the waters of the sea or river. This monster serpent was but waiting for the advent of any land animal, save perhaps those so great as the mammoth or the great elk, or, possibly, even the cave bear or the cave tiger. The mammoth was, of course, an impossibility, even to the sea-serpent. The elk, with its size and vast antlers, was, to put it at the mildest, a perplexing thing to swallow. The rhinoceros was dangerous, and as for the cave bear and the cave tiger, they were uncomfortable customers for anything alive. But there were the cattle, the aurochs and the urus, and the little horses and deer, and wild hog and a score of other creatures which, in the estimation of the sea-serpent, were extremely edible. A tidbit to the serpent was a man, but he did not get one in half a century.
Not long did the boys remain even in a harborage so distant. Each fled homeward with his story.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS.
It was with scant breath, when they reached their respective caves, that the boys told the story of the dread which had invaded the marsh-land. What they reported was no light event and, the next morning, their fathers were with them in the treetop at the safe distance which the wooded crest afforded and watching with apprehensive eyes the movements of the monster settled in the rugged valley tree. There was slight movement to note. Coiled easily around the bole, just above where the branches began, and resting a portion of its body upon a thick, extending limb, its head and perhaps ten or fifteen feet of its length swinging downward, the great serpent still hung awaiting its prey, ready to launch itself upon any hapless victim which might come within its reach. That its appetite would soon be gratified admitted of little doubt. Profiting by the absence of the boys, who while at work made no effort to conceal themselves, groups of wild horses were already feeding in the lowlands, and the elk and wild ox were visible here and there. The group in the treetop on the crest realized that it had business on hand. The sea-serpent was a terror to the cave people, and when one appeared to haunt the river the word was swiftly spread, and they gathered to accomplish its end if possible. With warnings to the boys they left behind them, the fathers sped away in different directions, one up, the other down, the river's bank, Stripe-Face to seek the help of some of the cave people and One-Ear to arouse the Shell people, as they were called, whose home was beside a creek some miles below. Into the home of the little colony One-Ear went swinging a little later, demanding to see the head man of the fishing village, and there ensued an earnest conversation of short sentences, but one which caused immediate commotion. To the hill dwellers the rare advent of a sea-serpent was comparatively a small matter, but it was a serious thing to the Shell folk. The sea-serpent might come up the creek and be among them at any moment, ravaging their community. The Shell people were grateful for the warning, but there were few of them at home, and less than a dozen could be mustered to go with One-Ear to the rendezvous.
They were too late, the hardy people who came up to assail the serpent, because the serpent had not waited for them. The two boys roosting in the treetop on the height had beheld what was not pleasant to look upon, for they had seen a yearling of the aurochs enveloped by the thing, which whipped down suddenly from the branches, and the crushed quadruped had been swallowed in the serpent's way. But the dinner which might suffice it for weeks had not, in all entirety, the effect upon it which would follow the swallowing of a wild deer by its degenerate descendants of the Amazonian or Indian forests.
The serpent did not lie a listless mass, helplessly digesting the product of the tragedy upon the spot of its occurrence, but crawled away slowly through the reeds, and instinctively to the water, into which it slid with scarce a splash, and then went drifting lazily away upon the current toward the sea. It had been years since one of these big water serpents had invaded the river at such a distance from its mouth and never came another up so far. There were causes promoting rapidly the extinction of their dreadful kind.
Three or four days were required before Ab and Oak realized, after what had taken place, that there were in the community any more important personages than they, and that they had work before them, if they were to continue in their glorious career. When everyday matters finally asserted themselves, there was their pit not yet completed. Because of their absence, a greater aggregation of beasts was feeding in the little valley. Not only the aurochs, the ancient bison, the urus, the progenitor of the horned cattle of to-day, wild horse and great elk and reindeer were seen within short distances from each other, but the big, hairy rhinoceros of the time was crossing the valley again and rioting in its herbage or wallowing in the pools where the valley dipped downward to the marsh. The mammoth with its young had swung clumsily across the area of rich feed, and, lurking in its train, eyeing hungrily and bloodthirstily the mammoth's calf, had crept the great cave tiger. The monster cave bear had shambled through the high grass, seeking some small food in default of that which might follow the conquest of a beast of size. The uncomely hyenas had gone slinking here and there and had found something worthy their foul appetite. All this change had come because the two boys, being boys and full of importance, had neglected their undertaking for about a week and had talked each in his own home with an air intended to be imposing, and had met each other with much dignity of bearing, at their favorite perching-place in the treetop on the hillside. When there came to them finally a consciousness that, to remain people of magnitude in the world, they must continue to do something, they went to work bravely. The change which had come upon the valley in their brief absence tended to increase their confidence, for, as thus exhibited, early as was the age, the advent of the human being, young or old, somehow affected all animate nature and terrified it, and the boys saw this. Not that the great beasts did not prey upon man, but then, as now, the man to the great beast was something of a terror, and man, weak as he was, knew himself and recognized himself as the head of all creation. The mammoth, the huge, thick-coated rhinoceros, sabre-tooth, the monstrous tiger, or the bear, or the hyena, or the loping wolf, or short-bodied and vicious wolverine were to him, even then, but lower creatures. Man felt himself the master of the world, and his children inherited the perception.
Work in the pit progressed now rapidly and not a great number of days passed before it had attained the depth required. The boy at work was compelled, when emerging, to climb a dried branch which rested against the pit's edge, and the lookout in the tree exercised an extra caution, since his comrade below could no longer attain safety in a moment. But the work was done at last, that is, the work of digging, and there remained but the completion of the pitfall, a delicate though not a difficult matter. Across the pit, and very close together, were laid criss-crosses of slender branches, brought in armfuls from the forest; over these dry grass was spread, thinly but evenly, and over this again dust and dirt and more grass and twigs, all precautions being observed to give the place a natural appearance. In this the boys succeeded very well. Shrewd must have been the animal of any sort which could detect the trap. Their chief work done, the boys must now wait wisely. The place was deserted again and no nearer approach was made to the pitfall than the treetops of the hillside. There the boys were to be found every day, eager and anxious and hopeful as boys are generally. There was not occasion for getting closer to the trap, for, from their distant perch, its surface was distinctly visible and they could distinguish if it had been broken in. Those were days of suppressed excitement for the two; they could see the buffalo and wild horses moving here and there, but fortune was still perverse and the trap was not approached. Before its occupation by them, the place where they had dug had appeared the favorite feeding-place; now, with all perversity, the wild horses and other animals grazed elsewhere, and the boys began to fear that they had left some traces of their work which revealed it to the wily beasts. On one day, for an hour or two, their hearts were in their mouths. There issued from the forest to the westward the stately Irish elk. It moved forward across the valley to the waters on the other side, and, after drinking its fill, began feeding directly toward the tree clump. It reached the immediate vicinity of the pitfall and stood beneath the trees, fairly outlined against the opening beyond, and affording to the almost breathless couple a splendid spectacle. A magnificent creature was the great elk of the time of the cave men, the Irish elk, as those who study the past have named it, because its bones have been found so frequently in what are now the preserving peat bogs of Ireland. But the elk passed beyond the sight of the watchers, and so their bright hopes fell.