The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

"Where is Ru the Sparrow-Hearted?" shouted Grumgra, after the whereabouts of all the others had been established.

But there came no reply.

"No one knows where Ru is," Zunzun at length reported, with a malicious smile. "No one has seen him since two suns have set."

"Ru the Sparrow-Hearted does not act like a man!" grumbled the chieftain. "Truly, he is like a sparrow! He runs away when we need him most!"

"Ru runs away when we need him most!" echoed a score of angry voices.

"He will not be able to run away from my club!" growled Grumgra, half under his breath. "He will not be able to run away from my club—when I see him next!"

And the tribesmen turned to one another, and muttered, "Ru will not be able to run away from Grumgra's club!" Whereat some tittered gleefully, and from the lips of others came suppressed chuckles.

But their merriment was interrupted by the voice of Zunzun the Marvel-Worker, who began solemnly to invoke the fire-god, entreating victory for his kinsmen in the hazardous undertaking of the night. And straightway the people forgot all about Ru and joined fervently in the prayers, crying out their hopes and their terror in tones so loud that the fire-god must certainly have heard.

Having duly summoned that powerful deity to their aid, the men began to follow Grumgra in a slow, cautious procession toward the cave entrance. All wielded their clubs as if to do instant execution upon the foe; many muttered audibly their defiance of the beast-men. But as that grim-faced, straggling band filed from the firelit cavern into the outer darkness, the murmurings of the men were almost drowned out by the lamentations of the women. "May the good spirits of the cave be with you! May you eat out the hearts of the beast-men!" cried the wives and mothers of the tribe; and many, flinging their arms about the shoulders of the departing males, screamed and wailed as though thus to detain the bold ones, until in the end their hands had to be disengaged by sheer force and they were left to voice their sorrow to their sorrowing sisters. At the same time some of the younger women, more given to action than to words, seized clubs and quietly trailed in the wake of the men.

It was a silent, crawling party of marauders that descended the face of the cliff by the light of the half-moon. With snail-like patience and slowness, the men and women moved through the night; with infinite caution they crept from rock to rock, guided more by the sense of feeling than of sight. Each warrior could dimly distinguish above him the shadowy form of the next in line; each warrior could see below him a warily retreating figure that sometimes lay flat against the rocks, sometimes seemed to mingle with the vague ledge and to vanish, and sometimes did vanish to reappear again around the windings of the precipitous trail. Not a voice could be heard in that ghostly darkness, though now and then the stillness was broken by a pebble which, dislodged by chance, went plunging below with unearthly rattling and clatter.