When the birds fly south

by Stanton A. Coblentz

Only one notable event occurred between the return of the Ibandru and the flight of the first birds southward. And that was an event I had awaited for two years, and would once have welcomed fervently. As it happened, it had little immediate effect; but it broke rocket-like upon my tranquillity, awakened long-slumbering desires, and brought me bright and vivid visions of the world I had lost.

It was in mid-July that I took an unexpectedly interesting expedition among the mountains. Yasma accompanied me, as always; Karem and Barkodu and a dozen other natives completed the party. We were to carry copious provisions, were to venture further into the wilderness than I had ever penetrated before, and were not to return in less than three days, for we intended to journey to a snowy western peak where grew a potent herb, "the moleb," which Hamul-Kammesh recommended as a sure cure for all distempers of the mind and body.

No other mountaineering expedition had ever given me so much pleasure. Truly, the "moleb" did have remarkable qualities; even before we had gathered the first spray of this little weed my lungs were filled with the exhilaration of the high mountain air, and all my distempers of the mind and body had been cured. I breathed of the free cool breezes of the peaks, and felt how puny was the life I had once led among brick walls; I stood gazing into the vacancies of dim, deep canyons, and through blue miles to the shoulders of remote cloud-wrapped ranges, and it seemed to me that I was king and master of all this tumultuous expanse of green and brown and azure. The scenery was magnificent; the sharply cloven valleys, the snow-streaked summits and wide dark-green forests stretched before me even as they may have stretched before my paleolithic forebears; and nowhere was there a funnel of smoke, or a hut or shanty, or a devastated woodland to serve as the signature of man.

Yet amid these very solitudes, where all things human appeared as remote as some other planet, I was to find my first hint of the way back to civilized lands. It was afternoon of the second day, and we had gathered a supply of the "moleb" and were returning to Sobul, when I beheld a sight that made me stare as if in a daze. Far, far beneath us, slowly threading their way toward the top of the rocky ridge we were descending, were half a dozen steadily moving black dots!

In swift excitement, I turned to Karem and Barkodu, and asked who these men might be. But my companions appeared unconcerned; they remarked that the strangers were doubtless natives of these regions; and they advised that we allow them to pass without seeing us, for the country was infested with brigands.

But brigands or no brigands, I was determined to talk with the newcomers. All the pleas of Yasma and the arguments of Karem were powerless to move me. I had a dim hope that the strangers might be of my own race; and a stronger hope that they could give me welcome news. At all events, they were the first human beings other than the Ibandru that I had seen for two years, and the opportunity was not one to scorn.

As there was only one trail up the steep, narrow slope, the unknowns would have to pass us unless we hid. And since I would not hide and my companions would not desert me, it was not long before the strangers had hailed us. Up and up they plodded in long snaky curves, now lost from view beyond a ledge, now reappearing from behind some great crag; while gradually they became more clearly outlined. It was not long before we had made out that their garments were of a gray unlike anything worn in Sobul; and at about the same time we began to distinguish something of their faces, which were covered with black beards.

As yet my companions had not overcome the suspicion that we were thrusting ourselves into the hands of bandits. But when we came close we found that the strangers, while stern-browed and flashing-eyed, and not of the type that one would carelessly antagonize, were amiably disposed. At a glance, I recognized their kinship to those guides who, two years before, had led our geological party into this country. Their bearing was resolute, almost martial; their well formed features were markedly aquiline; their hair, after the fashion of the land, was shaved off to the top of the head, and at the sides it fell in long curls that reached the shoulders.

Gravely they greeted us in the Pushtu tongue; and gravely we returned their salutation. But their accent was not that of the Ibandru; often my comrades and I had difficulty in making out their phrases; while they in turn were puzzled at much that we said. None the less, we managed to get along tolerably well.

They came from a town a day's travel to westward, they announced; and had been visiting some friends in the valley beneath, only a quarter of a day's journey to the southeast. They were surprised to see us, since travelers were not often encountered among these mountains; but their delight equalled their surprise, for they should like to call us their friends, and perhaps, if our homes were not too far-off, they should sometime visit us.