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his arms about. She heard a cry, looked back, and saw all the women
standing up, and two wading out of the stream. Then came a nearer
howling, and the old woman with the beard, who watched the fire on the
knoll, was waving her arms, and Wau, the man who had been chipping the
flint, was getting to his feet. The little children too were hurrying
and shouting.
"Come!" said Ugh-lomi, and dragged her by the arm.
She still did not understand.
"
Uya has called the death word," said Ugh-lomi, and she glanced back at
the screaming curve of figures, and understood.
Wau and all the women and children were coming towards them, a scattered
array of buff shock-headed figures, howling, leaping, and crying. Over
the knoll two youths hurried. Down among the ferns to the right came a
man, heading them off from the wood. Ugh-lomi left her arm, and the two
began running side by side, leaping the bracken and stepping clear and
wide. Eudena, knowing her fleetness and the fleetness of Ugh-lomi,
laughed aloud at the unequal chase. They were an exceptionally
straight-limbed couple for those days.
They soon cleared the open, and drew near the wood of chestnut-trees
again--neither afraid now because neither was alone. They slackened
their pace, already not excessive. And suddenly Eudena cried and swerved
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