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And presently, fearing the twilight might come upon him, Ugh-lomi began
running.
IV--UYA THE LION
The old lion was in luck. The tribe had a certain pride in their ruler,
but that was all the satisfaction they got out of it. He came the very
night that Ugh-lomi killed Uya the Cunning, and so it was they named him
Uya. It was the old woman, the fire-minder, who first named him Uya. A
shower had lowered the fires to a glow, and made the night dark. And as
they conversed together, and peered at one another in the darkness, and
wondered fearfully what Uya would do to them in their dreams now that he
was dead, they heard the mounting reverberations of the lion's roar
close at hand. Then everything was still.
They held their breath, so that almost the only sounds were the patter
of the rain and the hiss of the raindrops in the ashes. And then, after
an interminable time, a crash, and a shriek of fear, and a growling.
They sprang to their feet, shouting, screaming, running this way and
that, but brands would not burn, and in a minute the victim was being
dragged away through the ferns. It was Irk, the brother of Wau.
So the lion came.
The ferns were still wet from the rain the next night, and he came and
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