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Eudena shivered and thought of Brother Fire.
The shadows now were gathering in the trees, they sat on the branches
and watched her. Branches and leaves were turned to ominous, quiet black
shapes that would spring on her if she stirred. Then the white owl,
flitting silently, came ghostly through the shades. Darker grew the
world and darker, until the leaves and twigs against the sky were black,
and the ground was hidden.
She remained there all night, an age-long vigil, straining her ears for
the things that went on below in the darkness, and keeping motionless
lest some stealthy beast should discover her. Man in those days was
never alone in the dark, save for such rare accidents as this. Age after
age he had learnt the lesson of its terror--a lesson we poor children of
his have nowadays painfully to unlearn. Eudena, though in age a woman,
was in heart like a little child. She kept as still, poor little animal,
as a hare before it is started.
The stars gathered and watched her--her one grain of comfort. In one
bright one she fancied there was something like Ugh-lomi. Then she
fancied it was Ugh-lomi. And near him, red and duller, was Uya, and as
the night passed Ugh-lomi fled before him up the sky.
She tried to see Brother Fire, who guarded the squatting-place from
beasts, but he was not in sight. And far away she heard the mammoths
trumpeting as they went down to the drinking-place, and once some huge
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