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or where there were forks, as occurred at several points. And so, as night was
drawing on, I came to the southern end of a line of cliffs loftier than any I had
seen before, and as I approached them, there was wafted to my nostrils the
pungent aroma of woodsmoke. What could it mean? There could, to my mind, be
but a single solution: man abided close by, a higher order of man than we had as
yet seen, other than Ahm, the Neanderthal man. I wondered again as I had so
many times that day if it had not been Ahm who stole Lys.
Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminated in an
abrupt escarpment as though some all powerful hand had broken off a great
section of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth. It was now quite dark,
and as I crept around the edge of the cliff, I saw at a little distance a great fire
around which were many figures--apparently human figures. Cautioning Nobs to
silence, and he had learned many lessons in the value of obedience since we had
entered Caspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatever cover I could find,
until from behind a bush I could distinctly see the creatures assembled by the
fire. They were human and yet not human. I should say that they were a little
higher in the scale of evolution than Ahm, possibly occupying a place of evolution
between that of the Neanderthal man and what is known as the Grimaldi race.
Their features were distinctly negroid, though their skins were white. A
considerable portion of both torso and limbs were covered with short hair, and
their physical proportions were in many aspects apelike, though not so much so
as were Ahm's. They carried themselves in a more erect position, although their
arms were considerably longer than those of the Neanderthal man. As I watched
them, I saw that they possessed a language, that they had knowledge of fire and
that they carried besides the wooden club of Ahm, a thing which resembled a
crude stone hatchet. Evidently they were very low in the scale of humanity, but
they were a step upward from those I had previously seen in Caspak.
But what interested me most was the slender figure of a dainty girl, clad only in a
thin bit of muslin which scarce covered her knees--a bit of muslin torn and
ragged about the lower hem. It was Lys, and she was alive and so far as I could
see, unharmed. A huge brute with thick lips and prognathous jaw stood at her
shoulder. He was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly. I was close enough to
hear his words, which were similar to the language of Ahm, though much fuller,
for there were many words I could not understand. However I caught the gist of
what he was saying--which in effect was that he had found and captured this
Galu, that she was his and that he defied anyone to question his right of
possession. It appeared to me, as I afterward learned was the fact, that I was
witnessing the most primitive of marriage ceremonies. The assembled members
of the tribe looked on and listened in a sort of dull and perfunctory apathy, for
the speaker was by far the mightiest of the clan.
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