| 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 |
| 1 | 20 | 41 | 61 | 81 |
|
www.freeclassicebooks.com
cavern; nor, should I judge, had it ever been cleaned out. With considerable
difficulty I loosened some of the larger pieces of broken rock which littered the
floor and placed them as a barrier before the doorway. It was too dark to do more
than this. I then gave Lys a piece of dried meat, and sitting inside the entrance,
we dined as must have some of our ancient forbears at the dawning of the age of
man, while far below the open diapason of the savage night rose weird and
horrifying to our ears. In the light of the great fire still burning we could see
huge, skulking forms, and in the blacker background countless flaming eyes.
Lys shuddered, and I put my arm around her and drew her to me; and thus we
sat throughout the hot night. She told me of her abduction and of the fright she
had undergone, and together we thanked God that she had come through
unharmed, because the great brute had dared not pause along the danger-
infested way. She said that they had but just reached the cliffs when I arrived,
for on several occasions her captor had been forced to take to the trees with her
to escape the clutches of some hungry cave-lion or saber-toothed tiger, and that
twice they had been obliged to remain for considerable periods before the beasts
had retired.
Nobs, by dint of much scrambling and one or two narrow escapes from death,
had managed to follow us up the cliff and was now curled between me and the
doorway, having devoured a piece of the dried meat, which he seemed to relish
immensely. He was the first to fall asleep; but I imagine we must have followed
suit soon, for we were both tired. I had laid aside my ammunition-belt and rifle,
though both were close beside me; but my pistol I kept in my lap beneath my
hand. However, we were not disturbed during the night, and when I awoke, the
sun was shining on the tree-tops in the distance. Lys' head had drooped to my
breast, and my arm was still about her.
Shortly afterward Lys awoke, and for a moment she could not seem to
comprehend her situation. She looked at me and then turned and glanced at my
arm about her, and then she seemed quite suddenly to realize the scantiness of
her apparel and drew away, covering her face with her palms and blushing
furiously. I drew her back toward me and kissed her, and then she threw her
arms about my neck and wept softly in mute surrender to the inevitable.
It was an hour later before the tribe began to stir about. We watched them from
our "apartment," as Lys called it. Neither men nor women wore any sort of
clothing or ornaments, and they all seemed to be about of an age; nor were there
any babies or children among them. This was, to us, the strangest and most
inexplicable of facts, but it recalled to us that though we had seen many of the
lesser developed wild people of Caspak, we had never yet seen a child or an old
man or woman.
6
8
Page
Quick Jump
|