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They were all much interested in me and examined my clothing and equipment
carefully, handling and feeling and smelling of each article. I learned from them
that their people were known as Band-lu, or spear-men; Tsa's race was called
Sto-lu--hatchet-men. Below these in the scale of evolution came the Bo-lu, or
club-men, and then the Alus, who had no weapons and no language. In that
word I recognized what to me seemed the most remarkable discovery I had made
upon Caprona, for unless it were mere coincidence, I had come upon a word that
had been handed down from the beginning of spoken language upon earth, been
handed down for millions of years, perhaps, with little change. It was the sole
remaining thread of the ancient woof of a dawning culture which had been woven
when Caprona was a fiery mount upon a great land-mass teeming with life. It
linked the unfathomable then to the eternal now. And yet it may have been pure
coincidence; my better judgment tells me that it is coincidence that in Caspak the
term for speechless man is Alus, and in the outer world of our own day it is
Alalus.
The comely woman of whom I spoke was called So-ta, and she took such a lively
interest in me that To-jo finally objected to her attentions, emphasizing his
displeasure by knocking her down and kicking her into a corner of the cavern. I
leaped between them while he was still kicking her, and obtaining a quick hold
upon him, dragged him screaming with pain from the cave. Then I made him
promise not to hurt the she again, upon pain of worse punishment. So-ta gave me
a grateful look; but To-jo and the balance of his women were sullen and ominous.
Later in the evening So-ta confided to me that she was soon to leave the tribe.
"So-ta soon to be Kro-lu," she confided in a low whisper. I asked her what a Kro-
lu might be, and she tried to explain, but I do not yet know if I understood her.
From her gestures I deduced that the Kro-lus were a people who were armed with
bows and arrows, had vessels in which to cook their food and huts of some sort
in which they lived, and were accompanied by animals. It was all very
fragmentary and vague, but the idea seemed to be that the Kro-lus were a more
advanced people than the Band-lus. I pondered a long time upon all that I had
heard, before sleep came to me. I tried to find some connection between these
various races that would explain the universal hope which each of them harbored
that some day they would become Galus. So-ta had given me a suggestion; but
the resulting idea was so weird that I could scarce even entertain it; yet it
coincided with Ahm's expressed hope, with the various steps in evolution I had
noted in the several tribes I had encountered and with the range of type
represented in each tribe. For example, among the Band-lu were such types as
So-ta, who seemed to me to be the highest in the scale of evolution, and To-jo,
who was just a shade nearer the ape, while there were others who had flatter
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