________________________________________________
_ It must be remembered that the description I have just
given of the Swift One is not the description that
would have been given by Big-Tooth, my other self of my
dreams, my prehistoric ancestor. It is by the medium of
my dreams that I, the modern man, look through the eyes
of Big-Tooth and see.
And so it is with much that I narrate of the events of
that far-off time. There is a duality about my
impressions that is too confusing to inflict upon my
readers. I shall merely pause here in my narrative to
indicate this duality, this perplexing mixing of
personality. It is I, the modern, who look back across
the centuries and weigh and analyze the emotions and
motives of Big-Tooth, my other self. He did not
bother to weigh and analyze. He was simplicity itself.
He just lived events, without ever pondering why he
lived them in his particular and often erratic way.
As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more
into the substance of my dreams. One may dream, and
even in the midst of the dream be aware that he is
dreaming, and if the dream be bad, comfort himself with
the thought that it is only a dream. This is a common
experience with all of us. And so it was that I, the
modern, often entered into my dreaming, and in the
consequent strange dual personality was both actor and
spectator. And right often have I, the modern, been
perturbed and vexed by the foolishness, illogic,
obtuseness, and general all-round stupendous stupidity
of myself, the primitive.
And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have
you ever dreamed that you dreamed? Dogs dream, horses
dream, all animals dream. In Big-Tooth's day the
half-men dreamed, and when the dreams were bad they
howled in their sleep. Now I, the modern, have lain
down with Big-Tooth and dreamed his dreams.
This is getting almost beyond the grip of the
intellect, I know; but I do know that I have done this
thing. And let me tell you that the flying and
crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were as vivid to him as
the falling-through-space dream is to you.
For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept
that other-self dreamed back into the past, back to the
winged reptiles and the clash and the onset of dragons,
and beyond that to the scurrying, rodent-like life of
the tiny mammals, and far remoter still, to the
shore-slime of the primeval sea. I cannot, I dare not,
say more. It is all too vague and complicated and
awful. I can only hint of those vast and terrific
vistas through which I have peered hazily at the
progression of life, not upward from the ape to man,
but upward from the worm.
And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew not
the Swift One as a creature of finer facial and bodily
symmetry, with long-lashed eyes and a bridge to her
nose and down-opening nostrils that made toward beauty.
I knew her only as the mild-eyed young female who made
soft sounds and did not fight. I liked to play with
her, I knew not why, to seek food in her company, and
to go bird-nesting with her. And I must confess she
taught me things about tree-climbing. She was very
wise, very strong, and no clinging skirts impeded her
movements.
It was about this time that a slight defection arose on
the part of Lop-Ear. He got into the habit of
wandering off in the direction of the tree where my
mother lived. He had taken a liking to my vicious
sister, and the Chatterer had come to tolerate him.
Also, there were several other young people, progeny of
the monogamic couples that lived in the neighborhood,
and Lop-Ear played with these young people.
I could never get the Swift One to join with them.
Whenever I visited them she dropped behind and
disappeared. I remember once making a strong effort to
persuade her. But she cast backward, anxious glances,
then retreated, calling to me from a tree. So it was
that I did not make a practice of accompanying Lop-Ear
when he went to visit his new friends. The Swift One
and I were good comrades, but, try as I would, I could
never find her tree-shelter. Undoubtedly, had nothing
happened, we would have soon mated, for our liking was
mutual; but the something did happen.
One morning, the Swift One not having put in an
appearance, Lop-Ear and I were down at the mouth of
the slough playing on the logs. We had scarcely got
out on the water, when we were startled by a roar of
rage. It was Red-Eye. He was crouching on the edge of
the timber jam and glowering his hatred at us. We were
badly frightened, for here was no narrow-mouthed cave
for refuge. But the twenty feet of water that
intervened gave us temporary safety, and we plucked up
courage.
Red-Eye stood up erect and began beating his hairy
chest with his fist. Our two logs were side by side,
and we sat on them and laughed at him. At first our
laughter was half-hearted, tinged with fear, but as we
became convinced of his impotence we waxed uproarious.
He raged and raged at us, and ground his teeth in
helpless fury. And in our fancied security we mocked
and mocked him. We were ever short-sighted, we Folk.
Red-Eye abruptly ceased his breast-beating and
tooth-grinding, and ran across the timber-jam to the
shore. And just as abruptly our merriment gave way to
consternation. It was not Red-Eye's way to forego
revenge so easily. We waited in fear and trembling for
whatever was to happen. It never struck us to paddle
away. He came back with great leaps across the jam,
one huge hand filled with round, water-washed pebbles.
I am glad that he was unable to find larger missiles,
say stones weighing two or three pounds, for we were no
more than a score of feet away, and he surely would
have killed us.
As it was, we were in no small danger. Zip! A tiny
pebble whirred past with the force almost of a bullet.
Lop-Ear and I began paddling frantically.
Whiz-zip-bang ! Lop-Ear screamed with sudden anguish.
The pebble had struck him between the shoulders. Then I
got one and yelled. The only thing that saved us was
the exhausting of Red-Eye's ammunition. He dashed back
to the gravel-bed for more, while Lop-Ear and I
paddled away.
Gradually we drew out of range, though Red-Eye
continued making trips for more ammunition and the
pebbles continued to whiz about us. Out in the centre
of the slough there was a slight current, and in our
excitement we failed to notice that it was drifting us
into the river. We paddled, and Red-Eye kept as close
as he could to us by following along the shore. Then
he discovered larger rocks. Such ammunition increased
his range. One fragment, fully five pounds in weight,
crashed on the log alongside of me, and such was its
impact that it drove a score of splinters, like fiery
needles, into my leg. Had it struck me it would have
killed me.
And then the river current caught us. So wildly were
we paddling that Red-Eye was the first to notice it,
and our first warning was his yell of triumph. Where
the edge of the current struck the slough-water was a
series of eddies or small whirlpools. These caught our
clumsy logs and whirled them end for end, back and
forth and around. We quit paddling and devoted our
whole energy to holding the logs together alongside
each other. In the meanwhile Red-Eye continued to
bombard us, the rock fragments falling about us,
splashing water on us, and menacing our lives. At the
same time he gloated over us, wildly and vociferously.
It happened that there was a sharp turn in the river at
the point where the slough entered, and the whole main
current of the river was deflected to the other bank.
And toward that bank, which was the north bank, we
drifted rapidly, at the same time going down-stream.
This quickly took us out of range of Red-Eye, and the
last we saw of him was far out on a point of land,
where he was jumping up and down and chanting a paean
of victory.
Beyond holding the two logs together, Lop-Ear and I did
nothing. We were resigned to our fate, and we remained
resigned until we aroused to the fact that we were
drifting along the north shore not a hundred feet away.
We began to paddle for it. Here the main force of the
current was flung back toward the south shore, and the
result of our paddling was that we crossed the current
where it was swiftest and narrowest. Before we were
aware, we were out of it and in a quiet eddy.
Our logs drifted slowly and at last grounded gently on
the bank. Lop-Ear and I crept ashore. The logs drifted
on out of the eddy and swept away down the stream. We
looked at each other, but we did not laugh. We were in
a strange land, and it did not enter our minds that we
could return to our own land in the same manner that we
had come.
We had learned how to cross a river, though we did not
know it. And this was something that no one else of the
Folk had ever done. We were the first of the Folk to
set foot on the north bank of the river, and, for that
matter, I believe the last. That they would have done
so in the time to come is undoubted; but the migration
of the Fire People, and the consequent migration of the
survivors of the Folk, set back our evolution for
centuries.
Indeed, there is no telling how disastrous was to be
the outcome of the Fire People's migration.
Personally, I am prone to believe that it brought about
the destruction of the Folk; that we, a branch of lower
life budding toward the human, were nipped short off
and perished down by the roaring surf where the river
entered the sea. Of course, in such an eventuality, I
remain to be accounted for; but I outrun my story, and
such accounting will be made before I am done. _
Read next: CHAPTER XII
Read previous: CHAPTER X
Table of content of Before Adam
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
