Part 7

“There may be a few, hidden in a cave somewhere among the rocks,” said Pic with a forced smile. “Have no fear.”

“A few? No, many,” snorted the Mammoth. “I smell them everywhere; on both sides and before us. The air is rank with their foul odor.”

“It is; he says right,” Wulli added. “The Trog-men are all about us. I smell nothing else.”

Cold sweat dampened Pic’s forehead. The moment called for a keen eye and clear head. He stepped in the lead of the party and looked about him. In his friends’ powers of smell and hearing he had unbounded faith. He mistrusted the sharpness of their eyes but considered their ears and noses infallible. He now watched the Mammoth who had raised his trunk a second time and was pointing it to the heights on his right. The Ape Boy looked in that direction. He dimly saw dark faces peering from behind the rocks which lay strewn along the high ground back from the edge of the gorge. Hairi’s trunk swung to the left;—more rocks and more faces peering down. Pic glanced behind him in dismay. What he saw, made his heart sink.

A wall of smoke filled the valley from height to height, greedily licked up the dry grass and sedge. Bright tongues of flame flashed from beneath. The meadows were afire.

Pic felt like a rat caught in a trap. The blazing meadows cut off all retreat. His enemies held the heights on both sides; but he could see none of them in the gorge itself; none in the pass. The trio must either go forward or retrace their steps through the wall of smoke and fire. The latter choice gave little hope. Neither the Mammoth nor Rhinoceros would face the things they most dreaded—red tongues and white, curling clouds. One glimpse of the terror behind them, and they would break loose in a wild stampede. The Ape Boy looked wildly about him. Advance or retreat—which? He must act quickly, for his friends were becoming more and more alarmed.

Thus far the two animals suspected nothing of the danger in their rear. They stood cowering with fear of the threatening human odors and the rocks which hemmed them in. In a moment, their thoughts would turn to the valley behind; their only chance of escape; and then—

“All is clear ahead,” Pic whispered. “There lies our safety. I can see through the cleft to where green pastures await us. Our foes lie concealed far back upon the heights. They must come much closer if they would stone and spear us. Move on and through before they cut us off.”

Thus encouraged, Hairi and Wulli set their great bodies in motion. Pic led the way, fully expecting to see a rush of dark figures hurrying to intercept them. But nothing of the sort occurred. Heads and faces appeared in plenty from behind every rock,—but no bodies. No hoarse cries arose amid a rush of hurrying feet. The heads craned eagerly forward and the faces stared down at the advancing trio; but they did nothing more and made no sound. The stillness of death was in the air. What did it all mean?

Pic was sorely perplexed. The strange inaction of his enemies was more terrifying than the din of battle. Perhaps he but led his friends into some hidden death-trap. His eyes searched the pass ahead,—the jagged walls, then the ground strewn with tree branches, fresh dirt and grass; and as he looked, his heart leaped almost to his throat.

“Hold!” he muttered in a low, fearful voice. “Not another step or we are lost.”

At that moment, the Mammoth turned his head to seek the meaning of a new and terrifying odor coming from behind. He saw a wall of red tongues and white curling clouds sweeping down upon him.

“Aree, owk, owk; run, run!” he screamed in a frenzy of fear. He and the Rhinoceros were about to dash forward in a wild stampede, when Pic sprang in front of him with ax upraised; his face threatening and terrible to see.

“Stand back!” he yelled. “For your lives stand back;” and the flat of his blade smote the uplifted trunk a resounding blow such as the great Mammoth had never known. Hairi reared back amazed. The blow had struck his most sensitive spot; but the insult delivered by a mere pygmy rankled more deeply than an open wound. With a scream of rage, he raised a ponderous fore-limb to crush the author of such an indignity, when the Ape Boy pointed to the ground almost beneath his feet.

“See! The pit; it is there.”

The Mammoth saw and shrank back in an agony of dread. The Rhinoceros cowered by his side. Both were terrified, stunned by this new horror.

Partly screened by branches, dirt and grass, the mouth of a great pit yawned in the path. A few more steps and the whole party would have trodden through its flimsy covering and disappeared into the dark cavity below. Pic stepped to the edge and peered down. The fear of death suddenly gripped his heart. He drew back trembling and afraid.

The pit was broad but the cleft was broader and he was small; so small that he might crawl along one side and get safely by. But the Mammoth and Rhinoceros must be left behind. They were huge, wonderful animals; his friends were—enough food for a hundred mouths. Surely the Men of Kent would be content with such a golden harvest and permit the lone Ape Boy to escape. But his companions might escape too, something within him said. Space remained between wall and pit for even a giant like the Mammoth to squeeze safely past; but, after all, Hairi was too frightened to think of such a thing and just when he most needed a clear head to guide him.

Loud shouts sounded upon the heights. Seeing that their plot was discovered, the Men of Kent were clambering down at top speed to reach positions commanding the outlet of the pass and thus close this last avenue of escape. Pic heard the shouts and knew that he must act quickly. There was yet time. He glided along one side of the pit, then stopped and looked back.

The Mammoth and Rhinoceros stood watching him, stupefied, panic-stricken by the terrors about them. They were his friends; his only friends and they had shared with him their joys and sorrows. Once they had saved him from Grun Waugh’s terrible wrath; then in a cave, now his father’s tomb. He remembered and felt ashamed and his heart beat strong, for the warrior’s courage now came upon him and his fear of death was passed. He pointed to the space between pit and rock-wall and beckoned the two great brutes to follow him.

“Come,” he cried, “the earth is firm here. Agh, dear friends; do come and quickly”; but they held back trembling. While he urged and they hesitated, the Men of Kent came racing along the heights and took up positions above the mouth of the pass. In a few moments, the rocks swarmed with human beings with stones and darts held ready waiting for the trio to emerge. The gorge echoed back their exultant yells; from behind, came the roar of flames and crackling brush. Hairi and Wulli stared helplessly at Pic. The latter came dashing back.

“Quick!” he cried. “Raise your foreleg—your trunk. Help me to climb up.” Even in his terror, Hairi remembered. He raised his foreleg and assisted the Ape Boy to climb astride his neck.

“Forward,” his rider sternly commanded. “And hug the wall. Go on, I tell you; there is room to pass”; but the Mammoth stood still, quivering in every muscle—paralyzed with fear.

Pic raised his ax—the blade of Ach Eul. “Quick; do as I say or I will kill you,” he snarled. “Move on.”

Still trembling from head-peak to toe, the Mammoth obeyed and moved forward. He neared the side of the pit, cautiously testing each bit of ground with his foot and crowding hard against the rock-wall as he advanced. The Rhinoceros followed closely on his partner’s heels. He dared not look down for fear another glimpse of the dark hole might shatter his already over-balanced nerves and cause him to fall in. With a bound, the Mammoth cleared the last bit of treacherous footing and stood before the outlet of the pass with the Rhinoceros pressed closely to his side. Above their heads concealed from sight by the steep rock-walls, awaited the Men of Kent brandishing their darts and stones.

“Forward,” cried Pic. “And move slowly. When we go through that opening, do not look around or try to run. If you do, you die,” and he held his ax on high so that the Mammoth might see and remember.

Hairi had ceased to tremble now. He was calmed, awed by his rider’s commanding presence. His nerves reacted. He raised his head and strode boldly to the mouth of the pass. Above swarmed his enemies awaiting his appearance—the signal for attack; then suddenly all stood transfixed with amazement at an unearthly sight sufficient to terrify the boldest.

From the mouth of the cleft, a huge shaggy head with long trunk and curling tusks slowly emerged. It was surmounted by the figure of a man bearing an upraised ax. A great hairy body followed with a smaller one pressed closely to its side. But the awe-struck Men of Kent had neither eyes nor thoughts for the Ape Boy, the Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros. All remembrance of them had vanished at sight of the wonderful head and its human rider. Every voice was hushed; every hand grasping dart or stone remained upraised and rigid as the trio emerged into the open. The shower of missiles threatened but did not fall as the Mammoth—now under complete control—swept majestically on with slow and measured tread. With no more thought of the wrath they held ready to launch upon their intended victims, the Men of Kent stood like statues, gazing in breathless wonder upon the Man Mammoth—sun-god and ruler of the sky. Rooted to the heights and motionless like the shrubs about them, they watched the receding figures grow smaller and smaller and finally disappear amid the rolling plains and woodlands of the Kentish Weald.

XII

The Pied Raven of Dun Kirk was pied simply because his body was jet black and his breast shone iridescent blue; then, too, he had white wing-shoulders and wore a white cap on top of his head. He looked like a widow but felt more like a bachelor, for he was a gentleman raven and kept bachelor hall in a tall tree on the Flemish sand dunes.

The Pied Raven was no fisherman, even though he did love the sight, smell and particularly the taste of fish; and in the sea to the north were the best of fishing-grounds. He envied the River Hawk and Sea Eagle who knew so well the habits of all finny creatures and could select the best, fresh and squirming from the water. The Pied Raven’s tastes were every bit as refined as the River Hawk’s, Sea Eagle’s or anybody else’s for that matter; but he was a poor raven, or rather, poor fisherman and his fish-diet was in accordance with his means. His means for catching fish were extremely limited; so all he could do was beg, borrow or steal from those more gifted than himself. Failing in all three of these methods, he had to wait around and content himself with such leavings as the Hawk and Eagle had no room for; and that is how the Pied Raven got into trouble.

The River Hawk caught a big, flapping fish, selected and served to suit his appetite to a nicety; no more, no less. After he had filled up and flown away, the Pied Raven, who all this time was watching and awaiting his turn, dropped down to take pot-luck. He found mostly bones and very little fish. This was exasperating, considering the time he had spent sitting around, so he tore loose a big back-fin and gobbled it down.

“Why is it that the River Hawk eats up all the meat and leaves me none?” he grumbled. “I never—awr-rk”; something stuck in his throat. Alas! That miserable back-fin had gone down the wrong way. He coughed and sputtered and did his best to be rid of it up or down, but the fin had a long spine and was stuck fast. He choked and gasped, his head began whirling and he rolled in the dirt; and while lying there with a hazy notion that he would not be a pied raven much longer, he began to see strange things.

Above him, towered a mighty giant, the largest and shaggiest he had ever seen. Its nose reached almost to the ground. Two wonderful horns curled and twisted from its mouth. Another marvelous creature appeared; a giant and shaggy too but smaller than the first. It was round and fat with stumpy legs. This giant had a short nose,—not long like the first one. A horn stuck straight up out of it like a sharp stake.

A third giant loomed up,—smaller yet and nothing like the first two. It squatted on its hind legs and made motions with the front ones. Its mouth stretched so queerly from ear to ear and so pleasantly that the Pied Raven was sure he had flown into another world. Mere earthly creatures never made such nice faces,—certainly not.

“What a strange-looking crow!” Number Three Giant was saying. “I never saw one with head and shoulders white. Arrah! it’s dead.”

Even in his dreams, the Pied Raven could not repress his indignation. To be mistaken for a crow, was more than he could bear.

“I saw it kick a little,” said Giant Number Two,—the one with the nose-horn.

“So?” The Pied Raven felt himself being lifted from the ground; but he was growing drowsier every moment and did not care much. Something pried his mouth open but that did not matter either. He was beyond feeling any interest in what happened to him.

“Choked by a big fish-bone!” cried a voice, and then a pair of fingers reached down his throat and pulled something loose that suddenly woke him up, it hurt so like fury.

“By my old white head!” squawked the Pied Raven; but, all the same, things stopped spinning around and he felt better. After a moment, he found himself flat on his back, staring at the sky and beginning to think it time to get up and go somewhere else.

“A man, a mammoth and a rhinoceros!” he said as the three giants assumed earthly shapes; and he scrambled to his feet, a Pied Raven once more, although a trifle the worse for wear. Giant Number Three now become a Trog-man,—a fairly young one—held the fish-bone between the first and second fingers of his right hand.

“Well for you we chanced to be passing this way,” he said and smiled again.

The Pied Raven jumped. Here was a Trog-man who could talk sense. All the rest of them he had seen, jabbered and made strange noises in their throats. This one could make his face all sunshine too. The Pied Raven thought him a pretty good sort.

“Well, indeed,” he rasped. “Trog-men usually throw stones at birds and never take fish-bones from their throats. I will do as well by you if I ever can.” He looked curiously at the group before him. “A man, a mammoth and a rhinoceros; queer combination, that. How did you three ever come to be together?”

“We have lost our way,” answered the Trog-man—Pic, of course. “We went north to search for something but were forced to hurry back.”

“Searching for something?” asked the Pied Raven, cocking his head on one side. “That sounds interesting. What can it be that you three would hunt for together?”

“Treasure,” Hairi broke in with a most business-like air. “We did not find it but we are glad enough to get back alive.”

“Treasure?” inquired the Pied Raven, becoming more and more interested. “What kind?”

“That is what we wish to find out,” the Mammoth replied. “All we know is, that somewhere in the world there is treasure buried beneath a stone in a cave on the side of a mountain. We do not know just where to look for it.”

“Rather indefinite,” observed the Pied Raven. “Er-awk; let me think.” He gazed thoughtfully at the ground. “Mountain, cave, stone; that may help a little. I know of many mountains, caves and stones but none of them seem to fit together. Awrk; I have it!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I remember a cave on a mountain. It has a stone in the entrance. I know because I once perched on it.”

“Where?” asked Hairi and Wulli in chorus.

“Far from here,” said the Pied Raven. “Too far for such fat animals to walk. You will never get there.” He shook his head dubiously at the two great beasts.

“How far?” grumbled the Mammoth who was quick to resent the slur cast upon his figure. “I can walk farther than any crow flies.”

“Awrk-k-k! do stop calling me a crow,” squawked the Pied Raven. “I am a raven; not a crow. Please remember that.”

“And we are large, not fat; do not forget that,” retorted the Mammoth.

“Where must we go to reach this cave?” Pic inquired. “We cannot go too far out of our way. We must be south before the cold weather comes.”

The Pied Raven pointed his bill eastward. “It may save you time if I go along too,” he said. “I have nothing in particular to do and would help you who have done me a good turn.”

It was finally agreed that the Pied Raven should join the party and all go to where the treasure supposedly lay buried in the cave-floor awaiting their pleasure. None knew where the cave was—none but the Pied Raven. Pic mounted the Mammoth’s neck and the bird perched in front of him on the head-peak. Wulli trotted by the side of his partner. After some discussion—in which the idea was suggested then abandoned of having the Pied Raven ride on Wulli’s nose-horn and thus relieve the Mammoth of a double burden—the expedition set forth.

From Dun Kirk, the trio—now become a quartette—moved eastward over the Flemish sand-dunes and lowlands. Gradually the days and nights grew colder, the country higher and more broken up by rocks, rivers and ravines. Squirrels, woodchucks and all were busy lining their nests and laying up stores for the oncoming winter. The winds blew sharp and bitter and Pic was forced to bury his feet and hands deeply in the Mammoth’s long hair to keep them warm. Without being aware of the fact and caring less, the party passed the Belgian frontier and marched into southern Holland and out again the same day—into western Germany. None bade them halt. No arbitrary boundary lines prevented their travelling without passports or other unheard-of things. Belgium, Holland, Germany and all went to make up one big country—western Europe—where creatures might live and go about just where they pleased.

Guided by the Pied Raven, Pic and his friends arrived at last on the western heights overlooking the Rhine. They descended to the river and crossed. The Mammoth acted as a ferry-boat for Pic and the Pied Raven who climbed to the top of his shoulder hump and had a busy time of it keeping their legs clear of the icy water. The Mammoth and Rhinoceros revelled in breaking up the ice and breasting the cold, swift current. They were powerful swimmers and had all the fun while the other two held their breaths and thanked their lucky stars when safe on solid ground once more.

After crossing the river, the party passed through bedraggled groups of trees, bordering a deep ravine, at whose bottom flowed a stream, the Düssel. As they proceeded along the heights the ravine gradually deepened as the limestone cliffs reared upwards on both sides. The stream narrowed, the walls rose higher and higher and at last the trio stood on the brink of the Neander Gorge itself.

The northern crest on which they were now placed, looked across and upward to the southern line of cliffs, whose summit rose far above the frozen surface of the Düssel. The Pied Raven suddenly emitted his strange rasping cry:

“The cave is before us,” he announced so unexpectedly that his three hearers nearly jumped out of their skins.

All came to a stop and looked up. On the opposite side of the gorge, about fifty feet above the level on which they stood, a cavity opened in the face of the limestone wall,—a mere hole, but one of Nature’s landmarks built to endure for a thousand generations—the Cave of the Neander Gorge.

“And now my work is done,” said the Pied Raven. “The mountain and cave are there; the stone rests in the entrance. I leave them to you. Good-bye and good-luck.”

With a bound, he was high in the sky soaring westward before any one of the trio realized that their goal was reached and that their guide had taken his departure.

“Strange that he chose to take his leave without seeing the treasure,” said Pic as he watched the dark speck disappear in the distance.

“He might have helped us further,” the Mammoth sighed. “The cave is beyond our reach. Only a bird could get up there.”

“Up, yes,” laughed Pic who had been studying the cliffs above the cave. “But why not down? I can reach it from the top.”

The rock fell sheer and smooth from the dark hole; but above it, sharp corners and crevices suggested the possibility of a descent from the plateau above; a venture which appealed strongly to Pic. It was no easy matter to reach the cave but well worth the trying.

After a brief search, he discovered a cross-cleft which made it a simple matter for him to descend to the level of the Düssel. The stream was now frozen over sufficiently to bear his weight. Hairi and Wulli stood still and watched. They saw him cross the ice, moving diagonally up-stream to where a portion of the great rock-wall had crumbled and fallen, thereby forming a rugged incline or causeway from base to summit. Pic ascended this causeway with no great difficulty. He reached the top, and then proceeded downstream along the heights until he stood almost directly over the cave some one hundred feet below him. He waved his arm and shouted to his friends on the opposite crest; then slowly and with a skill born of long experience, he began the perilous descent, clinging to every projecting corner that gave him a secure hold. He held his ax-handle between his teeth, thus leaving both arms free. To the Mammoth and Rhinoceros, he appeared like a fly crawling down the face of the rock.

He reached the cave at last and leaped down to the threshold, ax in hand all ready to do battle with any who might resent his visit. But no fierce enemy leaped forth; no sound came from within. As his eyes became accustomed to the dim inner light, he saw that the cave was a small one and unoccupied except for a pile of something lying in one corner.

“An eagle’s nest,” he muttered. “The Mammoth was right. Only a bird would choose such a place for his home.”

He entered the cave. The pile he had first noticed, was a mass of leaves hollowed in the center like a large nest; but no feathers lay scattered about,—no refuse of any kind suggesting a bird. Pic noted the absence of such signs,—a trivial matter but disconcerting, none the less.

“What was that noise?” He raised his ax and crouched with back to the side-wall, then laughed as he saw the cause of his alarm—a tiny stream of water trickling through a crack to a shallow pool in the floor. “Water dripping through the roof—nothing else,” he assured himself. Then came another sound, a faint rustling. In a moment it ceased. “Only a bat,” and he breathed once more.

“I seem to be imagining all sorts of absurd things,” thought Pic but the thought failed to soothe his nerves. “All because of that old nest.” He kneeled beside it and sniffed. The nest had a strange odor—of what he could not say, but one fact was clear; it belonged to some animal and not a bird. He rose to his feet. He was about to seek the platform outside when something on the cave-floor caught his eye—something that made his heart beat fast. There at his feet lay a handful of roots and herbs—freshly picked.

He sank to the ground on one knee and bent low to more closely examine these alarming objects so strangely out of place in the den of a wild beast.

“A cave man’s home? Can it be possible?” he asked himself. As if in reply, an almost inaudible scraping sound broke the dead stillness of the cave, followed by the low breathing of some living thing behind him. A dim shadow spread itself over the floor, creeping forward inch by inch until it reached the side wall and rose slowly upward. Pic followed it with a fascinated horror that robbed him of power to use his voice or limbs. Gradually the grey phantom ascended the wall before his eyes and resolved itself into the silhouetted head and shoulders of a man.