Dreams -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Prehistoric peoples -- Fiction
Old Marrow-Bone was the first to be smoked out. A light fan of air
drifted the smoke away at the time so that I saw clearly. He broke out
through the smoke, stepping on a burning coal and screaming with the
sudden hurt of it, and essayed to climb up the cliff. The arrows
showered about him. He came to a pause on a ledge, clutching a knob of
rock for support, gasping and sneezing and shaking his head. He swayed
back and forth. The feathered ends of a dozen arrows were sticking out
of him. He was an old man, and he did not want to die. He swayed wider
and wider, his knees giving under him, and as he swayed he wailed most
plaintively. His hand released its grip and he lurched outward to the
fall. His old bones must have been sadly broken. He groaned and strove
feebly to rise, but a Fire-Man rushed in upon him and brained him with
a club.
And as it happened with Marrow-Bone, so it happened with many of the
Folk. Unable to endure the smoke-suffocation, they rushed out to fall
beneath the arrows. Some of the women and children remained in the
caves to strangle to death, but the majority met death outside.
When the Fire-Men had in this fashion cleared the first tier of caves,
they began making arrangements to duplicate the operation on the second
tier of caves. It was while they were climbing up with their grass and
wood, that Red-Eye, followed by his wife, with the baby holding to her
tightly, made a successful flight up the cliff. The Fire-Men must have
concluded that in the interval between the smoking-out operations we
would remain in our caves; so that they were unprepared, and their
arrows did not begin to fly till Red-Eye and his wife were well up the
wall. When he reached the top, he turned about and glared down at them,
roaring and beating his chest. They arched their arrows at him, and
though he was untouched he fled on.
I watched a third tier smoked out, and a fourth. A few of the Folk
escaped up the cliff, but most of them were shot off the face of it as
they strove to climb. I remember Long-Lip. He got as far as my ledge,
crying piteously, an arrow clear through his chest, the feathered shaft
sticking out behind, the bone head sticking out before, shot through
the back as he climbed. He sank down on my ledge bleeding profusely at
the mouth.
It was about this time that the upper tiers seemed to empty themselves
spontaneously. Nearly all the Folk not yet smoked out stampeded up the
cliff at the same time. This was the saving of many. The Fire People
could not shoot arrows fast enough. They filled the air with arrows,
and scores of the stricken Folk came tumbling down; but still there
were a few who reached the top and got away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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