Tales of Space and TimeWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Tales of Space and Time
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science fiction, English
The light was still dim, the world now all in black and dark grey, and
one sickly star still lingered overhead. The ledge they were on was a
little grassy space, six feet wide, perhaps, and twenty feet long,
sloping outwardly, and with a handful of St. John's wort growing near
the edge. Below it the soft, white rock fell away in a steep slope of
nearly fifty feet to the thick bush of hazel that fringed the river.
Down the river this slope increased, until some way off a thin grass
held its own right up to the crest of the cliff. Overhead, forty or
fifty feet of rock bulged into the great masses characteristic of
chalk, but at the end of the ledge a gully, a precipitous groove of
discoloured rock, slashed the face of the cliff, and gave a footing to a
scrubby growth, by which Eudena and Ugh-lomi went up and down.
They stood as noiseless as startled deer, with every sense expectant.
For a minute they heard nothing, and then came a faint rattling of dust
down the gully, and the creaking of twigs.
Ugh-lomi gripped his axe, and went to the edge of the ledge, for the
bulge of the chalk overhead had hidden the upper part of the gully. And
forthwith, with a sudden contraction of the heart, he saw the cave bear
half-way down from the brow, and making a gingerly backward step with
his flat hind-foot. His hind-quarters were towards Ugh-lomi, and he
clawed at the rocks and bushes so that he seemed flattened against the
cliff. He looked none the less for that. From his shining snout to his
stumpy tail he was a lion and a half, the length of two tall men. He
looked over his shoulder, and his huge mouth was open with the exertion
of holding up his great carcase, and his tongue lay out....
He got his footing, and came down slowly, a yard nearer.
"Bear," said Ugh-lomi, looking round with his face white.
But Eudena, with terror in her eyes, was pointing down the cliff.
Ugh-lomi's mouth fell open. For down below, with her big fore-feet
against the rock, stood another big brown-grey bulk--the she-bear. She
was not so big as Andoo, but she was big enough for all that.
Then suddenly Ugh-lomi gave a cry, and catching up a handful of the
litter of ferns that lay scattered on the ledge, he thrust it into the
pallid ash of the fire. "Brother Fire!" he cried, "Brother Fire!" And
Eudena, starting into activity, did likewise. "Brother Fire! Help, help!
Brother Fire!"
Brother Fire was still red in his heart, but he turned to grey as they
scattered him. "Brother Fire!" they screamed. But he whispered and
passed, and there was nothing but ashes. Then Ugh-lomi danced with anger
and struck the ashes with his fist. But Eudena began to hammer the
firestone against a flint. And the eyes of each were turning ever and
again towards the gully by which Andoo was climbing down. Brother Fire!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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