Tales of Space and TimeWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Tales of Space and Time
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science fiction, English
So fear came, and all the delight of spring passed out of their lives.
Already there were five gone out of the tribe, and four nights added
three more to the number. Food-seeking became spiritless, none knew who
might go next, and all day the women toiled, even the favourite women,
gathering litter and sticks for the night fires. And the hunters hunted
ill: in the warm spring-time hunger came again as though it was still
winter. The tribe might have moved, had they had a leader, but they had
no leader, and none knew where to go that the lion could not follow
them. So the old lion waxed fat and thanked heaven for the kindly race
of men. Two of the children and a youth died while the moon was still
new, and then it was the shrivelled old fire-minder first bethought
herself in a dream of Eudena and Ugh-lomi, and of the way Uya had been
slain. She had lived in fear of Uya all her days, and now she lived in
fear of the lion. That Ugh-lomi could kill Uya for good--Ugh-lomi whom
she had seen born--was impossible. It was Uya still seeking his enemy!
And then came the strange return of Ugh-lomi, a wonderful animal seen
galloping far across the river, that suddenly changed into two animals,
a horse and a man. Following this portent, the vision of Ugh-lomi on the
farther bank of the river.... Yes, it was all plain to her. Uya was
punishing them, because they had not hunted down Ugh-lomi and Eudena.
The men came straggling back to the chances of the night while the sun
was still golden in the sky. They were received with the story of
Ugh-lomi. She went across the river with them and showed them his spoor
hesitating on the farther bank. Siss the Tracker knew the feet for
Ugh-lomi's. "Uya needs Ugh-lomi," cried the old woman, standing on the
left of the bend, a gesticulating figure of flaring bronze in the
sunset. Her cries were strange sounds, flitting to and fro on the
borderland of speech, but this was the sense they carried: "The lion
needs Eudena. He comes night after night seeking Eudena and Ugh-lomi.
When he cannot find Eudena and Ugh-lomi, he grows angry and he kills.
Hunt Eudena and Ugh-lomi, Eudena whom he pursued, and Ugh-lomi for whom
he gave the death-word! Hunt Eudena and Ugh-lomi!"
She turned to the distant reed-bed, as sometimes she had turned to Uya
in his life. "Is it not so, my lord?" she cried. And, as if in answer,
the tall reeds bowed before a breath of wind.
Far into the twilight the sound of hacking was heard from the
squatting-places. It was the men sharpening their ashen spears against
the hunting of the morrow. And in the night, early before the moon
rose, the lion came and took the girl of Siss the Tracker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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