Tales of Space and TimeWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Tales of Space and Time
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science fiction, English
Snail-eater was a readier man, and besides Bo did not fall forward as
Siss had done, but gave at his knees and hips, crumpling up with the
toothed club upon his head. The Snail-eater drove his spear forward
swift and straight, and took Ugh-lomi in the muscle of the shoulder, and
then he drove him hard with the smiting-stone in his other hand,
shouting out as he did so. The new club swished ineffectually through
the reeds. Eudena saw Ugh-lomi come staggering back from the narrow path
into the open space, tripping over Siss and with a foot of ashen stake
sticking out of him over his arm. And then the Snail-eater, whose name
she had given, had his final injury from her, as his exultant face came
out of the reeds after his spear. For she swung the first axe swift and
high, and hit him fair and square on the temple; and down he went on
Siss at prostrate Ugh-lomi's feet.
But before Ugh-lomi could get up, the two red-haired men were tumbling
out of the reeds, spears and smiting-stones ready, and Snake hard behind
them. One she struck on the neck, but not to fell him, and he blundered
aside and spoilt his brother's blow at Ugh-lomi's head. In a moment
Ugh-lomi dropped his club and had his assailant by the waist, and had
pitched him sideways sprawling. He snatched at his club again and
recovered it. The man Eudena had hit stabbed at her with his spear as he
stumbled from her blow, and involuntarily she gave ground to avoid him.
He hesitated between her and Ugh-lomi, half turned, gave a vague cry at
finding Ugh-lomi so near, and in a moment Ugh-lomi had him by the
throat, and the club had its third victim. As he went down Ugh-lomi
shouted--no words, but an exultant cry.
The other red-haired man was six feet from her with his back to her, and
a darker red streaking his head. He was struggling to his feet. She had
an irrational impulse to stop his rising. She flung the axe at him,
missed, saw his face in profile, and he had swerved beyond little Si,
and was running through the reeds. She had a transitory vision of Snake
standing in the throat of the path, half turned away from her, and then
she saw his back. She saw the club whirling through the air, and the
shock head of Ugh-lomi, with blood in the hair and blood upon the
shoulder, vanishing below the reeds in pursuit. Then she heard Snake
scream like a woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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