At intervals along the way I found bits of muslin, and often they reassured me
when otherwise I should have been doubtful of the trail to take where two
crossed or where there were forks, as occurred at several points. And so, as
night was drawing on, I came to the southern end of a line of cliffs loftier
than any I had seen before, and as I approached them, there was wafted to my
nostrils the pungent aroma of woodsmoke. What could it mean? There could, to my
mind, be but a single solution: man abided close by, a higher order of man than
we had as yet seen, other than Ahm, the Neanderthal man. I wondered again as I
had so many times that day if it had not been Ahm who stole Lys.
Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminated in an
abrupt escarpment as though some all powerful hand had broken off a great
section of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth. It was now quite
dark, and as I crept around the edge of the cliff, I saw at a little distance a
great fire around which were many figures—apparently human figures. Cautioning
Nobs to silence, and he had learned many lessons in the value of obedience
since we had entered Caspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatever
cover I could find, until from behind a bush I could distinctly see the
creatures assembled by the fire. They were human and yet not human. I should
say that they were a little higher in the scale of evolution than Ahm, possibly
occupying a place of evolution between that of the Neanderthal man and what is
known as the Grimaldi race. Their features were distinctly negroid, though
their skins were white. A considerable portion of both torso and limbs were
covered with short hair, and their physical proportions were in many aspects
apelike, though not so much so as were Ahm’s. They carried themselves in a more
erect position, although their arms were considerably longer than those of the
Neanderthal man. As I watched them, I saw that they possessed a language, that
they had knowledge of fire and that they carried besides the wooden club of
Ahm, a thing which resembled a crude stone hatchet. Evidently they were very
low in the scale of humanity, but they were a step upward from those I had
previously seen in Caspak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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