Edgar Burroughs - Back to the Stone Age

Von Horst lowered her from his shoulder and steadied her until he saw that she could stand. "I brought you away from Basti," he explained. "We are free now."

She looked at him, knitting her brows as though trying to recall a fleeting memory that eluded her. "You brought me!" she said. "I said I would not come with you. How did you do it?"

"I—er—I put you to sleep," he fumbled hesitatingly.

The thought that he had struck her humiliated him.

"Oh, I remember," she said; "you struck me."

"I had to," he replied. "I am very sorry, but there was no other way. I could not leave you there among those beasts."

"But you did strike me."

"Yes, I struck you."

"Why did you wish to bring me? Why did you care whether or not I was left to Skruf?"

"Well, you see—I—but how could I leave you there?"

"If you think I am going to be your mate now, you are mistaken," she said with emphasis.

Von Horst flushed. The young lady seemed to be jumping to embarrassing conclusions. She was certainly candid. Perhaps that was a characteristic of the stone age. "No," he replied; "after the things that you said to me and did to me, I had no reason either to believe that you would be my mate or that I would wish you to be."

"Well," she snapped, "I wouldn't be—I should prefer Skruf."

"Thanks," said von Horst. "Now we understand one another."

"And hereafter," said La-ja, "you can attend to your own affairs and leave me alone."

"Certainly," he replied stiffly, "just so long as you obey me."

"I obey no one."

"You'll obey me," he said determinedly, "or I'll punch your head again." The words surprised him much more than they seemed to surprise the girl. How could he have said such a thing to a woman? Was he reverting to some primordial type? Was he becoming, indeed, a man of the old stone age? She walked away from him then and joined the women. On her lips was a strange little melody, such perhaps as women of the outer crust hummed to the singing stars when the world was young.

When they reached the valley, some of the men made a kill; and they all ate. Then they held a council, discussing plans for the future.

Each individual wished to go his way to his own country, and while there was safety in numbers there was also danger to each in going into the country of another. There were some, like Dangar, who could promise a friendly reception to those who wished to accompany them to their land; but there were few who dared take the chance. Both von Horst and Dangar recalled the fair promises of Skruf and the manner in which they had been belied.

To von Horst, it was a strange world; but then, he realized, it might be anywhere from fifty thousand to half a million years younger than the world with which he was familiar, with a corresponding different philosophy and code of ethics. Yet these people were quite similar to types of the outer crust. They were more naive, perhaps; less artificial, and they certainly had fewer inhibitions; but they revealed, usually in a slightly exaggerated form, all the characteristics of present-day men and women of a much older humanity.

He considered La-ja. Envisioning her frocked in the latest mode, he realized that she might pass unnoticed, except for her great beauty, in any capital of Europe . No one would dream, to look at her, that she had stepped from the Pleistocene. He was not so certain, however, as to what one might think who crossed her.

The result of the council was a decision of each to return to his own country. There were several from Amdar, and they would go together. There were others from Go-hal. Thorek came from Ja-ru, the country of the Mammoth Men; La-ja from Lo-har; Dangar, from Sari. These three, with von Horst, could proceed together for awhile, as their paths lay in the same general direction.

After the council, they sought and found a place to sleep—a place of caves in cliffs. As they awoke, each individual or each party set out in the direction of his own country with only instinct as his guide. The countries of most of them were not far distant. Sari was the farthest. From what von Horst could gather, it might be half way around this savage world; but what was a matter of distance when there was no time by which to measure the duration of a journey?

There were no good-byes. A group or an individual walked out of the lives of those others with whom they had suffered long imprisonment, with whom they had fought and won to freedom; and there was no sign of regret at parting—just the knowledge that when next they met, they would meet as mortal enemies, each eager to slay the other. This was true of most of them, but not of all. There was a real friendship existing between von Horst and Dangar, and something that approached it between these two and Thorek. Where La-ja stood, who might know? She was very aloof. Perhaps because she was the daughter of a chief; perhaps because she was a very beautiful young woman whose pride had been hurt, or who was nursing a knowledge that her woman's intuition had vouchsafed her, or because she was by nature reserved. Whatever her reason, she kept her own counsel.

Several sleeps after the party of slaves had broken up, Thorek announced that his path now diverged from theirs. "I wish that you were coming to Ja-ru with me," he said to von Horst. "You should have been a Mammoth Man; we are all great warriors. If we ever meet again, let us meet as friends."

"That suits me," replied von Horst. "May it hold for all of us." He looked at Dangar and La-ja.

"A Sarian may be friends with any brave warrior," said the former. "I would be friends always with you."

"I would be friends with Thorek and Dangar," said La-ja.

"And not with Von?" asked the Sarian.

"I would not be friends with Von," she replied.

Von Horst shrugged and smiled. "But I am your friend, always, La-ja," he said.

"I do not wish you for a friend," she replied. "Did I not say so?"

"I'm afraid you can't help yourself."

"We'll see about that," she said, enigmatically.

So Thorek left them, and the three continued on their way. It seemed a hopeless, aimless journey to von Horst. In the bottom of his consciousness, he did not believe that either Dangar or La-ja had the slightest conception of where they were going. He did not possess the homing instinct himself, and so he could not conceive that such a sense existed in man or woman.

When they were confronted by high mountains they circled them. They followed mysterious rivers until they found a ford, and then they crossed in constant danger from weird reptiles that had been long extinct upon the outer crust. The fords were quite bad enough; they never dared swim a river. Never did they know what lay ahead of them, for this country was as strange to the two Pellucidarians as it was to von Horst.

They came through low hills to a narrow valley upon the far side of which grew a dense forest, such a forest as von Horst had never seen before in this world or his own. Even at a distance it looked grim and forbidding. As they passed down the valley, von Horst was glad that their way did not lead through the forest; for he knew how depressing the long gloom of a broad forest might become.

Presently La-ja stopped. "Which way is your country, Dangar?" she asked.

He pointed down the valley. "That way," he said, "until we reach the end of these high hills; then I turn to the right."

"It is not my way," said La-ja. "Lo-har lies this way," and she pointed straight toward the forest. "Now I must leave you and go to my own country."

"The forest does not look good to me," said Dangar. "Perhaps you would never get through it alive. Come to Sari with Von and me. You will be well treated."

The girl shook her head. "I am the daughter of a chief," she said. "I must return to Lo-har and bear sons, for my father has none; otherwise there will be no good chief to rule over my father's people after he is dead."