Read Ebook: A Traveler's Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Báb by Abdu L Bah

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Ebook has 483 lines and 15746 words, and 10 pages

"Fish Catch--Strong Hand," said One Eye, "I have thought of a way by which we may all be satisfied. The thought came to me when you fell upon No Man. Let each one of you take a club, and at the word fight, the one who wins shall give me his present and take the girl."

Fish Catch measured Strong Hand with his eye; Strong Hand measured Fish Catch. They nodded, which meant that what the old man said was good talk.

The latter called over his shoulder into the cave.

"Maku, come out! There will be a fight!"

Maku came at once, eagerly. She was, as we have said, the image of her father, only less hairy. She was considered very alluring by the young men of the tribe.

Meanwhile Strong Hand and Fish Catch had each taken a club and backed away from each other.

"Is it about me?" asked Maku.

"It is."

She laughed happily.

"Fight!" commanded One Eye.

At the word Strong Hand and Fish Catch sprang forward and fell upon each other with roars and blows. There was no question of fence involved, only the ability to hit hardest and take the most punishment. As they fought they became beasts, yelping, snarling, snapping and foaming--totally unlike articulate men. Blows that would have splintered a modern skull to atoms were given and taken. Now the clubs cracked upon bone and now thudded upon muscle. One Eye and Maku roared with laughter and screamed with pleasure. The fight ended with a blow that broke Fish Catch's forehead into two halves. But, although he fell as if struck by lightning, he did not die at once; he moaned and his lips twitched. His eyes were plaintive and uncomprehending like those of a frightened child. He blinked, too, as he died.

Strong Hand tossed his club down at One Eye's feet.

"The girl is yours," said One Eye.

Strong Hand's eyes glittered and he looked the girl over. He reached forward a vast hairy hand and took her by the shoulders. But she wrenched loose, half laughing, half screaming, and fled into the cave. Strong Hand followed. One Eye chuckled and thought upon the days of his youth.

In the darkness of the cave there was a sudden fierce struggle, a cry of pain from Strong Hand, and Maku, bounding from the entrance, made swiftly down the slope toward the forest. But Strong Hand, bleeding on the shoulder where her teeth had met, was close behind. Swift as she was, he caught up with her in a few bounds and felled her with a blow on the head. Stunned and motionless she lay at his feet.

Strong Hand twined his left hand in her long black hair and dragged her after him until the trees had closed behind them both.

When One Eye had done laughing, for the whole scene had seemed very humorous to him, he gathered together his treasures and hid them in the cave.

"I now have," he said, "the clubs, the net, the strongest among three for a son-in-law, and also the picture bone. I am, therefore, the richest man in the tribe, save only Moon Face, and than him there is none richer in all the forest."

When One Eye thought about the clubs his eye flashed and he clinched his hands. When he thought about the net he scratched his stomach--either with hand or foot. But when he thought about the picture bone, the reason went out of his eye, and it became strange and plaintive.

And as for Maku, it was not long before she followed her husband like a dog, whimpering and laughing when he spoke to her, craving his caresses and enjoying his blows.

THE BLASTED TREE AND THE BLUE-JAY

No man was very sore because he had been beaten and robbed. Fish Catch being dead, he particularly hated Strong Hand and wanted Strong Hand's blood. But he was afraid to go and take it, and so he dwelt in his cave and plotted mischief.

And because no artist can work when he is angry, he gave up scratching pictures on bone.

No Man was undoubtedly a coward, but he was very cunning. He had schemes in his head that nobody else had yet thought of. He had the creative spirit.

So far it had been useful only in evolving pictures and ingenious ways of scratching them on bone; but now, so No Man swore, it should evolve him a weapon against which none could stand and his vengeance would be accomplished.

He thought over the different kinds of weapons then in use; clubs with stone-heads, wooden clubs, smooth round stones for throwing, and spears.

These last were just coming into fashion, we may say. They were short, stiff shafts with heads of chipped flint lashed to them with deer sinew, which if put on wet and allowed to dry, shrank and became as tight and hard as wire. No Man thought these over, and resolved to think of something entirely new. Clubs and spears brought you to close quarters, and that was not the way No Man wanted to fight. Throwing stones required a proficiency which he did not possess, and was not often fatal--even at best. He went back to the spear. Why not throw it? This was an entirely new idea. No use. Same business as stones--uncertain.

Then he pictured in his agile mind, how, the spear having missed, Strong Hand would chase him with a club and beat his brains out.

He went so far as to dream this unpleasant scene several times at night. When this happened he howled in his sleep.

No, he must have something entirely new, something that would kill--unerringly--at a good distance. But with all his cleverness, he could not think of just the right thing.

And if his fellow-tribesmen had not been charitable, he would have starved to death while he was thinking.

One day the big nut tree in front of No Man's cave was struck by lightning, and when he got the courage to go and look, he discovered that it had been split into fine wands, half as big as his wrist. He tried to break one but it would only bend. When he let go it sprang back nearly straight, but not quite because it was sappy and unseasoned.

No Man sat down and thought. His face was all covered with puzzle wrinkles. He knew that he had an idea, but he did not know what it was.

"Never mind," he said, "I will take some of these sticks and play with them and, perhaps, that idea will come out."

So with grunts and twists and heaves, he managed to break off half a dozen of the sticks. But it was hard work, for the wood was as tough as hickory--which was just the kind of wood it happened to be.

No Man played with his sticks and became very fond of them. At night he hid them in his cave, but all day he had them out in the sunshine, where he could bend them and let them snap straight, and think about the idea that wouldn't come out. The dryer the sticks got, the tougher they got, the more bendable and the more springy. Sometimes No Man got angry with his sticks for the very bendiness that he loved in them.

"Why don't you stay bent, when I bend you?" he said. "Perhaps you don't think I'm the master here? I'm going to take you"--he addressed the biggest and most refractory--"and bend you and tie your ends together with deer sinew and then you'll I stay bent."

He was as good as his word. He lashed one end of the deer sinew to one end of the stick, bent the stick, took a hitch round the other end, and made fast. Then he took the stick by the middle with one hand, the sinew with the other, pulled and let go. The sinew twanged loudly.

"This is a good thing that I have made," said No Man, and then like a flash the idea that had been struggling in his head came out.

First he looked about cautiously, then he listened, and as he listened his nostrils quivered and you could see that he was scenting as well. There was nobody near. He then fitted a straight stick to the string of his bow, pulled and let fly. The stick sprang into the air, and travelled what seemed a great distance to No Man--but it did not fly true and it wabbled. "That," he said to himself, "is because the spear is not even all over, and because the twang thing is not properly made. These things require much thought."

So he thought, and labored and experimented, and hid in his cave and glowed with the joy of creation. In time he had made a proper enough bow. But it was so powerful that no man of our time could have bent it, and No Man chuckled when he saw the power with which it hurled the little equal shafts which he had made.

But they did not fly as straight as he wished. Often the back end of the shaft would somersault over the front end, or the shaft would hit the object aimed at with its side instead of with its point. One day, as he was trying to perfect this part of his weapon, a blue jay came and sat a little way off on the top of a little pine, spread its tail feathers and laughed at him.

"Now I will show you what flying is really like," he said. And he let fly, and the shaft flew as straight as a bird, but much more swiftly. Then No Man rolled on the ground and laughed. Then he sat up and crooned, a long inarticulate croon of triumph. And he finished up by saying:

"I am the greatest man in the world. Nobody else is nearly as great. There is nobody of whom there is any record that is so great. I will soon kill Strong Hand and take his woman to my cave. It is not good to live alone when one is great. No, I will not take Strong Hand's woman, I will get a woman that is all new, and she shall be mine. But first I must get some sharp points for these things. And there is no one so clever with flint as No Foot and to him I will go."

NO MAN AND NO FOOT

And so he hid away his secret invention and started off to the flinty hillside where No Foot had his work shop.

This No Foot had once been a mighty hunter, but as luck would have it a great stone had rolled upon him as he climbed a hill and smashed one of his feet so that it dragged after him. Forced to abandon the chase, he studied how best to work in flint, and became in time so clever that he made the best knives and clubs of which there was any record. He invented the spear. In return for his work, the tribe gave him fish and meat, nuts and berries, so that he lived on the fat of the land and was held in great esteem. But he was a surly old beggar, difficult to approach, avaricious and susceptible to nothing but flattery. He had an ugly old wife who kept cave for him. No Man found No Foot sitting in the midst of his chipped flints, chipping busily. A goodly row of sharp polished knives and spear heads spoke also of his industry. He did not look up as No Man approached tho' undoubtedly he both heard and smelt him.

No Man squatted directly in front of No Foot, and blinked at him. No Foot blinked at the flint that he was chipping.

"These are the most beautiful flints that I have ever seen," said No Man presently.

"You are not telling me anything new," said No Foot in a surly voice. Tho' he was very much flattered inside.

"But how large they are," said No Man.

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