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But when I awoke old Simon Renouf still sat by the cave-mouth, gazing out to sea from under his looming brows, and I thought he sat there like some great eagle by its eyrie keeping watch over its young. And such indeed he was, an eagle soaring high in fidelity, and my guardian to the death, as in the end it appeared.
At the same time she gave a sharp alarm-cry, at which the lame slave, Ook-ootsk, arose, shaking off the swarm of children, and came hobbling towards her with his weapons in both hands. An old woman pounced upon the startled, wide-eyed children, and in a twinkling had them shepherded into the cave-mouth, out of sight.
We knew too well the tragedy of them. On more than one morning, at the base of the cliff, did we find the body of his latest wife. He had tossed her there, after she had died, from his cave-mouth. He never buried his dead. The task of carrying away the bodies, that else would have polluted our abiding-place, he left to the horde. We usually flung them into the river below the last drinking-place.
One or two of the women checked a scream, which helped matters, and the others shrank into a corner, staring with wild eyes. One woman laughed, but not from amusement. "Salamun alaik, O Ali Higg!" said Grim after a full minute's silence. "Wa alaik issalam! Who are you, in the name of Allah?" Instead of answering Grim strode in, and Ali Baba lined up his sons across the cave-mouth.
The little expedition traveled Indian file, Grôm leading the way, with A-ya at his heels, then Loob the Scout, and young Mô bringing up the rear. They had started about dawn, when the first of the morning rose was just beginning to pale the cave-mouth fires.
For a moment I was disappointed, for like that, it was as hopeless as before no signs of a cave-mouth showing above it. But as I looked upward, I saw the top coming very slowly away from the mountainside. We had unbalanced it below. As it moved apart from the face of the mountain, sounds of human voices, crying gladly in a strange tongue, issued from behind.
It is not easy to select the best; some may like one and some another; the nude, depilated devil bounding and casting darts against the Wicket Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hang over Christian by the Mouth of Hell; the horned shade that comes behind him whispering blasphemies; the daylight breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains and falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian's further progress along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at every yard or two, a gin, a pitfall, or a snare awaits the passer-by loathsome white devilkins harbouring close under the bank to work the springes, Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword's point at the nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the farther side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset the first of Christian's journey, with the frog-like structure of the skull, the frog-like limberness of limbs crafty, slippery, lustful- looking devils, drawn always in outline as though possessed of a dim, infernal luminosity.
A long, raking wound ran scarlet down one flank. Staggering from weariness or loss of blood, it came on straight toward the cave-mouth, so blinded by its terror that it seemed not to see the human creatures awaiting it, or even the fires before them. A-ya fetched a deep breath of relief when she saw that this was no ravening monster. Her immediate thought was the hunter's thought.
That was the world as God had made it, and as He intended it to be; it was only men who made it evil, huddling together in their small and filthy dens, so intent on their little ugly lives, their food and drink and wicked ways. Presently he found the cave-mouth, and noted in his mind the best way thither.
All these, the dread foes of Man for as long as tradition could remember, had been mercifully few and scattered. Now, in a night, they had become as common as conies; and not a child could be allowed to play beyond shelter of the cave-mouth fires, not a woman durst venture to the spring without a brightly blazing fire-brand in her hand.