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Updated: June 15, 2025
At last, lifting the bow above his head, he drew it strongly, and shot the shaft into the air. He shouted as it slipped smoothly through the guiding crook of his finger and went soaring skyward as if it would never stop. The eyes of the spectators followed its flight with awe, and A-ya, suddenly comprehending, caught her breath and snatched the boy to her heart in a transport.
It was toward sunset, and the long, rosy glow was flooding the little amphitheater wherein the remnants of the tribe were gathered, when Grôm crossed the brook, and came striding up the slope, with A-ya close behind him. She had been traveling at his side all through the journey, but here she respected the etiquette of her tribe, and fell behind submissively.
At the center of the line, immediately before the main Cave-mouth whose yawning entrance seemed to be the objective of the swarming beasts A-ya was heading the battle, with the lame slave, Ook-ootsk, crouched fighting at her side like a colossal frog gone mad.
But you have brought her back. I see not what more your accusers have against you." Grôm turned, and, with a quick, decisive motion, drew A-ya to his side. "Bawr the Chief knows that I am his servant, and a true man!" said he sternly. "I did not steal the girl. She followed me, and I had no thought of it."
A shrill shout of triumph went up from the withered old throats at this achievement, and they all drew back to wait for the fire to do its wonderful work. But A-ya was impatient, and vaguely dissatisfied as she watched that crude roasting in the process. She stood brooding, eyeing the fire and turning her lump of raw flesh over and over in her hands.
But before he had gone a quarter of a mile he heard A-ya's voice calling him, wildly, insistently, mingled with excited yells from Mô. He shouted in reply and dashed madly for the fires. The peril of A-ya put all other considerations out of his mind.
Then followed the women and children, bunched as closely as possible behind the center of the line; and a knot of picked warriors, under young Mô, the brother of A-ya, guarded the rear. There were no old men and women, all these having gone down in the last great battle at the Caves, selling their lives as dearly as possible to cover the retreat.
They found themselves in a fair clinch, and stood swaying, straining, sweating, and grunting, so equally matched in sheer strength that to A-ya, standing breathless with suspense, the dreadful seconds seemed to drag themselves out to hours. Then Grôm, amazed to find that in brute force he had met his match, feigned to give way. Loosing the clutch of one arm, he dropped upon his knees.
The bestial crowd parted and through the opening Grôm saw A-ya, crouched, with her hair over her knees, at the Chief's feet. Stepping down from the rock, the Chief seized her by the wrist and dragged her upright. She took her place at his heels, dejectedly, like a whipped dog. Grôm, from within his thicket, ground his teeth, and with difficulty held himself in leash.
Grôm followed, quickly but coolly. A-ya, who had waited with her eyes watchfully on Mawg, stepped close to Grôm's side; and all three swung upwards into the higher branches as the two lions arrived beneath. Glaring up into the tree with shrewd, malevolent eyes, the great beasts realized that, for the present at least, the tree man-creatures were quite out of reach.
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