United States or Bangladesh ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
With Moonface, everything was easy for her and she found it rather pleasant than otherwise to find the other young woman made suddenly a permanent resident of the cave in which she had been born and had lived all her life. As the two girls met, and the situation was curtly announced by Hilltop, their faces were worth the seeing.
She reached her father's cave far ahead of the others and stood, laughing, at the entrance, as the family and Moonface, a guest for the night, came trotting up. And Ab, the buoyant and strong, was not himself as he journeyed with the homeward-pressing company. His mood changed and he dropped away from Oak and lagged in the rear of the little band as it wound its way through the forest.
It is so to-day, even among the creatures which are said to have no souls, the dogs especially. But the girl had strength and a certain quick, animal intelligence. She was the daughter of a cave man living not far from the home of old Hilltop, and her name was Moonface. Her countenance was so broad and beaming that the appellation had suggested itself in her jolly childhood.
She had the impetus of new fear now and ran swiftly as became her name, never looking behind her, nor did she slacken her pace, though panting and exhausted, until she found herself approaching the cave where lived her playmate, Moonface, not more than an hour's run from her own home.
"If we're to be slaves, don't separate us, but make us all the same kind o' slaves." "I shall do what pleases me," declared the Boolooroo angrily. "Don't try to dictate, old Moonface, for there's only one Royal Will in Sky Island, and that's my own." He then gave a command to a soldier, who hastened away to the palace and soon returned with a number of long, blue ribbons.
It was a great hour for Moonface, the greatest in her life. Here was her friend and dictator panting and terrified like some weak, hunted-down thing of the wood. It was a marvel. At last Lightfoot spoke: "They are fighting at the foot of the hill!" she said, and Moonface at once guessed the whole story, for she was not blind, this wide-mouthed creature. "Why did you run away?" she asked.
All the time she could see Ab's face, with its look of longing and possession, but with something else in it, when his eyes met hers, which she could not name nor understand. She could not speak of him, but Moonface had upon her no such stilling influence. "They look alike," she said. Lightfoot assented, knowing the girl meant Ab and Oak.
It was loud and threatening, but not the yell of their own kind. There had come sweeping down the valley the victors in the fight at the Eastern end. Ab, with the lust of battle fully upon him as he heard the wild shriek of Moonface, who had seen her husband fall, was a creature as hungry for blood as any beast of all the forest, and his followers were scarce less terrible.
She was not less broadly buoyant and beaming, but who can tell that, when she noted Lightfoot's burning look and thoughtful mien, Moonface did not sometimes think of the two young men who, but yesterday, had rejoiced in such strength and vigor and charm of power and who were so good to look upon? She was a wife now, but to another sort of man.
But there came children to the mothers, the broad Moonface being especially to the fore in this regard, and a fine group of youngsters played and straggled up and down the creek and fought valiantly together, as cave children should. The heads of families were friendly, though independent.
Word Of The Day