The People the Time forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs (best free ereader .TXT) 📖

land
of the Galu. She pointed out the cliffs at its southern boundary,
which mark the frontier, south of which lies the country of
Kro-lu--the archers. We now had but to pass through the balance
of the Band-lu territory and that of the Kro-lu to be within the
confines of her own land; but that meant traversing thirty-five
miles of hostile country filled with every imaginable terror, and
possibly many beyond the powers of imagination. I would certainly
have given a lot for my plane at that moment, for with it, twenty
minutes would have landed us within the confines of Ajor's country.

We finally found a place where we could slip over the edge of the
cliff onto a narrow ledge which seemed to give evidence of being
something of a game-path to the valley, though it apparently had
not been used for some time. I lowered Ajor at the end of my rifle
and then slid over myself, and I am free to admit that my hair
stood on end during the process, for the drop was considerable and
the ledge appallingly narrow, with a frightful drop sheer below
down to the rocks at the base of the cliff; but with Ajor there to
catch and steady me, I made it all right, and then we set off down
the trail toward the valley. There were two or three more bad
places, but for the most part it was an easy descent, and we came
to the highest of the Band-lu caves without further trouble. Here
we went more slowly, lest we should be set upon by some member of
the tribe.

We must have passed about half the Band-lu cave-levels before we
were accosted, and then a huge fellow stepped out in front of me,
barring our further progress.

"Who are you?" he asked; and he recognized me and I him, for he
had been one of those who had led me back into the cave and bound
me the night that I had been captured. From me his gaze went
to Ajor. He was a fine-looking man with clear, intelligent eyes,
a good forehead and superb physique--by far the highest type of
Caspakian I had yet seen, barring Ajor, of course.

"You are a true Galu," he said to Ajor, "but this man is of
a different mold. He has the face of a Galu, but his weapons and
the strange skins he wears upon his body are not of the Galus nor
of Caspak. Who is he?"

"He is Tom," replied Ajor succinctly.

"There is no such people," asserted the Band-lu quite truthfully,
toying with his spear in a most suggestive manner.

"My name is Tom," I explained, "and I am from a country beyond
Caspak." I thought it best to propitiate him if possible, because
of the necessity of conserving ammunition as well as to avoid the
loud alarm of a shot which might bring other Band-lu warriors upon
us. "I am from America, a land of which you never heard, and I am
seeking others of my countrymen who are in Caspak and from whom I
am lost. I have no quarrel with you or your people. Let us go our
way in peace."

"You are going there?" he asked, and pointed toward the north.

"I am," I replied.

He was silent for several minutes, apparently weighing some thought
in his mind. At last he spoke. "What is that?" he asked. "And
what is that?" He pointed first at my rifle and then to my pistol.

"They are weapons," I replied, "weapons which kill at a great
distance." I pointed to the women in the pool beneath us. "With
this," I said, tapping my pistol, "I could kill as many of those
women as I cared to, without moving a step from where we now stand."

He looked his incredulity, but I went on. "And with this"--I
weighed my rifle at the balance in the palm of my right hand--"I
could slay one of those distant warriors." And I waved my left
hand toward the tiny figures of the hunters far to the north.

The fellow laughed. "Do it," he cried derisively, "and then it
may be that I shall believe the balance of your strange story."

"But I do not wish to kill any of them," I replied. "Why should
I?"

"Why not?" he insisted. "They would have killed you when they
had you prisoner. They would kill you now if they could get their
hands on you, and they would eat you into the bargain. But I know
why you do not try it--it is because you have spoken lies; your
weapon will not kill at a great distance. It is only a queerly
wrought club. For all I know, you are nothing more than a lowly
Bo-lu."

"Why should you wish me to kill your own people?" I asked.

"They are no longer my people," he replied proudly. "Last night,
in the very middle of the night, the call came to me. Like that
it came into my head"--and he struck his hands together smartly
once--"that I had risen. I have been waiting for it and expecting
it for a long time; today I am a Kro-lu. Today I go into the
_coslupak_" (unpeopled country, or literally, no man's land) "between
the Band-lu and the Kro-lu, and there I fashion my bow and my arrows
and my shield; there I hunt the red deer for the leathern jerkin
which is the badge of my new estate. When these things are done,
I can go to the chief of the Kro-lu, and he dare not refuse me.
That is why you may kill those low Band-lu if you wish to live,
for I am in a hurry.

"But why do you wish to kill me?" I asked.

He looked puzzled and finally gave it up. "I do not know," he
admitted. "It is the way in Caspak. If we do not kill, we shall
be killed, therefore it is wise to kill first whomever does not
belong to one's own people. This morning I hid in my cave till the
others were gone upon the hunt, for I knew that they would know at
once that I had become a Kro-lu and would kill me. They will kill
me if they find me in the _coslupak_; so will the Kro-lu if they
come upon me before I have won my Kro-lu weapons and jerkin. You
would kill me if you could, and that is the reason I know that
you speak lies when you say that your weapons will kill at a great
distance. Would they, you would long since have killed me. Come!
I have no more time to waste in words. I will spare the woman and
take her with me to the Kro-lu, for she is comely." And with that
he advanced upon me with raised spear.

My rifle was at my hip at the ready. He was so close that I did
not need to raise it to my shoulder, having but to pull the trigger
to send him into Kingdom Come whenever I chose; but yet I hesitated.
It was difficult to bring myself to take a human life. I could feel
no enmity toward this savage barbarian who acted almost as wholly
upon instinct as might a wild beast, and to the last moment I was
determined to seek some way to avoid what now seemed inevitable.
Ajor stood at my shoulder, her knife ready in her hand and a sneer
on her lips at his suggestion that he would take her with him.

Just as I thought I should have to fire, a chorus of screams broke
from the women beneath us. I saw the man halt and glance downward,
and following his example my eyes took in the panic and its cause.
The women had, evidently, been quitting the pool and slowly returning
toward the caves, when they were confronted by a monstrous cave-lion
which stood directly between them and their cliffs in the center of
the narrow path that led down to the pool among the tumbled rocks.
Screaming, the women were rushing madly back to the pool.

"It will do them no good," remarked the man, a trace of excitement
in his voice. "It will do them no good, for the lion will wait until
they come out and take as many as he can carry away; and there is
one there," he added, a trace of sadness in his tone, "whom I hoped
would soon follow me to the Kro-lu. Together have we come up from
the beginning." He raised his spear above his head and poised it
ready to hurl downward at the lion. "She is nearest to him," he
muttered. "He will get her and she will never come to me among
the Kro-lu, or ever thereafter. It is useless! No warrior lives
who could hurl a weapon so great a distance."

But even as he spoke, I was leveling my rifle upon the great brute
below; and as he ceased speaking, I squeezed the trigger. My bullet
must have struck to a hair the point at which I had aimed, for it
smashed the brute's spine back of his shoulders and tore on through
his heart, dropping him dead in his tracks. For a moment the women
were as terrified by the report of the rifle as they had been by
the menace of the lion; but when they saw that the loud noise had
evidently destroyed their enemy, they came creeping cautiously back
to examine the carcass.

The man, toward whom I had immediately turned after firing, lest
he should pursue his threatened attack, stood staring at me in
amazement and admiration.

"Why," he asked, "if you could do that, did you not kill me long
before?"

"I told you," I replied, "that I had no quarrel with you. I do
not care to kill men with whom I have no quarrel."

But he could not seem to get the idea through his head. "I
can believe now that you are not of Caspak," he admitted, "for no
Caspakian would have permitted such an opportunity to escape him."
This, however, I found later to be an exaggeration, as the tribes
of the west coast and even the Kro-lu of the east coast are far
less bloodthirsty than he would have had me believe. "And your
weapon!" he continued. "You spoke true words when I thought you
spoke lies." And then, suddenly: "Let us be friends!"

I turned to Ajor. "Can I trust him?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Why not? Has he not asked to be friends?"

I was not at the time well enough acquainted with Caspakian ways
to know that truthfulness and loyalty are two of the strongest
characteristics of these primitive people. They are not sufficiently
cultured to have become adept in hypocrisy, treason and dissimulation.
There are, of course, a few exceptions.

"We can go north together," continued the warrior. "I will fight
for you, and you can fight for me. Until death will I serve you,
for you have saved So-al, whom I had given up as dead." He threw
down his spear and covered both his eyes with the palms of his two
hands. I looked inquiringly toward Ajor, who explained as