when the most backward tribes would be so advanced that they might hand over the country to them to rule and exploit for themselves. Even some of the wiser among the Intellectuals were infected. It was about this time that the satire slab of Squint was nailed to the lintel of the Council Chamber with the inscription "Oh, Ug! When will you hand over your cave?" When the Primitives discovered the malady that had fallen on the Oultaie, they became less afraid of them; and whenever they got one or a small body of them into a secret place or at a disadvantage, they let them know it. did not know in their hearts sense. Half the debates in the Council hall were on the Education question, the extreme Left advising a greater extension of enlightenment than the Right thought expedient, though none was so extreme as to propose the simple way -the direct short cut to the Millennium and Universal too fat for the restraints of Brotherhood in the sacrament his dwelling, is jammed in of Môm, by which ignorance between two walls. There he might be dissipated in a night. is stuck in stupid fright, unThe bulk of the Môm-Yinnis unable to escape or engage formed the Grove or the ultra- the enemy, though the smoke Conservative party. It is hard of the Primitive fires is seen to believe that the Small Cave rising on the horizon. III. FALTU. When Flinden was summoned from his outpost to headquarters, he left Ooria to reap his millet patch and follow. She had lost her way pursuing some blind traverse, and as she lay under the trees thinking of the degeneracy of her people, made her shrink; it was in dreadful contrast to the still mysterious night. She had been thinking of the OneSpirit,-how it quickened the blood of Flinden, tapered the brown baby fingers of Sâl, ran through all marrow and sap, and refreshed the moss at her feet. These thoughts had become her daily prayer. How rudely they had been disturbed! What if these resistless forces were turned against her own people; they were disciplined still in their morose way, but she had seen the malice underneath. She had not forgotten the strangled body of Leet. In spite of all the texts of the Unt, a prayer escaped her that the OneSpirit might preserve the same proportion of power and enlightenment that had kept the Primitives in thrall. She adored Flinden, before whom they quailed. she knew Flinden was in trouble. She tried to reach him over at Yavo. First she shut out everything else, closed her eyes and her mind until she could see only him; then she whispered her message to be borne with the night voices through the trees. But she felt that he did not hear: he was not thinking of her, and she comforted herself that no evil could have befallen Sâl. That would have brought them together. She waited for the moon and listened to the strange noises all round her. She was half-asleep, and the strong moonlight had penetrated her bower when she became aware of a far-away sound that grew in volume. For a moment she thought that the increasing uproar was a gust in the trees, the prelude to a tornado; but the lashing and crashing among the boughs became rhythmical and repeated. There was a quick rush She must go to him. The and scramble and an instant rest had refreshed her. She pause, as the light twigs had evidently nearly stumbled whipped the upper branches on one of the cuttings when with a hiss which was drowned she lay down. The gap which in the heavy crash across the the scouts had leaped must gap as the bowmen took it at have been one of the main a leap. She shuddered as one avenues and far from the or two came into view on the bridges, or they would have extreme flank. She saw their crossed by one. It was too giant prehensile limbs thrown wide for a side traverse,-the forward into the air as they interval in the air had told plunged; she heard the arrows her that. If the moon had rattling in their sheaths. A risen earlier she must have piping call ahead, as the ad- seen the cleft in the trees vance signalled to the rear, before she fell asleep. It was told her that it was a squad- just as she thought. A few ron of the Arboreal Scouts steps brought her on to the going out to Faltu. She had track by a tree that bore the been almost asleep. The force sign of good omen and the and violence of their passage arrow mark to Yavo. The sun rose and lighted the Small Cave are afraid. She ran along the path singing. The sun was bright and Yavo already in sight when she heard the pumlin horn which told her he was coming. She crept aside into the bushes and waited for him. Soon he appeared round a turn in the path, strong, tall, easy and confident in his stride, head held up and the dint of command on it, and eyes glancing quickly, as she thought, all ways at once. How could she hide from him? She could not. His quick eye caught the glint of her girdle, and before she knew it she was catching at his knees as he lifted her up with both hands tenderly, a new light in his eyes. "Little, why are you here? Where are you going?" "I saw the advance pass over at midnight," she said. "I am coming with you. Is it Faltu?" She asked him a hundred questions, and she learnt how the vote for the Expedition had been rejected, and a few hours afterwards a messenger had come in with the news that the Primitives were massing at Paro, near the border. "Pu did not vote," he said, "but Ooria glanced quickly at the Trings. She saw that the nearest one was regarding her with a horrible contemptuous grimace, like a smile caught in a yawn with no mirth in it. She shuddered. Laughter is ugly in a puckered hairy face, the hairier the uglier. "Are they safe?" she asked. Flinden nodded, but without conviction. "They daren't turn back before my eye.' 8 All that night in the bivouac she tempted him sorely. She wanted him to abandon the Small Cave and declare Dictatorship. "Why not herd them and ring them in? There is space enough in the stockade. A month would bring them to reason, and we could feed them through the staves." Ooria had often pleaded with him after this manner, but her words had fallen like raindrops on the rock. To Flinden her simple schemes were the merest random childish babble. But lately he had pondered them. There was an ancient sacred ordeal, as old as Prût, by which every child of the Oultaie was made to swear that he would never lift hand in violence against any of the clan. So the many ruled the strong. And the god of the Intellectuals was a majority. Nothing would have been⚫ easier than to round up the Small Cave and govern Yavo with a firm hand. But Môm was Flinden was obdurate. a constitutional drug. been shocked at the picture which floated into his dreams as he fell asleep. He saw the scabby mouth of Pu sniffing through the staves of the palisade, hungering for the wash they gave the Trings. Ooria woke him from his dreams. "Never?" pleaded Ooria. "Not to save the Oultaie? Yavo itself is imperilled. You talk of honour always, but what honour is there, or what profit, in leaving your kindred to perish? If the bulbous head of Pu and the sack-belly of Pûk are dearer to you than Sâl and I, you have at least to save them from themselves." Flinden groaned at her bitterness. "Herd them gently," she pleaded. "Hunger will teach them. There need be no blood." Flinden knew that she was right. The only other way was the All-Môm dream of his father, who had been for forcing evolution by the miracle of the nut instead of leaving the OneSpirit to work through all things in its natural course. He dreamt of a sudden Universal enlightenment, the Millennium at a leap. Better than any tinkering or dilution or sidling three ways at once and no way in the end. "Môm or the arrow-head and no paltering" was his motto. And Flinden's "The arrow-head and no paltering." But paltering there must be so long as Pu and his spawn held office. If, then, the Small Cave reduced the army, it must be Môm. Flinden was no statesman. He had a feeling that it was too late now for Môm. Faltu was a challenge. In after days, perhaps, when all was quiet, if indeed he returned, but... His waking loyalty would have "Flinden, Flinden!" she cried. "Promise never to lift me up in your arms again like that before the Trings.' "Why, Little? Do you think they are men?" "They are becoming men, or worse. He fell asleep with more food for wonder. A few days afterwards there was great stir in Yavo. Disquieting despatches had been coming in from Faltu. Flinden had sent for five more companies of Trings. "With these reinforcements," he wrote, "I can work down the peninsula and sweep the Faltuans into the sea. Without them they will break through my line." The Council bickered over this for three days. The Grove were mostly with the Expedition. The next message was more serious. "I am outflanked," it ran; "the scouts are wavering. Despatch troops at once. This news weakened the initiative of the Small Cave. Fear pulled them both ways; there were dissensions among themselves. As usual nothing was done. But worse followed. "The scouts have gone over. The Trings are uncertain. Send out the reserve. We must engage the enemy at once. Nothing else can save you." That was the last despatch. It was the pronoun that hurt Pu most. "Save us!" he said. Squint explained that if Flinden and his guard were overwhelmed, the Faltuans might lay waste the Island and destroy Yavo. Nothing but a crushing blow and a quick one could put the fear of the Oultaie into them. "We cannot spare a head from the home garrison," he faltered. "Separation," Pu's Ape. whispered It had been in his heart all the time; it was his favourite scheme, his sovereign remedy. He had once heard a MômYinni say that a narrow place is worth two army corps, and he had hugged the phrase at the time and mentally struck two of the three corps off the Budget. Danger, if there was any, must come from Faltu. It was policy, then, to build a barricade across the neck of the Peninsula with a narrow passage in it, or none, and to leave the Primitives the other side to evolve in their own dark way. Thus he would settle the Faltu question once for all, and reduce the military estimates by two-thirds at the same time. The Grove, who were against withdrawal, were now themselves withdrawn. Pu was always an opportunist. "We must abandon Faltu," he said. "I think the policy which I have so often advocated in this Chamber will commend itself now to the most reactionary among you." "But what of Flinden?" interrupted a voice on the Right. "Will you abandon him?" "He must cut his way out." "It is impossible." "Sacrifices must be made." The news was carried to Aphewee, and she started off with Sâl towards the frontier. In the meanwhile things went ill with Flinden. The Trings vanished. Day by day they melted away. There were only a handful of Yinnis left to hold the defences. The Faltuans might have rushed the zariba at any time, but they were for starving the Intellectuals out. Even at the end they held the Oultaie in such awe that none would advance under the eye of a MômYinni in the light. Flinden knew how they would press the last assault home when darkness hung like a blanket about the camp. No news came from Yavo. The enemy were seldom seen. The campfires thickened round them at night in front and behind. They were encompassed, and it was no longer possible to send messages through. Then one night they saw a second line of light along the sandhills by the neck, and in the stillness they could hear a tap-tap, faint and far away, like a distant woodpecker. Ooria awoke Flinden. "It is the Oultaie," she said. "Do you not see the green tongues of the malkin wood? They have come to raise the siege.' But in the morning they woke and saw the first line of the barricade. They wondered. |