Читать книгу The Lost World MEGAPACK® - Lin Carter - Страница 61

CHAPTER 17

THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP

The Cro-Magnons were swiftly organized into four-man hunting parties and the search for Darya commenced at once. Tharn dispatched his chieftains with a masterly air of command, retaining only a small cadre of scouts and hunters to remain behind.

As his warriors entered the jungles to launch their search for the daughter of the Omad, the primitive monarch turned his attention once more to me, scrutinizing me carefully. I could tell that he was still puzzled by my black hair and gray eyes, as had been all of the inhabitants of Zanthodon which I had heretofore encountered. But he seemed more interested in the khaki fabric wherefrom I had fashioned my crude shorts, and in the tough materials of my high-laced sandals, which I had manufactured, you will remember, from the remnants of my sodden boots.

“You puzzle me, Eric Carstairs,” Darya’s father admitted frankly. “Never before have I seen a man with your coloring of hair and eyes, nor a man accoutered with such strange garments, which seem made from materials heretofore unknown to me. You have come a vast distance, I perceive, from your remote homeland, where doubtless you are a great chief.”

I confessed that my homeland was indeed far off, but modestly disclaimed the rank he would have assigned me.

“Tell me, then, how you encountered the gomad my daughter, and of that which passed between the two of you,” he demanded.

I nodded; there was not, after all, very much to tell, for the time Darya and I had spent together had been very short. I simply related how the Professor and I had been taken prisoner by the same slave raiders that had earlier captured Jorn, Darya, Fumio and the others. I told the savage monarch that we had been assigned to a position close to each other in the slave column, and that we had talked and become good friends—all but Fumio. And I told him how we had managed to escape just before the Neanderthal men had gotten us into their dugouts, and that my last glimpse of the girl had been when she had fled with Professor Potter into the depths of the wood while I remained behind to engage the foremost of our pursuers.

Evidently, my words had contained the ring of truth, because Tharn relaxed his posture of stern vigilance, and clapped me upon the shoulder.

“It would appear that you have dealt well and honorably with the gomad of Thandar,” he said with a slight smile. “And for that you have won the friendship of Tharn, Omad of Thandar! But tell me, Eric Carstairs, how is it that you come to be in the company of this Drugar? For, surely, even in your own homeland, no matter how remote, the Drugars and the panjani are eternally at war one with another…?”

I shook my head; it was useless to try to explain that in my country there were remarkably few Neanderthals to be found.

“Are you his captive,” he inquired,” or was he yours?”

Hurok watched me stolidly, waiting for my reply. Perhaps our brief acquaintanceship had been of too little duration for him yet entirely to trust me. But, since the Cro-Magnons had appeared on the scene, the hulking Neanderthal had said nothing, his eyes dull and listless, as if he expected momentarily to be put to death.

And I suddenly remembered that war was constant and unending between these two branches of primitive man, and that death or slavery is undoubtedly the fate that would have been dealt out to any other in his place.

“Neither, O Tharn,” I said firmly. “We are comrades in misfortune. More than that, we are—friends.”

“Friends?” ejaculated the jungle monarch incredulously.

I nodded. “Yes, friends.”

He shrugged, helplessly. “Eric Carstairs, the ways of your people must be greatly different from the ways of my own nation…for never before in all of my years have I even heard of a Drugar befriended by a panjan, or a panjan who had won the friendship of a Drugar! It is true what this man says, Drugar?” he demanded of Hurok.

The Apeman stolidly met his inquiring gaze.

“Black Hair speaks the truth,” he grunted.

Tharn shook his head baffledly, and shot me a glance that was almost humorous.

“Someday, perhaps, you will explain to me how this marvel came to pass, Eric Carstairs,” he said “And, no doubt, in time I will come to understand it, if not to believe it entirely…but if you are to remain under my protection, you must part company with the Drugar here and now, for I will not share my camp with the creature.”

“Hurok will go,” said the other, dully. “He will rejoin his people in Kor. There is no need for the lord of the panjani to drive forth Black Hair from his camp, merely because he is Hurok’s friend.”

Well, I could hardly stand there and be outdone in nobility of soul or greatness of heart by a Neanderthal savage, so I stepped forward, confronting Darya’s father.

“Together, Hurok and I survived the waves of the Sogar-Jad when the dugouts were overturned by the flippers of the great yith,” I said. “Together we faced the perils of the jungle, and the jaws of the mighty vandar. I will not stand idly by and abide here in safety, while Hurok my friend goes forth alone into the dangers that await all who venture within the jungle. If Hurok must depart from among the men of Thandar, then Eric Carstairs will go forth with him.”

Tharn stood there, strong arms folded majestically upon his mighty breast, head bent a little in deep thought. He made no slightest indication that he had heard or understood my words, but I knew I had given him something to think about.

Then he lifted his head and looked me fully in the face, and turned to examine the huge and hairy form of Hurok at my side.

“We shall speak on this matter some later time,” decided the Cro-Magnon; and, with that, turned to stride away to direct the construction of the camp.

* * * *

If Professor Potter had only been there, he would doubtless have been fascinated at the way in which the Neolithic warriors built their encampment.

They paced off an area forty feet on a side, driving stakes into the turf of the clearing at each corner.

Then while half of their number began raising tents of tanned hide on center poles, the remainer erected a rude palisade about the perimeter of the camp, using sticks and logs and branches lashed together with rawhide thongs.

The barrier was crude but looked stout and effective.

While thus employed, Tharn’s men ignored Hurok and me. They not only paid us no attention, but did not so much as glance in our direction. I had an uneasy feeling that the two of us were in Coventry, as far as the Cro-Magnons were concerned. It partly amused me and partly saddened me to learn that these handsome, stalwart warriors were innately racist, despising the Neanderthal men because they were different from the men of Thandar, and despising me because I had openly claimed Hurok as my friend.

I could have hoped that prejudice would prove to be a vice acquired by decadent, civilized men; instead, I am very much afraid that it is a universal human weakness. This disheartened me.

Hurok was not insensitive to what was going on. He came over to where I sat brooding a short while later, and laid his great hand upon my shoulder.

“It is not good that Black Hair should be enemies of the panjani because of Hurok,” said the huge fellow quietly, and with a simple dignity that made me blush for the failings of my own kind. “Let Hurok go forth alone. Always will friendship exist between Black Hair and Hurok, and doubtless they will meet again, for the world is small…”

I shook my head determinedly.

“That I will not do,” I swore. “If needs must, we will leave the warriors of Thandar here and search for the girl Darya on our own, since we seem unwelcome among her people. But I will not permit you to face the jungle and its dangers alone!”

Something glittered briefly in the Apeman’s sunken little eye; he brushed it away with the back of his hairy hand, nodded, and strode away. And I felt a bewildering rush of emotions within my breast.

For that which my companion had brushed from his eyes had been…a tear.

* * * *

After some hours, the hunters returned. They had found signs of Darya’s presence in the jungle, they reported to her mighty sire, but not the girl herself. And a tall, leathery old scout with grizzled locks and beard described a small clearing where the soil had been disturbed as if by a struggle, and displayed upon his open palm a hide thong and collection of smooth, white stones.

“It is Darya’s sling,” breathed Tharn of Thandar. “And stones such as she would have collected to rearm herself with! Beyond these things, Komad, found you aught else?”

The old scout shook his head, reluctantly.

“How far distant is this place where you found the sling and the stones?”

The chief scout, Komad, indicated that the clearing and the pool lay half a mile or more in the direction of the cliffs which lifted in the distance.

“Let us break camp here, and go thither,” suggested Komad. “If my Chief agrees, we would be wise to use the clearing of the pool as the center of our search, which can widen therefrom in circles until some further token of the gomad Darya is found.”

Tharn nodded briefly, and the men at once began to dismantle the encampment, preparing to depart.

During the orderly confusion, the old scout came over to where I stood on the sidelines.

“The Drugar you call your friend bade me say unto you that he appreciates all that you would sacrifice in order to be true to his friendship,” he said to me in low tones.

I had a premonition, and my heart leaped within me, knowing what was to come. I laid my hand on the fellow’s lean, sinewy arm.

“Where is Hurok?” I cried.

“He has gone forth alone into the jungle,” said Komad the scout, “and he begs you not to follow him. ‘Let Black Hair stay with his own kind, and Hurok will rejoin his,’ were his words. And he bade me give you this—”

The old scout put something heavy, cold and metallic into my hand. I looked down, blinking through sudden tears.

It was the automatic which the saber-tooth had struck from my hand!

And it was thus that Hurok, hulking, illiterate savage from the Stone Age, taught to Eric Carstairs the true meaning of the word “friendship.”