Duare and I became most proficient tree climbers during the first few days that we wandered through the forest.
My two greatest handicaps in this encounter with the primitive were lack of weapons and my inability to make fire. The latter was probably the worse, since, without a knife, fire was indispensable to the fashioning of weapons.
At every rest I experimented. Duare became inoculated with the virus of the quest, and fire became our sole aim. We talked about little else and were forever experimenting with different combinations of wood and with bits of rock that we picked up along the way.
All my life I had read of primitive men making fire in various ways, and I tried them all. I blistered my hands twirling firesticks. I knocked bits of flesh off my fingers striking pieces of stone together. At last I was on the point of giving up in disgust.
'I don't believe any one ever made fire,' I grumbled.
'You saw the nobargan make it,' Duare reminded me.
'There's a catch in it somewhere,' I insisted.
'Are you going to give up?' she asked.
'Of course not. It's like golf. Most people never learn to play it, but very few give up trying. I shall probably continue my search for fire until death overtakes me or Prometheus descends to Venus as he did to Earth.'
'What is golf and who is Prometheus? demanded Duare.
'Golf is a mental disorder and Prometheus a fable.'
'I don't see how they can help you.'
I was squatting over a little pile of tinder laboriously knocking together various bits of rock that we had collected during the day.
'Neither do I,' I replied, viciously striking two new specimens together. A string of sparks shot from the two rocks and ignited the tinder! 'I apologize to Prometheus,' I cried; 'he is no fable.'
With the aid of this fire I was able to fashion a bow and to make and sharpen a spear and arrows. I strung the bow with a fiber from a tough liana, and I feathered my arrows gayly with the plumage of birds.
* * * * *
Duare was much interested in this work. She gathered feathers, split them, and bound them to the arrows with the long blades of a very tough grass that grew in profusion throughout the forest. Our work was facilitated by the use of bits of stone we had found so shaped that they made excellent scrapers.
I cannot express the change that came over me with the possession of weapons. I had come to feel like a hunted beast whose only defense is flight, and that is a most unhappy situation for the man who wished to impress the object of his love with his heroic qualities.
I really cannot say that I had any such intention in my mind at any time, yet with the growing realization of my futility, I really did come to wish that I might cut a better figure before Duare.
Now I stepped out with a new stride. I was the hunter rather than the hunted. My pitiful, inadequate little weapons swept all doubts from my mind. I was now equal to any emergency.
'Duare,' I exclaimed, 'I am going to find Vepaja; I am going to take you home!'
She looked at me questioningly. 'The last time we spoke of that,' she reminded me, 'you said that you hadn't the remotest idea where Vepaja was and that if you had, you couldn't hope to get there.'
'That,' I said, 'was several days ago. Things are different now. Now, Duare, we are going hunting; we are going to have meat for dinner. You walk behind me so as not to frighten the game.'
I moved forward with my old assurance and, perhaps, a little incautiously. Duare followed a few paces in the rear. There was considerable undergrowth in this portion of the forest, more than I had encountered before, and I could not see very far in any direction. We were following what appeared to be a game trail, along which I advanced boldly but silently.
Presently I saw a movement in the foliage ahead and then what appeared to be the outlines of some large animal. Almost instantly the silence of the forest was broken by the thunderous bellow of a basto, and there was a great crashing in the undergrowth.
'Take to the trees, Duare!' I cried, and at the same time I turned and ran back to assist her in climbing out of danger; and then Duare stumbled and fell.
Again the basto bellowed, and a quick backward glance revealed the mighty creature in the trail only a few paces in my rear. He was not charging, but he was advancing, and I could see that he would be upon us before we could possibly climb to safety, because of the slight delay occasioned by Duare's fall.
There appeared to be but one course of action open to me—I must delay the beast until Duare had gained a place of safety. I recalled how Kamlot had slain one of the creatures by distracting its attention from himself to a leafy branch held in his left hand and then plunged his keen sword behind the shoulder down into the heart. But I had no leafy branch and only a crude wooden spear.
He was almost upon me, his red-rimmed eyes blazing, his white tusks gleaming. He loomed as large as an elephant to my excited imagination. He put his head down, another thunderous roar rumbled from his cavernous chest, and then he charged.
* * * * *
As the basto bore down upon me my only thought was to divert his attention from Duare until she should be safely out of his reach. It all happened so quickly that I imagine I had no time to think of my own almost certain fate.
The brute was so close to me when he started his charge that he attained no great speed. He came straight toward me with head lowered, and so mighty and awe inspiring was he that I did not even consider attempting to stop him with my puny weapons.
Instead, all my thoughts centered upon one objective—to save myself from being impaled upon those horns.
I grasped them, one with each hand, as the basto struck me, and, thanks to my unusual strength, I succeeded in breaking the force of the impact as well as diverting the horns from my vitals.
The instant that he felt my weight the brute ripped upward with his head in an effort to gore and toss me, and in the latter he succeeded beyond anything that I might have expected and, I imagine, beyond what he intended.
With almost the force of an explosion I was hurtled upward to crash through the foliage and the branches of the tree above, dropping my weapons as I went. Fortunately my head came in contact with no large limb, and so I retained consciousness through it all. I also retained my presence of mind and, clutching frantically, I succeeded in grasping a branch across which my body had fallen. From there I dragged myself to the safety of a larger limb.
My first thought was of Duare. Was she safe? Had she been able to climb out of danger before the basto disposed of me and was upon her, or had he reached and gored her?
My fears were almost immediately allayed by the sound of her voice. 'Oh, Carson, Carson! Are you hurt?' she cried. The anguish of her tones was ample reward for any hurts I might have sustained.
'I think not,' I replied; 'just shaken up a bit. Are you all right? Where are you?'
'Here, in the next tree. Oh, I thought he had killed you!'
I was testing out my joints and feeling of myself for possible injuries; but I discovered nothing more serious than bruises, and scratches, and of these I had plenty.
As I was examining myself, Duare made her way along interlocking branches and presently she was at my side. 'You're bleeding,' she exclaimed. 'You are hurt.'
'These are nothing but scratches,' I assured her; 'only my pride is hurt.'
'You have nothing to be ashamed of; you should be very proud of what you did. I saw. I glanced behind me as I got to my feet, and I saw you standing right in the path of that terrible beast so that it would not reach me.'
'Perhaps,' I suggested, 'I was too terrified to run—just paralyzed by fears.'
She smiled and shook her head. 'I know better than that; I know you too well.'
'Any risk would be worth taking if it won your approval.'
She was silent for a moment, looking down at the basto. The brute was pawing the ground and bellowing. Occasionally it would pause and look up at us.
'We could get away from it by going through the trees,' suggested Duare. 'They grow very close together here.'
