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diff --git a/41586-8.txt b/41586-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index cffbe91..0000000 --- a/41586-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2910 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Dust, by Murray Leinster - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Red Dust - -Author: Murray Leinster - -Release Date: December 9, 2012 [EBook #41586] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DUST *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - - - The RED DUST - - _By Murray Leinster_ - - _A Sequel to "The Mad Planet."_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from January 1927 - Amazing Stories. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence - that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -[Illustration: Burl raised his spear, and plunged down on the back of -the moving thing, thrusting his spear with all the force he could -command. He had fallen upon the shining back of one of the huge, -meat-eating beetles, and his spear had slid across the horny armor and -then stuck fast, having pierced only the leathery tissue between the -insect's head and thorax.] - - - _You who have read "The Mad Planet" by Murray Leinster, will welcome - the sequel to that story. The world, in a far distant future, is - peopled with huge insects and titanic fungus growths. Life has been - greatly altered, and tiny Man is now in the process of becoming - acclimated to the change. We again meet our hero Burl, but this time - a far greater danger menaces the human race. The huge insects are - still in evidence, but the terror they inspire is as nothing - compared to the deadly Red Dust. You will follow this remarkable - story with breathless interest._ - - - - -CHAPTER I - -Prey - - -The sky grew gray and then almost white. The overhanging banks of clouds -seemed to withdraw a little from the steaming earth. Haze that hung -always among the mushroom forests and above the fungus hills grew more -tenuous, and the slow and misty rain that dripped the whole night long -ceased reluctantly. - -As far as the eye could see a mad world stretched out, a world of -insensate cruelties and strange, fierce maternal solicitudes. The -insects of the night--the great moths whose wings spread far and wide in -the dimness, and the huge fireflies, four feet in length, whose beacons -made the earth glow in their pale, weird light--the insects of the night -had sought their hiding-places. - -Now the creatures of the day ventured forth. A great ant-hill towered a -hundred feet in the air. Upon its gravel and boulder-strewn side a -commotion became visible. - -The earth crumbled, and fell into an invisible opening, then a dark -chasm appeared, and two slender, threadlike antennæ peered out. - -A warrior ant emerged, and stood for an instant in the daylight, looking -all about for signs of danger to the ant-city. He was all of ten inches -long, this ant, and his mandibles were fierce and strong. A second and -third warrior came from the inside of the ant-hill, and ran with tiny -clickings about the hillock, waving their antennæ restlessly, searching, -ever searching for a menace to their city. - -They returned to the gateway from which they had made their appearance, -evidently bearing reassuring messages, because shortly after they had -reëntered the gateway of the ant-city, a flood of black, ill-smelling -workers poured out of the opening and dispersed upon their business. The -clickings of their limbs and an occasional whining stridulation made an -incessant sound as they scattered over the earth, foraging among the -mushrooms and giant cabbages, among the rubbish-heaps of the gigantic -bee-hives and wasp colonies, and among the remains of the tragedies of -the night for food for their city. - -The city of the ants had begun its daily toil, toil in which every one -shared without supervision or coercion. Deep in the recesses of the -pyramid galleries were hollowed out and winding passages that led down a -fathomless distance into the earth below. - -Somewhere in the maze of tunnels there was a royal apartment, in which -the queen-ant reposed, waited upon by assiduous courtiers, fed by royal -stewards, and combed and rubbed by the hands of her subjects and -children. - -But even the huge monarch of the city had her constant and pressing duty -of maternity. A dozen times the size of her largest loyal servant, she -was no less bound by the unwritten but imperative laws of the city than -they. From the time of waking to the time of rest, she was ordained to -be the queen-mother in the strictest and most literal sense of the word, -for at intervals to be measured only in terms of minutes she brought -forth a single egg, perhaps three inches in length, which was instantly -seized by one of her eager attendants and carried in haste to the -municipal nursery. - -There it was placed in a tiny cell a foot or more in length until a -sac-shaped grub appeared, all soft, white body save for a tiny mouth. -Then the nurses took it in charge and fed it with curious, tender -gestures until it had waxed large and fat and slept the sleep of -metamorphosis. When it emerged from its rudimentary cocoon it took the -places of its nurses until its soft skin had hardened into the horny -armor of the workers and soldiers, and then it joined the throng of -workers that poured out from the city at dawn to forage for food, to -bring back its finds and to share with the warriors and the nurses, the -drone males and the young queens, and all the other members of its -communities, their duties in the city itself. That was the life of the -social insect, absolute devotion to the cause of its city, utter -abnegation of self-interest for the sake of its fellows--and death at -their hands when their usefulness was past. They neither knew nor -expected more or less. - -It is a strange instinct that prompts these creatures to devote their -lives to their city, taking no smallest thought for their individual -good, without even the call of maternity or sex to guide them. Only the -queen knows motherhood. The others know nothing but toil, for purposes -they do not understand, and to an end of which they cannot dream. At -intervals all over the world of Burl's time these ant-cities rose above -the surrounding ground, some small and barely begun, and others ancient -colonies which were truly the continuation of cities first built when -the ants were insects to be crushed beneath the feet of men. These -ancient strongholds towered two, three, and even four hundred feet above -the plains, and their inhabitants would have had to be numbered in -millions if not billions. - -Not all the earth was subject to the ants, however. Bees and wasps and -more deadly creatures crawled over and flew above its surface. The bees -were four feet and more in length. And slender-waisted wasps darted here -and there, preying upon the colossal crickets that sang deep bass music -to their mates--and the length of the crickets was the length of a man, -and more. - -Spiders with bloated bellies waited, motionless, in their snares, whose -threads were the size of small cables, waiting for some luckless giant -insect to be entangled in the gummy traps. And butterflies fluttered -over the festering plains of this new world, tremendous creatures whose -wings could only be measured in terms of yards. - -An outcropping of rock jutted up abruptly from a fungus-covered plain. -Shelf-fungi and strangely colored molds stained the stone until the -shining quartz was hidden almost completely from view, but the whole -glistened like tinted crystal from the dank wetness of the night. Little -wisps of vapor curled away from the slopes as the moisture was taken up -by the already moisture-laden air. - -Seen from a distance, the outcropping of rock looked innocent and still, -but a nearer view showed many things. - -Here a hunting wasp had come upon a gray worm, and was methodically -inserting its sting into each of the twelve segments of the faintly -writhing creature. Presently the worm would be completely paralyzed, and -would be carried to the burrow of the wasp, where an egg would be laid -upon it, from which a tiny maggot would presently hatch. Then weeks of -agony for the great gray worm, conscious, but unable to move, while the -maggot fed upon its living flesh-- - -There the tiny spider, youngest of hatchlings, barely four inches -across, stealthily stalked some other still tinier mite, the little, -many-legged larva of the oil-beetle, known as the bee-louse. The almost -infinitely small bee-louse was barely two inches long, and could easily -hide in the thick fur of a great bumblebee. - -This one small creature would never fulfill its destiny, however. The -hatchling spider sprang--it was a combat of midgets which was soon over. -When the spider had grown and was feared as a huge, black-bellied -tarantula, it would slay monster crickets with the same ease and the -same implacable ferocity. - -The outcropping of rock looked still and innocent. There was one point -where it overhung, forming a shelf, beneath which the stone fell away in -a sheer-drop. Many colored fungus growths covered the rock, making it a -riot of tints and shades. But hanging from the rooflike projection of -the stone there was a strange, drab-white object. It was in the shape of -half a globe, perhaps six feet by six feet at its largest. A number of -little semicircular doors were fixed about its sides, like inverted -arches, each closed by a blank wall. One of them would open, but only -one. - -The house was like the half of a pallid orange, fastened to the roof of -rock. Thick cables stretched in every direction for yards upon yards, -anchoring the habitation firmly, but the most striking of the things -about the house--still and quiet and innocent, like all the rest of the -rock outcropping--were the ghastly trophies fastened to the outer walls -and hanging from long silken chains below. - -Here was the hind leg of one of the smaller beetles. There was the -wing-case of a flying creature. Here a snail-shell, two feet in -diameter, hanging at the end of an inch-thick cable. There a boulder -that must have weighed thirty or forty pounds, dangling in similar -fashion. - -But fastened here and there, haphazard and irregularly, were other more -repulsive remnants. The shrunken head-armor of a beetle, the fierce jaws -of a cricket--the pitiful shreds of a hundred creatures that had formed -forgotten meals for the bloated insect within the home. - -Comparatively small as was the nest of the clotho spider, it was -decorated as no ogre's castle had ever been adorned--legs sucked dry of -their contents, corselets of horny armor forever to be unused by any -creature, a wing of this insect, the head of that. And dangling by the -longest cord of all, with a silken cable wrapped carefully about it to -keep the parts together, was the shrunken, shriveled, dried-up body of a -long-dead man! - -Outside, the nest was a place of gruesome relics. Within, it was a place -of luxury and ease. A cushion of softest down filled all the bulging -bottom of the hemisphere. A canopy of similarly luxurious texture -interposed itself between the rocky roof and the dark, hideous body of -the resting spider. - -The eyes of the hairy creature glittered like diamonds, even in the -darkness, but the loathsome, attenuated legs were tucked under the -round-bellied body, and the spider was at rest. It had fed. - -It waited, motionless, without desires or aversions, without emotions or -perplexities, in comfortable, placid, machinelike contentment until time -should bring the call to feed again. - -A fresh carcass had been added to the decorations of the nest only the -night before. For many days the spider would repose in motionless -splendor within the silken castle. When hunger came again, a nocturnal -foray, a creature would be pounced upon and slain, brought bodily to the -nest, and feasted upon, its body festooned upon the exterior, and -another half-sleeping, half-waking period of dreamful idleness within -the sybaritic charnel-house would ensue. - -Slowly and timidly, half a dozen pink-skinned creatures made their way -through the mushroom forest that led to the outcropping of rock under -which the clotho spider's nest was slung. They were men, degraded -remnants of the once dominant race. - -Burl was their leader, and was distinguished solely by two three-foot -stumps of the feathery, golden antennæ of a night-flying moth he had -bound to his forehead. In his hand was a horny, chitinous spear, taken -from the body of an unknown flying creature killed by the flames of the -burning purple hills. - -Since Burl's return from his solitary--and involuntary--journey, he had -been greatly revered by his tribe. Hitherto it had been but a -leaderless, formless group of people, creeping to the same hiding-place -at nightfall to share in the food of the fortunate, and shudder at the -fate of those who might not appear. - -Now Burl had walked boldly to them, bearing, upon his back the gray bulk -of a labyrinth spider he had slain with his own hands, and clad in -wonderful garments of a gorgeousness they envied and admired. They hung -upon his words as he struggled to tell them of his adventures, and -slowly and dimly they began to look to him for leadership. He was -wonderful. For days they had listened breathlessly to the tale of his -adventures, but when he demanded that they follow him in another and -more perilous affair, they were appalled. - -A peculiar strength of will had come to Burl. He had seen and done -things that no man in the memory of his tribe had seen or done. He had -stood by when the purple hills burned and formed a funeral pyre for the -horde of army ants, and for uncounted thousands of flying creatures. He -had caught a leaping tarantula upon the point of his spear, and had -escaped from the web of a banded web-spider by oiling his body so that -the sticky threads of the snare refused to hold him fast. He had -attacked and killed a great gray labyrinth spider. - -But most potent of all, he had returned and had been welcomed by -Saya--Saya of the swift feet and slender limbs, whose smile roused -strange emotions in Burl's breast. - -It was the adoring gaze of Saya that had roused Burl to this last pitch -of rashness. Months before the clotho spider in the hemispherical silk -castle of the gruesome decorations had killed and eaten one of the men -of the tribe. Burl and the spider's victim had been together when the -spider appeared, and the first faint gray light of morning barely -silhouetted the shaggy, horrible creature as it leaped from ambush -behind a toadstool toward the fear-stricken pair. - -Its attenuated legs were outstretched, its mandibles gaped wide, and its -jaws clashed horribly as it formed a black blotch in mid air against the -lightening sky. - -Burl had fled, screaming, when the other man was seized. Now, however, -he was leading half a dozen trembling men toward the inverted dome in -which the spider dozed. Two or three of them bore spears like Burl -himself, but they bore them awkwardly and timorously. Burl himself was -possessed by a strange, fictitious courage. It was the utter -recklessness of youth, coupled with the eternal masculine desire to -display prowess before a desired female. - -The wavering advance came to a halt. Most of the naked men stopped from -fear, but Burl stopped to invoke his newly discovered inner self, that -had furnished him with such marvelous plans. Quite accidentally he had -found that if he persistently asked himself a question, some sort of -answer came from within. - -Now he gazed up from a safe distance and asked himself how he and the -others were to slay the clotho spider. The nest was some forty feet from -the ground, on the undersurface of a shelf of rock. There was sheer open -space beneath it, but it was firmly held to its support by long, silken -cables that curled to the upper side of the rock-shelf, clinging to the -stone. - -Burl gazed, and presently an idea came to him. He beckoned to the others -to follow him, and they did so, their knees knocking together from their -fright. At the slightest alarm they would flee, screaming in fear, but -Burl did not plan that there should be any alarm. - -He led them to the rear of the singular rock formation, up the gently -sloping side, and toward the precipitous edge. He drew near the point -where the rock fell away. A long, tentacle-like silk cable curled up -over the edge of a little promontory of stone that jutted out into -nothingness. - -Burl began to feel oddly cold, and something of the panic of the other -men communicated itself to him. This was one of the anchoring cables -that held the spider's castle secure. He looked and found others, six or -seven in all, which performed the task of keeping the shaggy, horrid -ogre's home from falling to the ground below. - -His idea did not desert him, however, and he drew back, to whisper -orders to his followers. They obeyed him solely because they were -afraid, and he spoke in an authoritative tone, but they did obey, and -brought a dozen heavy boulders of perhaps forty pounds weight each. - -Burl grasped one of the silken cables at its end and tore it loose from -the rock for a space of perhaps two yards. His flesh crawled as he did -so, but something within him drove him on. Then, while beads of -perspiration stood out on his forehead--induced by nothing less than -cold, physical fear--he tied the boulder to the cable. The first one -done, he felt emboldened, and made a second fast, and a third. - -One of his men stood near the edge of the rock, listening in agonized -apprehension. Burl had soon tied a heavy stone to each of the cables he -saw, and as a matter of fact, there was but one of them he failed to -notice. That one had been covered by the flaking mold that took the -place of grass upon the rocky eminence. - -There were left upon the promontory, several of the boulders for which -there was no use, but Burl did not attempt to double the weights on the -cables. He took his followers aside and explained his plan in whispers. -Quaking, they agreed, and, trembling, they prepared to carry it out. - -One of them stationed himself beside each of the boulders, Burl at the -largest. He gave a signal, and half a dozen ripping, tearing sounds -broke the sullen silence of the day. The boulders clashed and clattered -down the rocky side of the precipice, tearing--perhaps "peeling"--the -cables from their adhesion to the stone. They shot into open space and -jerked violently at the half-globular nest, which was wrenched from its -place by the combined impetus of the six heavy weights. - -Burl had flung himself upon his face to watch what he was sure would be -the death of the spider as it fell forty feet and more, imprisoned in -its heavily weighted home. His eyes sparkled with triumph as he saw the -ghastly, trophy-laden house swing out from the cliff. Then he gasped in -terror. - -One of the cables had not been discovered. That single cable held the -spider's castle from a fall, though the nest had been torn from its -anchorage, and now dangled heavily on its side in mid air. A convulsive -struggle seemed to be going on within. - -Then one of the archlike doors opened, and the spider emerged, evidently -in terror, and confused by the light of day, but still venomous and -still deadly. It found but a single of its anchoring cables intact, that -leading to the cliff top hard by Burl's head. - -The spider sprang for this single cable, and its legs grasped the -slender thread eagerly while it began to climb rapidly up toward the -cliff top. - -As with all the creatures of Burl's time, its first thought was of -battle, not flight, and it came up the thin cord with its poison fangs -unsheathed and its mandibles clashing in rage. The shaggy hair upon its -body seemed to bristle with insane ferocity, and the horrible, thin legs -moved with desperate haste as it hastened to meet and wreak vengeance -upon the cause of its sudden alarm. - -Burl's followers fled, uttering shrieks of fear, and Burl started to his -feet, in the grip of a terrible panic. Then his hand struck one of the -heavy boulders. Exerting every ounce of his strength, he pushed it over -the cliff just where the cable appeared above the edge. For the fraction -of a second there was silence, and then the indescribable sound of an -impact against a soft body. - -There was a gasping cry, and a moment later the curiously muffled -clatter of the boulder striking the earth below. Somehow, the sound -suggested that the boulder had struck first upon some soft object. - -A faint cry came from the bottom of the hill. The last of Burl's men was -leaping to a hiding-place among the mushrooms of the forest, and had -seen the sheen of shining armor just before him. He cried out and waited -for death, but only a delicately formed wasp rose heavily into the air, -bearing beneath it the more and more feebly struggling body of a giant -cricket. - -Burl had stood paralyzed, deprived of the power of movement, after -casting the boulder over the cliff. That one action had taken the last -ounce of his initiative, and if the spider had hauled itself over the -rocky edge and darted toward him, slavering its thick spittle and -uttering sounds of mad fury, Burl would not even have screamed as it -seized him. He was like a dead thing. But the oddly muffled sound of the -boulder striking the ground below brought back hope of life and power of -movement. - -He peered over the cliff. The nest still dangled at the end of the -single cable, still freighted with its gruesome trophies, but on the -ground below a crushed and horribly writhing form was moving in -convulsions of rage and agony. - -Long, hairy legs worked desperately from a body that was no more than a -mass of pulped flesh. A ferocious jaw tried to clamp upon something--and -there was no other jaw to meet it. An evil-smelling, sticky liquid -exuded from the mangled writhing, thing upon the earth, moving in -terrible contortions of torment. - -Presently an ant drew near and extended inquisitive antennæ at the -helpless monster wounded to death. A shrill stridulation sounded out, -and three or four other foot-long ants hastened up to wait patiently -just outside the spider's reach until its struggles should have lessened -enough to make possible the salvage of flesh from the perhaps -still-living creature for the ant city a mile away. - -And Burl, up on the cliff-top, danced and gesticulated in triumph. He -had killed the clotho spider, which had slain one of the tribesmen four -months before. Glory was his. All the tribesmen had seen the spider -living. Now he would show them the spider dead. He stopped his dance of -triumph and walked down the hill in haughty grandeur. He would reproach -his timid followers for fleeing from the spider, leaving him to kill it -alone. - -Quite naïvely Burl assumed that it was his place to give orders and that -of the others to obey. True, no one had attempted to give orders before, -or to enforce their execution, but Burl had reached the eminently -wholesome conclusion that he was a wonderful person whose wishes should -be respected. - -Burl, filled with fresh notions of his own importance, strutted on -toward the hiding-place of the tribe, growing more and more angry with -the other men for having deserted him. He would reproach them, would -probably beat them. They would be afraid to protest, and in the future -would undoubtedly be afraid to run away. - -Burl was quite convinced that running away was something he could not -tolerate in his followers. Obscurely--and conveniently in the extreme -back of his mind--he reasoned that not only did a larger number of men -present at a scene of peril increase the chances of coping with the -danger, but they also increased the chances that the victim selected by -the dangerous creature would be another than himself. - -Burl's reasoning was unsophisticated, but sound; perhaps unconscious, -but none the less effective. He grew quite furious with the deserters. -They had run away! They had fled from a mere spider. - -A shrill whine filled the air, and a ten-inch ant dashed at Burl with -its mandibles extended threateningly. Burl's path had promised to -interrupt the salvaging work of the insect, engaged in scraping shreds -of flesh from the corselet of one of the smaller beetles slain the -previous night. The ant dashed at Burl like an infuriated fox-terrier, -and Burl scurried away in undignified retreat. The ant might not be -dangerous, but bites from its formic acid-poisoned mandibles were no -trifles. - -Burl came to the tangled thicket of mushrooms in which his tribefolk -hid. The entrance was tortuous and difficult to penetrate, and could be -blocked on occasion with stones and toadstool pulp. Burl made his way -toward the central clearing, and heard as he went the sound of weeping, -and the excited chatter of the tribes people. - -Those who had fled from the rocky cliff had returned with the news that -Burl was dead, and Saya lay weeping beneath an over-shadowing toadstool. -She was not yet the mate of Burl, but the time would come when all the -tribe would recognize a status dimly different from the usual tribal -relationship. - -Burl stepped into the clearing, and straightway cuffed the first man he -came upon, then the next and the next. There was a cry of astonishment, -and the next second instinctive, fearful glances at that entrance to the -hiding-place. - -Had Burl fled from the spider, and was it following? Burl spoke loftily, -saying that the spider was dead, that its legs, each one the length of a -man, were still, and its fierce jaws and deadly poison-fangs harmless -forevermore. - -Ten minutes later he was leading an incredulous, awed little group of -pink-skinned people to the spot below the cliff where the spider -actually lay dead, with the ants busily at work upon its remains. - -And when he went back to the hiding-place he donned again his great -cloak that was made from the wing of a magnificent moth, slain by the -flames of the purple hills, and sat down in splendor upon a crumbling -toadstool, to feast upon the glances of admiration and awe that were -sent toward him. Only Saya held back shyly, until he motioned for her to -draw near, when she seated herself at his feet and gazed up at him with -unutterable adoration in her eyes. - -But while Burl basked in the radiance of his tribe's admiration, danger -was drawing near them all. For many months there had been strange red -mushrooms growing slowly here and there all over the earth, they knew. -The tribefolk had speculated about them, but forebore tasting them -because they were strange, and strange things were usually dangerous and -often fatal. - -Now those red growths had ripened and grown ready to emit their spores. -Their rounded tops had grown fat, and the tough skin grew taut as if a -strange pressure were being applied from within. And to-day, while Burl -luxuriated in his position of feared and admired great man of his tribe, -at a spot a long distance away, upon a hill-top, one of the red -mushrooms burst. The spores inside the taut, tough skin shot all about -as if scattered by an explosion, and made a little cloud of reddish, -impalpable dust, which hung in the air and moved slowly with the -sluggish breeze. - -A bee droned into the thin red cloud of dust, lazily and heavily flying -back toward the hive. But barely had she entered the tinted atmosphere -when her movements became awkward and convulsive, effortful and excited. -She trembled and twisted in mid air in a peculiar fashion, then dropped -to the earth, while her abdomen moved violently. - -Bees, like almost all insects, breathe through spiracles on the -undersurfaces of their abdomens. This bee had breathed in some of the -red mushroom's spores. She thrashed about desperately upon the -toadstools on which she had fallen, struggling for breath, for life. - -After a long time she was still. The cloud of red mushroom spores had -strangled or poisoned her. And everywhere the red fringe grew, such -explosions were taking place, one by one, and wherever the red clouds -hung in the air creatures were breathing them in and dying in -convulsions of strangulation. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -The Journey - - -Darkness. The soft, blanketing night of the age of fungoids had fallen -over all the earth, and there was blackness everywhere that was not good -to have. Here and there, however, dim, bluish lights glowed near the -ground. There an intermittent glow showed that a firefly had wandered -far from the rivers and swamps above which most of his kind now -congregated. Now a faintly luminous ball of fire drifted above the -steaming, moisture-sodden earth. It was a will-o'-the-wisp, grown to a -yard in diameter. - -From the low-hanging banks of clouds that hung perpetually overhead, -large, warm raindrops fell ceaselessly. A drop, a pause, and then -another drop, added to the already dank moisture of the ground below. - -The world of fungus growths flourished on just such dampness and -humidity. It seemed as if the toadstools and mushrooms could be heard, -swelling and growing large in the darkness. Rustlings and stealthy -movements sounded furtively through the night, and from above the heavy -throb of mighty wing-beats was continuous. - -The tribe was hidden in the midst of a tangled copse of toadstools too -thickly interwoven for the larger insects to penetrate. Only the little -midgets hid in its recesses during the night-time, and the smaller moths -during the day. - -About and among the bases of the toadstools, however, where their spongy -stalks rose from the humid earth, small beetles roamed, singing -cheerfully to themselves in deep bass notes. They were small and round, -some six or eight inches long, and their bellies were pale gray. - -And as they went about they emitted sounds which would have been chirps -had they been other than low as the lowest tone of a harp. They were -truffle-beetles, in search of the dainty tidbits on which epicures once -had feasted. - -Some strange sense seemed to tell them when one of half a dozen -varieties of truffle was beneath them, and they paused in their -wandering to dig a tunnel straight down. A foot, two feet, or two yards, -all was the same to them. In time they would come upon the morsel they -sought and would remain at the bottom of their temporary home until it -was consumed. Then another period of wandering, singing their cheerful -song, until another likely spot was reached and another tunnel begun. - -In a tiny, open space in the center of the toadstool thicket the -tribefolk slept with the deep notes of the truffle-beetles in their -ears. A new danger had come to them, but they had passed it on to Burl -with a new and childlike confidence and considered the matter settled. -They slept, while beneath a glowing mushroom at one side of the clearing -Burl struggled with his new problem. He squatted upon the ground in the -dim radiance of the shining toadstool, his moth-wing cloak wrapped about -him, his spear in his hand, and his twin golden plumes of the moth's -antennæ bound to his forehead. But his face was downcast as a child's. - -The red mushrooms had begun to burst. Only that day, one of the women, -seeking edible fungus for the tribal larder, had seen the fat, distended -globule of the red mushroom. Its skin was stretched taut, and glistened -in the light. - -The woman paid little or no attention to the red growth. Her ears were -attuned to catch sounds that would warn her of danger while her eyes -searched for tidbits that would make a meal for the tribe, and more -particularly for her small son, left behind at the hiding-place. - -A ripping noise made her start up, alert on the instant. The red -envelope of the mushroom had split across the top, and a thick cloud of -brownish-red dust was spurting in every direction. It formed a pyramidal -cloud some thirty feet in height, which enlarged and grew thinner with -minor eddies within itself. - -A little yellow butterfly with wings barely a yard from tip to tip, -flapped lazily above the mushroom-covered plain. Its wings beat the air -with strokes that seemed like playful taps upon a friendly element. The -butterfly was literally intoxicated with the sheer joy of living. It had -emerged from its cocoon barely two hours before, and was making its -maiden flight above the strange and wonderful world. It fluttered -carelessly into the red-brown cloud of mushroom spores. - -The woman was watching the slowly changing form of the spore-mist. She -saw the butterfly enter the brownish dust, and then her eyes became -greedy. There was something the matter with the butterfly. Its wings no -longer moved lazily and gently. They struck out in frenzied, hysterical -blows that were erratic and wild. The little yellow creature no longer -floated lightly and easily, but dashed here and there, wildly and -without purpose, seeming to be in its death-throes. - -It crashed helplessly against the ground and lay there, moving feebly. -The woman hurried forward. The wings would be new fabric with which to -adorn herself, and the fragile legs of the butterfly contained choice -meat. She entered the dust-cloud. - -A stream of intolerable fire--though the woman had never seen or known -of fire--burned her nostrils and seared her lungs. She gasped in pain, -and the agony was redoubled. Her eyes smarted as if burning from their -sockets, and tears blinded her. - -The woman instinctively turned about to flee, but before she had gone a -dozen yards--blinded as she was--she stumbled and fell to the ground. -She lay there, gasping, and uttering moans of pain, until one of the men -of the tribe who had been engaged in foraging near by saw her and tried -to find what had injured her. - -She could not speak, and he was about to leave her and tell the other -tribefolk about her when he heard the clicking of an ant's limbs, and -rather than have the ant pick her to pieces bit by bit--and leave his -curiosity ungratified--the man put her across his shoulders and bore her -back to the hiding-place of the tribe. - -It was the tale the woman had told when she partly recovered that caused -Burl to sit alone all that night beneath the shining toadstool in the -little clearing, puzzling his just-awakened brain to know what to do. - -The year before there had been no red mushrooms. They had appeared only -recently, but Burl dimly remembered that one day, a long time before, -there had been a strange breeze which blew for three day and nights, and -that during the time of its blowing all the tribe had been sick and had -wept continually. - -Burl had not yet reached the point of mental development when he would -associate that breeze with a storm at a distance, or reason that the -spores of the red mushrooms had been borne upon the wind to the present -resting-places of the deadly fungus growths. Still less could he decide -that the breeze had not been deadly only because it was lightly laden -with the fatal dust. - -He knew simply that unknown red mushrooms had appeared, that they were -everywhere about, and that they would burst, and that to breathe the -red dust they gave out was grievous sickness or death. - -The tribe slept while the bravely attired figure of Burl squatted under -the glowing disk of the luminous mushroom, his face a picture of -querulous perplexity, and his heart full of sadness. - -He had consulted his strange inner self, and no plan had come to him. He -knew the red mushrooms were all about. They would fill the air with -their poison. He struggled with his problem while his people slumbered, -and the woman who had breathed the mushroom-dust sobbed softly in her -troubled sleep. - -Presently a figure stirred on the farther side of the clearing. Saya -woke and raised her head. She saw Burl crouching by the shining -toadstool, his gay attire draggled and unnoticed. She watched him for a -little, and the desolation of his pose awoke her pity. - -She rose and went to his side, taking his hand between her two, while -she spoke his name softly. When he turned and looked at her, confusion -smote her, but the misery in his face brought confidence again. - -Burl's sorrow was inarticulate--he could not explain this new -responsibility for his people that had come to him--but he was comforted -by her presence, and she sat down beside him. After a long time she -slept, with her head resting against his side, but he continued to -question himself, continued to demand an escape for his people from the -suffering and danger he saw ahead. With the day an answer came. - -When Burl had been carried down the river on his fungus raft, and had -landed in the country of the army ants, he had seen great forests of -edible mushrooms, and had said to himself that he would bring Saya to -that place. He remembered, now, that the red mushrooms were there also, -but the idea of a journey remained. - -The hunting-ground of his tribe had been free of the red fungoids until -recently. If he traveled far enough he would come to a place where there -were still no red toadstools. Then came the decision. He would lead his -tribe to a far country. - -He spoke with stern authority when the tribesmen woke, talking in few -words and in a loud voice, holding up his spear as he gave his orders. - -The timid, pink-skinned people obeyed him meekly. They had seen the body -of the clotho spider he had slain, and he had thrown down before them -the gray bulk of the labyrinth spider he had thrust through with his -spear. Now he was to take them through unknown dangers to an unknown -haven, but they feared to displease him. - -They made light loads of their mushrooms and such meat-stuffs as they -had, and parceled out what little fabric they still possessed. Three men -bore spears, in addition to Burl's long shaft, and he had persuaded the -other three to carry clubs, showing them how the weapon should be -wielded. - -The indefinitely brighter spot in the cloud-banks above that meant the -shining sun had barely gone a quarter of the way across the sky when the -trembling band of timid creatures made their way from their hiding-place -and set out upon their journey. For their course, Burl depended entirely -upon chance. He avoided the direction of the river, however, and the -path along which he had returned to his people. He knew the red -mushrooms grew there. Purely by accident he set his march toward the -west, and walked cautiously on, his tribesfolk following him fearfully. - -Burl walked ahead, his spear held ready. He made a figure at once brave -and pathetic, venturing forth in a world of monstrous ferocity and -incredible malignance, armed only with a horny spear borrowed from a -dead insect. His velvety cloak, made from a moth's wing, hung about his -figure in graceful folds, however, and twin golden plumes nodded -jauntily from his forehead. - -Behind him the nearly naked people followed reluctantly. Here a woman -with a baby in her arms, there children of nine or ten, unable to resist -the Instinct to play even in the presence of the manifold dangers of the -march. They ate hungrily of the lumps of mushroom they had been ordered -to carry. Then a long-legged boy, his eyes roving anxiously about in -search of danger followed. - -Thirty thousand years of flight from every peril had deeply submerged -the combative nature of humanity. After the boy came two men, one with a -short spear, and the other with a club, each with a huge mass of edible -mushroom under his free arm, and both badly frightened at the idea of -fleeing from dangers they knew and feared to dangers they did not know -and consequently feared much more. - -So was the caravan spread out. It made its way across the country with -many deviations from a fixed line, and with many halts and pauses. Once -a shrill stridulation filled all the air before them, a monster sound -compounded of innumerable clickings and high-pitched cries. - -They came to the tip of an eminence and saw a great space of ground -covered with tiny black bodies locked in combat. For quite half a mile -in either direction the earth was black with ants, snapping and biting -at each other, locked in vise-like embraces, each combatant couple -trampled under the feet of the contending armies, with no thought of -surrender or quarter. - -The sound of the clashing of fierce jaws upon horny armor, the cries of -the maimed, and strange sounds made by the dying, and above all, the -whining battle-cry of each of the fighting hordes, made a sustained -uproar that was almost deafening. - -From either side of the battle-ground a pathway led back to separate -ant-cities, a pathway marked by the hurrying groups of reinforcements -rushing to the fight. Tiny as the ants were, for once no lumbering -beetle swaggered insolently in their path, nor did the hunting-spiders -mark them out for prey. Only little creatures smaller than the -combatants themselves made use of the insect war for purposes of their -own. - -These were little gray ants barely more than four inches long, who -scurried about in and among the fighting creatures with marvelous -dexterity, carrying off, piece-meal, the bodies of the dead, and slaying -the wounded for the same fate. - -They hung about the edges of the battle, and invaded the abandoned areas -when the tide of battle shifted, insect guerrillas, fighting for their -own hands, careless of the origin of the quarrel, espousing no cause, -simply salvaging the dead and living débris of the combat. - -Burl and his little group of followers had to make a wide detour to -avoid the battle itself, and the passage between bodies of -reinforcements hurrying to the scene of strife was a matter of some -difficulty. The ants running rapidly toward the battle-field were hugely -excited. Their antennæ waved wildly, and the infrequent wounded one, -limping back toward the city, was instantly and repeatedly challenged by -the advancing insects. - -They crossed their antennæ upon his, and required thorough evidence that -he was of the proper city before allowing him to proceed. Once they -arrived at the battle-field they flung themselves into the fray, -becoming lost and indistinguishable in the tide of straining, fighting -black bodies. - -Men in such a battle, without distinguishing marks or battle-cries, -would have fought among themselves as often as against their foes, but -the ants had a much simpler method of identification. Each ant-city -possesses its individual odor--a variant on the scent of formic -acid--and each individual of that city is recognized in his world quite -simply and surely by the way he smells. - -The little tribe of human beings passed precariously behind a group of a -hundred excited insect warriors, and before the following group of forty -equally excited black insects. Burl hurried on with his following, -putting many miles of perilous territory behind before nightfall. Many -times during the day they saw the sudden billowing of a red-brown -dust-cloud from the earth, and more than once they came upon the empty -skin and drooping stalk of one of the red mushrooms, and more often -still they came upon the mushrooms themselves, grown fat and taut, -prepared to send their deadly spores into the air when the pressure from -within became more than the leathery skin could stand. - -That night the tribe hid among the bases of giant puff-balls, which at a -touch shot out a puff of white powder resembling smoke. The powder was -precisely the same in nature as that cast out by the red mushrooms, but -its effects were marvelously--and mercifully--different; it was -innocuous. - -Burl slept soundly this night, having been two days and a night without -rest, but the remainder of his tribe, and even Saya, were fearful and -afraid, listening ceaselessly all through the dark hours for the -menacing sounds of creatures coming to prey upon them. - -And so for a week the march kept on. Burl would not allow his tribe to -stop to forage for food. The red mushrooms were all about. Once one of -the little children was caught in a whirling eddy of red dust, and its -mother rushed into the deadly stuff to seize it and bring it out. Then -the tribe had to hide for three days while the two of them recovered -from the debilitating poison. - -Once, too, they found a half-acre patch of the giant cabbages--there -were six of them full grown, and a dozen or more smaller ones--and Burl -took two men and speared two of the huge, twelve-foot slugs that fed -upon the leaves. When the tribe passed on it was gorged on the fat meat -of the slugs, and there was much soft fur, so that all the tribefolk -wore loin-cloths of the yellow stuff. - -There were perils, too, in the journey. On the fourth day of the tribe's -traveling, Burl froze suddenly into stillness. One of the hairy -tarantulas--a trap-door spider with a black belly--had fallen upon a -scarabæus beetle, and was devouring it only a hundred yards ahead. - -The tribefolk, trembling, went back for half a mile or more in -panic-stricken silence, and refused to advance until he had led them a -detour of two or three miles to one side of the dangerous spot. - -Long, fear-ridden marches through perilous countries unknown to them, -through the golden aisles of yellow mushroom forests, over the flaking -surfaces of plains covered with many-colored "rusts" and molds; pauses -beside turbid pools whose waters were concealed by thick layers of green -slime, and other evil-smelling ponds which foamed and bubbled slowly, -which were covered with pasty yeasts that rose in strange forms of -discolored foam. - -Fleeting glimpses they had of the glistening spokes of symmetrical -spiders'-webs, whose least thread it would have been beyond the power of -the strongest of the tribe to break. They passed through a forest of -puff-balls, which boomed when touched and shot a puff of vapor from -their open mouths. - -Once they saw a long and sinuous insect that fled before them and -disappeared into a burrow in the ground, running with incredible speed -upon legs of uncountable number. It was a centipede all of thirty feet -in length, and when they crossed the path it had followed a horrible -stench came to their nostrils so that they hurried on. - -Long escape from unguessed dangers brought boldness, of a sort, to the -pink-skinned men, and they would have rested. They went to Burl with -their complaint, and he simply pointed with his hands behind them. There -were three little clouds of brownish vapor in the air, where they could -see, along the road they had traversed. To the right of them a -dust-cloud was just settling, and to the left another rose as they -looked. - -A new trick of the deadly dust became apparent now. Toward the end of a -day in which they had traveled a long distance, one of the little -children ran a little to the left of the route its elders were -following. The earth had taken on a brownish hue, and the child stirred -up the surface mould with its feet. - -The brownish dust that had settled there was raised again, and the child -ran, crying and choking, to its mother, its lungs burning as with fire, -and its eyes like hot coals. Another day would pass before the child -could walk. - -In a strange country, knowing nothing of the dangers that might assail -the tribe while waiting for the child to recover, Burl looked about for -a hiding-place. Far over to the right a low cliff, perhaps twenty or -thirty feet high, showed sides of crumbling, yellow clay, and from where -Burl stood he could see the dark openings of burrows scattered here and -there upon its face. - -He watched for a time, to see if any bee or wasp inhabited them, knowing -that many kinds of both insects dig burrows for their young, and do not -occupy them themselves. No dark forms appeared, however, and he led his -people toward the openings. - -The appearance of the holes confirmed his surmise. They had been dug -months before by mining bees, and the entrances were "weathered" and -worn. The tribefolk made their way into the three-foot tunnels, and hid -themselves, seizing the opportunity to gorge themselves upon the food -they carried. - -Burl stationed himself near the outer end of one of the little caves to -watch for signs of danger. While waiting he poked curiously with his -spear at a little pile of white and sticky parchment-like stuff he saw -just within the mouth of the tunnel. - -Instantly movement became visible. Fifty, sixty, or a hundred tiny -creatures, no more than half an inch in length, tumbled pell-mell from -the dirty-white heap. Awkward legs, tiny, greenish-black bodies, and -bristles protruding in every direction made them strange to look upon. - -They had tumbled from the whitish heap and now they made haste to hide -themselves in it again, moving slowly and clumsily, with immense effort -and laborious contortions of their bodies. - -Burl had never seen any insect progress in such a slow and ineffective -fashion before. He drew one little insect back with the point of his -spear and examined it from a safe distance. Tiny jaws before the head -met like twin sickles, and the whole body was shaped like a rounded -diamond lozenge. - -Burl knew that no insect of such small size could be dangerous, and -leaned over, then took one creature in his hand. It wriggled frantically -and slipped from his fingers, dropping upon the soft yellow -caterpillar-fur he had about his middle. Instantly, as if it were a -conjuring trick, the little insect vanished, and Burl searched for a -matter of minutes before he found it hidden deep in the long, soft hairs -of the fur, resting motionless, and evidently at ease. - -It was a bee-louse, the first larval form of a beetle whose horny armor -could be seen in fragments for yards before the clayey cliff-side. -Hidden in the openings of the bee's tunnel, it waited until the -bee-grubs farther back in their separate cells should complete their -changes of form and emerge into the open air, passing over the cluster -of tiny creatures at the doorway. As the bees pass, the little bee-lice -would clamber in eager haste up their hairy legs and come to rest in the -fur about their thoraxes. Then, weeks later, when the bees in turn made -other cells and stocked them with honey for the eggs they would lay, the -tiny creatures would slip from their resting-places and be left behind -in the fully provisioned cell, to eat not only the honey the bee had so -laboriously acquired, but the very grub hatched from the bee's egg. - -Burl had no difficulty in detaching the small insect and casting it -away, but in doing so discovered three more that had hidden themselves -in his furry garment, no doubt thinking it the coat of their natural, -though unwilling hosts. He plucked them away, and discovered more, and -more. His garment was the hiding-place for dozens of the creatures. - -Disgusted and annoyed, he went out of the cavern and to a spot some -distance away, where he took off his robe and pounded it with the flat -side of his spear to dislodge the visitors. They dropped out one by -one, reluctantly, and finally the garment was clean of them. Then Burl -heard a shout from the direction of the mining-bee caves, and hastened -toward the sound. - -It was then drawing toward the time of darkness, but one of the -tribesmen had ventured out and found no less than three of the great -imperial mushrooms. Of the three, one had been attacked by a parasitic -purple mould, but the gorgeous yellow of the other two was undimmed, and -the people were soon feasting upon the firm flesh. - -Burl felt a little pang of jealousy, though he joined in the consumption -of the find as readily as the others, and presently drew a little to one -side. - -He cast his eyes across the country, level and unbroken as far as the -eye could see. The small clay cliff was the only inequality visible, and -its height cut off all vision on one side. But the view toward the -horizon was unobstructed on three sides, and here and there the black -speck of a monster bee could be seen, droning homeward to its hive or -burrow, and sometimes the slender form of a wasp passed overhead, its -transparent wings invisible from the rapidity of their vibrations. - -These flew high in the air, but lower down, barely skimming the tops of -the many-colored mushrooms and toadstools, fluttering lightly above the -swollen fungoids, and touching their dainty proboscides to unspeakable -things in default of the fragrant flowers that were normal food for -their races--lower down flew the multitudes of butterflies the age of -mushrooms had produced. - -White and yellow and red and brown, pink and blue and purple and green, -every shade and every color, every size and almost every shape, they -flitted gaily in the air. There were some so tiny that they would barely -have shaded Burl's face, and some beneath whose slender bodies he could -have hidden himself. They flew in a riot of colors and tints above a -world of foul mushroom growths, and turgid, slime-covered ponds. - -Burl, temporarily out of the limelight because of the discovery of a -store of food by another member of the tribe, bethought himself of an -idea. Soon night would come on, the cloud-bank would turn red in the -west, and then darkness would lean downward from the sky. With the -coming of that time these creatures of the day would seek hiding-places, -and the air would be given over to the furry moths that flew by night. -He, Burl, would mark the spot where one of the larger creatures -alighted, and would creep up upon it, with his spear held fast. - -His wide blue eyes brightened at the thought, and he sat himself down to -watch. After a long time the soft, down-reaching fingers of the night -touched the shaded aisles of the mushroom forests, and a gentle haze -arose above the golden glades. One by one the gorgeous fliers of the -daytime dipped down and furled their painted wings. The overhanging -clouds became darker--finally black, and the slow, deliberate rainfall -that lasted all through the night began. Burl rose and crept away into -the darkness, his spear held in readiness. - -Through the black night, beneath deeper blacknesses which were the dark -undersides of huge toadstools, creeping silently, with every sense -alert for sign of danger or for hope of giant prey, Burl made his slow -advance. - -A glorious butterfly of purple and yellow markings, whose wings spread -out for three yards on either side of its delicately formed body, had -hidden itself barely two hundred yards away. Burl could imagine it, now, -preening its slender limbs and combing from its long and slender -proboscis any trace of the delectable foodstuffs on which it had fed -during the day. Burl moved slowly and cautiously forward, all eyes and -ears. - -He heard an indescribable sound in a thicket a little to his left, and -shifted his course. The sound was the faint whistling of air through the -breathing-holes along an insect's abdomen. Then came the delicate -rustling of filmy wings being stretched and closed again, and the -movement of sharply barbed feet upon the soft earth. Burl moved in -breathless silence, holding his spear before him in readiness to plunge -it into the gigantic butterfly's soft body. - -The mushrooms here were grown thickly together, so there was no room for -Burl's body to pass between their stalks, and the rounded heads were -deformed and misshapen from their crowdings. Burl spent precious moments -in trying to force a silent passage, but had to own himself beaten. Then -he clambered up upon the spongy mass of mushroom heads, trusting to luck -that they would sustain his weight. - -The blackness was intense, so that even the forms of objects before him -were lost in obscurity. He moved forward for some ten yards, however, -walking gingerly over his precarious foothold. Then he felt rather than -saw the opening before him. A body moved below him. - -Burl raised his spear, and with a yell plunged down on the back of the -moving thing, thrusting his spear with all the force he could command. -He landed on a shifting form, but his yell of triumph turned to a scream -of terror. - -This was not the yielding body of a slender butterfly that he had come -upon, nor had his spear penetrated the creature's soft flesh. He had -fallen upon the shining back of one of the huge, meat-eating beetles, -and his spear had slid across the horny armor, and then stuck fast, -having pierced only the leathery tissue between the insect's head and -thorax. - -Burl's terror was pitiable at the realization, but as nothing to the -ultimate panic which possessed him when the creature beneath him uttered -a grunt of fright and pain, and, spreading its stiff wing-cases wide, -shot upward in a crazy, panic-stricken, rocket-like flight toward the -sky. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -The Sexton-Beetles - - -Burl fell headforemost upon the spongy top of a huge toadstool that -split with the impact and let him through to the ground beneath, -powdering him with its fine spores. He came to rest with his naked -shoulder half-way through the yielding flesh of a mushroom-stalk, and -lay there for a second, catching his breath to scream again. - -Then he heard the whining buzz of his attempted prey. There was -something wrong with the beetle. Burl's spear had struck it in an -awkward spot, and it was rocketing upward in erratic flight that ended -in a crash two or three hundreds yards away. - -Burl sprang up in an instant. Perhaps, despite his mistake, he had slain -this infinitely more worthy victim. He rushed toward the spot where it -had fallen. - -His wide blue eyes pierced the darkness well enough to enable him to -sheer off from masses of toadstools, but he could distinguish no -details--nothing but forms. He heard the beetle floundering upon the -ground; then heard it mount again into the air, more clumsily than -before. - -Its wing-beats no longer kept up a sustained note. They thrashed the air -irregularly and wildly. The flight was zigzag and uncertain, and though -longer than the first had been, it ended similarly, in a heavy fall. -Another period of floundering, and the beetle took to the air again just -before Burl arrived at the spot. - -It was obviously seriously hurt, and Burl forgot the dangers of the -night in his absorption in the chase. He darted after his prey, -fleet-footed and agile, taking chances that in cold blood he would never -have thought of. - -Twice, in the pain-racked struggles of the monster beetle, he arrived at -the spot where the gigantic insect flung itself about madly, insanely, -fighting it knew not what, striking out with colossal wings and legs, -dazed and drunk with agony. And each time it managed to get aloft in -flight that was weaker and more purposeless. - -Crazy, fleeing from the torturing spear that pierced its very vitals, -the beetle blundered here and there, floundering among the mushroom -thickets in spasms that were constantly more prolonged and more -agonized, but nevertheless flying heavily, lurching drunkenly, managing -to graze the tops of the toadstools in one more despairing, tormented -flight. - -And Burl followed, aflame with the fire of the chase, arriving at the -scene of each successive, panic-stricken struggle on the ground just -after the beetle had taken flight again, but constantly more closely on -the heels of the weakening monster. - -At last he came up panting, and found the giant lying upon the earth, -moving feebly, apparently unable to rise. How far he was from the tribe, -Burl did not know, nor did the question occur to him at the moment. He -waited for the beetle to be still, trembling with excitement and -eagerness. The struggles of the huge form grew more feeble, and at last -ceased. Burl moved forward and grasped his spear. He wrenched at it to -thrust again. - -In an instant the beetle had roused itself, and was exerting its last -atom of strength, galvanized into action by the agony caused by Burl's -seizure of the spear. A great wing-cover knocked Burl twenty feet, and -flung him against the base of a mushroom, where he lay, half stunned. -But then a strangely pungent scent came to his nostrils--the scent of -the red mushrooms! - -He staggered to his feet and fled, while behind him the gigantic beetle -crashed and floundered--Burl heard a tearing and ripping sound. The -insect had torn the covering of one of the red mushrooms, tightly packed -with the fatal red dust. At the noise, Burl's speed was doubled, but he -could still hear the frantic struggles of the dying beetle grow to a -very crescendo of desperation. - -The creature broke free and managed to rise in a final flight, fighting -for breath and life, weakened and tortured by the spear and the horrible -spores of the red mushrooms. Then it crashed suddenly to the earth and -was still. The red dust had killed it. - -In time to come, Burl might learn to use the red dust as poison gas had -been used by his ancestors of thirty thousand years before, but now he -was frightened and alone, lost from his tribe, and with no faintest -notion of how to find them. He crouched beneath a huge toadstool and -waited for dawn, listening with terrified apprehension for the ripping -sound that would mean the bursting of another of the red mushrooms. - -Only the wing beats of night-flying creatures came to his ears, however, -and the discordant noises of the four-foot truffle-beetles as they -roamed the aisles of the mushroom forests, seeking the places beneath -which their instinct told them fungoid dainties awaited the courageous -miner. The eternal dripping of the raindrops falling at long intervals -from the overhanging clouds formed a soft obbligato to the whole. - -Burl listened, knowing there were red toadstools all about, but not once -during the whole of the long, dark hours did the rending noise tell of a -bursting fungus casting loose its freight of deadly dust upon the air. -Only when day came again, and the chill dampness of the night was -succeeded by the steaming humidity of the morning, did a tall pyramid of -brownish-red stuff leap suddenly into the air from a ripped mushroom -covering. - -Then Burl stood up and looked around. Here and there, all over the whole -countryside, slowly and at intervals, the cones of fatal red sprang into -the air. Had Burl lived thirty thousand years earlier, he might have -likened the effect to that of shells bursting from a leisurely -bombardment, but as it was he saw in them only fresh and inexorable -dangers added to an already peril-ridden existence. - -A hundred yards from where he had hidden during the night the body of -his victim lay, crumpled up and limp. Burl approached speculatively. He -had come even before the ants appeared to take their toll of the -carcass, and not even a buzzing flesh-fly had placed its maggots on the -unresisting form. - -The long, whiplike antennæ lay upon the carpet of mold and rust, and the -fiercely toothed legs were drawn close against the body. The -many-faceted eyes stared unseeingly, and the stiff and horny wing-cases -were rent and torn. - -When Burl went to the other side of the dead beetle he saw something -that filled him with elation. His spear had been held between his body -and the beetle's during that mad flight, and at the final crash, when -Burl shot away from the fear-crazed insect, the weight of his body had -forced the spearpoint between the joints of the corselet and the neck. -Even if the red dust had not finished the creature, the spear wound in -time would have ended its life. - -Burl was thrilled once more by his superlative greatness, and -conveniently forgot that it was the red dust that had actually -administered the _coup de grâce_. It was so much more pleasant to look -upon himself as the mighty slayer that he hacked off one of the -barb-edged limbs to carry back to his tribe in evidence of his feat. He -took the long antennæ, too, as further proof. - -Then he remembered that he did not know where his tribe was to be found. -He had no faintest idea of the direction in which the beetle had flown. -As a matter of fact, the course of the beetle had been in turn directed -toward every point of the compass, and there was no possible way of -telling the relation of its final landing-place to the point from which -it had started. - -Burl wrestled with his problem for an hour, and then gave up in disgust. -He set off at random, with the leg of the huge insect flung over his -shoulder and the long antennæ clasped in his hand with his spear. He -turned to look at his victim of the night before just before plunging -into the near-by mushroom forest, and saw that it was already the center -of a mass of tiny black bodies, pulling and hacking at the tough armor, -and carving out great lumps of the succulent flesh to be carried to the -near-by ant city. - -In the teeming life of the insect world death is an opportunity for the -survivors. There is a strangely tense and fearful competition for the -bodies of the slain. There had been barely an hour of daylight in which -the ants might seek for provender, yet in that little time the freshly -killed beetle had been found and was being skilfully and carefully -exploited. When the body of one of the larger insects fell to the -ground, there was a mighty rush, a fierce race, among all the tribes of -scavengers to see who should be first. - -Usually the ants had come upon the scene and were inquisitively -exploring the carcass long before even the flesh-flies had arrived, who -dropped their living maggots upon the creature. The blue-bottles came -still later, to daub their masses of white eggs about the delicate -membranes of the eye. - -And while all the preceding scavengers were at work, furtive beetles and -tiny insects burrowed below the reeking body to attack the highly -scented flesh from a fresh angle. - -Each working independently of the others, they commonly appeared in the -order of the delicacy of the sense which could lead them to a source of -food, though accident could and sometimes did afford one group of -workers in putrescence an advantage over the others. - -Thus, sometimes a blue-bottle anticipated even the eager ants, and again -the very flesh-flies dropped their squirming offspring upon a limp form -that was already being undermined by white-bellied things working in the -darkness below the body. - -Burl grimaced at the busy ants and buzzing flies, and disappeared into -the mushroom forest. Here for a long time he moved cautiously and -silently through the aisles of tangled stalks and the spongy, round -heads of the fungoids. Now and then he saw one of the red toadstools, -and made a wide detour around it. Twice they burst within his sight, -circumscribed as his vision was by the toadstools among which he was -traveling. - -Each time he ran hastily to put as much distance as possible between -himself and the deadly red dust. He traveled for an hour or more, -looking constantly for familiar landmarks that might guide him to his -tribe. He knew that if he came upon any place he had seen while with his -tribe he could follow the path they had traveled and in time rejoin -them. - -For many hours he went on, alert for signs of danger. He was quite -ignorant of the fact that there were such things as points of the -compass, and though he had a distinct notion that he was not moving in a -straight line, he did not realize that he was actually moving in a -colossal half-circle. After walking steadily for nearly four hours he -was no more than three miles in a direct line from his starting-point. -As it happened, his uncertainty of direction was fortunate. - -The night before the tribe had been feeding happily upon one of the -immense edible mushrooms, when they heard Burl's abruptly changing cry. -It had begun as a shout of triumph, and ended as a scream of fear. Then -they heard hurried wing-beats as a creature rose into the air in a -scurry of desperation. The throbbing of huge wings ended in a heavy -fall, followed by another flight. - -Velvety darkness masked the sky, and the tribesmen could only stare off -into the blackness, where their leader had vanished, and begin to -tremble, wondering what they should do in a strange country with no bold -chief to guide them. - -He was the first man to whom the tribe had ever offered allegiance, but -their submission had been all the more complete for that fact, and his -loss was the more appalling. - -Burl had mistaken their lack of timidity. He had thought it -independence, and indifference to him. As a matter of fact, it was -security because the tribe felt safe under his tutelage. Now that he had -vanished, and in a fashion that seemed to mean his death, their old -fears returned to them reenforced by the strangeness of their -surroundings. - -They huddled together and whispered their fright to one another, -listening the while in panic-stricken apprehension for signs of danger. -The tribesmen visualized Burl caught in fiercely toothed limbs, being -rent and torn in mid air by horny, insatiable jaws, his blood falling in -great spurts toward the earth below. They caught a faint, reedy cry, and -shuddered, pressing closer together. - -And so through the long night they waited in trembling silence. Had a -hunting spider appeared among them they would not have lifted a hand to -defend themselves, but would have fled despairingly, would probably have -scattered and lost touch with one another, and spent the remainder of -their lives as solitary fugitives, snatching fear-ridden rest in strange -hiding-places. - -But day came again, and they looked into each other's eyes, reading in -each the selfsame panic and fear. Saya was probably the most pitiful of -all the group. Burl was to have been her mate, and her face was white -and drawn beyond that of any of the rest of the tribefolk. - -With the day, they did not move, but remained clustered about the huge -mushroom on which they had been feeding the night before. They spoke in -hushed and fearful tones, huddled together, searching all the horizon -for insect enemies. Saya would not eat, but sat still, staring before -her in unseeing indifference. Burl was dead. - -A hundred yards from where they crouched a red mushroom glistened in the -pale light of the new day. Its tough skin was taut and bulging, -resisting the pressure of the spores within. But slowly, as the morning -wore on, some of the moisture that had kept the skin soft and flaccid -during the night evaporated. - -The skin had a strong tendency to contract, like green leather when -drying. The spores within it strove to expand. The opposing forces -produced a tension that grew greater and greater as more and more of the -moisture was absorbed by the air. At last the skin could hold no longer. - -With a ripping sound that could be heard for hundreds of feet, the tough -wrapping split and tore across its top, and with a hollow, booming noise -the compressed mass of deadly spores rushed into the air, making a -pyramidal cloud of brown-red dust some sixty feet in height. - -The tribesmen quivered at the noise and faced the dust cloud for a -fleeting instant, then ran pell-mell to escape the slowly moving tide of -death as the almost imperceptible breeze wafted it slowly toward them. -Men and women, boys and girls, they fled in a mad rush from the deadly -stuff, not pausing to see that even as it advanced it settled slowly to -the ground, nor stopping to observe its path that they might step aside -and let it go safely by. - -Saya fled with the rest, but without their extreme panic. She fled -because the others had done so, and ran more carelessly, struggling with -a half-formed idea that it did not particularly matter whether she were -caught or not. - -She fell slightly behind the others, without being noticed. Then quite -abruptly a stone turned under her foot, and she fell headlong, striking -her head violently against a second stone. Then she lay quite still -while the red cloud billowed slowly toward her, drifting gently in the -faint, hardly perceptible breeze. - -It drew nearer and nearer, settling slowly, but still a huge and -menacing mass of deadly dust. It gradually flattened out, too, so that -though it had been a rounded cone at first, it flowed over the minor -inequalities of the ground as a huge and tenuous leech might have -crawled, sucking from all breathing creatures the life they had within -them. - -A hundred and fifty yards away, a hundred yards away, then only fifty -yards away. From where Saya lay unconscious on the earth, eddies within -the moving mass could be seen, and the edges took on a striated -appearance, telling of the curling of the dust wreaths in the larger -mass of deadly powder. - -The deliberate advance kept on, seeming almost purposeful. It would have -seemed possible to draw from the unhurried, menacing movement of the -poisonous stuff that some malign intelligence was concealed in it, that -it was, in fact, a living creature. But when the misty edges of the -cloud were no more than twenty-five yards from Saya's prostrate body a -breeze from one side sprang up--a vagrant, fitful little breeze, that -first halted the red cloud and threw it into confusion and then drove it -to one side, so that it passed Saya without harming her, though a single -trailing wisp of dark-red mist floated very close to her. - -Then for a time Saya lay still indeed, only her breast rising and -falling gently with faint and irregular breaths. Her head had struck a -sharp-edged stone in her fall, and a tiny pool of sticky red had -gathered from the wound. - -Perhaps thirty feet from where she lay, three small toadstools grew in a -little clump, their bases so close together that they seemed but one. -From between two of them, however, just where they parted, twin tufts of -reddish threads appeared, twinkling back and forth, and in and out. As -if they had given some reassuring sign, two slender antennæ followed, -then bulging eyes, and then a small black body which had bright-red -scalloped markings upon the wing-cases. - -It was a tiny beetle no more than eight inches long--a burying-beetle. -It drew near Saya's body and clambered upon her, explored the ground by -her side, moving all the time in feverish haste, and at last dived into -the ground beneath her shoulder, casting back a little shower of hastily -dug earth as it disappeared. - -Ten minutes later another similar insect appeared, and upon the heels of -the second a third. Each of them made the same hasty examination, and -each dived under the still form. Presently the earth seemed to billow at -a spot along Saya's side, then at another. Perhaps ten minutes after the -arrival of the third beetle a little rampart had reared itself all about -Saya's body, precisely following the outline of her form. Then her body -moved slightly, in a number of tiny jerks, and seemed to settle perhaps -half an inch into the ground. - -The burying beetles were of those who exploited the bodies of the -fallen. Working from below, they excavated the earth from the under side -of such prizes as they came upon, then turned upon their backs and -thrust with their legs, jerking the body so it sank into the shallow -excavation they had prepared. - -The process would be repeated until at last the whole of the gift of -fortune had sunk below the surrounding surface and the loosened earth -fell in upon the top, thus completing the inhumation. - -Then in the darkness the beetles would feast and rear their young, -gorging upon the plentiful supply of succulent foodstuff they had hidden -from jealous fellow scavengers above them. - -But Saya was alive. Thirty thousand years before, when scientists -examined into the habits of the burying-beetles, or the sexton-beetles, -they had declared that fresh meat or living meat would not be touched. -They based their statement solely upon the fact that the insects (then -tiny creatures indeed) did not appear until the trap-meat placed by the -investigators had remained untouched for days. - -Conditions had changed in thirty thousand years. The ever-present ants -and the sharp-eyed flies were keen rivals of the brightly arrayed -beetles. Usually the tribes of creatures who worked in the darkness -below ground came after the ants had taken their toll, and the flies -sipped daintily. - -When Saya fell unconscious upon the ground, however, it was the one -accident that caused the burying-beetle to find her first, before the -ants had come to tear the flesh from her slender, soft-skinned body. She -breathed gently and irregularly, her face drawn with the sorrow of the -night before, while desperately hurrying beetles swarmed beneath her -body, channeling away the earth so that she would sink lower and lower -into the ground. - -An inch, and a long wait. Then she sank slowly a second inch. The -bright-red tufts of thread appeared again, and a beetle made his way to -the open air. He moved hastily about, inspecting the progress of the -work. He dived below again. Another inch, and after a long time another -inch was excavated. - -Burl stepped out from a group of over-shadowing toadstools and halted. -He cast his eyes over the landscape, and was struck by its familiarity. -It was, in point of fact, very near the spot he had left the night -before, in pursuit of a colossal wounded beetle. - -Burl moved back and forth, trying to account for the sensation of -recognition, and then trying to approximate the place from which he had -last seen it. - -He passed within fifty feet of the spot where Saya lay, now half buried -in the ground. The loose earth cast up about her body had begun to fall -in little rivulets upon her. One of her shoulders was already screened -from view. - -Burl passed on, unseeing. He was puzzling over the direction from which -he had seen the particular section of countryside before him. Perhaps a -little farther on he would come to the place. He hurried a little. In a -moment he recognized his location. There was the great edible mushroom, -half broken away, from which the tribe had been feeding. There were the -mining bee burrows. - -His feet stirred up a fine dust, and he stopped short. A red mushroom -had covered the earth with a thin layer of its impalpable, deadly -powder. Burl understood why the tribe had gone, and a cold sweat came -upon his body. Was Saya safe, or had the whole tribe succumbed to the -poisonous stuff? Had they all, men and women and children, died in -convulsions of gasping strangulation? - -He hurried to retrace his footsteps. There was a fragment of mushrooms -on the ground. Here was a spear, cast away by one of the tribesmen in -his flight. Burl broke into a run. - -The little excavation into which Saya was sinking, inch by inch, was all -of twenty-five feet to the right of the path. Burl dashed on, frantic -with anxiety about the tribe, but most of all about Saya. Saya's body -quivered and sank a fraction more into the earth. - -Half a dozen little rivulets of dirt were tumbling upon her body now. In -a matter of minutes she would be hidden from view. Burl ran madly past -her, too busy searching the mushroom thickets before him with his eyes -to dream of looking upon the ground. - -Twenty yards from a huge toadstool thicket a noise arrested him sharply. -There was a crashing and breaking of the brittle, spongy growths. Twin -tapering antennæ appeared, and then a monster beetle lurched into the -open space, its horrible, gaping jaws stretched wide. - -It was all of eight feet long, and its body was held up from the ground -by six crooked, saw-toothed limbs. Its huge multiple eyes stared with -machinelike preoccupation at the world. - -It advanced deliberately, with a clanking and clashing as of a hideous -machine. Burl fled on the instant, running as madly away from the beetle -as he had a moment before been running toward it. - -A little depression in the earth was before him. He did not swerve, but -made to leap it. As he shot over it, however, the glint of pink skin -caught his eye, and there was impressed upon his brain with photographic -completeness the picture of Saya, lying limp and helpless, sinking -slowly into the ground, with tiny rills of earth falling down the sides -of the excavation upon her. It seemed to Burl's eye that she quivered -slightly as he saw. - -There was a terrific struggle within Burl. Behind him the colossal -meat-eating beetle. Beneath him Saya, whom he loved. There was certain -death lurching toward him on evilly glittering legs, and there was life -for his race and tribe lying in the shallow pit. - -He turned, aware with a sudden reckless glow that he was throwing away -his life, aware that he was deliberately giving himself over to death, -and stood on the side of the little pit nearest the great beetle, his -puny spear held defiantly at the ready. In his left hand he held just -such a leg as those which bore the living creature toward him. He had -torn it from the body of just such a monster but a few hours ago, a -monster in whose death he had had a share. With a yell of insane -defiance, he flung the fiercely toothed limb at his advancing opponent. - -The sharp teeth cut into the base of one of the beetle's antennæ, and it -ducked clumsily, then seized the missile in its fierce jaws and crushed -it in frenzy of rage. There was meat within it, sweet and juicy meat -that pleased the beetle's palate. - -It forgot the man, standing there, waiting for death. It crunched the -missile that had attacked it, eating the palatable contents of the horny -armor, confusing the blow with the object that had delivered it, and -evidently satisfied that an enemy had been conquered and was being -devoured. A moment later it turned and lumbered off to investigate -another mushroom thicket. - -And Burl turned quickly and dragged Saya's limp form from the grave that -had been prepared for it by the busy insect scavengers. Earth fell from -her shoulders, from her hair, and from the mass of yellow fur about her -middle, and three little beetles with black and red markings scurried in -terrified haste for cover, while Burl bore Saya to a resting-place of -soft mold. - -Burl was an ignorant savage, and to him Saya's deathlike unconsciousness -was like death itself, but dumb misery smote him, and he laid her down -gently, while tears came to his eyes and he called her name again and -again in an agony of grief. - -For an hour he sat there beside her, a man so lately pleased with -himself above all creatures for having slain one huge beetle and put -another to flight, as he would have looked upon it, now a -broken-hearted, little pink-skinned man, weeping like a child, hunched -up and bowed over with sorrow. - -Then Saya slowly opened her eyes and stirred weakly. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -The Forest of Death - - -They were oblivious to everything but each other, Saya resting in still -half-incredulous happiness against Burl's shoulder while he told her in -little, jerky sentences of his pursuit of the colossal flying beetle, of -his search for the tribe, and then his discovery of her apparently -lifeless body. - -When he spoke of the monster that had lurched from the mushroom thicket, -and of the desperation with which he had faced it, Saya pressed close -and looked at him with wondering and wonderful eyes. She could -understand his willingness to die, believing her dead. A little while -before she had felt the same indifference to life. - -A timid, frightened whisper roused them from their absorption, and they -looked up. One of the tribesmen stood upon one foot some distance away, -staring at them, almost convinced that he looked upon the living dead. A -sudden movement on the part of either of them would have sent him in a -panic back into the mushroom forest. Two or three blond heads bobbed and -vanished among the tangled stalks. Wide and astonished eyes gazed at the -two they had believed the prey of malignant creatures. - -The tribe had come slowly back to the mushroom they had been eating, -leaderless, and convinced that Saya had fallen a victim to the deadly -dust. Instead, they found her sitting by the side of their chief, -apparently restored to them in some miraculous fashion. - -Burl spoke, and the pink-skinned people came timorously from their -hiding-places. They approached warily and formed a half-circle before -the seated pair. Burl spoke again, and presently one of the bravest -dared approach and touch him. Instantly a babble of the crude and labial -language spoken by the tribe broke out. Awed questions and exclamations -of thankfulness, then curious interrogations filled the air. - -Burl, for once, showed some common sense. Instead of telling them in his -usual vainglorious fashion of the adventures he had undergone, he merely -cast down the two long and tapering antennæ from the flying beetle that -he had torn from its dead body. They looked at them, and recognized -their origin. Amazement and admiration showed upon their faces. Then -Burl rose and abruptly ordered two of the men to make a chair of their -hands for Saya. She was weak from the effects of the blow she had -received. The two men humbly advanced and did as they were bid. - -Then the march was taken up again, more slowly than before, because of -Saya as a burden, but none the less steadily. Burl led his people across -the country, marching in advance and with every nerve alert for signs of -danger, but with more confidence and less timidity than he had ever -displayed before. - -All that noontime and that afternoon they filed steadily along, the -tribesfolk keeping in a compact group close behind Burl. The man who had -thrown away his spear had recovered it on an order from Burl, and the -little party fairly bristled with weapons, though Burl knew well that -they were liable to be cast away as impediments if flight should be -necessary. - -He was determined that his people should learn to fight the great -creatures about them, instead of depending upon their legs for escape. -He had led them in an attack upon great slugs, but they were defenseless -creatures, incapable of more dangerous maneuvers than spasmodic jerkings -of their great bodies. - -The next time danger should threaten them, and especially if it came -while their new awe of him held good, he was resolved to force them to -join him in fighting it. - -He had not long to wait for an opportunity to strengthen the spirit of -his followers by a successful battle. The clouds toward the west were -taking on a dull-red hue, which was the nearest to a sunset that was -ever seen in the world of Burl's experience, when a bumble bee droned -heavily over their heads, making for its hive. - -The little group of people on the ground looked up and saw a scanty load -of pollen packed in the stiff bristles of the insect's hind legs. The -bees of the world had a hard time securing food upon the nearly -flowerless planet, but this one had evidently made a find. Its crop was -nearly filled with hard-gathered, viscous honey destined for the hival -store. - -It sped onward, heavily, its almost transparent wings mere blurs in the -air from the rapidity of their vibration. Burl saw its many-faceted eyes -staring before it in worried preoccupation as it soared in laborious -speed over his head, some fifty feet up. - -He dropped his glance, and then his eyes lighted with excitement. A -slender-bodied wasp was shooting upward from an ambush it had found in a -thicket of toadstools. It darted swiftly and gracefully upon the bee, -which swerved and tried to flee. The droning buzz of the bee's wings -rose to a higher note as it strove to increase its speed. The more -delicately formed wasp headed the clumsier insect back. - -The bee turned again and fled in terror. Each of the insects was -slightly more than four feet in length, but the bee was much the -heavier, and it could not attain the speed of which the wasp was -capable. - -The graceful form of the hunting insect rapidly overhauled its fleeing -prey, and the wasp dashed in and closed with the bee at a point almost -over the heads of the tribesmen. In a clawing, biting tangle of -thrashing, transparent wings and black bodies, the two creatures tumbled -to the earth. They fell perhaps thirty yards from where Burl stood -watching. - -Over and over the two insects rolled, now one uppermost, and then the -other. The bee was struggling desperately to insert her sting in the -more supple body of her adversary. She writhed and twisted, fighting -with jaw and mandible, wing and claw. - -The wasp was uppermost, and the bee lay on her back, fighting in -panic-stricken desperation. The wasp saw an opening, her jaws darted in, -and there was an instant of confusion. Then suddenly the bee, dazed, was -upright with the wasp upon her. A movement too quick for the eye to -follow--and the bee collapsed. The wasp had bitten her in the neck where -all the nerve-cords passed, and the bee was dead. - -Burl waited a moment more, aflame with excitement. He knew, as did all -the tribefolk, what might happen next. When he saw the second act of the -tragedy well begun, Burl snapped quick and harsh orders to his -spear-armed men, and they followed him in a wavering line, their weapons -tightly clutched. - -Knowing the habits of the insects as they were forced to know them, they -knew that the venture was one of the least dangerous they could -undertake with fighting creatures the size of the wasp, but the idea of -attacking the great creatures whose sharp stings could annihilate any of -them with a touch, the mere thought of taking the initiative was -appalling. Had their awe of Burl been less complete they would not have -dreamed of following him. - -The second act of the tragedy had begun. The bee had been slain by the -wasp, a carnivorous insect normally, but the wasp knew that sweet honey -was concealed in the half-filled crop of the bee. Had the bee arrived -safely at the hive, the sweet and sticky liquid would have been -disgorged and added to the hival store. Now, though the bee's journey -was ended and its flesh was to be crunched and devoured by the wasp, the -honey was the first object of the pirate's solicitude.[1] The dead -insect was rolled over upon its back, and with eager haste the slayer -began to exploit the body. - -[Footnote 1: The pirate is the _Philanthus Apivorus_.] - -Burl and his men were creeping nearer, but with a gesture Burl bade them -halt for a moment. The wasp's first move was to force the disgorgement -of the honey from the bee's crop, and with feverish eagerness it pressed -upon the limp body until the shining, sticky liquid appeared. Then the -wasp began in ghoulish ecstasy to lick up the sweet stuff, utterly -absorbed in the feast. - -Many thousands of years before, the absorption of the then tiny insect -had been noticed when engaged in a similar feat, and it was recorded in -books moldered into dust long ages before Burl's birth that its rapture -was so great that it had been known to fall a victim to a second bandit -while engaged in the horrible banquet. - -Burl had never read the books, but he had been told that the pirate -would continue its feast even though seized by a greater enemy, unable -to tear itself from the nectar gathered by the creature it had slain. - -The tribesmen waited until the wasp had begun its orgy, licking up the -toothsome stuff disgorged by its dead prey. It ate in gluttonous haste, -blind to all sights, deaf to all sounds, able to think of nothing, -conceive of nothing, but the delights of the liquid it was devouring. - -At a signal the tribesmen darted forward. They wavered when near the -slender-waisted gourmet, however, and Burl was the first to thrust his -spear with all his strength into the thinly armored body. - -Then the others took courage. A short, horny spear penetrated the very -vitals of the wasp. A club fell with terrific impact upon the slender -waist. There was a crackling, and the long, spidery limbs quivered and -writhed, while the tribesmen fell back in fear, but without cause. - -Burl struck again, and the wasp fell into two writhing halves, helpless -for harm. The pink-skinned men danced in triumph, and the women and -children ventured near, delighted. - -Only Burl noticed that even as the wasp was dying, sundered and pierced -with spears, its slender tongue licked out in one last, ecstatic taste -of the nectar that had been its undoing. - -Burdened with the pollen-covered legs of the giant bee, and filled with -the meat from choice portions of the wasp's muscular limbs, the tribe -resumed its journey. This time Burl had men behind him, still timid, -still prone to flee at the slightest alarm, but infinitely more -dependable than they had been before. - -They had attacked and slain a wasp whose sting would have killed any of -them. They had done battle under the leadership of Burl, whose spear had -struck the first blow. Henceforth they were sharers, in a mild way, of -his transcendent glory, and henceforth they were more like followers of -a mighty chief and less like spineless worshipers of a demigod whose -feats they were too timid to emulate. - -That night they hid among a group of giant puff-balls, feasting on the -loads of meat they had carried thus far with them. Burl watched them now -without jealousy of their good spirits. He and Saya sat a little apart, -happy to be near each other, speaking in low tones. After a time -darkness fell, and the tribefolk became shapeless bodies speaking in -voices that grew drowsy and were silent. The black forms of the -toadstool heads and huge puff-balls were but darker against a dark sky. - -The nightly rain began to fall, drop by drop, drop by drop, upon the -damp and humid earth. Only Burl remained awake for a little while, and -his last waking thought was of pride, disinterested pride. He had the -first reward of the ruler, gratification in the greatness of his people. - -The red mushrooms had continued to show their glistening heads, though -Burl thought they were less numerous than in the territory from which -the tribe had fled. All along the route, now to the right, now to the -left, they had burst and sent their masses of deadly dust into the air. - -Many times the tribefolk had been forced to make a detour to avoid a -slowly spreading cloud of death-dealing spores. Once or twice their -escapes had been narrow indeed, but so far there had been no deaths. - -Burl had observed that the mushrooms normally burst only in the daytime, -and for a while had thought of causing his followers to do their -journeying in the night. Only the obvious disadvantages of such a -course--the difficulty of discovering food, and the prowling spiders -that roamed in the darkness--had prevented him. The idea still stayed -with him, however, and two days after the fight with the hunting wasp he -put it in practise. - -The tribe came to the top of a small rise in the ground. For an hour -they had been marching and counter-marching to avoid the suddenly -appearing clouds of dust. Once they had been nearly hemmed in, and only -by mad sprinting did they escape when three of the dull-red clouds -seemed to flow together, closing three sides of a circle. - -They came to the little hillock and halted. Before them stretched a -plain all of four miles wide, colored a brownish brick-red by masses of -mushrooms. They had seen mushroom forests before, and knew of the -dangers they presented, but there was none so deadly as the plain before -them. To right and left it stretched as far as the eye could see, but -far away on its farther edge Burl caught a glimpse of flowing water. - -Over the plain itself a dull-red haze seemed to float. It was nothing -more or less than a cloud of the deadly spores, dispersed and -indefinite, constantly replenished by the freshly bursting red -mushrooms. - -While the people stood and watched a dozen thick columns of dust rose -into the air from scattered points here and there upon the plain, -settling slowly again, but leaving behind them enough of their finely -divided substance to keep the thin red haze over the whole plain in its -original, deadly state. - -Burl had seen single red mushrooms before, and even small thickets of -two and three, but here was a plain of millions, literally millions upon -millions of the malignant growths. Here was one fungoid forest through -whose aisles no monster beetles stalked, and above whose shadowed depths -no brightly colored butterflies fluttered in joyous abandon. There were -no loud-voiced crickets singing in its hiding-places, nor bodies of -eagerly foraging ants searching inquisitively for bits of food. It was a -forest of death, still and silent, quiet and motionless save for the -sullen columns of red dust that ever and again shot upward from the torn -and ragged envelope of the bursting mushroom. - -Burl and his people watched in wonderment and dismay, but presently a -high resolve came to Burl. The mushrooms never burst at night, and the -deadly dust from a subsided cloud was not deadly in the morning. As a -matter of fact the rain that fell every night made it no more than a -sodden, thin film of reddish mud by daybreak, mud which dried and caked. - -Burl did not know what occurred, but knew the result. At night or in -early morning, the danger from the red mushrooms was slight. Therefore -he would lead his people through the very jaws of death that night. He -would lead them through the deadly aisles of this, the forest of -malignant growths, the place of lurking annihilation. - -It was an act of desperation, and the resolution to carry it through -left Burl in a state of mind that kept him from observing one thing that -would have ended all the struggles of his tribe at once. Perhaps a -quarter-mile from the edge of the red forest three or four giant -cabbages grew, thrusting their colossal leaves upward toward the sky. - -And on the cabbages a dozen lazy slugs fed leisurely, ignoring -completely the red haze that was never far from them and sometimes -covered them. Burl saw them, but the oddity of their immunity from the -effects of the red dust did not strike him. He was fighting to keep his -resolution intact. If he had only realized the significance of what he -saw, however-- - -The slugs were covered with a thick soft fur. The tribespeople wore -garments of that same material. The fur protected the slugs, and could -have made the tribe immune to the deadly red dust if they had only -known. The slugs breathed through a row of tiny holes upon their backs, -as the mature insects breathed through holes upon the bottom of their -abdomens, and the soft fur formed a mat of felt which arrested the fine -particles of deadly dust, while allowing the pure air to pass through. -It formed, in effect, a natural gas-mask which the tribesmen should have -adopted, but which they did not discover or invent. - -The remainder of that day they waited in a curious mixture of resolve -and fear. The tribe was rapidly reaching a point where it would follow -Burl over a thousand-foot cliff, and it needed some such blind -confidence to make them prepare to go through the forest of the million -deadly mushrooms. - -The waiting was a strain, but the actual journey was a nightmare. Burl -knew that the toadstools did not burst of themselves during the night, -but he knew that the beetle on which he had taken his involuntary ride -had crashed against one in the darkness, and that the fatal dust had -poured out. He warned his people to be cautious, and led them down the -slope of the hill through the blackness. - -For hours they stumbled on in utter darkness, with the pungent, acrid -odor of the red growths constantly in their nostrils. They put out their -hands and touched the flabby, damp stalks of the monstrous things. They -stumbled and staggered against the leathery skins of the malignant -fungoids. - -Death was all about them. At no time during all the dark hours of the -night was there a moment when they could not reach out their hands and -touch a fungus growth that might burst at their touch and fill the air -with poisonous dust, so that all of them would die in gasping, choking -agony. - -And worst of all, before half an hour was past they had lost all sense -of direction, so that they stumbled on blindly through the utter -blackness, not knowing whether they were headed toward the river that -might be their salvation or were wandering hopelessly deeper and deeper -into the silent depths of the forest of strangled things. - -When day came again and the mushrooms sent their columns of fatal dust -into the air would they gasp and fight for breath in the red haze that -would float like a tenuous cloud above the forest? Would they breathe in -flames of firelike torment and die slowly, or would the red dust be -merciful and slay them quickly? - -They felt their way like blind folk, devoid of hope and curiously -unafraid. Only their hearts were like heavy, cold weights in their -breasts, and they shouldered aside the swollen sacs of the red mushrooms -with a singular apathy as they followed Burl slowly through the midst of -death. - -Many times in their journeying they knew that dead creatures were near -by--moths, perhaps, that had blundered into a distended growth which -had burst upon the impact and killed the thing that had touched it. - -No busy insect scavengers ventured into this plain of silence to salvage -the bodies, however. The red haze preserved the sanctuary of malignance -inviolate. During the day no creature might hope to approach its red -aisles and dust-carpeted clearings, and at night the slow-dropping rain -fell only upon the rounded heads of the mushrooms. - -In all the space of the forest, only the little band of hopeless people, -plodding on behind Burl in the velvet blackness, callously rubbed -shoulders with death in the form of the red and glistening mushrooms. -Over all the dank expanse of the forest, the only sound was the dripping -of the slow and sodden rainfall that began at nightfall and lasted until -day came again. - -The sky began to grow faintly gray as the sun rose behind the banks of -overhanging clouds. Burl stopped short and uttered what was no more than -a groan. He was in a little circular clearing, and the twisted, -monstrous forms of the deadly mushrooms were all about. There was not -yet enough light for colors to appear, and the hideous, almost obscene -shapes of the loathsome growths on every side showed only as mocking, -leering silhouettes as of malicious demons rejoicing at the coming doom -of the gray-faced, huddled tribefolk. - -Burl stood still, drooping in discouragement upon his spear, the -feathery moth's antennæ bound upon his forehead shadowed darkly against -the graying sky. Soon the mushrooms would begin to burst-- - -Then, suddenly, he lifted his head, encouragement and delight upon his -features. He had heard the ripple of running water. His followers looked -at him with dawning hope. Without a word, Burl began to run, and they -followed him more slowly. His voice came back to them in a shout of -delight. - -Then they, too, broke into a jog-trot. In a moment they had emerged from -the thick tangle of brownish-red stalks and were upon the banks of a -wide and swiftly running river, the same river whose gleam Burl had -caught the day before from the farther side of the mushroom forest. - -Once before Burl had floated down a river upon a mushroom raft. Then his -journey had been involuntary and unlooked for. He had been carried far -from his tribe and far from Saya, and his heart had been filled with -desolation. - -Now he viewed the swiftly running current with eager delight. He cast -his eyes up and down the bank. Here and there the river-bank rose in a -low bluff, and thick shelf-growths stretched out above the water. - -Burl was busy in an instant, stabbing the hard growths with his spear -and striving to wrench them free. The tribesmen stared at him, -uncomprehending, but at an order from him they did likewise. - -Soon a dozen thick masses of firm, light fungus lay upon the shore where -it shelved gently into the water. Burl began to explain what they were -to do, but one or two of the men dared remonstrate, saying humbly that -they were afraid to part from him. If they might embark upon the same -thing with him, they would be safe, but otherwise they were afraid. - -Burl cast an apprehensive glance at the sky. Day was coming rapidly on. -Soon the red mushrooms would begin to shoot their columns of deadly dust -into the air. This was no time to pause and deliberate. Then Saya spoke -softly. - -Burl listened, and made a mighty sacrifice. He took his gorgeous velvet -cloak from his shoulders--it was made from the wing of a great moth--and -tore it into a dozen long, irregular pieces, tearing it along the lines -of the sinews that reinforced it. He planted his spear upright in the -largest piece of shelf-fungus and caused his followers to do likewise, -then fastened the strips of sinew and velvet to his spear-shaft, and -ordered them to do the same to the other spears. - -In a matter of minutes the dozen tiny rafts were bobbing on the water, -clustered about the larger, central bit. Then, one by one, the tribefolk -took their places, and Burl shoved off. - -The agglomeration of cranky, unseaworthy bits of shelf-fungus moved -slowly out from the shore until the current caught it. Burl and Saya sat -upon the central bit, with the other trustful but somewhat frightened -pink-skinned people all about them. And, as they began to move between -the mushroom-lined banks of the river and the mist of the night began to -lift from its surface, far in the interior of the forest of the red -fungoids a column of sullen red leaped into the air. The first of the -malignant growths had cast its cargo of poisonous dust into the -still-humid atmosphere. - -The conelike column spread out and grew thin, but even after it had sunk -into the earth, a reddish taint remained in the air about the place -where it had been. The deadly red haze that hung all through the day -over the red forest was in process of formation. - -But by that time the unstable fungus rafts were far down the river, -bobbing and twirling in the current, with the wide-eyed people upon them -gazing in wonderment at the shores as they glided by. The red mushrooms -grew less numerous upon the banks. Other growths took their places. -Molds and rusts covered the ground as grass had done in ages past. -Mushrooms showed their creamy, rounded heads. Malformed things with -swollen trunks and branches in strange mockery of the trees they had -superseded made their appearance, and once the tribesmen saw the dark -bulk of a hunting spider outlined for a moment upon the bank. - -All the long day they rode upon the current, while the insect life that -had been absent in the neighborhood of the forest of death made its -appearance again. Bees once more droned overhead, and wasps and -dragon-flies. Four-inch mosquitoes made their appearance, to be fought -off by the tribefolk with lusty blows, and glittering beetles and -shining flies, whose bodies glittered with a metallic luster, buzzed and -flew above the water. - -Huge butterflies once more were seen, dancing above the steaming, -festering earth in an apparent ecstasy from the mere fact of existence, -and all the thousand and one forms of insect life that flew and crawled, -and swam and dived, showed themselves to the tribesmen on the raft. - -Water-beetles came lazily to the surface, to snap with sudden energy at -mosquitoes busily laying their eggs in the nearly stagnant water by the -river-banks. Burl pointed out to Saya, with some excitement, their -silver breast-plates that shone as they darted under the water again. -And the shell-covered boats of a thousand caddis-worms floated in the -eddies and back-waters of the stream. Water-boatmen and -whirligigs--almost alone among insects in not having shared in the -general increase of size--danced upon the oily waves. - -The day wore on as the shores flowed by. The tribefolk ate of their -burdens of mushroom and meat, and drank from the fresh water of the -river. Then, when afternoon came, the character of the country about the -stream changed. The banks fell away, and the current slackened. The -shores became indefinite, and the river merged itself into a swamp, a -vast swamp from which a continual muttering came which the tribesmen -heard for a long time before they saw the swamp itself. - -The water seemed to turn dark, as black mud took the place of the clay -that had formed its bed, and slowly, here and there, then more -frequently, floating green things that were stationary, and did not move -with the current, appeared. They were the leaves of water-lilies, that -had remained with the giant cabbages and a very few other plants in the -midst of a fungoid world. The green leaves were twelve feet across, and -any one of them would have floated the whole of Burl's tribe. - -Presently they grew numerous so that the channel was made narrow, and -the mushroom rafts passed between rows of the great leaves, with here -and there a colossal, waxen blossom in which three men might have hidden -and which exhaled an almost over-powering fragrance into the air. - -And the muttering that had been heard far away grew in volume to an -intermittent, incredibly deep bass roar. It seemed to come from the -banks on either side, and actually was the discordant croaking of the -giant frogs, grown to eight feet in length, which lived and loved in the -huge swamp, above which golden butterflies danced in ecstasy, and which -the transcendently beautiful blossoms of the water-lilies filled with -fragrance. - -The swamp was a place of riotous life. The green bodies of the colossal -frogs--perched upon the banks in strange immobility and only opening -their huge mouths to emit their thunderous croakings--the green bodies -of the frogs blended queerly with the vivid color of the water-lily -leaves. Dragon-flies fluttered in their swift and angular flight above -the black and reeking mud. Green-bottles and blue-bottles and a hundred -other species of flies buzzed busily in the misty air, now and then -falling prey to the licking tongues of the frogs. - -Bees droned overhead in flight less preoccupied and worried than -elsewhere flitting from blossom to blossom of the tremendous -water-lilies, loading their crops with honey and the bristles of their -legs with yellow pollen. - -Everywhere over the mushroom-covered world the air was never quite free -from mist, and the steaming exhalations of the pools, but here in the -swamps the atmosphere was so heavily laden with moisture that the bodies -of the tribefolk were covered with glistening droplets, while the wide, -flat water-lily leaves glittered like platters of jewels from the -"steam" that had condensed upon their upper surfaces. - -The air was full of shining bodies and iridescent wings. Myriads of tiny -midges--no more than three or four inches across their wings--danced -above the slow-flowing water. And butterflies of every imaginable shade -and color, from the most delicate lavender to the most vivid carmine, -danced and fluttered, alighting upon the white water-lilies to sip -daintily of their nectar, skimming the surface of the water, enamored of -their brightly tinted reflections. - -And the pink-skinned tribesfolk, floating through this fairyland on -their mushroom rafts, gazed with wide eyes at the beauty about them, and -drew in great breaths of the intoxicating fragrance of the great white -flowers that floated like elfin boats upon the dark water. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -Out of Bondage - - -The mist was heavy and thick, and through it the flying creatures darted -upon their innumerable businesses, visible for an instant in all their -colorful beauty, then melting slowly into indefiniteness as they sped -away. The tribefolk on the clustered rafts watched them as they darted -overhead, and for hours the little squadron of fungoid vessels floated -slowly through the central channel of the marsh. - -The river had split into innumerable currents which meandered -purposelessly through the glistening black mud of the swamp, but after a -long time they seemed to reassemble, and Burl could see what had caused -the vast morass. - -Hills appeared on either side of the stream, which grew higher and -steeper, as if the foothills of a mountain chain. Then Burl turned and -peered before him. - -Rising straight from the low hills, a wall of high mountains rose toward -the sky, and the low-hanging clouds met their rugged flanks but half-way -toward the peaks. To right and left the mountains melted into the -tenuous haze, but ahead they were firm and stalwart, rising and losing -their heights in the cloud-banks. - -They formed a rampart which might have guarded the edge of the world, -and the river flowed more and more rapidly in a deeper and narrower -current toward a cleft between two rugged giants that promised to -swallow the water and all that might swim in its depths or float upon -its surface. - -Tall, steep hills rose from either side of the swift current, their -sides covered with flaking molds of an exotic shade of rose-pink, -mingled here and there with lavender and purple. Rocks, not hidden -beneath a coating of fungus, protruded their angular heads from the -hillsides. The river valley became a gorge, and then little more than a -cañon, with beetling sides that frowned down upon the swift current -running beneath them. - -The small flotilla passed beneath an overhanging cliff, and then shot -out to where the cliffsides drew apart and formed a deep amphitheater, -whose top was hidden in the clouds. - -And across this open space, on cables all of five hundred feet long, a -banded spider had flung its web. It was a monster of its tribe. Its -belly was swollen to a diameter of no less than two yards, and its -outstretched legs would have touched eight points of a ten-yard circle. - -It was hanging motionless in the center of the colossal snare as the -little group of tribefolk passed underneath, and they saw the broad -bands of yellow and black and silver upon its abdomen. They shivered as -their little crafts were swept below. - -Then they came to a little valley, where yellow sand bordered the river -and there was a level space of a hundred yards on either side before the -steep sides of the mountains began their rise. Here the cluster of -mushroom rafts were caught in a little eddy and drawn out of the swiftly -flowing current. Soon there was a soft and yielding jar. The rafts had -grounded. - -Led by Burl, the tribesmen waded ashore, wonderment and excitement in -their hearts. Burl searched all about with his eyes. Toadstools and -mushrooms, rusts and molds, even giant puff-balls grew in the little -valley, but of the deadly red mushrooms he saw none. - -A single bee was buzzing slowly over the tangled thickets of fungoids, -and the loud voice of a cricket came in a deafening burst of sound, -reechoed from the hillsides, but save for the far-flung web of the -banded spider a mile or more away, there was no sign of the deadly -creatures that preyed upon men. - -Burl began to climb the hillside with his tribefolk after him. For an -hour they toiled upward, through confused masses of fungus of almost -every species. Twice they stopped to seize upon edible fungi and break -them into masses they could carry, and once they paused and made a wide -detour around a thicket from which there came a stealthy rustling. - -Burl believed that the rustling was merely the sound of a moth or -butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, but was unwilling to take any -chances. He and his people circled the mushroom thicket and mounted -higher. - -And at last, perhaps six or seven hundred feet above the level of the -river, they came upon a little plateau, going back into a small pocket -in the mountainside. Here they found many of the edible fungoids, and no -less than a dozen of the giant cabbages, on whose broad leaves many -furry grubs were feeding steadily in placid contentment with themselves -and all the world. - -A small stream bubbled up from a tiny basin and ran swiftly across the -plateau, and there were dense thickets of toadstools in which the -tribesmen might find secure hiding-places. The tribe would make itself a -new home here. - -That night they hid among inextricably tangled masses of mushrooms, and -saw with amazement the multitude of creatures that ventured forth in the -darkness. All the valley and the plateau were illumined by the shining -beacons of huge but graceful fireflies, who darted here and there in -delight and--apparently--in security. - -Upon the earth below, also, many tiny lights glowed. The larvæ of the -fireflies crawled slowly but happily over the fungus-covered -mountainside, and great glow-worms clambered upon the shining tops of -the toadstools and rested there, twin broad bands of bluish fire burning -brightly within their translucent bodies. - -They were the females of the firefly race, which never attain to legs -and wings, but crawl always upon the earth, merely enlarged creatures in -the forms of their own larvæ. Moths soared overhead with mighty, -throbbing wing-beats, and all the world seemed a paradise through which -no evil creatures roamed in search of prey. - -And a strange thing came to pass. Soon after darkness fell upon the -earth and the steady drip-drop of the rain began, a musical tinkling -sound was heard which grew in volume, and became a deep-toned roar, -which reechoed and reverberated from the opposite hillsides until it was -like melodious and long-continued thunder. For a long time the people -were puzzled and a little afraid, but Burl took courage and -investigated. - -He emerged from the concealing thicket and peered cautiously about, -seeing nothing. Then he dared move in the direction of the sound, and -the gleam from a dozen fireflies showed him a sheet of water pouring -over a vertical cliff to the river far below. - -The rainfall, gentle as it was, when gathered from all the broad expanse -of the mountainside, made a river of its own, which had scoured out a -bed, and poured down each night to plunge in a smother of spray and foam -through six hundred feet of empty space to the swiftly flowing river in -the center of the valley. It was this sound that had puzzled the -tribefolk, and this sound that lulled them to sleep when Burl at last -came back to allay their fears. - -The next day they explored their new territory with a boldness of which -they would not have been capable a month before. They found a single -great trap-door in the earth, sure sign of the burrow of a monster -spider, and Burl resolved that before many days the spider would be -dealt with. He told his tribesmen so, and they nodded their heads -solemnly instead of shrinking back in terror as they would have done not -long since. - -The tribe was rapidly becoming a group of men, capable of taking the -aggressive. They needed Burl's rash leadership, and for many generations -they would need bold leaders, but they were infinitely superior to the -timid, rabbit-like creatures they had been. They bore spears, and they -had used them. They had seen danger, and had blindly followed Burl -through the forest of strangled things instead of fleeing weakly from -the peril. - -They wore soft, yellow fur about their middles, taken from the bodies of -giant slugs they had slain. They had eaten much meat, and preferred its -succulent taste to the insipid savor of the mushrooms that had once been -their steady diet. They knew the exhilaration of brave adventure--though -they had been forced into adventure by Burl--and they were far more -worthy descendants of their ancestors than those ancestors had known for -many thousand years. - -The exploration of their new domain yielded many wonders and a few -advantages. The tribefolk found that the nearest ant-city was miles -away, and that the small insects would trouble them but rarely. (The -nightly rush of water down the sloping sides of the mountain made it -undesirable for the site of an ant colony.) - -And best of all, back in the little pocket in the mountainside, they -found old and disused cells of hunting wasps. The walls of the pocket -were made of soft sandstone with alternate layers of clay, and the wasps -had found digging easy. - -There were a dozen or more burrows, the shaft of each some four feet in -diameter and going back into the cliff for nearly thirty feet, where -they branched out into a number of cells. Each of the cells had once -held a grub which had grown fat and large upon its hoard of paralyzed -crickets, and then had broken away to the outer world to emerge as a -full-grown wasp. - -Now, however, the laboriously tunneled caverns would furnish a -hiding-place for the tribe of men, a far more secure hiding-place than -the center of the mushroom thickets. And, furthermore, a hiding-place -which, because more permanent, would gradually become a possession for -which the men would fight. - -It is a curious thing that the advancement of a people from a state of -savagery and continual warfare to civilization and continual peace is -not made by the elimination of the causes of strife, but by the addition -of new objects and ideals, in defense of which that same people will -offer battle. - -A single chrysalis was found securely anchored to the underside of a -rock-shelf, and Burl detached it with great labor and carried it into -one of the burrows, though the task was one that was almost beyond his -strength. He desired the butterfly that would emerge for his own use. - -He preempted, too, a solitary burrow a little distant from the others, -and made preparations for an event that was destined to make his plans -wiser and more far-reaching than before. - -His followers were equally busy with their various burrows, gathering -stores of soft growth for their couches, and later--at Burl's -suggestion--even carrying within the dark caverns the radiant heads of -the luminous mushrooms to furnish illumination. The light would be dim, -and after the mushroom had partly dried it would cease, but for a people -utterly ignorant of fire it was far from a bad plan. - -Burl was very happy for that time. His people looked upon him as a -savior, and obeyed his least order without question. He was growing to -repose some measure of trust in them, too, as men who began to have some -glimmerings of the new-found courage that had come to him, and which he -had striven hard to implant in their breasts. - -The tribe had been a formless gathering of people. There were six or -seven men and as many women, and naturally families had come into -being--sometimes after fierce and absurd fights among the men--but the -families were not the sharply distinct agreements they would have been -in a tribe of higher development. - -The marriage was but an agreement, terminable at any time, and the men -had but little of the feeling of parenthood, though the women had all -the fierce maternal instinct of the insects about them. - -These burrows in which the tribefolk were making their homes would put -an end to the casual nature of the marriage bonds. They were homes in -the making--damp and humid burrows without fire or heat, but homes, -nevertheless. The family may come before the home, in the development of -mankind, but it invariably exists when the home has been made. - -The tribe had been upon the plateau for nearly a week when Burl found -that stirrings and strugglings were going on within the huge cocoon he -had laid close beside the burrow he had chosen for his own. He cast -aside all other work, and waited patiently for the thing he knew was -about to happen. He squatted on his haunches beside the huge, oblong -cylinder, his spear in his hand, waiting patiently. From time to time he -nibbled at a bit of edible mushroom. - -Burl had acquired many new traits, among which a little foresight was -most prominent, but he had never conquered the habit of feeling hungry -at any and every time that food was near at hand. He had to wait. He had -food. Therefore, he ate. - -The sound of scrapings came from the closed cocoon, caked upon its outer -side with dirt and mold. The scraping and scratching continued, and -presently a tiny hole showed, which rapidly enlarged. Tiny jaws and a -dry, glazed skin became visible, the skin looking as if it had been -varnished with many coats of brown shellac. Then a malformed head forced -its way through and stopped. - -All motion ceased for a matter of perhaps half an hour, and then the -strange, blind head seemed to become distended, to be swelling. A crack -appeared along its upper part, which lengthened and grew wide. And then -a second head appeared from within the first. - -This head was soft and downy, and a slender proboscis was coiled beneath -its lower edge like the trunk of one of the elephants that had been -extinct for many thousand years. Soft scales and fine hairs alternated -to cover it, and two immense, many-faceted eyes gazed mildly at the -world on which it was looking for the first time. The color of the whole -was purest milky-white. - -Slowly and painfully, assisting itself by slender, colorless legs that -seemed strangely feeble and trembling, a butterfly crawled from the -cocoon. Its wings were folded and lifeless, without substance or color, -but the body was a perfect white. The butterfly moved a little distance -from its cocoon and slowly unfurled its wings. With the action, life -seemed to be pumped into them from some hidden spring in the insect's -body. The slender antennæ spread out and wavered gently in the warm air. -The wings were becoming broad expanses of snowy velvet. - -A trace of eagerness seemed to come into the butterfly's actions. -Somewhere there in the valley sweet food and joyous companions awaited -it. Fluttering above the fungoids of the hillsides, surely there was a -mate with whom the joys of love were to be shared, surely upon those -gigantic patches of green, half hidden in the haze, there would be laid -tiny golden eggs that in time would hatch into small, fat grubs. - -Strength came to the butterfly's limbs. Its wings were spread and -closed with a new assurance. It spread them once more, and raised them -to make the first flight of this new existence in a marvelous world, -full of delights and adventures--Burl struck home with his spear. - -The delicate limbs struggled in agony, the wings fluttered helplessly, -and in a little while the butterfly lay still upon the fungus-carpeted -earth, and Burl leaned over to strip away the great wings of snow-white -velvet, to sever the long and slender antennæ, and then to call his -tribesmen and bid them share in the food he had for them. - -And there was a feast that afternoon. The tribesmen sat about the white -carcass, cracking open the delicate limbs for the meat within them, and -Burl made sure that Saya secured the choicest bits. The tribesmen were -happy. Then one of the children of the tribe stretched a hand aloft and -pointed up the mountainside. - -Coming slowly down the slanting earth was a long, narrow file of living -animals. For a time the file seemed to be but one creature, but Burl's -keen eyes soon saw that there were many. They were caterpillars, each -one perhaps ten feet long, each with a tiny black head armed with sharp -jaws, and with dull-red fur upon their backs. The rear of the procession -was lost in the mist of the low-hanging cloud-banks that covered the -mountainside some two thousand feet above the plateau, but the foremost -was no more than three hundred yards away. - -Slowly and solemnly the procession came on, the black head of the second -touching the rear of the first, and the head of the third touching the -rear of the second. In faultless alignment, without intervals, they -moved steadily down the slanting side of the mountain. - -Save the first, they seemed absorbed in maintaining their perfect -formation, but the leader constantly rose upon his hinder half and waved -the fore part of his body in the air, first to the right and then to the -left, as if searching out the path he would follow. - -The tribefolk watched in amazement mingled with terror. Only Burl was -calm. He had never seen a slug that meant danger to man, and he reasoned -that these were at any rate moving slowly so that they could be -distanced by the fleeter-footed human beings, but he also meant to be -cautious. - -The slow march kept on. The rear of the procession of caterpillars -emerged from the cloud-bank, and Burl saw that a shining white line was -left behind them. No less than eighty great caterpillars clad in white -and dingy red were solemnly moving down the mountainside, leaving a path -of shining silk behind them. Head to tail, in single file, they had no -eyes or ears for anything but their procession. - -The leader reached the plateau, and turned. He came to the cluster of -giant cabbages, and ignored them. He came to a thicket of mushrooms, and -passed through it, followed by his devoted band. Then he came to an open -space where the earth was soft and sandy, where sandstone had weathered -and made a great heap of easily moved earth. - -The leading caterpillar halted, and began to burrow experimentally in -the ground. The result pleased him, and some signal seemed to pass -along the eight-hundred-foot line of creatures. The leader began to dig -with feet and jaws, working furiously to cover himself completely with -the soft earth. Those immediately behind him abandoned their formation, -and pressed forward in haste. Those still farther back moved more -hurriedly. - -All, when they reached the spot selected by the leader, abandoned any -attempt to keep to their line, and hastened to find an unoccupied spot -in the open space in which to bury themselves. - -For perhaps half an hour the clearing was the scene of intense activity, -incredible activity. Huge, ten-foot bodies burrowed desperately in the -whitish earth, digging frantically to cover themselves. - -After the half-hour, however, the last of the caterpillars had vanished. -Only an occasional movement of the earth from the struggle of a buried -creature to bury itself still deeper, and the freshly turned surface -showed that beneath the clearing on the plateau eighty great slugs were -preparing themselves for the sleep of metamorphosis. The piled-up earth -and the broad, white band of silk, leading back up the hillside until it -became lost in the clouds, alone remained to tell of the visitation. - -The tribesmen had watched in amazement. They had never seen these -creatures before, but they knew, of course, why they had entombed -themselves. Had they known what the scientists of thirty thousand years -before had written in weighty and dull books, they would have deduced -from the appearance of the processionary caterpillars--or -pine-caterpillars--that somewhere above the banks of clouds there were -growing trees and sunlight, that a moon shone down, and stars twinkled -from the blue vault of a cloudless sky. - -But the tribesmen did not know. They only knew that there, beneath the -soft earth, was a mighty store of food for them when they cared to dig -for it, that their provisions for many months were secure, and that -Burl, their leader, was a great and mighty man for having led them to -this land of safety and plenty. - -Burl read their emotions in their eyes, but better than their amazement -and wonderment was a glance that had nothing whatever to do with his -leadership of the tribe. And then Burl rose, and took the two -snowy-white velvet cloaks from the wings of the white butterfly. One of -them he flung about his own shoulders, and the other he flung about -Saya. And then those two stood up before the wide-eyed tribesmen, and -Burl spoke: - -"This is my mate, and my food is her food, and her wrath is my wrath. My -burrow is her burrow, and her sorrow, my sorrow. - -"Men whom I have led to this land of plenty, hear me. As ye obey my -words, see to it that the words of Saya are obeyed likewise, for my -spear will loose the life from any man who angers her. Know that as I am -great beyond all other men, so Saya is great beyond all other women, for -I say it, and it is so." - -And he drew Saya toward him, trembling slightly, and put his arm about -her waist before all the tribe, and the tribesmen muttered in -acquiescent whispers that what Burl said was true, as they had already -known. - -Then, while the pink-skinned men feasted on the meat Burl had provided -for them, he and Saya went toward the burrow he had made ready. It was -not like the other burrows, being set apart from them, and its entrance -was bordered on either side by mushrooms as black as night. All about -the entrance the black mushrooms clustered, a strange species that grew -large and scattered its spores abroad and then of its own accord melted -into an inky liquid that flowed away, sinking slowly into the ground. - -In a little hollow below the opening of the burrow an inky pool had -gathered, which reflected the gray clouds above and the shapes of the -mushrooms that overhung its edges. - -Burl and Saya made their way toward the burrow in silence, a picturesque -couple against the black background of the sable mushrooms and the earth -made dark by the inky liquid. Both of their figures were swathed in -cloaks of unsmirched whiteness and wondrous softness, and bound to -Burl's forehead were the feathery, lacelike antenna of a great moth, -making flowing plumes of purest gold. His spear seemed cast from -bronze, and he was a proud figure as he led Saya past the black pool and -to the doorway of their home. - -They sat there, watching, while the darkness came on and the moths and -fireflies emerged to dance in the night, and listened when the rain -began its slow, deliberate dripping from the heavy clouds above. -Presently a gentle rumbling began--the accumulation of the rain from all -the mountainside forming a torrent that would pour in a six-hundred-foot -drop to the river far below. - -The sound of the rushing water grew louder, and was echoed back from the -cliffs on the other side of the valley. The fireflies danced like fairy -lights in the chasm, and all the creatures of the night winged their way -aloft to join in the ecstasy of life and love. - -And then, when darkness was complete, and only the fitful gleams of the -huge fireflies were reflected from the still surface of the black pool -beneath their feet, Burl reached out his hand to Saya, sitting beside -him in the darkness. She yielded shyly, and her soft, warm hand found -his in the obscurity. And Burl bent over and kissed her on the lips. - - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Dust, by Murray Leinster - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DUST *** - -***** This file should be named 41586-8.txt or 41586-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/1/5/8/41586/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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