She was terrified that she might provoke its charge. She moved a little away, and it moved a little toward her. She ran, shouting, toward it, but it did not retreat. She saw it gather its hind legs, like springs, ready to leap.
She stood still, terrified.
It hesitated, and lay down, tail slashing, watching her.
She looked about. It could be upon her before she could climb a tree. She sensed that it would charge when she turned her back. And, too, she knew, a tree would not be likely to much protect her. It was a far more swift, expert climber than she. If she were already in a tree, and had perhaps a heavy branch, she might perhaps, striking and thrusting, be able to keep it away, as it tried to approach, scrambling after her, but she was in no such position, and had no such implement.
The beast, eyes blazing, snarling, crept toward her.
Hamilton began to back away.
She wanted to turn and flee, but she knew that it, bounding and leaping, would be on her in a matter of seconds.
Hamilton backed into a grassy clearing, moving back, step by step. Her eyes were wide. Her hand was before her mouth.
The beast, creeping, eyes blazing, every muscle of it excited, tail switching, followed her.
Hamilton tripped over a root and, crying out with misery, fell.
In that instant the leopard charged. In less than the time it took Hamilton to see it clearly it was across the clearing and, snarling, leaping toward her. She saw the heavy shaft, not realizing at the time what it was, strike the beast in its leap and saw the flailing paws, claws exposed, striking toward her. Another body leaped over hers and she cried out in fear and, her weight on the palms of her hands, saw the leopard biting at the shaft protruding from his side, and the other shape, human, but bestial, ferocious, like nothing she had ever seen that was manlike, hurl itself on the spotted beast, a knife of stone in its hand. He clung to its back, one arm about its throat, rolling with the animal, jabbing and pulling the knife again and again across the white, furred throat. The great, clawed hind feet raked wildly but could not find their enemy. The blood flooded from its lungs, sputtering out like hot red mud, and then the blood, no longer flowing from its mouth, burst from its throat and the assailant, his fist and knife red to the wrist and hilt, drew his hand from the beast’s body.
The beast then lay at his feet, the arterial blood throbbing out, a pulsating glot to each beat of the animal’s heart. To Brenda’s horror the assailant then knelt beside the beast and, catching its blood in his hands, held it to his mouth, drinking. Then the glots became smaller, and their expulsions weaker, as the heart slowed, and then stopped. The assailant, dipping his finger in the throat of the animal, then drew signs on his own body with the blood, luck signs and courage signs and, among them, the sign of the Men.
Tree rose from beside the beast and looked down at the lovely naked female on the grass, whom he had saved.
Brenda Hamilton felt her ankles tied tightly together. Her hands were left free. She did not try to free her ankles.
Tree lifted the leopard.
Hamilton was indescribably thrilled, for what reason she knew not, to see that the stone. tip of the spear had emerged, inches of it, from the right side of the leopard. She could scarcely conceive of the incredible strength of such a cast.
Tree, placing the butt of the spear on the ground, forced the shaft through the leopard completely, thus freeing the weapon and protecting the bindings which fastened the long stone point to the wood.
Then, spear in hand, he stood over her. He was breathing heavily. She had seen him drink the blood of the leopard. And its blood, too, in strange signs, he wore on his body.
Her ankles were bound. She could not run. She lay at his mercy.
She could not even thank him for having saved her life. She only hoped that he would not kill her. She could not meet his eyes. Such a man, so mighty, so frightening, terrified her. She knew she would do whatever such a man commanded her, unquestioningly, even eagerly.
She dared to look up, to look into his eyes. Never had she felt so helpless, so much a mere female.
Quickly she looked down at the grass.
How miserable she was. She had been caught.
He went to the leopard and began to gut the beast, saving meat and skin, the head and claws.
When he had finished he untied her ankles, and gestured that she should stand.
When she did so he put the leopard over her shoulders. It was heavy, even bled and gutted. She felt the stickiness of bloody hair on her back, and the softness of the fur, and the heavy paws, with their claws, limp and weighty, touch her body.
She looked again into his eyes. She suddenly realized she was a runaway slave. She looked down again. She knew she would be beaten.
He then turned away and she, carrying the carcass of the leopard, followed him.
She understood then only too well, though she did not understand how it could be, that such men could follow her like dogs, that they might pick up her trail and, with ease, when they wished, pursue and retake her. “There is no escape for me,” she whispered to herself. “There is no escape.” And too she had learned that the primeval forests would offer her small refuge. She looked about herself now in terror, for the first time better understanding the ferocities and perils of her environment. Within twenty-four hours of her escape she had nearly fallen to a leopard. Had it not been for the intervention of the hunter she would, by now, have been half eaten. A lone female in these times, she realized, had need of the protection of a man. Without the protection of men she could not survive. The choice was simple for the female. Either serve men on their own terms or die.
Staggering under the burden of the leopard, Brenda Hamilton, the slave, followed the hunter back to the shelters.
Brenda Hamilton scrambled to the back of the cave. She put her cheek against it, the palms of her hands. It was rock. She could go no further.
She did not look over her shoulder.
She knew he crouched in the entrance, the switch in his hand.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. “I’m sorry I ran away. I will not do it again!”
He, of course, could not understand the strange noises she made, not of the language of the Men, nor, if he could have understood, would he have listened.
She was a girl to be disciplined.
Brenda Hamilton’s fingernails scratched at the rock. The cave, for a full day now, twenty-four hours now, had been her prison. The entrance, for the caves, was a large one, though it had appeared much smaller from far below. It was some four feet in height and three feet wide, irregular. Outside it was a narrow ledge, not more than two feet in width. The fall from the ledge to the valley below, Brenda Hamilton had seen in terror, was better than some one hundred and seventy-five feet, approximately that of a seventeen-story building. Above and below the cave, and to the sides, the cliff was sheer. It was reached from a ledge above, by a knotted rawhide rope, which, when the hunter left, he drew up after him. Inside the cave there was a gourd of water, and two frayed, worn bides. There were also some pieces of fruit, and rinds. The cave, within, was much larger, like many of the caves, than one would have expected from the outside. It was roughly some eight feet in height and width, and some forty feet deep. It was lit by light from the entrance and, overhead, in the ceiling, some fifteen, feet in, by a long, narrow cleft in the rock, extending some fifty feet upward diagonally, too small to admit a body.
She had been brought to the cave blindfolded, that she might not struggle in terror. Her wrists had been tied together and placed about his neck and shoulder. He had, after lowering them both to the ledge, disengaged her arms from him and thrust her into the cave. There he had removed the blindfold and wrist thongs and left her, taking them with him, thrust in his belt, climbing the knotted rope, which he drew after him.