He, Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, had become so devoid of pride that he would voluntarily search out one who had wronged and outraged his friendship, with the avowed determination of seeking a reconciliation. It was unthinkable, and yet, as he admitted the impossibility of it, he set forth in search of her.
Waldo wondered not a little at the strange emotion—inherent gregarious instinct, he thought it—which drew him toward Nadara.
It did not occur to him that during all the past solitary months he had scarcely missed the old companionship of his Back Bay friends; that for once that they had been the subject of his reveries the cave girl had held the center of that mental stage a thousand times.
He failed to realize that it was not the companionship of the many that he craved; that it was not the community instinct, or that his strange longing could be satisfied by but a single individual. No, Waldo Emerson did not know what was the matter with him, nor was it likely that he ever would find out before it was too late.
The young man attempted to retrace his steps to the battle-ground of the previous day, but he had been so dazed after the encounter that he had no clear recollection of the direction he had taken after he quitted the glade.
So it was that he stumbled in precisely the opposite direction, presently emerging from the underbrush almost at the foot of a low cliff tunneled with many caves. All about were the morose, unhappy community whose savage lives were spent in almost continual wandering from one filthy, comfortless warren to another equally foul and wretched.
At sight of them Waldo did not flee in dismay, as most certainly would have been the case a few months earlier. Instead, he walked confidently toward them.
As he approached they ceased whatever work they were engaged upon and eyed him suspiciously. Then several burly males approached him warily.
At a hundred yards they halted.
“What do you want?” they cried. “If you come to our village we can kill you.”
Before Waldo could reply an old man crawled from a cave near the base of the cliff, and as his eyes fell upon the stranger he hurried as rapidly as his ancient limbs would carry him to the little knot of ruffians who composed the reception committee. He spoke to them for a moment in a low tone, and as he was talking Waldo recognized him as the old man who had accompanied Nadara on the previous day at the battle in the glade. When he had finished speaking one of the cave men assented to whatever proposal the decrepit one had made, and Waldo saw that each of the others nodded his head in approval.
Then the old man advanced slowly toward Waldo. When he had come quite close he spoke.
“I am an old man,” he said. “Thandar would not kill an old man?”
“Of course not; but how know you that my name is Thandar?” replied Waldo.
“Nadara, she who is my daughter, has spoken of you often. Yesterday we saw you as you battled with that son of Nagoola—Nadara told me then that it was you. What would Thandar among the people of Flatfoot?”
“I come as a friend,” replied Waldo, “among the friends of Nadara. For Flatfoot I care nothing. He is no friend of Nadara, whose friends are Thandar’s friends, and whose enemies are Thandar’s enemies. Where is Nadara—but first, where is Flatfoot? I have come to kill him.”
The words and the savage challenge slipped as easily from the cultured tongue of Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones as though he had been born and reared in the most rocky and barren cave of this savage island, nor did they sound strange or unusual to him. It seemed that he had said the most natural and proper thing under the circumstances that there was to say.
“Flatfoot is not here,” said the old man, “nor is Nadara. She—” but here Waldo interrupted him.
“Korth, then,” he demanded. “Where is Korth? I can kill him first and Flatfoot when he returns.”
The old man looked at the speaker in unfeigned surprise.
“Korth!” he exclaimed. “Korth is dead. Can it be that you do not know that he, whom you killed yesterday, was Korth?”
Waldo’s eyes opened as wide in surprise as had the old man’s.
Korth! He had killed the redoubtable Korth with his bare hands—Korth, who could crush the skull of a full-grown man with a single blow from his open palm.
Clearly he recollected the very words in which Nadara had described this horrible brute that time she had harrowed his poor, coward nerves, as they approached the village of Flatfoot. And now he, Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, had met and killed the creature from whom he had so fearfully fled a few months ago!
And, wonder of wonders, he had not even thought to use the weapons upon which he had spent so many hours of handicraft and months of practice in preparation for just this occasion. Of a sudden he recalled the old man’s statement that Nadara was not there.
“Where is she—Nadara?” he cried, turning so suddenly upon the ancient one that the old fellow drew back in alarm.
“I have done nothing to harm her,” he cried. “I followed and would have brought her back, but I am old and could not find her. Once, when I was young, there was no better trailer or mighty warrior among my people than I, but—”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Waldo impatiently; “but Nadara! Where is she?”
“I do not know,” replied the old man. “She has gone, and I could not find her. Well do I remember how, years ago, when the trail of an enemy was faint or the signs of game hard to find, men would come to ask me to help them, but now—”
“Of course,” interrupted Waldo; “but Nadara. Do you not even know in what direction she has gone?”
“No; but since Flatfoot has set forth upon her trail it should be easy to track the two of them.”
“Flatfoot set out after Nadara!” cried Waldo. “Why?”
“For many moons he has craved her for his mate, as has Korth,” explained Nadara’s father; “but I think that each feared the other, and because of that fact Nadara was saved from both; but at last Korth came upon us alone and away from the village, and then he grasped Nadara and would have taken her away, for Flatfoot was not about to prevent.
“You came then, and the rest you know. If I had been younger neither Flatfoot nor Korth would have dared menace Nadara, for when I was a young man I was very terrible and the record of my kills was a—”
“How long since did Flatfoot set out after Nadara?” Waldo broke in.
“But a few hours since,” replied the old man. “It would be an easy thing for me to overtake him by night had I the speed of my youth, for I well remember—”
“From where did Flatfoot start upon the trail?” cried the young man. “Lead me to the place.”
“This way then, Thandar,” said the other, starting off toward the forest. “I will show you if you will save Nadara from Flatfoot. I love her. She has been very kind and good to me. She is unlike the rest of our people.
“I should die happy if I knew that you have saved her from Flatfoot, but I am an old man and may not live until Nadara returns. Ah, that reminds me; there is that in my cave which belongs to Nadara, and were I to die there would be none to protect it for her.
“Will you wait for the moment that it will take me to run and fetch it, that you may carry it to her, for I am sure that you will find her; though I am not as sure that you will overcome Flatfoot if you meet him. He is a very terrible man.”
Waldo hated to waste a minute of the precious time that was allowing Flatfoot to win nearer and nearer Nadara; but if it were in a service for the girl who had been so kind to him and for the happiness of her old father he could not refuse, so he waited impatiently while the old fellow tottered off toward the caves.
Those who had come half-way to meet Waldo had hovered at a safe distance while he had been speaking to Nadara’s father, and when the two turned toward the forest all had returned to their work in evident relief; for the old man had told them that the stranger was the mighty warrior who had killed the terrible Korth with his bare hands, nor had the story lost anything in the telling.