'No, I mean what race are they? I know they are pygmy sized.'
'They are pygmies—not a doubt of it. There's not only the size, but the shape of the head, odd proportions of their spindly limbs, and that curiously sad, solemn look characteristic of them. They're not so mournful really, it's a way pygmy faces have.'
Mark had a sudden memory of a travel film. Pygmies, diminutive against the exploring party, looking at the camera with large, bewildered eyes; every face, male or female, adult or child, stamped with the same die of permanent melancholy. That was it, of course; the half memory of that film had been lurking just out of reach. Queer that it had not occurred to him before: the selfsame expression—or was it lack of expression?—had stared from the faces of these troglodytes, but until Gordon had told him he could not place it. He had used the word 'pygmy' as he might have said 'dwarf, with no understanding of its significance. Yet it was not so odd that he should have missed the connection—these cave dwellers were a pale, dirty white.
'But pygmies are black,' he objected.
'The surface ones, but why should they be black down here? No sun; no need of pigmentation. These chaps were probably black enough when they came in. It'd work out through the generations. Look what one generation has done for the prisoners' children, the "natives", no sign of ruddy complexion there.'
'But hang it, there aren't any pygmies for hundreds of miles to the south of here.'
'Not now, but there were once—I've got a theory about these chaps and how they got here, if it's of any interest to you.'
Mark encouraged him to go on talking. If nothing more, it served to relieve the monotony of waiting for an attack which might never come.
'The most troublesome thing is,' Gordon began, 'that ever since I knew of their existence, I've not been able to verify any of my facts. If we do get out of this, I'm going to dig myself into the B.M. reading-room, and make certain either one way or the other. However, here's their history roughly, as I think it must be.
'You know that thousands of years ago the whole continent of Europe was far warmer than it is now? That has been proved in lots of ways from fossils and remains. Among other things, traces of elephants have been found near Cromer, where there was once a forest. Elephants, mind you, not mammoths. The mammoths didn't mind climates below zero, but the elephants have always required warmth. Furthermore, they have found the remains of the same species of elephant in Dorset, in a buried trench over twelve feet deep. Now nature doesn't dig trenches through layers of chalk and flint to catch elephants; but there's a creature that does, and that's man. That elephant died a hell of a long time ago because man was there to kill him.
'England was not yet an island. The present North Sea was a plain, connecting it with the continent. Subtropical fauna ranged and thrived there, but even then there were our ancestors to harry it into traps and slay it by other cunning. It is a common fault to put the appearance of man at too late a date. After all, we had to evolve, like the other species. There is still a tendency (it may be a lingering respect for Genesis) to picture man appearing suddenly and fully formed, to the great consternation of all the other denizens of the world. He did not. He climbed as slowly and painfully as the rest. Perhaps those men who hunted elephants across North Europe did not look much like us, but even at that remote date, they were a long jump ahead of the animals they slew.
'Nor were the men all of one type. They, like the other creatures, had adapted to different climates. Until they had evolved clothes, discovered fire and other means of protection from extreme heat and cold, they were as subject to natural conditions as the animals themselves. Each race must have lived in its own zone with very little trespassing either to north or south.
'But in the course of time, the zones shifted. The earth's axis tilted; the sub-tropical flora began to perish. Each summer there was a little more ice round the poles, and each winter saw the Arctic Circle pushed a little farther south. It was slow—a matter of a few inches at a time— but it was relentless. The ice crept down, driving everything before it. The winters grew harder and longer; the animals went south, and the hunters followed. North Europe became temperate, then cold. Still the ice pursued, and the men from the north were driven down upon the inhabitants of the torrid lands in the south.
'The races did not mix. The original inhabitants were a smaller, weaker species than the invaders, and unable to resist the successive waves of humanity rolling in from the north; they were, in fact, the ancestors of the pygmies. The northerners were a hardier, more adaptable race for whom life had been less easy than it was for the others; there could be no question which was the better fitted to survive. There was a natural limit to the number which the land could support, and it became clear that if anyone was going to perish through starvation, it would not be the newcomers. The pygmies took their chance of survival and began to migrate southward in their turn. They took to the great forests, and hid themselves in jungle depths so inhospitable and unattractive that no race has ever yet troubled to dislodge them.
'It was one of the great changes of the world. The ice caps, creeping closer from north and south, compressed all life into the equatorial belt. Not only were the pygmies driven south, but other, similar races in other parts of the world were forced from the open, fertile country to seek refuges where they might survive. About that time the Andamanese must have reached their islands, the Sakai have found Sumatra, the Semangs, Borneo, and the New Guinea Pygmies have hidden themselves in their impenetrable country. And there they have all remained, for though the ice receded, the invaders did not. Their progeny spread to cover the north once again, but there was no racial withdrawal from the southern lands. That is what I meant when I said that these were real pygmies.'
'That this was once all pygmy country, and these have survived?'
'Exactly. They were driven into inhospitable regions; they took to living in caves. They found that this district was riddled with them, and they went deeper. Though, mind you, none of this happened suddenly; it was an instinctive move for self-preservation going on for generation after generation as conditions grew worse; there can have been little of conscious flight about it. While some made for the jungles they have never left, others reverted to cave dwelling, withdrawing more and more, spending less and less of their time on the surface, hiding from a world in which they could not compete, until at last there came generations who knew the outside only from hearsay as a place of discouragement and terror. So the elders died and the last link was snapped; communication with the surface ceased. They dug themselves deep into the earth. They joined cavern with cavern to form a subterranean country. They learned how to grow the giant fungi for food, and retained the secret of manufacturing their luminous fluid. In the end the life of the outer world became no more than a tradition kept alive by the occasional arrival of wanderers such as ourselves. The dominant races pursued their appointed course on the surface: the memory of the pygmies grew fainter until, at last, it was entirely rubbed away, and they were forgotten, lost.'
There was silence for a time after Gordon stopped speaking. Mark considered the theory. Fantastic, of course, but then, so was the pygmies' presence, and there must be some explanation of it. There could be no doubt that the caverns had been inhabited for a very long time. The fact that no tradition survived above indicated an immense period of utter isolation.
'When do you think all this happened?' he asked.
Gordon shrugged his shoulders. 'Hard to say. Somewhere in the Lower Paleolithic, I should guess—towards the end of it, about the Acheulean.'