THE TREASURE IN THE SNOW

 

 

I.

 

 

“That’s erroneous!” retorted my host. “The last mammoth was not contemporary with the one whose remains were discovered in the Siberian ice and which lived about 10,000 years ago. The last mammoth died on May 19, 1899, precisely. I speak with certainty because I saw it die—and I owe my fortune to it!”

My host displayed a peremptory gravity; I did not doubt his good faith at all.

“Moreover, it was not the only animal of primitive times that survived into our own time, since I also encountered, in one of my voyages, the lion-tiger, and a sort of primitive man. The reasons I had for keeping quiet will be set out in my book on The Double Origin of Man. I’m talking about it to you today under the influence of an instinctive sympathy, and also because it’s getting late.”

 

At the time, I was wandering around miserably in the polar regions, at the mercy of polar bears, cold and collapses. My companions had perished. I had nothing left but a cracked sled, two dogs, a few furs and a supply of pemmican. My exhaustion was extreme; I expected to quit the world within 40 hours. I kept going in a southerly direction, though; my last chance was an encounter with Eskimos.

The Sun was beginning to retrace its steps when one of the dogs lay down in the snow, uttered a few whimpers and then a long gurgle, and died. The other dog continued to drag me through the terrific wilderness. I was in a mixed mental state that was neither entirely wakefulness nor entirely sleep, when I saw three yellow-tinted shapes emerge on the horizon. The dog uttered a howl of fright, and I, woken up with a start, took the rifle from beneath the blankets in which it was wrapped.

We fled for a good quarter of an hour. The yellow-tinted brutes, which would have seemed white against a brown or green background, hastened in pursuit with a sort of guileful stubbornness. They were bears of the most powerful stature, a male and two females; the male would have slaughtered a lion. Terror doubled the energy of my poor dog, but even so, we were losing several meters of ground per minute.

When the brutes were 100 meters from the sled, I put my rifle to my shoulder and fired two shots—in vain. Fatigue had eroded my skill. The only result I obtained was a slight deceleration of the pursuit. Then the damned beasts began to eat into our lead again. With difficulty, I reloaded my weapon and fired again, with no better luck. The excitement that had sustained the dog faded away. It was losing speed by the minute; soon, it began to stagger. I took the only possible course; I got off the sled and started fleeing on my own. I had not gone 200 meters when I heard the agonized cries of my pitiful companion.

How long did I keep going? Perhaps an hour, perhaps two. At any rate, the moment came when, on turning round, I saw that the white brutes had resumed the hunt, and were following me at a distance of about 1000 meters. I should have shivered in horror, but fatigue, disgust and the habit of expecting death allowed me to envisage the situation in a phlegmatic sort of way. I was fleeing out of duty, to such a degree that preoccupation with the peril didn’t prevent me from forming a vague hypothesis about the bizarre locale through which I was moving. It seemed to me to be the result of an earthquake, but that wasn’t what surprised me most, for at intervals I perceived the covered debris of grass and tree-stumps.

Impossible, I thought, that all this can be native here. One way or another, that vegetation has come from a lower latitude…

While I was indulging in these reflections, I found myself confronted by an immense wall of ice.

Conclusively cooked! I said to myself.

Worn out with fatigue, I was about to make a gift of my carcass to my pursuers when I saw a deep crevasse that formed a corridor. The terrain was slippery and full of holes; nevertheless, as the bears had hesitated to follow me, I immediately gained a fairly good lead. My luck didn’t hold for very long. In a few minutes, the carnivores were on my heels again. Every time I looked back, I could see their pale silhouettes more clearly, in spite of the semi-darkness of the place.

Meanwhile, there was an increasing glimmer of light at the end of the corridor; it hypnotized me and gave me a measure of hope. Then an exit appeared, toward which I limped as fast as I could go. The breath of the bears was now very close. When I was a couple of strides from the exit, a claw grazed my coat, and I had resigned myself to being devoured more-or-less alive when a strange and strident noise became audible and I caught a glimpse of a colossal form, which was rendered even more mysterious by a hairy trunk and two curved tusks.

The bears leapt backwards, growling. The fantastic beast advanced its granite head, shook its hairy trunk, and trumpeted stridently—a sound as intolerable as that of 100 saws cutting through stone.

Terrified, the white brutes fled.

As for me, I stood there motionless, exhausted, stunned and considerably perplexed. What should I do? In the direction the bears had taken there was no other possible outcome than imminent death. In the direction of the Other, there was a grim enigma. With a single blow of its trunk, it could knock me down; by pressing down with its foot it could reduce me to shreds. I didn’t hesitate for more than three or four minutes; my means, if I might put it thus, didn’t permit me to! Risking everything, I headed slowly for the exit.

The giant beast placidly stood aside; by that gesture alone, I judged that it was granting me mercy.

We stood facing one another, perhaps equally astonished. It reminded me of the description one of our contemporaries has made of an ancestral mammoth: “Its body was a hillock and its feet trees; it displayed tusks ten meters long, capable of transpiercing oak-trees; its trunk resembled a black python, its head a rock; it moved within a hide as thick as the bark of old elm-trees.”

The more I studied it, the more sure I was that I wasn’t in any danger. Quite the reverse—it reassured me with its tranquil and positively benevolent gaze. And when after having stared for a while, it moved off, I followed it, carried away by an invincible instinct.

As I went, I was overtaken by another surprise. The locale that extended in front of us was no longer a field of ice, frost or snow. Fantastically green, it displayed itself, all the way to the horizon, as a savannah scattered with trees. Instead of the intolerable temperature of the polar plains I savored the warmth of the month of May in my beautiful native region of Touraine.

A mystical confidence overwhelmed me, to the very depths of my inner being. My fatigue disappeared, as if some hand had wiped it away. I opened the little bag in which I was carrying my pemmican and, having eaten a few mouthfuls, felt renewal infiltrating my feverish veins.

The mammoth had stopped. It was grazing the long grass, tearing up young plants; I felt that an obscure, innocent and profound communion was being established between us.

 

 

II.

 

 

I remained sitting down for a good hour, plunged into a dream and savoring the warmth, so gentle after the glacial trials that I had just undergone. Besides, I was worn out by fatigue; I could literally no longer feel my limbs, and if I didn’t fall sleep, it was because a fever of anxiety still persisted deep within me. All around the strange place in which I had found refuge, the polar desert extended—a desert that had become as immense for me as for our humblest ancestors.

White humankind, for whom the planet has become so small and whose ferocious power has subjugated almost all of three continents, became a distant entity, which I could only rejoin by a miracle. In the region I had reached, undoubtedly, not only had no white man ever set foot, but no Eskimo either. Thus, I was implacably alone, having for my sole resources a revolver, a rifle, a few cartridges, a sturdy knife, a chronometer and a marine telescope. It’s impossible for you to imagine my state of mind, unless you’ve been in an analogous situation; it resembled a kind of death…something like the misery of the last man, at the end of time.

I had not lost sight of my mammoth. It continued to graze the grass and devour the shoots; it was gradually drawing away and seemed to have forgotten me. Because it had unwittingly saved my life, I instinctively considered it as a companion and protector. From its own viewpoint, though, I was only a scarcely redoubtable animal, with which it was no more concerned than any other creature that did not threaten its security or compete with it for food. When it was 300 or 400 meters away, I did not stay there any longer. It seemed to me that the perils I had just escaped were about to be reborn, and I stood up, painfully, my joints cracking, in order to go after it.

Birds were moving through the grass, while others were chirping in the boughs of an ash-tree, and I could see a herd of hinds in the distance. Then a boundless astonishment filled my entire being. What was this extraordinary territory into which chance had led me? How had it maintained its individuality in the bosom of the Arctic wilderness? How, above all, had it been maintained for thousands of years—for the mammoth’s presence could only be explained by the long persistence of its ancestral climate. Undoubtedly, that climate had passed through fluctuations, through colder periods and perhaps warmer ones too—if only because of the precession of the equinoxes—but it could never have been rigorously polar, for, although the mammoth had been adapted to resist harsh winters, it must be reckoned highly improbable that it had adapted to the same extent as polar bears. Most importantly, where could it have found its nourishment?

Besides, the herd of hinds that I perceived on the horizon amply confirmed the relative, but persistent, mildness of the climate.

“So,” I murmured, as I dragged myself away in order to catch up with the mammoth, “for between 7000 and 10,000 years there has been a fabulous place in which a part of prehistoric life has persisted…”

Even so, the only certain vestige was the mammoth, for the hinds belonged to the same species as our ordinary deer—the red deer, which had also lived alongside the humans of the Magdalenian and Lacustrian eras.

As I reasoned thus, the stag—a fine ten-pointer—appeared around the side of a small hill, and I observed that it was not appreciably different from the deer of our forests. Then the herd moved off at top speed, and the mammoth, ceasing to graze momentarily, raised its trunk. I had the sensation of a presence; I moved closer to the colossus as quickly as I could—but everything became calm once again.

I lay down in the grass again. Two or three times I saw hares go by—the hares of my native land. I became drowsy. I had the impression that dusk had arrived—an absurd impression, since I was not unaware of the fact that the daylight would last for another three months.

Suddenly, I started. Some way off, between a small hill and the smaller one around which the stag had come, a slim vertical shape had just passed, as to the nature of which I could not be mistaken. It was a man or a woman.

My heart was beating frantically. The presence of my own kind might be the most precious of good things, but there was also a chance that it might be the worst possibility of all. I inspected the surroundings fearfully. Everything seemed peaceful, and the mammoth was grazing imperturbably. Perhaps, after all, I had been the victim of a hallucination, due to fatigue and drowsiness.

Time went by. The mammoth started to move away again, and I made the decision to stay with it. It was going in the direction of the hillock; I overtook it, climbed the slope and found myself on a small stony platform, which made a fairly comfortable observatory. From there, I scrutinized the landscape minutely with the aid of my telescope, and observed that it was surrounded by a chain of high hills, save for the direction from which I had come. It could not be very vast, not in excess of fifteen million hectares.

For some time my vigilance was extreme. Little by little, it eased. Fatigue was numbing my senses and my brain. I arrived at the vegetative state in which the worst dangers come to seem negligible. After a brief struggle, I suddenly lost consciousness of things, as if I had fainted.

 

When I woke up, the Sun was higher over the horizon; I must have been asleep for about four hours. The mammoth had disappeared. I decided to go in search of it, and I was getting ready to get down from the hillock when I shuddered; some distance away, a silhouette had just reared up behind a bush. This time, there could be no doubt about it; it was definitely a human being!

A head was sticking out—a gray head, whose features I could scarcely make out, but which belonged, incontestably, to an old man. He was not hiding—or, rather, he was no longer hiding—but staring at me fixedly. The point of a weapon was visible level with his jaw.

I adjusted my marine telescope and examined the individual. His appearance was perfectly original. He bore no resemblance to the Eskimos and was different from all of the human races that I had encountered in the course of my travels. The type he resembled most closely was the pure Basque type—except that his jaw was squarer and his lips thicker. As for his skin color, it was indefinable: a sort of pale violet, which deepened in his cheeks and became almost blue at the temples. His eyes, between their slack lids, retained a great vivacity. What I could see of his upper body was suggestive of a certain vigor.

Thanks to my telescope, I did not take long to make out a second human creature huddled behind a block of stone, who was imperfectly hidden—and then a third, further away than the other two, lying in the long grass, effectively enough for me to be unable to detect any structural details. I was surrounded; I naturally supposed that other watchers must be distributed at a distance; even so, in spite of an attentive investigation, I made no further discoveries.

What should I do? In theory, I could have shot the indigenes, for I was a good marksman—but what then? Others might come who would want to avenge their kin and would be able to vanquish me by cunning or by force. What if I were to succeed in forging an alliance? Nine times out of ten—as I am not the only person to have remarked—one can reach an understanding with savages; the brutality almost always comes from the side of the white man.

I decided to make amicable gestures. The old man continued watching me with those round eyes which, even in certain monkeys, express stupor. Successively, I sketched gestures borrowed from the aborigines of the Brazilian jungle, the Australian desert and the forests of Borneo. It was the last that succeeded. The old man replied to them with vaguely analogous gestures.

After a further inspection of the surroundings, deciding to risk everything, I descended from the hillock and advanced toward the bush.

 

 

III.

 

 

The old man hesitated until I had crossed half the distance that separated us; then he came to meet me. There was scarcely any surprise in the configuration of his features, which expressed the sentiments of peacefulness and hesitation.

When we were a few paces from one another, he proffered a few incomprehensible syllables and uttered a cry for help. Then, looking back, I saw the other two individuals coming forward and I recognized, with a certain satisfaction, that they were women.

One of them looked old, her face dry and sinewy, furrowed with horizontal wrinkles; she must have been approximately 20 or 25 years younger than the old man. She had slate-colored eyes, and the violet-tinted skin that must have been characteristic of the race.

The other, scarcely emerged from childhood, had a bizarre charm, infinitely more exotic than it is possible to imagine. The violet tint of her skin was fainter, more delicately nuanced; her eyes were wide open, full of a fire that I only saw in her, and a youth that was simultaneously a matter of her own age and that of her race. Black hair ran down over her shoulders, in a manner that was rather seductive; her mouth was wide, with a rich scarlet tint; her teeth were sparkling, formed like little seashells. A photograph would have made her slightly coarse and scarcely harmonious features stand out, but those primitive imperfections were attenuated by a youthful energy and plenitude of life that I can’t pin down, and which made her graceful.

All four of us stood there, looking at one another, for some time. Nothing could have been more appropriate to dispel mistrust—even the wildest beasts are reassured by immobility; in the forest or on the steppe, it’s rare that an attack occurs when it has been sufficiently deferred at the first encounter. In any case, I did not believe that the old man or his companions would have had any other intention than to defend themselves. More instinctive than me, they were more rapidly reassured than I was, and the man informed me of his state of mind by means of a silent chuckle, in which I thought I could detect joy.

He started uttering syllables again, which he accompanied with an agile mime. The syllables disconcerted me. They were grimly guttural, bristling with aspirates; they seemed to come from even lower down than the larynx. So far as I knew, no language included their like. Their rhythm caused them to resemble a primitive chant. As for the gestures, they undoubtedly expressed benevolence—and, at intervals, pointed westwards.

I replied as best I could. Like all white men, especially those of my own race, I was no great scholar of gesticulatory science and I had little natural talent for its practice.

While indulging in this palaver, I studied the accoutrements and weapons of my aborigines. Their upper bodies were covered by a sort of fur tunic with very short sleeves, made of a light summer fur. The garment hung down to mid-thigh. Their feet were bare. Their hair grew at hazard, although vague attempts at combing seemed to have been made. Their necks were ornamented by necklaces of teeth and small green, red and yellow stones; they wore bracelets on all four limbs.

As for weapons, I had recognized them as soon as I saw them; they were as characteristic of their genre as the mammoth. Firstly, there were flat harpoons made from deer antlers, with two rows of barbs, similar in all respects to those of the era separating the Paleolithic from the Neolithic, otherwise known as the Tourassian epoch.14 In addition, the old man carried a double-edged throwing-spear and a staff of authority on which a carved image of a mammoth was visible. All three had clubs ornamented with designs surprisingly reminiscent of the designs that are found in Magdalenian strata.

If an archeologist were to discover such weapons in a cave, no doubt would seem possible to him: he would declare that he was confronted with remains of the Tourassian epoch. Was it necessary to conclude that my indigenes were entitled, in the same way as the mammoth, to be considered as prehistoric creatures? A priori, yes. But they might also be human beings of another time, trapped, by virtue of unknown circumstances, in a territory where a few vestiges of primitive times persisted. Even so, their strange characteristics, their language and their armaments inclined me to admit the former hypothesis.

It soon became evident that they wanted to take me westwards, I gave way to the old man’s wishes with a good grace, and we continued miming as we went.

During the march, a kind of familiarity developed in my companions. They touched me occasionally, with a naïve curiosity, sometimes on the arm, sometimes the shoulders, and also the beard; the youngest one then emitted a fearful and puerile little burst of laughter. They also felt my rifle and the sheath of my marine telescope, but more respectfully than my person. They certainly thought me inoffensive, at least so far as they were concerned.

We arrived at a rock-face in which a large cave opened. The old man started talking and gesticulating again; I was able to understand that he wanted me to wait, and I leaned against an outcrop while my hosts disappeared into the semi-darkness. It was not long before they reappeared, laden with dry wood and strips of meat. The old man and the adolescent girl built a fire. The old woman rubbed a flint against another piece of stone, probably marcasite.15

A few moments later, the fire was well alight on the threshold of the cave—a fire that I contemplated with a pleasure increased by the aroma of roasting flesh; for three days I had had nothing but pemmican to eat. When the meal was ready, it was served on a flat stone, and I was invited to take part in it. It was one of the best meals of my life, and I speak as a man for whom the culinary art is no mere bagatelle. We washed down the roast with water that the young woman brought from a kind of cistern, and then we sat still, looking at one another. The two women were frankly cheerful; the old man manifested a placidity so absolute that he soon closed his eyes and dozed off.

As for me, I was strangely happy. The good meal had given me that corporeal security that no moral comfort can replace. The presence of my own kind dispelled the odious impression of solitude that had formerly weighed upon me like the walls of a sepulcher. Even the sensation of being in a quasi-fantastic environment did not displease me at all; it adapted itself to the invincible spirit of adventure that had orientated my existence. Even so, a certain anxiety was reborn. There were doubtless other humans in the vicinity; would they be as benevolent as the old man and his companions? Might they not be prowling slyly around me at this very moment, ready to kill me?

The two women had drawn closer together. The old one tried to make herself understood, gesticulating frenetically; the young one watched me with her fiery eyes, and I surprised myself by wishing that there might be no other male than the old one in our domain…

The essential components of the world are here! I said to myself. To populate the planet, one man and one woman are sufficient…

That idea pleased me, although, in sum, it did not appear to correspond to any reality.

Suddenly, the old woman uttered a faint cry, and the old man woke up. While cocking an ear, he looked around. Heavy footfalls were shaking the ground.

 

 

IV.

 

 

The approaching footfalls grew louder; rude tusks emerged from the eastern extremity of the rock-face, followed by a trunk, a head like a block of stone and an enormous clay-colored body. It was a mammoth, but not the one I had seen earlier: a ruinous mammoth, balding and wrinkled, with gray hair and a white mane; a mammoth 200 or 300 years old, progressing heavily, its eye vitreous and its limbs stiff.

At the sight of it, the man and the two women crouched down, extending their arms in a manner that did not reveal any great emotion—neither joyful nor fearful—and which seemed to me to be ritual. I thought about totemism. By virtue of having existed long before these aged humans, the mammoth probably represented the supreme totem.

It is good to imitate one’s hosts; I copied my companions’ gestures.

More footfalls became audible; I was not surprised to see a second mammoth appear, this time similar to the one I had seen earlier—and which, I subsequently learned, was the same one. The ritual gestures were repeated, more sketchily. While I was meditating on these circumstances, the two women got up with a sprightly vivacity. The younger one ran toward the place from which the mammoths had emerged.

It was not long before lighter footsteps became perceptible. A human form was outlined at the angle of the rock, quickly followed by two others: a man, a woman and a child. The man and the woman considered me with indescribable amazement, mingled with menace. The male detached a harpoon and sketched an aggressive gesture. A few words from the old man stopped him; his astonishment became manifestly peaceful. He was a coarse individual, with a hatchet-face, bold eyes and a heavy jaw. His limbs and their tendons testified to the strength and flexibility of anthropoid apes, with a rhythmic quality that those forest-dwellers lack. The woman was better-looking; she displayed a proud torso with no excess weight, agile limbs and the same black fiery eyes as the girl. As for her face, you would have found it neither disagreeable nor seductive.

Like my first companions, the newcomers were of a race considerably superior to our black races; for my part, I preferred them to redskins and yellow people. The child, who turned out to be a little girl, seemed to be about five years old; her complexion was a violet so clear that it seemed almost white at a distance.

I did not know whether to be glad or sorry at the arrival of these individuals. The man gave rise to equivocal impressions within me; he disturbed the dream that I had sketched out. I saw in him a sort of rival and awkward sensations were stirring in the depths of my unconscious.

Having drawn closer, however, the newcomers were examining me, each in a different manner: the man impassively, the woman with a certain interest, sometimes tinged with unease and sometimes with a fugitive pleasure.

There was a conversation. The old man and the old woman spoke in turns; they were, I suppose, telling the story of our encounter.

The Sun reached the low point of its course; the time for sleep had come. The old man went into the cave, signaling to me to follow him. As I went forward, a phenomenon became manifest that was as strange as anything I had seen thus far: the cave was luminous. I had not noticed that from outside, having taken the light for a reflection; it was as bright as moonlight in a clear tropical sky.

Dry grass had been spread around in the depths of the cave. We installed ourselves there, each of us at our convenience, while the mammoths lay down, one next to the western wall and the other next to the eastern wall.

I didn’t go to sleep straight away. I was nervous. The phosphorescence, these fabulous companions, my solitude, so many enigmas—everything excited me. My life hung on a caprice: a blow to the head from a club, or a thrust of a harpoon in the heart—I would scarcely have time to perceive that I was being slain. The excess of my weakness was precisely what tranquilized me, eventually. Anticipation became so vain that it was childish. I let myself go, and fell into a sleep as profound as death.

 

It would be pointless to recount the minuscule adventures of the days that followed. I became accustomed to my hosts in less than a week, and I learned that there were no other humans in the territory. Thanks to the women, whose curiosity was less torpid than that of the men, I learned to speak the unknown language. I had no lack of leisure time; they lived without great effort by hunting and gathering root-vegetables, wild fruits, mushrooms and edible plants. Only the terrible guttural pronunciation cost me considerable trouble; the rest went smoothly; my friends’ language presented few refinements. Because her diction was clearer and her zeal more lively, the young woman played a preponderant role. The adolescent girl deferred quite naturally to her companion.

Fearing that the man might become jealous, I tried at first to have recourse to the old man and the old woman, but I soon perceived that I was under a misapprehension. The young male wandered around, hunting, carving flints or antlers, occupying himself with some engraving or design, endowed with the naïve but sure talent of our Magdalenian ancestors. I became convinced that he did not avail himself of his companion and did not covet the young girl. I thought at first that it might be some physical injury, but then I concluded—and was not mistaken—that the sacred instinct did not torment him outside certain seasons. The fact is that he only became amorous in the month of September. I assume, however, that an occasional awakening might have been provoked by a strange female.

These mores found their correspondence in the women. They too, as I was to learn, only became emotional at times prescribed by millenary instincts, but could be abnormally animated by courtesy of an unexpected circumstance.

I did not know any of this at first, and I maintained a reserve that was not without its merit. My mores, alas, had the irregularity—or, if you prefer, the excessive regularity—of men of our era; they did not conform to any seasonal regularity. I am, however, the kind of man who would never betray a friend or a host. The singular individuals who had welcomed me into their company and were sharing their nourishment with me merited my respect. Without their possessing our sentiments in their entirety, I credited those sentiments to them in a certain measure; thus, I assumed that they would not grant the young girl to a stranger and I thought that the male possessed the young woman. I acted in consequence, in spite of the temptations to which the most virtuous among us are subject.

The longer I lived with the young women, the more attractive I found them. The relative coarseness of their features vanished before the extraordinary youthfulness that radiated from them. Any return to Europe seemed to me to be chimerical. That life had an indescribable, and in some respects prodigious, charm. I felt rejuvenated, in myself and in my species. Given all that, it was impossible that my female companions should not become very desirable. How could I have escaped the most natural seductions?

They increased, and took on an intoxicating, sometimes intolerable, acuity. I often found myself alone with one or other of them, especially the young woman. She followed me around; more curious than the others, she was passionately interested in the things that I could tell her, however rudimentary. When we were tired we sat down side by side. She had a tendency to petting, like an animal, which my relative gentleness encouraged and developed. She leaned against me, her face brushed mine; she bit the nape of my neck or my ear, and sometimes I could not help putting my arm around her waist, which seemed to astonish her.

One day, when we were resting in that fashion in the shade of a bush, I embraced my companion more passionately, while interrogating her about the caves to which my hosts retired during the winter. Her fiery eyes misted over, her hair flowed over my breast, and her hips had that rhythmic movement which is so dangerous to watch. I felt for the first time that she shared my disturbance…and I was invincibly drawn to lean over her red lips, when a shadow extended over the grass.

Awah, the male, had arrived. Leaning on his heavy ash-wood club, he seemed enigmatic and formidable.

 

 

V.

 

 

Instinctively, I had cocked my revolver, but I disarmed it immediately. I did not dispute the rights of my hosts, much less those of Awah over the women, and I admitted my culpability. I replaced my weapon in my belt, and awaited events with a fatalism that was a consequence of the singularity of the circumstances.

Awah, meanwhile, remained silent and continued to observe us. There was nothing astonishing in that; the young man was exceedingly taciturn. When he was not hunting or sleeping he occupied himself in carving, sculpting, engraving or fabricating weapons.

After a long moment I said: “Is Awah discontented?”16

He was in no hurry to reply, and I continued: “Does Awah not want me to be alone with Touanhô?”

That question doubtless seemed bizarre to him, for his brow furrowed deeply, as if he were carrying out some difficult task. “Why should the ally not be alone with Touanhô?” he asked, in his hollow voice. “The ally should not go into the Caves of the Dead before having given blood. Then the ally will be a Son of the Mammoth.”

I remained silent in my turn, trying to understand. Memories of my vagabond life enlightened me, and I replied: “The ally will give blood.”

Without making any reply, Awah took out a flint knife hidden in the folds of his fur garment and headed toward us. His face was impassive but grim. I wondered whether he might have employed a savage ruse, and whether he might be going to kill me slyly. My fatalism had not abandoned me. I stood up and I let Awah raise my arm and plunge the dagger into my shoulder. It was neat and precise; a trickle of blood spurted out. Awah started sucking the wound; then he invited Touanhô to do likewise, which she did without repugnance, and even with a kind of sensuality.

“The ally is no longer an ally,” the young man said, covering the wound with leaves. “He is a Son of the Mammoth, like Awah and Touanhô! He may go into the caves.”

He did not waste time in talk or in needless actions. Having replaced his dagger in his bosom, he drew away with a gait as flexible as that of a leopard in the forest.

That scene, which had left me almost unmoved, was followed by a sort of vertigo, due to loss of blood. Touanhô noticed my weakness and took me back to the cave, where I slept until the hour that would have corresponded to dusk outside the polar regions. Then I shared the evening meal with the others and went back to sleep.

For several days I was able to find myself alone with Touanhô without feeling any further tender torment. Those days were, moreover, quite charming. Awah, having announced that I had given blood, treated me as an authentic descendant of the Mammoth. The souls of these beings seemed to me so precise that, at times, I thought I had been transported back in time 15,000 years, and I cannot describe the extraordinary sense of renewal and the immortal poetry that accompanied the impression in question.

Because of my weakness, I was dissuaded from visiting the caves.

On the fourth day, I said: “I am strong, Touanhô. Shall we go to the caves?”

She understood, and started laughing, for she had a cheerful temperament. Touanhô went to the back of the cave and said: “It is necessary to push this stone.”

The block in question, which was plugging a breach, was wider than it was deep. We pushed it on its smoother edge; it rotated slowly on its axis, uncovering an opening into which we went. The same phosphorescence that illuminated the exterior cave lit the corridor. After ten paces or so, we emerged into a spacious grotto, irregular in form, in which I discerned tools, weapons and carved objects; in places, the wall had been polished and blank but expert hands had drawn the figures of animals, and even of men, thereupon. One of those walls—the tallest—hypnotized me. The designs that it bore must have dated from a more remote era than the others, as was revealed by their appearance, more especially by the fact that they represented vanished animals, including reindeer, a saiga, horses with enormous heads and a cave-bear.

“Touanhô!” I exclaimed, excitedly. “No living being has seen these animals!”

“No,” she said. “Wanawanoûm”—that was the old man—“says that the mothers of his mothers never encountered them. That was the time when the Sons of the Mammoth filled the Earth.”

“What about the others? Did Awah draw them?”

“No, but some were drawn by Wanawanoûm’s uncles.”

I do not know whether you can understand the tumultuous sentiments that swelled in my breast, which resembled religious exaltation.

“There are other caves,” said Touanhô, who did not understand my silence.

We descended an exceedingly steep slope and a new grotto opened its vast flanks. Far from diminishing, the light had grown brighter. Skeletons, some of them thousands of years old, were drying out on the ground—human skeletons, entire or nearly so, and the fragmentary skeletons of horses, saigas, reindeer and cave-bears. The works of art were scarcer and in worse condition; the walls only displayed sparse designs. This cavern had only been inhabited at intervals, for relatively short periods of time.

In the next cave my enthusiasm was renewed, followed by a veritable ecstasy. As I learned much later, it had communicated once directly with the exterior; a landslide had sealed it off in prehistoric times. It contained even more sculpted and engraved works than the first. A battle between a cave-bear and a gray bear revealed an artistry almost equal to that of our great animal painters.

While I was dreaming, almost moved to tears, Touanhô had drawn closer. On seeing my moist eyes, she threw her arm around my shoulders.

“Is Alglâ ill?”

I took her in my arms, squeezing her waist gently. The gesture did not fail to astonish her, but also to charm her. She leaned against my breast. Her eyes gave off a mysterious gleam; her red mouth was there, half-open over the sparkling shell-like teeth.

I saw myself lost in the night of time, with that woman, so young and so ancient; my lips descended. Surprised, Touanhô recoiled; I embraced her more tightly; my lips took hers, and suddenly, as if by a revelation, she took part in the unfamiliar caress.

In the caverns of ancient humankind, I espoused the daughter of those who carved stone and horn on the banks of virginal rivers on the edge of carnivore-infested forests.

 

There was one more cave, lower-down and rugged, in which human presence was revealed by fairly scarce traces. I sat down there, in a dreamy lassitude. Eventually, my attention was attracted by a scintillation; leaning forward, I saw a sort of pebble from which a glimmer had sprung. The brightness of the fracture-line was striking; I examined it curiously. Something ardent passed through my flesh: the frisson of a fortune, which resembled the frisson of the marvelous. I was holding a massive diamond—and the walls of the cave undoubtedly contained others.

For a minute I was subject to the fascination of the fabulous stone, and then I started laughing. In that lost land, it was not even worth as much as a harpoon or an axe!

“Let’s go see the Sun again,” I said to Touanhô.

August passed; the pale stars of September rotated in melancholy fashion in the sky. The temperature decreased.

Awah no longer left me alone with Touanhô. His voice was sharp; his taciturnity seemed to increase. One morning, he said to the young woman: “Touanhô is going hunting with me!”

There was no mistaking his intention. It was the season in which he ceased to be merely the young woman’s companion and became her master. She looked at him with her fiery eyes.

“Touanhô is tired!”

A grim anxiety appeared in his face, which resembled dread. Jealousy ran through my breast like a jet of vitriol; hatred made my hands tremble.

Vehemently, Awah said: “Touanhô must come!”

She looked up at me, without suspecting my jealousy—but the sentiment of preference had entered into her soul. Undoubtedly, Awah seemed to her to be superior to me, but she knew that he was rough…

As she did not budge, he adopted his commanding voice: “Touanhô!”

Rage and a frightful distress ravaged me.

 

 

VI.

 

 

Touanhô had risen to her feet; she was submissive. I was demoted to the second rank; not only was the superiority of Awah accepted, but it seemed to me that it was accepted without displeasure. The primitive woman was thinking less of secret moments spent with me, than times past, 12 months before, with her master.

Already the couple were drawing away. The scene seemed to me so decisive that all revolt ceased. My recent mentality yielded to ancestral fatalities. What right had I to fight against Awah? I had taken his wife, the daughter of his race, without his deigning even to notice it. He was taking her back at the time when the sacred instinct instructed him to do so; any dispute would have been odious and iniquitous…

My suffering was no less bitter for that. I watched their lithe silhouettes draw away; my arteries pulsed desperately; large tears ran down my cheeks.

One chagrin followed another for days. The fortunate lack of foresight was no more. In that savage life, I was subject to the mental miseries of civilized life. Touanhô scarcely looked at me. Subservient to all Awah’s movements, she went hunting with him and sat next to him in the cave. He behaved in a tyrannical and exclusive manner. The same instinct that drives the stag into the autumnal forest filled him with suspicion, sometimes with pugnacity. He avoided me; he was even more taciturn than usual, and no longer carved either stones or antlers.

One morning, when I was sitting on the threshold of the cave, I noticed Namhâ, the adolescent girl, playing with the child. Since being abandoned by Touanhô I found her beside me more frequently. Naturally less familiar than the young woman, she had a kind of passive gentleness that was not without charm. That morning, I noticed a certain mysterious languor in her, and her fiery eyes occasionally became fixed, very wide, full of a “panic” dreaminess. I had never seen her so seductive. She was at the divine age when almost all the daughters of men have their grace, even the ugly, and Namhâ had received the gifts of brightness, youth and suppleness.

I sat there for a while, bathed in the vague sweetness that accompanies nascent hopes. Then I got up, with the aim of going to collect grains, nuts and roots for the winter provisions. Just as I set of into the open at a brisk pace, Namhâ and the child moved sideways and found themselves in my way. Namhâ stopped, looking at me in a strange, almost fearful fashion, and suddenly fled toward the eastern corner of the rock-face.

“Namhâ!” I shouted, in surprise.

Instinctively, I had followed her. She stopped, and turned to look at me again, and then bounded away and started running again.

One might think that she’s afraid of me! I thought.

I stopped following her, wondering periodically why she had adopted that unusual attitude. Perhaps, after all, I had made some awkward gesture that had frightened her.

Eventually, I stopped thinking about it. Images of Touanhô and Awah began to torment me again, and I was busy gathering mushrooms in a wooded spot when I saw Namhâ, unexpectedly, standing under a beech-tree, half hidden by the trunk. She was watching me, as before, with that same fearful expression.

“Namhâ!” I cried. “Would you like to help me collect mushrooms?”

She hesitated; then, quitting her shelter, she took a few steps in my direction. Suddenly, she stopped, agitatedly.

“Do I frighten you?” I asked.

I went forward. With a light bound she retreated, then ran away, as nimble and frisky as a goat-kid. That seemed bizarre to me, and I tried to catch up with her. Bushes got in my way, and I decided to abandon a pursuit that might be terrifying her.

 While collecting my mushrooms, I continued to meditate upon the adventure. I saw Namhâ again at the moment when she had stopped, quite distinctly, as if she had been in front of me; I analyzed the expression on her face, reminding myself that she had, after all, followed me. New ideas occurred to me, that I dared not develop too far, for fear of disappointment.

When I returned, I met the old women, Howouoï, with the child. “Have you seen Namhâ?” she asked.

I thought I glimpsed curiosity in her wrinkled face and said: “I did see Namhâ. I spoke to her and she ran away.”

Howouoï looked at me for a moment silently, and then began to laugh. “Namhâ has become a woman. Perhaps Namhâ followed…”

My heart began to beat faster; any ambiguity as to the meaning of the incident was erased; Namhâ was following an instinct born before humankind, in the forests and savannahs.

“May Alglâ follow Namhâ?” I asked.

“Has Alglâ not become a Son of the Mammoth?” Howouoï riposted.

“What if Awah wants to follow Namhâ?”

Howouoï started laughing again. “Awah is Touanhô’s master. There are only two women among us, and there are two men.”

Chagrin vanished from my heart like mist from a stream, and I looked at the yellow September Sun with joy.

I did not see Namhâ again until it was time for sleep. In the cave, among the others, the young girl behaved as naturally as usual, but the following day, she remained invisible or only appeared in company. I resolved to catch her, and the day after, I set off on the warpath. I climbed to the top of mounds, hillocks and rocks, slyly exploring the surroundings.

After two hours of vain research, I hoisted myself up on to an erratically-shaped block of stone, from which my view commanded a broad extent. For some time, I could not see anything, and I was about to get down again when I distinctly perceived Namhâ’s silhouette, near a wood of beeches and birches. Taking advantage of the uneven terrain, I succeeded in getting to within three or four paces of her without being seen—but then she slipped away and disappeared into the wood.

I ran after her. Once, I was only a few steps behind her, and leapt forward to seize her, when she slid into a bush and buried herself within it. I had no hesitation in following her, but at that game, in which I was less expert than her, I lost ground. When I emerged again, her silhouette was disappearing into the forest.

For more than an hour I tried to pick up her trail. I found it suddenly, by chance. The pursuit began again, ardent and subtle. Every time I was on the point of catching up with the girl, she found some new trick; besides which, her knowledge of the area was superior to mine. Nevertheless, I succeeded in guiding her from the confines of the wood to the plain. She tried to get back under cover, but I barred the way. Then, as if despairing, she decided to flee in a straight line.

She was heading for the cave. At first, she succeeded in maintaining the distance between us; I had, after all, expended much more energy than she had, because she had been able to rest while under cover. After a quarter of an hour of pursuit, however, I had gained ground, and I had nearly reached her when she climbed up on to a block of stone—the very same misshapen block from which I had seen her.

Because the block was only accessible on one side, the maneuver left her at my discretion. I hoisted myself up in my turn. When I arrived on top, she tried to push me away.

“Namhâ!” I murmured, in a supplicant tone.

She was out of breath; her effort weakened; I found myself beside her.

Then a veritable terror appeared on her face. She recoiled to the very pinnacle of the rock, which overhung slightly, and uttered a long moan.

 

 

VII.

 

 

“Why is Namhâ afraid?” I asked.

“Will Alglâ strike as hard as Awah?” she sighed, shivering. “Awah almost killed Touanhô!”

“Alglâ will not strike!” I replied, softly.

The girl looked at me with extreme suspicion, mingled with disdain. “The Sons of the Mammoth cannot unite with a girl without striking her. Their posterity would be annihilated.”

These words did not surprise me overmuch; they were in conformity with the mores of many primitive populations whose customs have been described to us by travelers—but they embarrassed me. All my instincts rebelled at the idea of striking a woman. It was, however, necessary. Namhâ’s gaze showed that she would not yield to a man who did not understand ritual violence.

“Alglâ will do as all the Sons of the Mammoth do,” I declared.

Then the terror reappeared in the young face and paralyzed me. To gain time, I said: “Let’s go back into the wood.”

She followed me in silence, doubtless torn between her dread and a sentiment of the inevitable.

A fine affair! I thought. Men who hit women are not even rare in our civilized milieu—and it is still without the consent of the latter.

I was still irresolute when we found ourselves under cover. As before with Touanhô, but even more forcefully, I was intoxicated by the youth of the world. I trembled as I looked at the fascinating primitive and, moved by a sort of ancestral violence, suddenly lifted my fist and struck Namhâ on the head. She released a feeble plaint, and pressed herself against me. I put my arms around her. For the second time, I espoused a daughter of an abolished era.

 

The days of the long evening were full of sweetness. While the coppery Sun sent forth its impoverished rays, I lost myself in the wilderness with Namhâ. She was my wife, according to customs as scientific as ours; she was charming, in the simple and spontaneous manner of children. In sum, I never loved any woman as much as her. To the exaltation of love was joined a strange sentiment of immortality—the sentiment of an individual who might have lived for 100 centuries and found himself still as full of life as in the epochs when prehistoric herds roamed the immense planet.

Night fell—the polar night, which would envelop us with stars for six months. It did not interrupt our happiness. We took refuge in the deep caverns, where the temperature was almost immutable. It seemed that the perpetual light that shone within them had increased its intensity. Besides, we were not confined to our new abode. Numerous boreal auroras illuminated the territory. We could still hunt and collect seeds, nuts and mushrooms.

The mammoths, installed in the summer cave, went out as we did, even when the night became black. They found their pasture on the plain and in the forests, but they ate less and slept more. It was in that period that I familiarized myself with them. The older one turned out to have been stupefied by age; our relationship remained passive. The other demonstrated an intelligence as quick as our elephants. I won its confidence. Nourishment inevitably played a preponderant part in our initial relationship, but the affection to which the habit of being together almost invariably gives birth, even in stupid creatures, eventually sprang up. The mammoth came to enjoy my presence, independently of any gift of roots or stems—and I tried to domesticate it. I had no definite objective; it seemed obvious to me that the animal might be useful in some fashion.

It was necessary to proceed prudently. Awah, Wanawanoûm and even Touanhô did not like anything that deviated from their traditions; furthermore, the mammoth was their totem. At first, therefore, I kept my attempts secret, and the mammoth already obeyed me in many things while my companions were still in ignorance.

A discovery rendered my task less difficult and less delicate. One day, when I had taken Namhâ to a place where the others hardly ever went, I found a singular engraving on a reindeer antler, which must have originated in the final phase of the Magdalenian Era. The engraving depicted a man perched on a mammoth’s back. It seemed to me to be indisputable proof of domestication—perhaps a fortuitous and local domestication, one of those isolated attempts that must often have preceded the achievements of our distant ancestors.

Awah and Wanawanoûm examined the engraving with a greater interest than they usually brought to events foreign to their routines. I succeeded in persuading them that their ancestors had been accustomed to living more intimately with mammoths than they did; I suggested that we ought to imitate the ancestors. They did not contradict that, although they took no interest in the matter themselves—which, of course, I preferred. I gained the advantage of being able to attribute my attempts at domestication to a revival of ultra-venerable traditions.

For my savage companions, as for almost all human beings, it was sufficient to break down certain prejudices for the rest to follow. They were initially astonished by what the mammoth consented to do, but then found it quite natural.

In order to excite less suspicion, I observed the rituals strictly; I did not forget to render the mammoth the same homage as my hosts; I even exaggerated that homage slightly.

In parallel with this work, I learned to make use of primitive implements. My secret objective was to build a sled. Two or three preliminary experiments gave me considerable hope. In the month of December, I set to work in earnest.

Needless to say, I continued to make progress in the prehistoric language. I even succeeded in getting a few simplifications adopted, and a few new terms that rendered conversation less difficult. The women helped me in my efforts and understood the novelties better than the men; contrary to the norm of ultra-civilized societies, they seemed less neophobic than their masters.

By February, the sled was beginning to take shape. I wanted it to be spacious, in order that it might accommodate all my companions and considerable food-supplies. At first, Awah had looked at the unprecedented object with hostile suspicion, but in the end he became used to it, to the point of no longer even looking at it. He had become placid—the season that rendered him aggressive would not reappear for many months—and slept for ten hours a day, as did all the others.

In January, the temperature decreased to a low level, although it remained far superior to polar temperatures, but in the caverns we did not suffer from the cold at all. Magnificent aurora illuminated the domain; I delighted in taking solitary walks.

Then an ominous event occurred.

 

 

VIII.

 

 

On the day in question, there was a particularly spectacular aurora borealis. Immense sparkling arcs and jets of light like fountains of luminous water lit up the landscape. At the base there was a scarlet blaze, torrents of rubies and carbuncles; at the zenith, a delicate aurora of beryl and aquamarine, which blotted out the petty stars and only allowed the regal stars to shine through. The air and ground were still; all life was concentrated on high, mysterious and tremulous.

I was thinking about the innumerable energies of which we would never know anything, which might perhaps nourish worlds as complex as our own, without anything advertising their presence to us. I have always thought that there is an infinity of coexistences everywhere, that where we only see one Sun and planets there are millions, trillions of systems different from one another, which intersect as if each system were a mere absence so far as the others are concerned.

I was, therefore, thinking about these things while walking on the plain with Namhâ, when we felt a shock so violent that we lost our balance. It only lasted for two or three seconds, and was not repeated—but we felt that it was a redoubtable circumstance.

“Our ancestors perished thus!” said the young woman fearfully. “Mountains fall in that manner!”

I remembered then the tormented locale that I had passed through while fleeing from the polar bears.

We headed back to the caverns; the mammoths had come out, the old one torpid, as usual, the other very nervous, agitating its ears with a mixture of fear and menace. My presence calmed it down; it put its trunk around my body—which was a kind of caress—and gradually resumed its customary attitude.

We went into the caves warily; they did not exhibit any damage. It was only several days afterwards that Touanhô, Awah and Wanawanoûm noticed a few fissures.

While we were examining the ground and the walls, Touanhô came in with her little daughter and the old woman. They were still very frightened. The old woman mumbled incoherent words relating to similar shocks, several of which had occurred in her lifetime.

As Awah and Wanawanoûm had not come back we went to look for them, Touanhô toward the north and the old woman toward the east, while Namhâ and I headed westwards.

Namhâ had become insouciant again—her mentality scarcely took account of anything beyond the present moment—while I remained anxious. My mature civilized imagination painted the future for me in colors that became blacker as my cogitation became more abundant. Similar accidents had evidently reduced that human tribe that had maintained itself in the region since the Tourassian Epoch to a handful of individuals.

We had been walking for about an hour when there was a bellowing to our right, and a large red deer stag was silhouetted by the boreal light. It was a magnificent ten-pointer with a broad breast and a solid and supple back. Its agitation was visible, causing its slender legs to tremble—and it had lost the instinct of self-preservation momentarily, since, instead of running away from us, it seemed to be waiting for us.

My first impulse was to reach for my harpoon, but I remembered immediately that we had sufficient meat in the caves, and it would have been ridiculous to sacrifice so beautiful an animal, not only for its own sake but that of the generations that it might father.

Suddenly, the stag charged, at lightning speed.

“It’s furious!” Namhâ cried.

I grabbed my harpoon again, and waited for the animal while Namhâ ran sideways. She was the one the animal went after. In a few bounds, it was close. She fled, but the outcome of the pursuit was certain.

I threw my harpoon, which grazed the animal, and then I drew my revolver—and just as the girl was about to be overtaken I fired twice. The stag reared up convulsively on its hind feet, turned, and collapsed.

Bewildered, joyful and amazed, Namhâ exclaimed: “Alglâ has killed the great stag!”

Soon an anxiety appeared on her face, mixed with admiration. She realized that I had employed a method of combat unknown to the Sons of the Mammoth; she looked fearfully at the weapon I still held in my fist.

“The stag would have killed Namhâ,” I murmured. “Namhâ must not tell the Sons of the Mammoth about the fire-axe. If Namhâ mentions it, the fire-axe will no longer be able to save anyone.”

“Namhâ will not speak of it!” she exclaimed.

I sensed that she would hold her tongue. The neophobia of Awah and Wanawanoûm had caused me to keep the properties of my rifle and revolver secret; Awah especially might have taken exception to them. I had decided only to make use of the weapons in case of extreme necessity.

“That’s good,” I said, supportively. “Namhâ will thus be the friend of the fire-axe.”

We walked on for another hour. Finally, Namhâ, whose hearing was as delicate as a she-wolf’s, put her ear to the ground.

“I can hear Wanawanoûm’s footsteps,” she said.

Several minutes passed before I heard them in my turn; then the silhouette of the old man appeared on top of a rise. He had seen us; he allowed us to come closer, and then pointed westwards. “The mountain has fallen in the caves that are under the ground!” he said, hoarsely. A deep sadness appeared in his face.

He led us to the boundary of the territory. An entire section of granite ridges had disappeared; the harsh polar landscape was visible through a gap; a glacial wind chilled us to the bone. “It’s the end of the Sons of the Mammoth!” the old man added.

And we returned to the caves in a melancholy mood.

Gradually, the excess of my anxiety had disappeared. I told myself that, all things considered, many years might pass before the annihilation of our habitat—and, as is my nature, I formulated projects and conjectures. The sled, which I had hitherto considered as a simple instrument of exploration, became a potential means of salvation. If I could domesticate the mammoth to the point at which I could persuade it to render the services of a draught animal, I could attempt to cross the distance separating us from the nearest Eskimo tribes. If that adventure proved impossible, at least I would be able to place markers in the surrounding wilderness that would enjoin some future polar expedition to reach the territory. Such expeditions could only increase in number; eventually, one of them was bound to follow the route that my own expedition had taken.

 

I devoted the rest of the winter to finishing the sled and solving the problems of provisioning it. Accumulating the supplies necessary to humans was nothing, but the mammoth required a more considerable volume of food for itself than all of us put together, because that nourishment had to be exclusively vegetal. I imagined various combinations, including a sort of biscuit made from a wild cereal, fairly similar to barley, which my hosts did not exactly cultivate, but the growth of which they favored by ripping out rival plants. I resolved to cultivate it, to the extent that that was possible.

Daylight returned to shine on these enterprises: a pale and chilly daylight that scarcely elevated the temperature for a fortnight. I worked stubbornly. Gradually, I forced the idea of a possible salvation into the heads of my companions, in case further cataclysms threatened our existence.

The women, even the old one, allowed themselves to be convinced, but the men were extremely reluctant to abandon their ancestral land. Awah, especially, listened to me with a discontent that went as far as anger.

 

 

IX.

 

 

The Arctic spring grew warmer as the Sun rose higher into the sky. Beyond the habitat, the wilderness remained glacially white and sinister. Since the earthquake, it was constantly visible through the breach made in the granite ridges, as one sees a landscape through a window. A keen wind often penetrated from that direction, making the temperature we enjoyed all the more welcome. Its nature remained completely mysterious; it was an emanation from the ground, whose constancy over the millennia far surpassed the thermal constancy of radium.

Aided by the women, I cultivated the species of barley I mentioned as best I could. Our work consisted of strewing seeds on favorable ground and extirpating harmful plants. No further accident having occurred, I became more confident. Primitive life recovered its sweetness.

Touanhô and Namhâ were pregnant. The latter, submissive to ancestral instincts, lived with me as a sister; I respected her wisdom. Touanhô also led a continent existence; even so, one day when we were alone in the winter caves, where I was assembling documents, she suddenly remembered the foreign caress, and her lips sought mine. It was her only awakening until the summer.

It soon seemed probable that my cereal crop would be abundant. At the end of May, it had put forth innumerable stalks. I had some difficulty in preserving our fields from the appetite of the mammoths and wild herbivores, and, in spite of everything, they devoured a substantial fraction of the barley. Luckily, it happened that other plants, which they preferred, were more abundant that year in pastures sufficiently distant from my fields.

The mammoth’s education proceeded apace. The colossus allowed itself to be put in harness and we made a few excursions by sled into the polar desert. It drew the heavy contraption along without difficulty, seemingly indefatigable.

At first, Wanawanoûm and Awah observed this new form of my activity with a jaundiced eye; they anticipated obscure perils arising from infractions injurious to millennia-old customs. It was necessary to invent confused pretexts and incessantly to remind them of the engraving of the man perched on the mammoth. As they had little imagination and their logic was obtuse, I easily overcame their objections, to the extent that, the annoyance of reflection coming to my aid, they eventually shut up. The earthquake and the evident imminent extinction of their race had rendered them somewhat inert; they sensed formless threat around them, and, in their better moments, understood that it was not futile to think about salvation. Besides, the women, now convinced, acted with cunning, subtle and effective patience.

One day, when I had taken my excursion further than usual, Awah was particularly irritated. “Does Alglâ want to make the mammoth die?” he grumbled, with an anger that needed little encouragement to become furious.

“It’s not Alglâ who will kill the mammoth,” I replied, softly. “It’s the Earth’s depths, which will open up for him, and for us too.”

He shook his head, obstinately. “The Sons of the Mammoth will die if Alglâ makes the mammoth die. The white plain is our enemy. The ancestors never went there!”

I turned to Wanawanoûm and asked: “Have the Sons of the Mammoth not been masters of a land greater than this one?”

Wanawanoûm replied, emphatically: “The Sons of the Mammoth have been masters of a land ten times larger than this one!”

“They hunted out there, then?” I went on. “They lived in the direction of the Sun. The land there is no longer white; it is as green as these leaves and this grass. That’s where the Sons of the Mammoth lived to begin with. That’s where they will find their hunting-grounds and become a numerous tribe again.”

Wanawanoûm listened to me in bewilderment; Awah was attentive, and seized on a confused hope.

“Alglâ is right,” Touanhô affirmed, impetuously. “There are lands with other animals—animals like those engraved in the winter caves.”

That was an excellent idea; I took possession of it. “I’ve seen vast herds of those animals!” I affirmed. “Do Awah and Wanawanoûm not want to hunt them, as their ancestors did?”

Wanawanoûm nodded his head, conviction dawning. Awah’s anger had decreased; a thought had been planted in him that took several days to take form, but which rendered him inoffensive in the meantime.

In June, Touanhô brought into the world a boy of the pure prehistoric race, while Namhâ gave birth to a daughter in whose veins a partly-modern blood ran. At the end of July, we had an abundant harvest of barley, a part of which was put in store, while the other furnished us with our meals and new seed for sowing. We lived more happily than ever. The mammoth was perfectly tame. I had consolidated the sled in such a way as to protect it from the rudest shocks.

Awah, ever taciturn, made no further objection to my singularities; in fact, he ended up no longer seeing them. It was, however, necessary not to think of the voyage until a further cataclysm had demonstrated its absolute necessity. I could, in truth, have risked the adventure alone, but that would have seemed a betrayal. Then again, powerful bonds retained me among my comrades—firstly my daughter, whom I loved ardently, and then Namhâ and Touanhô. Will moralists complain if I confess that I cherished the one almost as much as the other?

In the month of August, Touanhô, who had been absorbed until then by her maternity, became familiar again. She remembered. She found me in the wilderness and in the half-light of the caves; my love was rekindled, as sweetly as in the days when the young prehistoric woman had made my exile an enchantment…

As the polar night approached, the salvation plan became less practicable; toward the end of the month, however, we discovered a new peril.

The weather having been unusually mild on the exterior plains, a few Arctic animals had ventured as far as our latitude. One day, Awah, Wanawanoûm and I headed for the breach, in the vicinity of which there was a great abundance of edible roots and mushrooms. While we were gathering our harvest, we heard a growl. I straightened up, and perceived two fine polar bears. They had crossed the zone separating their territory from ours; they were advancing slowly, with a certain prudence. The configuration of the place had revealed them before they had been able to perceive us. When they did see us, they hesitated, perhaps astonished by our form.

Wanawanoûm and Awah were certainly more surprised than the wild beasts. The bear, very rare in the region, into which they only strayed in consequence of misadventure or exceptional circumstances, had never penetrated into the habitat in which my companions lived. The ones that had pursued me into the corridor the previous year, and which the mammoth had put to flight, had not returned.

“Waô! Waô!” cried Wanawanoûm, in whom legendary memories were waking up. “They’re snow bears!”

Awah had his axe and his harpoon ready. Wanawanoûm had his spear, and I waited with my harpoon in one hand and my revolver in the other. After a moment of uncertainty, the bears retreated. Their obscure consciousness perceived danger. The larger of the two—the male—calmly turned to its right and started trotting toward a little clump of ash-trees. The female followed, and within a few seconds they became invisible. The peril had been deferred; it nevertheless remained redoubtable.

“The women!” I cried.

Fear, which I had not felt for myself, gripped my guts at the thought of Namhâ, Touanhô and my daughter.

 

 

X.

 

 

Wanawanoûm and Awah remained impassive, but they did not waste any time, and we were soon on the bears’ trail. The pursuit was not very difficult. We were delayed in the middle of the wood, however, where we were first made to pause by the tracks of a group of hinds that crossed those of the bears, and then by a clearing of hard ground. When we emerged from the wood we could not see the fugitives; they had doubtless gone over a hill that rose up 400 or 500 meters from the edge of the wood, toward which we set our course. When we reached the crest, I released a cry of alarm, while Wanawanoûm uttered a dull exclamation: the bears were chasing Touanhô!

We were too far away to reach her in time. Awah bounded forward like a red deer and I, being an experienced runner, kept pace with him, but he was too late. The male bear seized Touanhô and knocked her flat. With a wild growl, it began to tear the young woman apart.

At that moment, a massive silhouette appeared at the edge of a wood: a mammoth. Unfortunately, it was the old one. At the sight of the bear and the recumbent Touanhô, it came to a halt. Its ancient mummified brain undoubtedly had a vague understanding of what was happening, for it trumpeted, and the male bear, raising its head, was gripped by such amazement that it released its prey. Its mate, which had advanced a paw to seize Touanhô’s child, recoiled. Then we howled frantically, brandishing our weapons. The old mammoth came forward—at which sight the bears made off at a tangent. Only Awah thought about pursuing them; Wanawanoûm and I rushed toward Touanhô.

She was losing blood from two long cuts. I thought at first that she had been mortally wounded. She was almost unconscious. A summary examination revealed that the wounds were superficial and only involved unimportant veins. Wanawanoûm made a dressing with aromatic herbs, which was better than any I could have contrived. The young woman came round.

Awah had returned, not out of fear but by virtue of the prudence that was innate in my prehistoric people as in almost all savages, which dissuades them from needlessly braving perils in which their strength and skill are likely to be defeated.

As soon as Touanhô was on her feet I asked: “Where’s Namhâ?”

“Touanhô has not seen Namhâ since she left the caves.”

Awah and Wanawanoûm looked at one another indecisively. “We must start tracking the bears again!” I cried.

That was the only possible course of action, as we did not know where Namhâ and he old woman were. My companions did not raise any objection, but Touanhô could not go with us and at least three men would be necessary to confront the bears.

“Touanhô will stay with the mammoth,” the young woman declared.

The old mammoth had not been domesticated at all; it wandered at the hazard of its senile fantasy.

“What if it abandons Touanhô?” I objected.

“It’s slow…Touanhô can follow it.”

That was obvious, and the primitive woman’s resilience reassured me. Awah and Wanawanoûm had not waited for my decision; they were already back on the trail. I was long in going after them.

Unless they had been delayed, the predators had to have a long lead. We went into a wood of beeches and birches, pressing forward as rapidly as Awah’s senses and Wanawanoûm’s sagacity permitted. In spite of the inevitable pauses, we moved quite quickly; it did not take us long to reach the other side of the wood—as chance would have it, the bears had taken the most direct route. From there, we could see the granite mass in which the caves were hollowed out.

Awah and Wanawanoûm discovered that the bears had been on the point of invading our refuge; there were tracks alongside the rock-face. After a detour, we picked them up again on the plain. Our enemies were nowhere to be seen; either they had hidden in some thicket or they had taken shelter in one of the numerous outcrops of rock that cut across the territory—but their tracks could not escape my companions.

Suddenly, a clamor brought us to a halt and, on turning round, we saw the old woman. She had spotted the bears and had hidden among the trees with Touanhô’s daughter.

“Namhâ is beyond the Red Hill!” she shouted.

“Are the bears pursuing Namhâ?” I shouted, in anguish.

She made an affirmative sign; she explained that the young woman had disappeared on the other side of the hill before the bears could begin their ascent.

We required no more than ten minutes to reach the Red Hill. When we reached its crest, we finally saw the bears. They were indulging in a phantasmagorical gesticulation. Each was crouched at the extremity of a block of basalt; their heads and one of their paws disappeared periodically. After a fairly extended movement, the heads and the paws reappeared, while they emitted furious roars.

Wanawanoûm was the first to understand the significance of the bizarre scene, and called out. A tremulous voice replied: Namhâ’s voice.

As we continued to advance, Awah and I soon understood what Wanawanoûm had guessed. The basalt block, shaped like a prism, had a cleft cutting all the way through it. Namhâ had slid sideways into the cleft with her child. The bears had not been able to follow them; they could only insert their narrow heads and long necks into the fissure, along with one of their paws, but their upper bodies remained outside. As we drew closer, the scene seemed more ominous. We could vaguely discern Namhâ, standing upright, with the baby in her arms. When the bears reached down it seemed that it would only require a slight effort for them to reach the unfortunate girl.

“Namha should not be afraid!” I shouted. “We’re coming to help her.”

Before proceeding with the attack we conferred rapidly. It was primarily a matter of succeeding; Namhâ’s situation would not get any worse for some time. We had a good chance; in Awah’s hands the axe and club were formidable weapons, Wanawanoûm threw his harpoon with great skill, and I had my revolver, loaded with six hardened bullets.

The bears were hesitant. Our presence, which was connected with a disagreeable memory, certainly puzzled them. Perhaps, if we attacked deliberately, they might take flight, even though they must be exasperated by their disappointments—but I thought it important to destroy them. Their flight would leave the peril in place.

If I could only bring the mammoth! I thought.

My eyes explored the surroundings. There was as much chance of discovering the colossus as there was of our running around for a long time without finding it. Wanawanoûm, who must have had a similar idea, took a long look around the horizon.

“Waô!” he said. His extended finger pointed out a distant silhouette.

“Let Awah and Wanawanoûm wait,” I recommended. “The mammoth will help us!”

“Awah will wait.”

I had already started running. When I was within range, I shouted an appeal. The mammoth stopped grazing, raised its massive head and came toward me. I brought it back to my companions and declared: “Let’s attack! It’s necessary that the snow-bears should be injured!”

I cocked my revolver and marched toward the male, while Awah made ready to attack the female.

 

 

XI.

 

 

After a momentary hesitation, Wanawanoûm decided to follow me, persuaded that the powerful Awah could reckon with the she-bear, while he had his doubts about me. I had, moreover, chosen the more redoubtable of the two predators.

Without worrying about the effects of my action on the superstitious mentality of my hosts, I made immediate use of the revolver. The bear, hit by two bullets, turned round with a furious growl and hurled itself forward. However serious its wounds might be, its vigor seemed intact. Within a moment it had covered the distance separating us.

Wanawanoûm, initially amazed by the gunshots, recovered his composure. He threw a harpoon, which sank into the beast’s side and deadened its speed, which permitted me to take better aim. A bullet penetrated its yellow breast, and the bear collapsed with a sort of cavernous sigh. It got up quite promptly and resumed the attack, but it was tottering. My fourth bullet struck its shoulder, and I was about to finish it off when the mammoth appeared.

The scene was brief. Seized and crushed by the monstrous trunk, the bear exploded like a goatskin bottle, and was then reduced to a pulp beneath feet like pile-drivers.

Awah had carried forward the attack in his own fashion. After feigning to draw away, he had come back, circling a mound. The she-bear was suspicious; when the prehistoric man reappeared, she began to gain ground. It was the detonations of my revolver that stopped her. In her dim consciousness, she glimpsed the danger to her companion and, I imagine, the necessity of coming to his aid.

At the moment when Wanawanoûm threw his harpoon at the male, I saw the she-bear, which, avoiding Awah, attempted an oblique movement toward her companion in adventure. A new detonation stopped her short; she must have seen the mammoth running forward, and a sure instinct told her what to do: she fled. In the meantime, however, Awah had approached within spear-range. His harpoon lodged in the she-bear’s side just as the mammoth crushed the panting body of the male. She turned furiously, hesitated for a second, and then resumed her flight.

Although weakened slightly by her wound, she gained ground. Dreading that she might escape, I uttered a cry that the mammoth had learned to understand; all four of us launched ourselves in pursuit. You would have thought that the mammoth was trotting—and, in fact, it was not moving at top speed. Nevertheless, it was running fast enough to overhaul the fugitive well before she could reach the nearest thicket, and she knew it. She veered sideways toward a small chain of rocks, and climbed up the steepest slope. The maneuver proved disastrous; the other side was perpendicular.

We surrounded the beast easily, and I was getting ready to fire when Awah, gripped by a sudden overexcitement, ran up the slope in his turn and hurled a spear. With a screech that was almost a sob, the she-bear plastered herself against the granite, begging for mercy. Awah thought that she was exhausted—an excusable error in a man who had never hunted large predators. He took two more steps, raised his axe, and struck twice. The she-bear threw herself upon our companion, and rolled down the slope with him.

When Awah got up, the she-bear was dead—but he had a broken arm and a deep wound in his chest.

 

There was no other notable incident until the day when darkness descended upon the territory. Awah’s arm, crookedly healed, had lost some of its strength and skill. That circumstance conferred an authority on me that was all the more necessary because the effects of the revolver had awakened unfavorable ideas in the minds of my companions. My physical condition was the best possible argument. It imposed respect in the women and in Wanawanoûm. Awah also submitted to it, not out of fear—he was extremely brave and did not even fear death—but primitive wisdom.

I became the chief of our fragmentary tribe, the person who disposed the community’s resources as he wished, and to whom obedience was due on pain of death. My will became a supreme argument, on condition that it respected the affiliation of the tribe and its sacred relationship with the mammoths.

I was able to dispense with any explanation regarding my revolver and my rifle. That would have been an error, liable to sow seeds of mistrust. I therefore affirmed that the Sons of the Mammoth, when they had lived in the southern lands, had made an alliance with the fire-axe and the fire-spear, and that that alliance would be renewed if we ever saw the hunting grounds of our great ancestors again. The story initially gave rise, if not to manifest incredulity, at least to a fearful—and fundamentally hostile—incomprehension. A second repetition succeeded in rendering it plausible. The females were the first to come round, then Wanawanoûm; Awah took more than a month to accommodate it within his rebellious brain.

The long night passed peacefully until the middle of January. The temperature in the grottoes dropped slightly, but without our experiencing any consequent discomfort; we could, moreover, obtain an agreeable warmth in the deepest cave of all.

Namhâ was pregnant again, but not Touanhô. Both of them showed me a faithful and increasing affection. I asked nothing of the morrow. A perfectly healthy life, a dream-filled insouciance, no servitude, female companions I loved sincerely, and who never subjected me to any of the torments that we owe to their civilized sisters, and nourishment that I found flavorsome—what more could I need to make life seem charming?

In the month of February, when I was returning with Awah, Wanawanoûm and the mammoth from a sort of tour of inspection of the domain, we felt the ground tremble. It was so brief and so feeble, that I would scarcely have given it a thought had I not been on the alert. After the previous incident, the event seemed to me to be very ominous; it seemed no less so to my companions.

The shock was not repeated that day, and if there was any damage to the territory, we could not find it—but a week later, the warning was renewed, with greater force. The caves exhibited numerous fissures and a part of the granite frontier collapsed.

Wanawanoûm issued a pessimistic prediction: “The Earth will open up and devour the Sons of the Mammoth.”

The polar day was approaching when a third, violent quake shook the caves and the entire habitat. It was just as we were going to sleep; we woke up with a start. A part of the roof came down in the next cave—and when we went outside, we were not long delayed in observing sinister collapses everywhere.

A few peaceful weeks followed. The Sun rose; its gentle light gave us some confidence—but in the month of April, a feeble shock reminded us of our peril.

“We must get ready to escape!” I declared.

It was the time when the Sun marked midday. The women listened to me with a dread full of hope. Wanawanoûm acquiesced, ready to obey. Only Awah seemed not to hear me. He was by far the most attached to the territory, as to the ancestral traditions, and it was difficult for him to believe that there was anything else outside but the pale locales that horrified him.

I said to him, softly: “What does Awah think?”

He replied, in a bleak tone: “Awah no longer has his strength. Awah is no longer the chief.”

 

 

XII.

 

 

We worked actively in the weeks that followed. With a part of our stores of barley we made large biscuits, to which we were able to add pemmican, dried mushrooms and roots. The rest of the barley was to constitute the mammoth’s nourishment.

Salvation presented itself in a disheartening and sinister form. It would probably be necessary to flee before summer, which rendered the enterprise much more difficult and perilous. My only good fortune was that I knew the route, and that my poor comrades in exploration and myself had set up signposts—some of which, however, must have been obliterated by the weather.

We finished our preparations before the end of April. There were provisions for 20 days, and we would doubtless kill some game en route. Moreover, if we succeeded in crossing the desert region rapidly, we would find edible vegetation for the mammoth.

In addition to the natural difficulties, one moral problem presented itself. What were we going to do with the old mammoth? It was impossible for it to make the journey; it would cause us considerable delay, would consume barley uselessly and, after all, would certainly perish one way or another, in conditions which could hardly avoid being embarrassing.

The only reasonable course was to abandon it. Its fate would be no worse, since it could not survive until the annihilation of the ancient pastures. There were, therefore, no grounds for hesitation—and on my own account, I had no hesitation. In this instance, however, my companions’ wishes had a capital importance. I did not know what those wishes were; I delayed an explanation that, undertaken awkwardly, might have led to disaster. If, perchance, Awah and Wanawanoûm, not to mention Touanhô, were to demand that the Father go with us, I would have no means of causing my opinion to prevail, save by trickery—for there was no possibility of using force; in totemic matters, my companions would have perished rather than compromise.

I opened myself up to Touanhô first; she had the most flexible mind and knew the mentality of her companions better than Namhâ. I did not ask her advice, of course—that would have opened the way to ominous uncertainties—but one morning, when we were walking in the plain, I said: “The Father of Mammoths will not leave these pastures. He’s too old. He won’t survive from a day in the snowfields. We would have killed him.”

Touanhô looked at me with surprise and disquiet, but she raised no objection. Eventually, she said: “What if he wants to follow us?”

That was an excellent question, in that it furnished me with a perhaps peremptory argument. “If he wants to follow us, he will follow us. The Sons of the Mammoth will bow down to him.”

In truth, that was a risk—but I knew that if his companion did not summon him, the old mammoth would not go out into the snows.

I hesitated for a few days more, and then decided to talk to the males. “The Sons of the Mammoth,” I said, “will only take the Ancestor if he wishes to follow us. If he prefers to remain in the pasturelands, he might live until their end—but the snow would kill him.”

“How can we know the Ancestor’s will?” Wanawanoûm asked.

“He will know that we want to save ourselves,” I affirmed. “He knows already. When he sees his companion depart, he will choose.”

The question was not resolved that day. Awah had made no reply. He lived in a disturbing mutism. I returned to the issue several times, without persuading him to offer his opinion, and I began to fear a redoubtable opposition.

One morning—I mean the hour when we got up—Awah said, abruptly: “The Ancestor will not follow us. He will die in his pasturelands. That is better for him and his son.”

He spoke bitterly; I sensed that he envied the beast rather than lamenting him. The mammoth had ended his days; he could no longer be of use to his descendants, animal or human—while he, Awah, was still too young to abandon his race!

Tragic events hastened our departure. There were no more earthquakes, but collapses, which were reshaping the locale from day to day. Grass, bushes and woods would sink in a matter of hours; holes took the place of mounds, even hills. The animals fled recklessly; stags and hinds went to perish in the white wilderness. The birds flew southwards. The granite ring that had protected the habitat for millennia was crumbling all along its length. We camped in the open. I had got everything ready for a sudden departure and, in addition to the provisions, I had packed a cargo of large diamonds that were, in my estimation, worth between five and six million francs.

The caves collapsed in their turn, at the very moment when we were heading toward the devastated zone that separated us from the Arctic wilderness. We were nearly swallowed up several times; chance alone saved us. When we were safe, I turned to take one last look at the singular and blessed region in which I had known the life of freedom that our descendants will never know again.

In the distance, on a granite islet, I glimpsed the massive silhouette of the old mammoth. He was standing still, as if stupefied; I understood that he was rapidly going numb and that that numbness had further increased the inertia of his ancient brain. It seemed impossible that he could survive for more than 24 hours, assuming that he would not be crushed by a rockslide.

My companions had seen what I had seen; a sudden emotion gripped the young women; they extended their arms toward the place where the caves had formerly been. Awah and Wanawanoûm remained imperturbable and taciturn; the old woman moaned periodically.

 

The journey was painful, even though it was favored by relatively mild temperatures. Furthermore, the air was perfectly still. The wind only got up two or three times in the first ten days. I had taken all possible precautions for the halts; we were buried up to the neck in deer-skins lined with feathers; our tent was very primitive but, all in all, efficacious. The mammoth seemed the most sorely tested, although it revealed an unexpected endurance; it went forward with a rapidity superior to that of dogs or reindeer.

In brief, in spite of acute suffering, no one had died after ten days of travel. I found en route the markers that I had placed two years before; I was, in consequence, sure that we were heading in the right direction. Besides, I recognized the broad outlines of certain locations. Another week, and we would reach the proximity of Eskimo tribes with which I had made alliance—when I say “proximity” I mean, of course, a chance of proximity, my Eskimos being nomads.

On the 12th day, the old woman, who had been manifesting symptoms of lassitude since the previous day, and who had become torpid, suddenly died. We buried her in the snow. I do not know whether her companions missed her much; at any rate, they did not appear unduly grief-stricken. At the most, they manifested a slight increase in anxiety.

On the 14th day, Wanawanoûm was overtaken by a sort of delirium. He talked very loudly, telling fragmentary stories of old times of which no one had any memory. He fell into a coma and died without recovering consciousness.

Our suffering increased, even though the temperature continually became less rigorous. Our strength was decreasing gradually, and the mammoth was showing signs of distress. The young women were dejected; Namhâ’s second-born was growing weaker. Only Awah retained all his strength, and, animated by his youth, even regained hope, wanting to see the southern lands where the Sons of the Mammoth had once hunted.

We had three horrible days, although we were beginning to emerge from the murderous wilderness, and encountered occasional traces of vegetation. Namhâ was growing progressively torpid, and the mammoth’s speed was decreasing by the hour. It was a courageous beast, though, patient and prodigiously resilient. I firmly believe that it had a confused awareness of the situation, and that a profound instinct was bearing it toward the lands of the South where salvation was to be found. At any rate, it supported us with an extraordinary good will, and the more it weakened the more submissive it became.

For two further days, the mammoth struggled on with grim courage—but on May 19, in the morning, it uttered a sort of hoarse plaint, turned its head toward me, and collapsed in a heap.

 

 

XIII.

 

 

I precipitated myself out of the sled. The enormous body of the mammoth was palpitating feebly. When it saw me standing there, beside it, it raised its trunk as if it were an arm and looked at me steadily. A tragic gentleness emanated from its brown eyes, with I know not what intelligence and instinct, more poignant than rational intelligence. No human dolor has touched me more than the dolor of that immense beast, in whom the last vestige of a species doomed for millennia would be extinguished. It did not last long. The pupil vitrified; the breath faded away; the formidable organism fell into unconsciousness. It took less than an hour to die, and it did not appear to suffer.

When the mammoth was no longer moving, despair overwhelmed Awah and the two women. They had seen Wanawanoûm and the old woman perish without any great emotion, but it seemed that their own race was disappearing with the mammoth.

“The Sons of the Mammoth will be annihilated!” Awah murmured.

He was so discouraged that I was afraid that he might let himself die of hunger and cold. Fortunately, I had an idea.

“There are mammoths in the lands of the Sun!” I affirmed. I was thinking of elephants. It would not be very difficult for me to make my primitives believe that they were the descendants of the colossi that grazed the prehistoric forests and savannahs.

“Is that true?” Touanhô exclaimed, always quicker to understand than the others.

“Certainly!” I affirmed. “I’ve seen them.”

Awah took some time to get the idea into his head, but as soon as he succeeded, he was gripped by an extraordinary ardor and he harnessed himself to the sled alongside me.

That day was much harder than any we had yet experienced. We advanced slowly, five times more slowly than with the mammoth, but the temperature was getting steadily higher; we were arriving in a region into which the Eskimos came, and even touching the zone in which I had left the tribe with which our expedition had been allied.

The night was relatively peaceful. The death of our companions had increased our individual shares of the rations and left us a surplus of garments and blankets. We had a copious meal, which gave us back some of our strength and, although bent double, we progressed by 15 kilometers in the course of the following day.

That evening, we were worn out by fatigue. For some unknown reason, it was not very cold, and that circumstance contributed to rendering our ordeal less painful. Touanhô’s spirits had recovered; she was now almost as resilient as Awah, who was displaying a magnificent energy. Even Namhâ was battling successfully against fatigue. One might have thought that the young flesh of all three was infused with new energy. As for me, I was on the up again. Without having Awah’s extraordinary endurance, I was giving no more sign of distress. All the same, our speed slowed down the following day; we had great difficulty covering 12 kilometers.

The next day, it was even worse. The terrain became difficult. It was continually necessary to make detours. Furthermore, an enormous bear started following us toward dusk, and when we were out of harness it remained on watch, uttering intermittent growls that disturbed us much less in itself than because it might have attracted other predators.

Suddenly, a sharp joy: a group of huts appeared in the coppery light—snowy huts that I knew well, and the sight of which caused me to cry out.

Awah had stopped, full of suspicion.

“It’s a friendly tribe!” I told him.

“Are they Sons of the Mammoth?”

“No,” I replied, for I knew that the appearance of Eskimos differed too much from that of my prehistoric people, “but I’ve made an alliance with them.”

He remained rooted to the spot, his face hard and stern. I had neglected to warn him in advance, fearful of his prejudices; the proximity of unknown men filled him with grim hostility. His right hand gripped a deer-antler harpoon, his left held a nephrite axe.

“Is Awah going mad?” I said, authoritatively. “Can we fight a tribe?”

We were slowly approaching a village—if it could be called a village. Dogs were barking. At first, we could not see anyone; then short and ridiculously wrapped-up women appeared. They ran away, uttering cries of alarm that were repeated by children of both sexes, while the dogs barked furiously.

“We’re friends!” I shouted. “We’ve made an alliance with your chiefs!”

Other silhouettes appeared, gliding cautiously between the huts. I counted half a dozen, short and stout. In the end, men showed themselves, having been convinced, I think, of our numeric weakness. Five or six angry dogs made as if to attack us. “We do not know you,” said one of the men, finally. “Where have you come from?”

I pointed to the North and said: “We’ve come from out there. Before then, though, I came from the South. I was received by a great chief who became my friend.”

“What is his name?”

“Wandrov.”

The Eskimos looked at one another suspiciously. As with all savages, circumstances could render them dangerous. Evidently, they felt strong; in addition to warriors they had dogs and a certain number of females skilled in combat.

“We know Wandrov,” said the man who had spoken first, finally. “When did you make an alliance with him?”

“It was two summers ago, less than one day’s journey from here.”

The man exchanged a few words with his companions. Suddenly, two dogs launched themselves forward, immediately followed by the others.

“Into the sled!” I ordered Awah.

I had drawn my revolver from its holster and seized my rifle. I had a few cartridges left. The next minute was agonizing. If the dogs attacked in earnest; I would have to defend myself; it would be war. “Call off your dogs!” I cried, loudly. “We would rather not kill them.”

I brandished my revolver, Awah his harpoon. The Eskimos drew their bowstrings.

 

 

XIV.

 

 

Whether it was because they knew the effect of firearms or because of a concern for hospitality, the Eskimos did not encourage their dogs—which, having arrived in the vicinity of the sled, stopped; they limited themselves to sniffing us, threatening us with their fangs and howling, with the prudence of wolves. Uncertain themselves, the men and women limited themselves to watching the dogs, and us. That game went on for two or three minutes.

“What will you gain,” I shouted, “by letting us kill your dogs and causing several of you to perish?”

These words appeared to have some effect. One of the Eskimos sounded a summons, swiftly followed by another. The dogs retreated, growling, while the same Eskimo said: “Wandrov’s guests will be ours!”

We lowered our weapons; the man who had spoken advanced toward us. That was the critical moment. I knew that as soon as we were welcomed, we would be out of danger—for although not all Eskimos can be trusted, those of the region in question had a profound sense of hospitality.

After a brief hesitation, I emerged from the sled and went forwards in my turn. I completed the rituals, with which I was quite familiar, and we headed for the village in the red dusk.

We were given a hut, which reeked of rancid oil and putrefaction, and fed on meat and dried fish. Nightfall saved us from curiosity and intrusion. We slept well in our stinking refuge, but on the following morning it was necessary to submit to the company and investigations of our hosts.

We spent the day negotiating our departure. I was not without resources. First of all there was the rifle and the revolver, weapons well known to my hosts, which inspired a passionate desire in them. I promised them to anyone who would accompany me as far as a settlement of white men—a relatively easy matter, since I knew the route. I had other wealth: there were sparkling pieces of quartz of various colors, of which I had made a provision in our caves, and there were a few prehistoric necklaces, which produced an extraordinary effect.

At the end of the day, we had arrived at an agreement of sorts. It would not be sealed until the next day, because the Eskimos wanted a supplement of crystals, in addition to a staff of authority in reindeer-horn, which greatly tempted the oldest of the men who were present. I did not want to yield without haggling, knowing how important it was for them to be persuaded of the value of what I was giving them.

We were provided with four dogs and given two men for an escort, but our sled, being too heavy, was abandoned. In exchange for the rifle, Oudalano was one of our two guides. Clever and sagacious, he knew how to select the paces where partial melting, which frequently occurred during the middle of the day, would not impede our progress. We had reached a region where vegetation and animals were reappearing; to travel over it by sled required long detours, so we advanced very slowly. All the same, I ended up recognizing, by reliable indications, the proximity of a settlement through which our expedition had passed. A recrudescence of cold gave me hope that we would soon attain that goal. On June 1, I calculated that only one long or two short stages remained to be taken. It was high time. Namhâ was dangerously weak and one of the children had fallen into a disturbing torpor.

Until midday we made good progress. Toward 1 p.m., the sky became very dark and a nasty wind began to get up, soon accompanied by stinging snow. Immediately, we took precautions, people and animals alike piling into the large tent that I had brought from the territory. The wind blew furiously. Even though we were huddled tightly together, we were frozen. The tent clattered under the assaults of the tempest; I feared that there might be a catastrophe at any moment.

Finally, the storm eased—but when we tried to get under way again, it transpired that one of the sleds was broken, in such a way that it was unusable. The other could only carry a part of our company. What should we do? We could not entrust the women to the Eskimos. Awah, on the other hand, would not consent to be separated from them, and I would have considered myself a coward if I had not stayed at my post. It was also impossible to separate the children from their mothers. In sum, there was only one thing to do: to trust Oudalano and his companion. They had no interest in betraying us; we retained the promised rewards. I gave the Eskimos instructions so precise that they could hardly go astray.

“Oudalano and his companion will not only have the promised weapons,” I said, pointing to the rifle and the revolver, “but they shall receive an abundance of cartridges, which we will obtain from the white men. They shall also have more shining stones.”

The cunning children that my Eskimos were laughed happily, and their sticky little eyes sparkled. They set off with an ardor equal to that of a Carnegie in pursuit of billions.

When they had disappeared, I felt the solitude more keenly. In this wild country, they represented reliably instinct and the wisdom of experience. Awah, Touanhô and Namhâ, in spite of their sharp senses, could not replace them. Fortunately, they had left us two dogs, and in that tragic hour, those humble beasts represented something solid, of which I would not have wanted to be deprived at any price.

 

 

XV.

 

 

We lived in the corrosive suspense of waiting.

We were condemned to immobility. Setting off into the desert would have risked those who would come to our rescue losing our trail. After 40 hours of waiting, however, I resolved to make a reconnaissance with Awah and one of the dogs.

The weather was clear, no peril probable, and we were only proposing to go up to a height from which we could see nine or ten kilometers. Sheltered in the tent, with the second dog, Touanhô and Namhâ would be able to wait for us in total security. By way of extra precautions, I showed them how to make two or three signals, which Awah would doubtless be able to see with his naked eye, and which I could, in any event, discern with the aid of my telescope.

My companion and I headed southwards. The terrain presented few difficulties. No melt having affected the frozen snow that day, we made easy progress. Although cold, the temperature was tolerable, even excellent for walking. We only had a few detours to make, with the result that in less than two hours we had reached the bottom of the hill. Before climbing it, we looked back; a red flag was flying over the tent—a sign that all was well.

The ascent turned out to be quite difficult. We were stopped several times by crevasses, which we had to go around. The slope was, naturally, very slippery. When we reached the summit three hours had gone by, and we could only count on four and a half or five more hours of daylight. First we assured ourselves that the red flag as still flying, and then we peered out over the long plain that extended southwards.

We could see for a long way. The air seemed even drier than on our departure. For league upon league, the white wilderness extended its bleak monotony. Nevertheless, on the far horizon, we perceived a few green and brown islets suggestive of habitable land.

Animals occasionally passed by: the melancholy Arctic fauna of dismal white birds, hares, foxes and ermines. I had expected that; I knew perfectly well that the American base was out of sight—but in spite of that, I was discontented. Deep down, I had hoped to see the rescue-party, of which Oudalano and his comrade had gone in quest, approaching.

After waiting a quarter of an hour, I said: “We have to go back!”

Before doing so, I planted a spike terminated by a pennant, in order to guide our saviors, if they were in any doubt as to the direction to follow.

Awah watched me silently. His face was impassive, but I understood the expression on his mouth well enough to discern disappointment. Suddenly, he murmured: “Awah would like to look through the crystal eye.”

His request astonished me, because of his repugnance for all instruments to which he was not accustomed. By virtue of seeing me use the telescope, he must have familiarized himself with it. I gave him instructions as to how to make use of it—instructions that he understood, because he had often observed my movements while I scanned the horizon.

After a few minutes, he uttered a joyful exclamation. “Oudalano is coming back with four sleds and men!”

It was only after a fairly long time that I began to see confused images appear, through the telescope. They became clearer. In my turn I made out three sleds and, seized by a sort of delirium, I shouted: “Let’s go to meet them!”

Awah seemed passably excited. We assured ourselves that everything was in order at the tent and went down the southern slope of the hill excitedly. Even the dog seemed impatient. We trotted for an hour, and made no less than seven kilometers. For their part, the sleds were advancing at considerable speed. Soon we were only a short distance from our rescuers.

The dog had taken the lead; it launched itself furiously toward Oudalano.

When we met up with the expedition, I was so agitated that I was trembling in every limb. With a mixture of intoxication and affection, I saw men of my own race again. They were three Americans of various sorts, all three of whom affected a phlegmatic calmness. The first was a tall Anglo-Saxon with a thin face and a lantern jaw. His steel-gray eyes studied me circumspectly. The second, an Irishman with sparkling eyes, showed an active face that was made for laughter. The third, shorter than the other two, with a ferrety appearance, seemed to be a half-caste.

I thanked them effusively.

“Impossible to do otherwise!” said the Anglo-Saxon.

“Anyway, we were bored,” said the half-caste.

Meanwhile, the Irishman offered me his hand, saying: “Did you get close to the pole?”

“I reached the 88th degree,” I said.

The three men deigned to smile. “Glorious!” exclaimed the Anglo-Saxon.

Meanwhile, they were inspecting Awah with evident curiosity. “One of your traveling-companions?” asked the half-caste.

“No,” I said. “A race of men that I discovered en route.”

The Americans did not hide their surprise, which increased the more they studied the prehistoric man.

“Awful!” muttered the Irishman.

“What equipment!” said the half-caste.

The Anglo-Saxon limited himself to shaking his head.

During this brief palaver we had installed ourselves in the sleds; they set off again at top speed. The Irishman, whose name was Murtagh, continued to question me. My intention being to keep a part of my discoveries secret, I only replied with respect to matters whose disclosure did not seem to me to be compromising. Reduced to the discovery of an unknown land full of vestiges of lost times and inhabited by a group of humans with violet-tinted skins, they already seemed sufficiently marvelous to my interlocutor, who deigned to set aside his authoritative phlegm and utter exclamations of surprise.

The fair-haired man—James Warman—listened with equal curiosity but more discreetly.

Meanwhile, we made rapid progress. The Sun sank to the horizon, within an hour, dusk would commence to sow its grayness. The sleds had to make a detour because of the hill, which was inaccessible to them. When we arrived at the bottom of the north-west slope, we tried to see the tent, but a certain unevenness in the terrain rendered it invisible. Even when we reached the uniform plain we could not make it out at first, for the daylight had become feeble. Awah finally discovered it, with the aid of the telescope, but we had to go a further half-kilometer before he could make out the red flag. Soon, the tent became visible to the naked eye, and the slight anxiety that had crept up on me dissipated.

“We’ll be there in a quarter of an hour,” the Irishman affirmed.

Suddenly, the ground became difficult. Crevasses and holes hindered our progress. It was necessary to make another detour, longer than we had anticipated, and when we arrived in the vicinity of the tent the scarlet Sun was disappearing over the horizon.

Oudalano, who had remained impassive until then, said: “Is there a dog in the tent?”

“Yes,” I said, with a slight pang of anxiety.

“It’s odd that it hasn’t made its presence known,” Murtagh put in.

It was also odd that Touanhô and Namhâ had given no sign of life. Awah, who evidently thought so, had straightened up and was looking avidly at the tent.

Our dogs hurled themselves forward, growling.

When we reached the tent, the Sun was hidden. A long coppery light spread over the pale solitude. I was now very anxious, and when the sleds stopped, I ran forward, followed by Awah.

We lifted the tent-flap that served as a doorway.

There was no one inside.

 

 

XVI.

 

 

Awah uttered an exclamation of rage, while I remained momentarily dumbfounded. Then we tried to figure out what might have happened. It was possible that Touanhô and Namhâ, having become anxious, had set out to look for us—but the removal of pieces of quartz, prehistoric necklaces, axes and staffs of authority quickly convinced us that marauders had arrived during our absence. The ground bore traces of footprints.

“It could only have been Eskimos!” Murtagh remarked.

Oudalano search passionately; by taking the quartz, the necklaces and the staffs of authority, the unknown raiders had stolen part of his wages. Aided by his dogs he searched for the trail. It did not take him long to find that it headed eastwards. In spite of the late hour, the Americans consented to a pursuit, which was facilitated by a full moon.

“On condition that there are not too many of them!” Warman objected, however.

“There are only two sleds,” said Oudalano, swiftly. He understood a little English.

Within a few minutes, we were on the track of the abductors. We advanced rapidly, thanks to the two lead dogs; they were unharnessed and followed the trail without difficulty.

“The thieves can’t have got far!” observed the half-caste. “It’s a matter of catching up with them before they rejoin their fellows.”

Oudalano, when questioned, did not think that there was any encampment in the neighborhood, but he could not be sure; it was the season when the Arctic tribes wandered.

“We’ll soon see!” said Murtagh.

Warman checked his rifle, a repeater, which I knew that he could use as well as a Boer. The twilight reddened further in the far west; an enormous sulfurous moon rose in the east. The cold was intense.

An hour went by. Our animals, although fatigued by a long run, maintained a good speed. The lead dogs showed an increasing ardor, proof that we were gaining ground. Warman noticed that, and said: “It’s quite plausible that these brutes have dog-teams as tired as ours. They’ve obviously come a long way, since you had no inkling of their approach.”

A second hour went by. The teams were showing signs of exhaustion.

“They’ve had a long day!” Murtagh muttered. “It’s time we got there.”

“We’re nearly there!” said the half-caste.

For ten minutes, Awah had been straining his savage senses; the fixity of his eyes and the flaring of his nostrils were evident. He ended up saying to me: “There they are!”

His hand was pointing eastwards. Warman adjusted his telescope; I did likewise. A confused group of men and dogs was moving in the lunar light. Our approach occasioned an attempt at flight, which was abandoned almost immediately. Barking sounds and howls went up on the plain, uttered by the marauders’ dogs and ours. In a short time, we arrived in proximity to the group. We stopped about 200 meters away. Our weapons were ready, and victory certain; the number of our antagonists was no greater than six.

It was Oudalano who called out to them, ordering them to surrender the women and the booty.

There was a brief attempt at resistance; one of the abductors had a rifle—but on seeing Murtagh, Warman, the half-caste and I raising our weapons he understood that the contest was too unequal.

Five minutes later, we had recovered possession of the women and the booty.

 

 

Epilogue

 

 

“The remainder of our adventure is of no interest,” Alglave went on, after a pause, “for we were not subject to any further ordeals of consequence. “I returned to the United States, and then to Europe, where I succeeded in exchanging my diamonds for a sum of 6,000,000 francs, after which I came to take up residence in Kabylie17 with my prehistoric people. For a few hundred thousand francs, I bought these forests, pasturelands and fields, where numerous humans could live by hunting and fishing. Awah set up home in a cave, with Namhâ, while Touanhô has adapted herself very well to a more comfortable life in my house. She had become my companion, while Namhâ is more Awah’s—although he shows no sentiment of ownership except in autumn.

“My life is simple and beautiful; it’s the life of our Magdalenian ancestors, save for the luxury of a constructed dwelling, a few items of furniture and a few choice aliments, including coffee and wine. We have a great many children. Awah’s are now numerous enough to perpetuate the ancient Tourassian race…”

While Alglave was talking, I saw a young woman coming toward us. She had an exotic complexion and large sparkling eyes.

“This is Touanhô!” Alglave said.

She was obviously not pretty in the sense that we understand, but she had a good deal of charm—a mysterious, distant, very youthful charm. I understood perfectly why the explorer had made her his companion.

She pronounced a few words, in an extremely guttural accent, which did not seem to me to be unpleasant.

“I didn’t want her to learn any other language than her own,” Alglave said. “My dream would then appear less captivating. But here’s Awah!”

A tall man with a flexible gait appeared around the corner of the oak-plantation; I was surprised to see that he was followed by an elephant.

Alglave was smiling. “Yes, I had that elephant brought here to make life pleasant for my prehistoric friend. Awah’s iron-hard belief is that it’s a mammoth, so his totemism is satisfied; he’s convinced that he is communing with his ancestors, and renders the same worship to the innocent pachyderm that the ancient Tourassian rendered to the last remaining mammoths.”

He fell silent. Touanhô, leaning on his shoulder in a familiar fashion, looked at me with her blazing eyes.

“Now I’ll introduce you to our little miracle,” my host went on, after a pause. He whistled briefly, and a 12 year old child appeared in the doorway. “That’s Raouham, Awah’s son.”

Alglave caressed the boy’s black hair; the latter was smiling softly. Raouham was pleasant to behold; his eyes seemed to devour the form of living beings and things.

“He’s an artist…an artist far superior to Awah, who is nevertheless skilful at reproducing the structure of animals. I’ve encouraged his work, and I’ve helped him; I’ve introduced some discipline into it. I ended up enabling him to produce works which demonstrate that the sculptural genius of prehistoric people was equal to that of the Greeks—they didn’t have the means to develop it, that’s all! Would you like to see?”

Alglave took me into a large studio, with whitewashed walls, where an entire menagerie of plaster castings was on display, along with carved antlers and sculpted bones. There were deer, jackals, hyenas, oxen, dogs and panthers, imbued with a gripping and perfect life.

I looked at them in amazement—and then I remembered something. I remembered a corner of the Autumn Salon where I had seen Rodin and Bourdelle in ecstasy. Rodin had said: “He will be the great sculptor of the next generation.”

They had been the same deer, the same jackals and the same panthers that I was now admiring in the savage studio. They bore the same signature: Ram.