"Nevertheless, hear me, saiyett, for you will need my help and I have learned from long experience what is most likely to follow from this deed and that. We have found a large bear--possibly the largest bear that has ever lived. Certainly I would not have believed that there could be such a bear--that I grant you. But if you heal it, what will follow? If you remain near it, it will kill you and your women and then become a terror to the whole of Ortelga, until men are forced to hunt and destroy it at the risk of their lives. Even supposing that it does not kill you, at the best it will leave the island and then you, having tried to make use of it and failed, will lose influence over the people. Believe me, saiyett, you have nothing to gain. As a memory and a legend, Shardik has power and that power is ours, but to try to make the people believe that he has returned can end in nothing but harm. Be advised by me and go back, now, to your island."
The Tuginda waited in silence until he had finished speaking. Then, beckoning to the priestess, she said,
"Melathys, go at once to the camp and tell the girls to bring here everything we are going to need. It will be best if they paddle the canoes around the shore and land down there," She pointed across the pit to the distant, northern shore at the foot of the long slope.
The priestess hurried away without a word and the Tuginda turned back to the hunter.
"Now, Kelderek," she said, "you must tell me. Is Lord Shardik too sick to eat?"
"I am sure of that, saiyett. But he will drink, and he might perhaps drink blood, or even take food which has been chewed small, as they sometimes do for babies."
"If he will, so much the better. There is a medicine which he needs, but it is an herb and must not be weakened by being mixed with water."
"I will go at once, saiyett, and kill some game. I only wish I had my own bow."
"Was it taken from you at the Upper Temple?"
"No, saiyett." He explained.
"We can see to that," she said. "I shall need to send to Ortelga on several matters. But go now and do the best you can."
He turned away, half-expecting Bel-ka-Trazet to call him back. But the Baron remained silent and Kelderek, walking around the pit, made his way to the brook and at last drank his fill before setting out.
His hunting lasted several hours, partly because, remembering the leopard, he moved through the woods very cautiously, but mainly because the game was shy and he himself nervous and disturbed. He had trouble with the bow and more than once missed an easy mark. It was late in the afternoon before he returned with two brace of duck and a paca--a poor bag by his usual standards, but one for which he had worked hard.
The girls had lit a fire downwind of the pit. Three or four were bringing in wood, while others were making shelters from branches bound with creeper. Melathys, seated by the fire with a pestle and mortar, was pounding some aromatic herb. He gave the duck to Neelith, who was baking on a hot stone, and laid the paca aside to draw and skin himself. But first he went across to the pit.
The bear was still lying among the scarlet trepsis, but already it looked less foul and wretched. Its great wounds had been dressed with some kind of yellow ointment. One girl was keeping the flies from its eyes and ears with a fan of fern fronds, while another, with a jar of the ointment, was working along its back and as much as she could reach of the flank on which it was lying. Two others had brought sand to cover patches of soiled ground which they had already cleaned and hoed with pointed sticks. The Tuginda was holding a soaked cloth to the bear's mouth, as he himself had done, but was dipping it not in the pool but in a water jar at her feet. The unhurried bearing of the girls contrasted strangely with the gashed and monstrous body of the terrible creature they were tending. Kelderek watched them pause in their work, waiting as the bear stirred restlessly. Its mouth gaped open and one hind leg kicked weakly before coming to rest once more among the trepsis. Recalling what the Baron had said, Kelderek thought for the first time, "If we do succeed in healing it, what, indeed, will happen then?"
11 Bel-ka-Trazet's Story
WAKING SUDDENLY, Kelderek was aware first of the expanse of stars and then of a black, shaggy shape against the sky. A man was standing over him. He raised himself quickly on one arm.
"At last!" said Bel-ka-Trazet, thrusting his foot once more into his ribs. "Well, before long you will be sleeping sounder, I dare say."
Kelderek clambered to his feet. "My lord?" He now caught sight of one of the girls standing, bow in hand, a little behind the Baron.
"You took the first watch, Kelderek," said Bel-ka-Trazet. "Who took the second?"
"The priestess Melathys, my lord. I woke her, as I was told."
"How did she strike you? What did she say?"
"Nothing, my lord; that is, nothing that I remember. She seemed--as she seemed yesterday; I think she may be afraid."
> Bel-ka-Trazet nodded. "It is past the third watch."
Again Kelderek looked up at the stars. "So I see, my lord."
"This girl here woke of her own accord and went to take her watch, but found no one else awake except the two girls with the bear. The girl who was supposed to have the watch before her had not been woken and the priestess is nowhere to be found."
Kelderek scratched an insect bite on his arm and said nothing.
"Well?" snarled the Baron. "Am I to stand here and watch you scratch yourself like a mangy ape?"
"Perhaps we should go down to the river, my lord?"
"I had thought as much myself," replied the Baron. He turned to the girl. "Where did you leave the canoes yesterday afternoon?"
"When we had unloaded them, my lord, we pulled them out of the water and laid them up among some trees nearby."
"You need not wake your mistress," said Bel-ka-Trazet. "Take your watch now and be ready for us to return."
"Should we not be armed, my lord?" asked Kelderek. "Shall I get a bow?"
"This will do," replied the Baron, plucking the girl's knife from her belt and striding away into the starlight.
It was easy going to the river, following the course of the brook over the dry, open grass. Bel-ka-Trazet walked with the help of a long thumb-stick which Kelderek remembered to have seen him trimming the evening before. Soon they could hear the night-breeze hissing faintly in the reeds. The Baron paused, gazing about him. Near the water the grass grew long and the girls, in dragging the canoes, had trampled a path through it. This Bel-ka-Trazet and Kelderek followed from the shore to the trees. They found only three canoes, each stowed carefully and covered by the low branches. Near them, a single furrow ran back toward the river. Kelderek crouched down over it. The torn earth and crushed grass smelled fresh and some of the weeds were still slowly moving as they re-erected their flattened leaves.
Bel-ka-Trazet, leaning on his stick like a goatherd, stood looking out over the river. There was a smell of ashes on the breeze but nothing to be seen.