Chapter VI: Renunciations

After the recital the woman flagged again, and presently could hardly keep her eyes open. At a sign from her man she lay down and was dead asleep almost before she had drawn up her knees in the posture assumed by the sleeping savage all the world over, the antenatal position in which the pre-dynastic Egyptians buried their dead.

But Pŭl-Yūn could not sleep. He had passed through every phase of mental agony; had spent a long day at the torture-stake of suspense and anticipation, and had been released from it to find himself confronted by a crisis in his domestic relations.

He understood only too well what had happened. Since the world and wiving began was there ever such a woman?--Was there ever such a predicament for the husband of a woman? Use and wont and the immemorial practice of his own, and all other tribes, had fixed the relative positions of the sexes. This man believed as firmly as did the Apostle Paul that the Man was made first, and was the Head of the Woman, who was provided for him, for his comfort and use by his Goddess, the Sun, and over whom he, the man, was bound to exercise the rights of mastery and lordship to the very fullest extent. Whilst young and comely the wife was a valuable possession, but, when stringy and past work and child-bearing, it had until recently been a question in times of scarcity whether she might not be eaten. That the Sun-Disc Men had recently decided against the older use is a point in favour of the Sun-Disc Men which we, their descendants, may score to their credit. The Fuegians, at the time of Charles Darwin's visit, still occasionally dined upon their grandmothers.[5] As to conceding to one of the subject sex equal rights, the thing was extra-revolutionary, it was indeed inconceivable, it was outside the region of discussion.

But, what was this that had happened?--Here, in this chance-begun housekeeping, the whole matter had been turned topsy-turvy; the moccasins were on contrary feet; the hatchet was in the wrong hand. He had come out to capture a wife, and a wife had captured him. He had broken his leg and she had mended it. Twice he had been attacked by a bear and twice she (not he), had beaten it off, killing it--actually killing the monster,--at the second encounter (think of it!--whoever heard the like?) On that occasion he, the man, had borne himself stoutly, and as a brave; he had faced his foe axe in hand, without hope, and had made no moan, and would have taken his mauling, and his death, without a whimper. Thus had he preserved his self-respect, had participated in the fight, and had in some roundabout fashion come to persuade himself that the skin was his, and that the necklace of claws and teeth which was now around his neck had a right to be there. (It did not sit comfortably as yet, but, comfort and assurance would have come in time, never fear. Did not the Prince Regent assert so frequently that as "Major Brown" he had fought at Mont St Jean, that at length, as George the Fourth his gracious Majesty related the story with embellishments at the Waterloo banquet and appealed to Wellington himself for substantiation?--"'Twas I gave the order--'_Up Guards and at 'em!_'--_You heard me, Arthur?_")

Such, alack, is poor human nature in these latter days, nor was it more veracious in The Days of Ignorance.

Yes, Pŭl-Yūn had begun to believe that he had killed that bear.

But, who killed the three braves whose raw scalps lay upon the cave floor? Those three scalps were another guess matter, a different story altogether. There was no straight, or even plausible manner of accounting for them. He saw no way of persuading himself now, or in the future, that he had had any hand in the taking of them.

In a word, they were his wife's, every single hair of them--not his, alas, not his!

In a word, this poor ignorant savage man was all to seek in the lore of Modern Officialism,--the Whole Art of Assumption was hid from him; by which I mean the mental and spiritual capacity to appropriate to one's own peculiar credit not only the results of another man's courage, luck or capacity, but _the actual performance itself_. This is the recognised modern practice. The pupil paints or plans, the Master signs the drawings and takes the commission. The devil devils, the Leader wins the case. The C.I.V. storms Bavianskloof, the alderman of his ward receives the war-medal. The Stunt-Sahib, squattering through bottomless mud, organises the new annexation, his chief (down at the base under a punkah) gets the thanks of the Governor-General.

This is how we do it to-day. They did it otherwise in days when The All-Seeing Sun was believed to shine with approval upon the Sayer-of-the-thing-that-is, but to hide Her face from the liar, and the sneak, and the tribesman who stole the axe or the honour of another.

So, poor foolish Pŭl-Yūn gnawed his knuckles for long dark hours, wishing that his wife and he were dead, and, but for a soul of goodness in things evil--a red savage, for one--might e'en have brought his wish to the birth by braining the woman as she slept and subsequently pitching himself off the crag. He dreed his weird for the lee-lang watches of the coldest and blackest night that ever he had known, colder and blacker than those which he had worn through after the breaking of his leg, and before the Master-Girl had found and taken possession of him. He would say in the after years, and did plainly believe, that during that night-watch there were strange visitants to the cave, that two birds flew in out of the darkness and sate with him; the one upon his right hand was a ptarmigan of the scree, winter-white and soft, clucking sweet things, gentle things, about the sleeping girl. The one upon his left hand a raven of the cliff, blacker than the midnight or the shadows of the cave, croaking evil things, showing the poor, hardly-bestead savage all the shame and the ignominy and the laughing scorn of the home-coming to his tribe.

But the longest and blackest of nights wears at last, and the dawn-streak shot aloft and the cold grey peaks took fire and glowed like rosy brands amid the ash of a hearth: then, whilst the dawn brightened and the upper ranges were dyed a colour that had no name to the watcher, nor has gained one yet, for it is not the heart of a rose, nor saffron, nor salmon, nor hath it an earthly counterpart--it was whilst the heavens above him were declaring the Glory of God and the firmament showing His handiwork, that the last struggle took place, the tender clucking mastered the dull croaking! The raven stalked forth to the cave-sill and took wing a-down the gulf of air but, thrice the little snow-white ptarmigan tossed himself aloft into the keen clear morning, and thrice he came circling down again to the cave-sill with stiffly-bent wing and inflated throat singing his song of praise to the Lord who made and warmed him, and then he too was gone and the watcher was alone.

Then Pŭl-Yūn, under the stirring of a new impulse, did a very strange and wonderful thing. Taking the trophy from his own neck he laid it across the throat of the sleeping woman. Her eyes opened, her hand went up, she felt, saw and understood. She arose to her knees, a new and beautiful light was in her eyes, a great and pathetic awe had fallen upon her.

"No--thou shalt not do it!--No!--How shall my husband go home to his people bare-necked whilst his wife walks behind him wearing--these?"

"I--will!" groaned the man.

"You shall not,--you dare not,--you cannot!"

"Be silent!--I say I will!" he groaned more harshly.

Catching up scalps and necklace she cast everything at his feet and bent grovelling before him.

"What are these to me?--I want but thee! But to a brave they are more than father, mother, wife, or life itself." She did not speak in scorn, but from what she had seen and known, yet it hurt.

"Stop,--cease, be still!" he cried abruptly and very fiercely, for how shall a man fight himself if his wife takes sides with his lower nature against the higher? The woman did not understand; she thought him enraged, she knew not why; but, the jealousy which had poisoned their life for weeks past was cause enow. Plainly he must be humoured.

"That is right!--Be master!--What am I?--Thy slave and a Little Moon girl, no more. Thou hast never beaten me yet, beat me now!--take the things! Let us be as we were.... Yes," with a dead-lift of self-renunciation, "I will break my bow!" She reached for the weapon where it lay,--what it meant for her only an inventor, and a successful inventor, can tell. To allay the unreasoning jealousy, the rooted conservatism of her husband, this red girl would have put out of her life the New Thing that she had thought out, brought to the birth, perfected and tested at the risk of her very heart's blood.

As her hand closed upon the wood, a larger and stronger hand closed over both. Her lover silently drew her to himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: As you may read in _The Voyage of the Beagle_.]