Tired of reading? Add this page to your Bookmarks or Favorites and finish it later.
|
|
Jerry, sitting between Nalasu's knees and nodding sleepily, gave the
first warning to Nalasu, who sat outside his door, wide-eyed, ear-strung,
as he had sat through all the nights of the many years. He
listened still more tensely through long minutes in which he heard
nothing, at the same time whispering to Jerry for information and
commanding him to be soft-spoken; and Jerry, with whuffs and whiffs
and all the short-hand breath-exhalations of speech he had been
taught, told him that men approached, many men, more men than five.
Nalasu reached the bow beside him, strung an arrow, and waited. At
last his own ears caught the slightest of rustlings, now here, now
there, advancing upon him in the circle of the compass. Still
speaking for softness, he demanded verification from Jerry, whose
neck hair rose bristling under Nalasu's sensitive fingers, and who,
by this time, was reading the night air with his nose as well as his
ears. And Jerry, as softly as Nalasu, informed him again that it
was men, many men, more men than five.
With the patience of age Nalasu sat on without movement, until,
close at hand, on the very edge of the jungle, sixty feet away, he
located a particular noise of a particular man. He stretched his
bow, loosed the arrow, and was rewarded by a gasp and a groan
strangely commingled. First he restrained Jerry from retrieving the
arrow, which he knew had gone home; and next he fitted a fresh arrow
to the bow string.
|