THE MAN EATERS 129 



And what dramas of real life must have been 

 enacted in that rocky valley ; what rudimentary 

 idylls had not the moon looked upon as her 

 slanting beams searched slowly down among 

 the rocks on summer nights. There men and 

 women loved; there jealousy, cruel as the 

 grave, had brooded. There vengeance had 

 stalked abroad and taken toll for Fate. Fin- 

 ally, from there — after an age-long struggle — 

 Death had evicted Life. It was, after all, only 

 appropriate that the Kanxas fountain should 

 have ceased to flow. 



How often had not some old lion — some 

 gaunt, lonely brute with blunted teeth and 

 claws worn to the quick, crouched among those 

 rocks, bent on spoil of the cave-men? During 

 how many nights of livid fear must not the 

 horrible purring of the man-eater, as he 

 quested up the gorge, have sunk to the deadlier 

 horror of silence. For then every member of 

 the little community would have known that 

 the prowler had at length selected a dwelling 

 from which presently to drag a shrieking 

 victim. 



And later, the arch-enemy, the more cruel 

 spoiler, man. Man — the spoiler to-day, — to- 

 morrow the spoiled. The European revenged 

 the Bushman on the Hottentot; who would 



H 



