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 



