As the meat roasted above the fire, Ajor and I tried once again
to talk; but though copiously filled with incentive, gestures and
sounds, the conversation did not flourish notably. And then Ajor
took up in earnest the task of teaching me her language. She
commenced, as I later learned, with the simplest form of speech
known to Caspak or for that matter to the world--that employed by
the Bo-lu. I found it far from difficult, and even though it was
a great handicap upon my instructor that she could not speak my
language, she did remarkably well and demonstrated that she possessed
ingenuity and intelligence of a high order.
After we had eaten, I added to the pile of firewood so that I could
replenish the fire before the entrance to our barricade, believing
this as good a protection against the carnivora as we could have;
and then Ajor and I sat down before it, and the lesson proceeded,
while from all about us came the weird and awesome noises of the
Caspakian night--the moaning and the coughing and roaring of the
tigers, the panthers and the lions, the barking and the dismal
howling of a wolf, jackal and hyaenadon, the shrill shrieks of
stricken prey and the hissing of the great reptiles; the voice of
man alone was silent.
But though the voice of this choir-terrible rose and fell from
far and near in all directions, reaching at time such a tremendous
volume of sound that the earth shook to it, yet so engrossed was
I in my lesson and in my teacher that often I was deaf to what at
another time would have filled me with awe.
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