In that word I recognized what to
me seemed the most remarkable discovery I had made upon Caprona, for
unless it were mere coincidence, I had come upon a word that had been
handed down from the beginning of spoken language upon earth, been
handed down for millions of years, perhaps, with little change. It was
the sole remaining thread of the ancient woof of a dawning culture
which had been woven when Caprona was a fiery mount upon a great
land-mass teeming with life. It linked the unfathomable then to the
eternal now. And yet it may have been pure coincidence; my better
judgment tells me that it is coincidence that in Caspak the term for
speechless man is Alus, and in the outer world of our own day it is
Alalus.

The comely woman of whom I spoke was called So-ta, and she took such a
lively interest in me that To-jo finally objected to her attentions,
emphasizing his displeasure by knocking her down and kicking her into a
corner of the cavern. I leaped between them while he was still kicking
her, and obtaining a quick hold upon him, dragged him screaming with
pain from the cave. Then I made him promise not to hurt the she again,
upon pain of worse punishment. So-ta gave me a grateful look; but To-jo
and the balance of his women were sullen and ominous.

Later in the evening So-ta confided to me that she was soon to leave
the tribe.

"So-ta soon to be Kro-lu," she confided in a low whisper. I asked her
what a Kro-lu might be, and she tried to explain, but I do not yet know
if I understood her. From her gestures I deduced that the Kro-lus were
a people who were armed with bows and arrows, had vessels in which to
cook their food and huts of some sort in which they lived, and were
accompanied by animals. It was all very fragmentary and vague, but the
idea seemed to be that the Kro-lus were a more advanced people than the
Band-lus. I pondered a long time upon all that I had heard, before
sleep came to me. I tried to find some connection between these
various races that would explain the universal hope which each of them
harbored that some day they would become Galus. So-ta had given me a
suggestion; but the resulting idea was so weird that I could scarce
even entertain it; yet it coincided with Ahm's expressed hope, with the
various steps in evolution I had noted in the several tribes I had
encountered and with the range of type represented in each tribe. For
example, among the Band-lu were such types as So-t