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original shelter.
He found an antelope lying dead at the mouth of the cavern. Its head
was badly chewed, and there were chunks out of its dank. Hunt determined
the meat had been left for him purposely by Tarzan's lion. The lion had helped
himself first, but at least he had left a healthy portion.
Hunt was grateful for that, but the idea of eating raw antelope was not
appealing. He pulled the carcass into the cavern, left it lying by the stream,
and went in search of some stone that he could use against the edge of his
knife to strike a spark.
He soon found himself in the cavern of skulls. He followed along the
piles of bones farther than he had gone before, and presently came to the end
of both skeletal remains and illumination. The rocks beyond were bleached of
their phosphorescence, and the cavern was swallowed by absolute darkness.
Stuck between two skulls stacked against the wall with others, Hunt
discovered an old torch. He pulled it down, but it crumbled useless in his
hands. Even though it was rotten, Hunt realized it had to be relatively recent.
Nothing made of wood could have survived since prehistoric times.
For the moment, however, he let that mystery pass. He continued his
search for something with which he could strike a spark, and in the mouth of
one of the skulls, he found two small pieces of flint, and realized suddenly
that here was a primitive light switch. You used the stones to strike the torch
to life. Of course, the torch was now nothing more than wood dust.
Hunt returned to the mouth of the cave, went outside and gathered fire
tinder and wood, and returned to the comfortable interior of the cave. He
struck the pieces of flint together, and after several false starts threw a spark
into the tinder and gently blew on it, bringing it to life.
He added wood gradually, until a healthy fire was going, then he cut a
portion of antelope meat off the carcass, and began roasting it on a stick he
held into the fire. When the meat was somewhere between raw and burned to
charcoal, he ate it.
Finished, he felt renewed strength and a stronger sense of purpose. His
only problem was he wasn't sure of his purpose. He wanted it to be rescuing
Jean, or possibly finding Small, but so far he had discovered that his
woodcraft was somewhere on the level of a stone, and therefore, like a stone,
it was best he stayed in one area.
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But Hunt finally became bored with sitting and waiting. His
archaeological curiosity got the better of him, and he felt it better to occupy
his time with that than to think about Jean, Hanson, Small, and their
predicaments. He drank deeply from the stream, and using strips of wet hide
from the antelope's carcass, he bound his knife blade to a long, stout piece of
firewood. He then used a couple of sticks to fashion torches by wrapping
them with moss and dried vines he had pulled in for the purpose of fire
tinder.
Hunt lit one of the torches, put out his cook fire by spreading it apart
with a stick, and, taking up his spear and handmade torches, went exploring.
He soon reached the end of the illumination and decided to proceed by
torchlight. He had not gone far when the torchlight revealed drawings and
paintings on the wall. The drawings were done with charcoal, the paintings
with some sort of red and yellow ocher. Hunt held his torch close to the cave
wall and examined them.
They were of great beasts: lions, buffalo, and creatures he could not
identify. The unidentifiable creatures looked more insect than animal. The
scenes depicted prehistoric humans battling them with spears. Hunt tried to
decide what the creatures reminded him of, and finally came to the
conclusion that if a praying mantis could grow to be six to seven feet tall and
had heavier body construction, that would be what they most resembled.
What was even more curious was that in some of the drawings, the
mantises were in strange and extravagant postures. There was something
about the postures that rang a distant bell, but Hunt couldn't quite place
them.
Hunt wondered if he had discovered a prehistoric documentation of an
afore unknown creature, or if the drawings represented exaggerations.
Storytelling. Made-up monsters. Perhaps the drawings were symbolic. The
insects could be locusts, they could portray a plague to crops, and the
warriors with their spears were representative of mankind battling the horrid
plague.
Plague to what?
Crops?
No. These prehistoric humans were hunters and gatherers, not farmers,
and they had little time for silly symbolism. Leave that stuff to the professors
who taught Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter by using symbolism charts in the
backs of their teacher's editions.
Hunt proceeded into darkness, the torch flickering before him. He
decided to advance only a few more feet and then return to the sanctuary of
the brightly lit cavern behind him, but the drawings and paintings became
more frequent, and he was entranced by them. This was an even greater
archaeological find than he had first expected. It was phenomenal, in fact.
Once he reported this to Hanson, the cave might even be named after him.
Wouldn't that be something? A prehistoric site named after him.
Hunt's Cavern.
Yeah. Hunt's Cavern. It had a ring to it. He liked it.
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Following the cavern wall with his torch, trying to discern the content of
the drawings, seeing more and more representations of the sticklike insects,
Hunt continued to explore, and did not realize how long he had been walking
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