“I do not know who you are, except that you are not even of my people. All that I know I will tell you now before I die. Come close, for my voice is dying faster than my body.”
The young man and the girl came nearer to his side, and squatting there leaned close that they might catch each faintly articulated syllable.
“My mate and I,” commenced the old man, “were childless, though many moons had passed since I took her to my cave. She wanted a little one, for thus only may women have aught upon which to lavish their love.
“We had been hunting together for several days alone and far from the village, for I was a great hunter when I was young—no greater ever lived among our people.
“And one day we came down to the great water, and there, a short distance from the shore we saw a strange thing that floated upon the surface of the water, and when it was blown closer to us we saw that it was hollow and that in it were two people—a man and a woman. Both appeared to be dead.
“Finally I waded out to meet the thing, dragging it to shore, and there sure enough was a man and a woman, and the man was dead—quite dead. He must have been dead for a long time; but the woman was not dead.
