hy got into many quarrels
because he would occasionally box the ears of the mischievous imps who
tormented poor Verva, the fair-haired and blue-eyed captive from the
north. There grew up a kind of friendship between Why-Why and the child.
She would follow him with dog-like fidelity and with a stealthy tread
when he hunted the red deer in the forests of the Alpine Maritimes. She
wove for him a belt of shells, strung on stout fibres of grass. In this
belt Why-Why would attend the tribal corroborees, where, as has been
said, he was inclined to "sit out" with Verva and watch, rather than join
in the grotesque dance performed as worship to the Bear.

As Verva grew older and ceased to be persecuted by the children, she
became beautiful in the unadorned manner of that early time. Her
friendship with Why-Why began to embarrass the girl, and our hero himself
felt a quite unusual shyness when he encountered the captive girl among
the pines on the hillside. Both these untutored hearts were strangely
stirred, and neither Why-Why nor Verva could imagine wherefore they
turned pale or blushed when they met, or even when either heard the
other's voice. If Why-Why had not distrusted and indeed detested the
chief medicine-man, he would have sought that worthy's professional
advice. But he kept his symptoms to himself, and Verva also pined in
secret.

These artless persons were in love without knowing it.

It is not surprising that they did not understand the nature of their
complaint, for probably before Why-Why no one had ever been in love.
Courtship had consisted in knocking a casual girl on the head in the
dark, and the only marriage ceremony had been that of capture. Affection
on the side of the bride was out of the question, for, as we have
remarked, she was never allowed so much as to see her husband's face.
Probably the institution of falling in love has been evolved in, and has
spread from, various early centres of human existence. Among the
primitive Ligurian races, however, Why-Why and Verva must be held the
inventors, and, alas! the protomartyrs of the passion. Love, like
murder, "will out," and events revealed to Why-Why and Verva the true
nature of their sentiments.

It was a considerable exploit of Why-Why's that brought him and the
northern captive to understand each other. The brother of Why-Why had
died after partaking too freely of a member of a hostile tribe. The cave
people, of course, expected Why-Why