Gladiator, Philip Wylie [win 10 ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the small-minded and curious world before he had found the completeness of its pleasure. Then Hugo fell into his coma.

Hugo went back to the deep forest to think things over and to become acquainted with his powers. At first, under full pressure of his sinews, he was clumsy and inaccurate. He learned deftness by trial and error. One day he found a huge pit in the tangled wilderness. It had been an open mine long years before. Sitting on its brink, staring into its pool of verdure, dreaming, he conceived a manner of entertainment suitable for his powers.

He jumped over its craggy edge and walked to its center. There he selected a high place, and with his hands he cleared away the growth that covered it. Next he laid the foundations of a fort, over which he was to watch the fastnesses for imaginary enemies. The foundations were made of boulders. Some he carried and some he rolled from the floor of the man-made canyon. By the end of the afternoon he had laid out a square wall of rock some three feet in height. On the next day he added to it until the four walls reached as high as he could stretch. He left space for one door and he made a single window. He roofed the walls with the trunks of trees and he erected a turret over the door.

For days the creation was his delight. After school he sped to it. Until dark he strained and struggled with bare rocks. When it was finished, it was an edifice that would have withstood artillery fire creditably. Then Hugo experimented with catapults, but he found no engine that could hurl the rocks he used for ammunition as far as his arms. He cached his treasures in his fortress⁠—an old axe, the scabbard of a sword, tops and marbles, two cans of beans for emergency rations⁠—and he made a flag of blue and white cloth for himself.

Then he played in it. He pretended that Indians were stalking him. An imaginary head would appear at the rim of the pit. Hugo would see it through a chink. Swish! Crash! A puff of dust would show where rock met rock⁠—with the attacker’s head between. At times he would be stormed on all sides. To get the effect he would leap the canyon and hurl boulders on his own fort. Then he would return and defend it.

It was after such a strenuous sally and while he was waiting in high excitement for the enemy to reappear that Professors Whitaker and Smith from the college stumbled on his stronghold. They were walking together through the forest, bent on scaling the mountain to make certain observations of an ancient cirque that was formed by the seventh great glacier. As they walked, they debated matters of strata curvature. Suddenly Whitaker gripped Smith’s arm. “Look!”

They stared through the trees and over the lip of Hugo’s mine. Their eyes bulged as they observed the size and weight of the fortress.

“Moonshiners,” Smith whispered.

“Rubbish. Moonshiners don’t build like that. It’s a second Stonehenge. An Indian relic.”

“But there’s a sign of fresh work around it.”

Whitaker observed the newly turned earth and the freshly bared rock. “Perhaps⁠—perhaps, professor, we’ve fallen upon something big. A lost race of Indian engineers. A branch of the Incas⁠—or⁠—”

“Maybe they’ll be hostile.”

The men edged forward. And at the moment they reached the edge of the pit, Hugo emerged from his fort. He saw the men with sudden fear. He tried to hide.

“Hey!” they said. He did not move, but he heard them scrambling slowly toward the spot where he lay.

“Dressed in civilized clothes,” the first professor said in a loud voice as his eye located Hugo in the underbrush. “Hey!”

Hugo showed himself. “What?”

“Who are you?”

“Hugo Danner.”

“Oh⁠—old Danner’s boy, eh?”

Hugo did not like the tone in which they referred to his father. He made no reply.

“Can you tell us anything about these ruins?”

“What ruins?”

They pointed to his fort. Hugo was hurt. “Those aren’t ruins. I built that fort. It’s to fight Indians in.”

The pair ignored his answer and started toward the fort. Hugo did not protest. They surveyed its weighty walls and its relatively new roof.

“Looks recent,” Smith said.

“This child has evidently renovated it. But it must have stood here for thousands of years.”

“It didn’t. I made it⁠—mostly last week.”

They noticed him again. Whitaker simpered. “Don’t lie, young man.”

Hugo was sad. “I’m not lying. I made it. You see⁠—I’m strong.” It was as if he had pronounced his own damnation.

“Tut, tut.” Smith interrupted his survey. “Did you find it?”

“I built it.”

“I said”⁠—the professor spoke with increasing annoyance⁠—“I said not to tell me stories any longer. It’s important, young man, that we know just how you found this dolmen and in what condition.”

“It isn’t a dolly⁠—whatever you said⁠—it’s a fort and I built it and I’m not lying.”

The professor, in the interests of science, made a grave mistake. He seized Hugo by the arms and shook him. “Now, see here, young man, I’ll have no more of your impertinent lip. Tell me just what you’ve done to harm this noble monument to another race, or, I swear, I’ll slap you properly.” The professor had no children. He tried, at the same time, another tack, which insulted Hugo further. “If you do, I’ll give you a penny⁠—to keep.”

Hugo wrenched himself free with an ease that startled Smith. His face was dark, almost black. He spoke slowly, as if he was trying to piece words into sense. “You⁠—both of you⁠—you go away from here and leave me or I’ll break your two rotten old necks.”

Whitaker moved toward him, and Smith interceded. “We better leave him⁠—and come back later.” He was still frightened by the strength in Hugo’s arms. “The child is mad. He may have hydrophobia. He might bite.” The men moved away hastily. Hugo watched them climb the wall. When they reached the top, he called gently. They wheeled.

And Hugo, sobbing, tears streaming from his face, leaped into his