Chapter 7: Saber-Tooth Tiger
Saber tooth tigers regularly preyed upon the outer settlements. Boy was invited on one of the regular hunts. He watched the hunters as they picked a slender, moist and flexible bone out of their hunting pouches. Both ends of the bone were as sharp as a knife. Then, picking up some stringy gristle-loaded fat, they bent the bone and wrapped it in the fat.
The result was a compact ball. A hunter approached the tiger with the ball of fat in one hand and a metal spear in the other.
The cat crouched into the attack position and watched him warily.
The hunter then rolled the ball of fat toward the tiger.
Sniffing the fat suspiciously at first, the tiger snatched it quickly and began chewing. Soon, enough of the gristle was rearranged to release the bone. The bone sprung open in the tiger's mouth, forcing its mouth painfully open and digging into the soft flesh of the mouth. While the tiger was painfully trying to deal with the bone, he was easy prey for the hunter.
"Sometime," the hunter commented, standing over the tiger after the killing, "tiger swallow the knife before it open. Then, tiger choke on blood, and hunter not risk life."
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"I love the great buildings of Atlantis," Boy commented.
"Oh, you do?" replied Master, with a note of caution in his voice.
"Yes, with the biggest columns in the world, polished marble as common as dirt in other cities of the world, and the secret man-made stone..."
"It is sometimes difficult to discern the evil amongst the beauty."
"Master?"
"With the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Thoth, Nimrod's chief priest, migrated west with several of the wisemen. With the splitting of the earth, they ended up in Atlantis. So, Atlantis has great wisdom, but great evil."
"Where are we going today?" asked Boy as he walked down the path behind Master. They were headed up the mountain pathway, their legs parting the tender green branches and flowers that sought to cover the pathway.
"We go to the sea."
The pathway took them almost to the edge of the clouds. The cool breeze heightened their senses, and the graceful plants gave way to more compact growth, though still a well-watered green.
"Why?" Boy asked, running a little short of breath, due to the climb.
The daily clouds coming out of the west ran into the high mountains running the length of Atlantis, north to south, dumping their extra weight of rain before climbing over the peaks.
"You must learn the seaman language."
As they went through the pass heading east, the greenery gradually yielded to brown; they were crossing over into the dry side of Atlantis.
"Why?"
The pass opened up to a beautiful scene of soft brown hills, white houses and the jewel-like sea sparkling in the sun far below.
"One day you will need it."
He played with kicking up the dirt with his sandals as he walked, coating the toes of his feet. Before long, the sweat between his toes and beneath his feet had mixed with the dust to make a slippery mud.
Boy quietly thought about this statement for some time. Was Master predicting his future? Could Master do such a thing?
They said no more until the reached the harbor. They both found comfortable seats to rest from their journey, then Master taught him the most common words of the seaman language.
While Master taught, Boy played with a discarded rope laying upon the box he was using as a seat. The box would soon be loaded upon one of the majestic Atlantean cargo ships, bound for a distant port. In his daydreams, Boy accompanied the box, for the sheer adventure of it. The smell of salty air and fresh fish being brought to market encouraged him in his daydreaming.
"There! Did you hear what that man just shouted?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Boy translated the man's language, clumsily, but correctly.
"Very good! You pick up this language quickly!"
"There is some similarity with other languages I have learned."
"Yes, the more languages you learn, the easier it is to notice similarities and learn any new languages faster."
"I've noticed something. The longer I have studied under your teaching, the easier it is to learn."
Master smiled at the compliment, and this sign of Boy's expanding mind. After a short pause he said, "You've been a fine student today! Now, you may ask me a question on any subject you please." This was Master's way... even a student's reward involved further learning.
"Tell me about God."
"I say you may ask me one question, and you ask one that will take a lifetime to answer!?" smiled Master, in mock consternation.
"I mean," explained the chagrined Boy, "Have you ever seen a miracle?"
"Yes."
"I don't mean just ordinary stuff... like a beautiful sunset or a newborn baby. To me, that's just the order of nature. I mean, a real miracle, where God showed Himself."
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I have."
"Well, tell me!" Boy demanded eagerly.
"One time I almost lost life to a tiger. This saber-tooth tiger lay in ambush just around a corner in the path that I was on..."
"How did you escape the ambush!?"
"A voice warned me to climb higher, off the path, and around the other side of the hill, where I could see the tiger, still crouching below, in wait for me."
"Whose voice was it?"
"God's."
"What did His voice sound like?"
"Like yours."
"Mine!?" exclaimed Boy, proud, yet confused.
"Sure. As clearly as you are talking to me, God spoke."
"Are you sure it was God?"
"God or an angel. No one else was around, unless you believe in talking tigers."
"So, do you expect God filled the tiger's tummy by a miracle, too?"
"I have no reason to believe so."
"Then, in saving you, God condemned another to satisfy the tiger's appetite?"
"I assume so."
"Why?"
"That's the way of nature."
"I mean, why did God save you?"
"Oh, now you want me to tell you what God is thinking, too?!"
"No, certainly you can't read God's mind... but... you could guess."
"Guess?!"
"Sure, guess why God saved you."
"I guess He wasn't ready for me to come to Him yet."
"Go to Him?!"
"Like Enoch did... yet not exactly. I have not walked with God as Enoch did, so I must die first before I go to Him. But, I believe He has made a home for me somewhere, so I may walk with Him after I die."
"How do you know?"
"Know that I will walk with Him again?"
"Yes."
"This is what the Ancients taught, passed down from Adam."
"Why have I not heard of this before?"
"Man has lost interest in the things of God. So, each generation, fewer and fewer are told."
"But, I'm an historian... almost, and it's my job to learn these things."
"My goodness! Such an anxious pupil!" he smiled and mussed up Boy's hair.
"Don't tease me! Answer me, please!"
Master suddenly became serious, "Some knowledge is too precious to write down, too costly to toss before the unbelieving. It can only be passed on to those who will treat it with the reverence it demands."
"Why?"
"Otherwise, it will be treated as fairy tales and become corrupted by sloppy memorization and infrequent telling."
"Infrequent telling!? If it is as hard to find believers as you say it is, the telling becomes infrequent and of necessity corrupted."
"No. The pact of the believer is to tell the story once every seven days, whether anyone listens or not."
"You mean, tell yourself."
"Yes."
"In other words, think about it?"
"No, out loud."
Boy paused in thought. "What must I do to be a carrier of these truths?"
"Do you believe what I have told you?"
"Yes."
"Do you promise to tell these stories, once every seven days, whether anyone listens or not?"
"Yes."
"Then, you are a carrier."
Master told Boy many things about God, always repeating these two questions after each telling.
Chapter 8: Listening to the Voice
"How did Adam know so much about God?" asked Boy during one of these talks.
"They were friends."
"Friends?!"
"Yes, and they walked together in the garden for hours every day."
"That must have been exciting!"
"It is."
"I don't..." Boy was confused. "You say that as if you have experienced it!"
"I have..."
"When!?"
"One time was the day the tiger almost got me."
"You mean, you heard God warn you?"
"No, that was just the end of the conversation."
"God was talking to you before the warning about the tiger?!"
"Yes."
"What did He say?"
"He told me about you."
"About me?! Why didn't you tell me about it then?"
"I didn't know you then."
"It was before we met?"
"Yes."
"What did He say about me?"
"He said an important young man would come to me and ask to be my student."
"And...?"
"And... that I was to have no other students after he came, but devote my full attention to the one student."
"Why?"
"I asked Him that."
"What did He answer?"
"That you would go to distant lands and do great things."
"What else?"
"That's all."
"That's all?!"
"At that time."
"But, since that time...?"
"He spoke to me last night."
"What did He say?"
"That I am to give you my telescope and the history book of Atlantis."
"Why?"
"I don't know..."
Boy looked down at the ground, disappointed and full of foreboding.
"But..." started Master hesitantly, "I think it means you will start your journey soon"
"I don't want to leave! I want to stay with you... to learn more!"
"God will take care of that."
"What does that mean?"
But, Master did not answer him.
Chapter 9: War in the Middle Kingdom
War broke out in the Middle Kingdom. All the city states had to join one or the other of the two Warlords, or face destruction alone. So the sides were drawn up all over the Middle Kingdom.
"What will happen?" asked Boy fearfully.
"Remember the dragon hunt?"
"Yes."
"Would the dragon quit before he had killed himself?"
"No."
"So it will be here."
"Which of the Warlords is the dragon, and which is the hunter?"
"They are both dragons."
"And they will both die?"
"I'm afraid so. Both are strong... and stupid... and neither will quit. So, both will die."
"It seems such a waste!"
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"Come fight with me under my Warlord!" his friend encouraged Boy one day.
"I don't wish to go to war."
"Come on, it will be a special adventure!"
"No."
"Why not?"
"War is foolish."
"It is not! It is exciting. But, I believe you are a little afraid!"
"I'm not afraid. Just smart."
"No, you're afraid!"
"Think what you will."
The friend was disappointed that he could not manipulate Boy. He kicked the dirt quietly, trying to think of another approach. "You owe me!"
"For what?"
"For the training I gave you!"
"We agreed on no price. It was just for friendship!"
"You are a big disappointment!"
"I'm sorry. But, we can still be friends," Boy added hopefully.
"Nah. I can't be friends with a coward!" Turning around, he left Boy alone.
Chapter 10: The Great Suffering
The war had now gone on for over a year. Men had been fighting rather than tending farms and trades. The fighting got quite close to a village not far from where Master was teaching Boy. A woman looked fearfully out of the house she was hiding in, watching the fighting. She wondered if her man was among those fighting today. In her daydream, he wandered over to the village for a rest, and stumbled upon her hiding place, by accident. His face streaked with blood, sweat and mud, could not hide the strong features she had fallen in love with and missed so dearly.
In his surprise, he dropped his sword and shield, rushing forward to pick up the child now whimpering beside her.
Seeing the child's hunger written so painfully on her face, the father pulled dried meat and bread from the large satchel at his side. Meat and bread! Enough to feed her and her child for a day! The daydream only taunted her own inability to provide for herself and daughter, and awakened the painful hunger, which had once afflicted her stomach only, but now spread throughout her whole body.
She had tried to carry on farming without her husband, but lack of strength and experience had reduced provisions in her household to a mere tenth of its normal levels. She was faint from hunger, for she had had nothing to eat for a week or two (she could not remember, exactly). What little food she could garnish went to her child. In spite of her sacrifice, the child was slowly starving to death.
The battle lines between the opposing forces wandered all over Middle Kingdom. While she daydreamed, the battleline of today's fight engulfed the house where she was hiding. Oblivious to the danger, she suddenly remembered a crust of bread she had found recently and tucked in her pocket. She brought it out hopefully, intending to offer it to her daughter.
Fearful men rushed into the house, catching her by surprise. A strange man, his face coated with blood, sweat and mud, remarkably like the one in her daydream, stared at her with wild and evil eyes. He spotted the crust of bread, now frozen between her pocket and her daughter's mouth. He snatched it cruelly from her, hurting her fingers in the pointless theft.
Though the crust of bread meant next to nothing to him, he justified his behavior in his war-battered mind. He was in enemy territory, and he must inflict the greatest suffering upon all he encountered here. With one swing of his sword, he ended the tortured existence of the woman and child who did not understand the war that took their lives.
This brief scene was repeated a thousand times throughout Atlantis, as the men wantonly raided the diminishing provisions of the civilian population. So, the womenfolk and children, previously barely surviving, no longer could. The Middle Kingdom was wantonly devouring itself.
Chapter 11: Destruction of the Land
As if God Himself looked down in anger, the land began to enter the fight. Earthquakes destroyed hundred-year-old cities in minutes. Great fissures in the earth opened up, swallowing armies, livestock, homes and palaces with equal callousness. Volcanoes erupted and grew in the middle of flat rolling farmlands. Fissuring of the land became so extensive that seawater spread throughout the Middle Kingdom in interconnecting canals. In many places, the seawater canals began to boil.
And the armies still fought. It was as if their anger replaced all thought... all love for their suffering families left at home. The "two dragons" were weakening, but still uninterested in returning to their lairs for rest and healing.
In a random circumstance, Boy and Master wandered into that same broken-down house that had served as a hasty tomb for the starving woman and her daughter. While Master gazed down upon the blood-soaked clothing covering the unnecessary sacrifice, tears washed the dust off of his cheeks.
"This whole war doesn't make sense. These are men who bragged about being sight-based! I grew up with them! How can they be so foolish?" Boy demanded.
"When fact opposes faith, faith wins, whether you are religious or sight-based."
"What is their faith in?"
"Their power to win. Their understanding of what is right. They brag that they are sight-based, as if that puts them above all other thinkers. They don't even understand the "inner eye" of God."
"To see with God's eye is best?"
"To see with both of them is best, but the inner eye must judge all, or it will die, and man will be half-blind, like the majority of the men in Atlantis. And he will never find the truth."
Chapter 12: Master, the Warrior
As both sides of the war became more desperate, they went to greater extremes to win. All Master Historians and Master Teachers were required to join the ranks of hunters as strategists. This created much protest, for the Historians and Teachers had never gone to war before. Several were killed for disobeying the order.
Master looked up from his teaching of Boy and turned his gaze down the road. A group of hunters were walking toward them. Since the house they sat in front of was the only house on this road, the intent of the hunters was obvious.
"I can no longer teach you," lamented Master.
"I understand," Boy replied, looking sadly at the hunters approaching them, walking so proudly, so confident. He hated them.
"But, you can see the good in this."
"What is that?!"
"You are not a Master Historian, so you are free to go where you wish."
"Only because I lied to you and went to the tournament instead of taking the qualifying exam."
"God turns even our failures into blessings!"
Boy smiled unwillingly.
"But, one more lesson I must give. I believe God has designed each man for greatness. He has given you skills and resources to accomplish things I will never be able to do..."
"No, Master, I could never do anything better than you."
"What you are saying has the ring of humility, but it is really an affront to God. You are saying God has failed in your case!"
"No, no. I would never accuse God of failure!"
"Then, discover your destiny! Find out what special gifts God has given you. Diligently work to perfect them. Do not dissipate your time and energy doing what God has not meant for you to be. And, most importantly, when you have done all that you can do, and circumstances turn so hard against you... when you despair of even life itself... trust God to bring you through... and He will help you fulfill your destiny."
Boy was crying too hard to speak, so he just clung to Master. Meanwhile, the captain of the group of hunters sent to get Master stood impatiently beside his men. Finally, he pushed the two apart, and placed Master inside the ring of his men so he could not escape.
This was the last that Boy ever saw of Master.
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The increasingly more frequent quakes and the widening cracks in the earth told Boy that he would have to leave his homeland or be buried with it. He grabbed the metal telescope Master had given him and the history book of Atlantis, tucked in a leather satchel.
He headed for the sea.
Because of the disruption caused by the angers of nature, and the fighting Warlords, travel was very slow and dangerous. It took many weeks to make the trip that normally would have taken a single day. The country had changed much. Boy would have wept, if he had had any tears left.
Chapter 13: The Tiger Attack
When he came to the sea, he found a seaman's cottage with a large boat lying on the beach outside. He was about to approach the cottage when a slight movement off to the left drew his attention. It was a saber-tooth tiger stalking the seaman's family. From inside the cottage, Boy could see the frightened faces staring out at the tiger. Anyone on Atlantis knew that a mere wooden door was no match against the huge tiger.
Working quickly, Boy searched for the sharpened bone he had been given as a souvenir from the tiger hunt he had joined. "Aha!" he said with great relief, "I've found it!"
He had no gristly fat, but he had killed a rabbit that morning, and had not dried the meat for lack of time. Pulling out the still moist rabbit and a knife, he stripped off long pieces of muscle. Working frantically, he kept one eye on his work and the other on the tiger slowly stalking the defenseless family. He could tell the miseries the seaman was undergoing, unable to protect his family. This was a strange happening for the tigers to come this close to settlements. The uproar caused by the war and the fits of nature had driven the tiger far from his wild grounds to find the easy prey packed inside of houses.
Finally, Boy had his weapon ready. He prayed the ball of rabbit meat would do the trick, for he had no other weapon, except the knife, which would be useless in a fight against such a quick and powerful enemy.
Boy slowly, fearfully approached the tiger from the side.
Inside the cottage, the seaman watched the stranger in amazement. He was tempted to warn the stranger off, but the stranger was so bold, he must know what he was doing! Besides, the seaman thought hopefully, perhaps the tiger's appetite will be satisfied with only that one person.
When Boy had gotten as close as he dared, he tossed the rabbit-meat ball toward the tiger. The huge tiger flinched at the unexpected action. Then, cautiously sniffing the gift, he circled it, always keeping an eye upon the stranger. Finally, he licked it into his mouth.
He chewed relentlessly upon the tough bundle of muscle. Boy suddenly realized that the heavy chewing might actually break the bone in two. The tiger made a swallowing motion, and Boy's became very fearful.
Suddenly, the tiger arched his back in a half-circle, opening his mouth incredibly wide. Boy could see fresh blood flowing onto the tiger's white teeth.
Rushing to the cottage, Boy desperately asked in seaman language, "Can you take me to the Eastern Kingdom?"
"I was just getting ready to take my family there. It is just a small boat..." The seaman kept one eye upon the tiger still doing contortions not ten feet from his front door. "Will he attack us still?"
"Probably not," said Boy sadly, for he was sure the seaman had decided not to take him. "But, I wouldn't stay here for long, if I were you." Boy turned to go.
"Wait!" said the seaman. "You seem like a good person to have around. Besides, you did save my family."
Boy smiled hopefully.
"I'll take you to the Eastern Kingdom."
According to potassium argon dating, saber-tooth tigers lived 100,000 to 1,000,000 years ago, but according to carbon-14 dating, only 28,000 years ago. Carbon-14 dating would normally not be used for such an "ancient" animal, being good only to 50,000 years ago. If the two scientific techniques were consistent, carbon-14 would yield a date of "greater than 50,000." This inconsistency brings into question the older date for the tigers. Also, carbon-14 dating assumes the earth has been around long enough to reach a constant level of carbon-14 in our atmosphere. If we live on a young earth, level (or steady-state) carbon-14 values have not been reached yet, and any dates calculated by this technique will still be far too old. Indeed, even today, the carbon-14 level in our atmosphere is rising yet, indicating that it hasn’t had time on this “old earth” to reach equilibrium.
At one time, cement was thought to be a modern invention. Then manmade cement was found on the banks of the Danube, in the land of Yugoslavia, from a time as early as the first cities.
"Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him." (Genesis 5:24)
Jesus taught, "Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." (Matthew 7:6)