In Bettina Vanderpoel's imagination the First Man held powerful and moving sway.

It was he whom she always saw.

In history, as a child at school, she had understood and drawn close to him.

There was always a First Man behind all that one saw or was told, one who was the fighter, the human thing who snatched weapons and tools from stones and trees and wielded them in the carrying out of the thought which was his possession and his strength.

He was the God made human; others waited, without knowledge of their waiting, for the signal he gave.