"Those Were the Real Conquests"
We had imagined that our pursuers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our
brush-wood hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake.
There was no sound in the woods--not a leaf moved upon the trees, and
all was peace around us--but we should have been warned by our first
experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures can watch
and wait until their chance comes. Whatever fate may be mine through
life, I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death than I was that
morning. But I will tell you the thing in its due order.
We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions and scanty food of
yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an effort for him
to stand; but the old man was full of a sort of surly courage which
would never admit defeat. A council was held, and it was agreed that
we should wait quietly for an hour or two where we were, have our
much-needed breakfast, and then make our way across the plateau and
round the central lake to the caves where my observations had shown
that the Indians lived. We relied upon the fact that we could count
upon the good word of those whom we had rescued to ensure a warm
welcome from their fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished and
possessing a fuller knowledge of the secrets of Maple White Land, we
should turn our whole thoughts to the vital problem of our escape and
return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that we should then have
done all for which we had come, and that our first duty from that time
onwards was to carry back to civilization the amazing discoveries we
had made.
We were able now to take a more leisurely view of the Indians whom we
had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and well-built, with
lank black hair tied up in a bunch behind their heads with a leathern
thong, and leathern also were their loin-clothes. Their faces were
hairless, well formed, and good-humored. The lobes of their ears,
hanging ragged and bloody, showed that they had been pierced for some
ornaments which their captors had torn out. Their speech, though
unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed
to each other and uttered the word "Accala" many times over, we
gathered that this was the name of the nation. Occasionally, with
faces which were convulsed with fear and hatred, they shook their
clenched hands at the woods round and cried: "Doda! Doda!" which was
surely their term for their enemies.
"What do you make of them, Challenger?" asked Lord John. "One thing is
very clear to me, and that is that the little chap with the front of
his head shaved is a chief among them."
It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, and
that they never ventured to address him without every sign of deep
respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, so proud
and high was his spirit that, upon Challenger laying his great hand
upon his head, he started like a spurred horse and, with a quick flash
of his dark eyes, moved further away from the Professor. Then, placing
his hand upon his breast and holding himself with great dignity, he
uttered the word "Maretas" several times. The Professor, unabashed,
seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon
him as if he were a potted specimen in a class-room.
"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, "whether
judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other test, cannot be
regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must place it as
considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which
I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution
of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap
separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived
upon this plateau, that it is inadmissible to think that they could
have developed where we find them."
"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John.
"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every
scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My
own reading of the situation for what it is worth--" he inflated his
chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words--"is
that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this
country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving and living
on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures
as the tapir--an animal with quite a respectable length of
pedigree--the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of
reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the
ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific mind to think of their
presence? I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. It
is probable that there existed an anthropoid ape in South America, who
in past ages found his way to this place, and that he developed into
the creatures we have seen, some of which"--here he looked hard at
me--"were of an appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied
by corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, have
reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians I cannot
doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the
stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here.
Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never before seen, they
took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they
have no doubt had a bitter fight to hold their own against wild beasts,
and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders,
and wage a merciless war upon them with a cunning which the larger
beasts would lack. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be
limited. Well, gentlemen, have I read you the riddle aright, or is
there any point which you would query?"
Professor Summerlee for once was too depressed to argue, though he
shook his head violently as a token of general disagreement. Lord John
merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that he couldn't put
up a fight as he wasn't in the same weight or class. For my own part I
performed my usual role of bringing things down to a strictly prosaic
and practical level by the remark that one of the Indians was missing.
"He has gone to fetch some water," said Lord Roxton. "We fitted him up
with an empty beef tin and he is off."
"To the old camp?" I asked.
"No, to the brook. It's among the trees there. It can't be more than
a couple of hundred yards. But the beggar is certainly taking his
time."
"I'll go and look after him," said I. I picked up my rifle and
strolled in the direction of the brook, leaving my friends to lay out
the scanty breakfast. It may seem to you rash that even for so short a
distance I should quit the shelter of our friendly thicket, but you
will remember that we were many miles from Ape-town, that so far as we
knew the creatures had not discovered our retreat, and that in any case
with a rifle in my hands I had no fear of them. I had not yet learned
their cunning or their strength.
I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there
was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. I was making my
way through this at a point which was just out of sight of my
companions, when, under one of the trees, I noticed something red
huddled among the bushes. As I approached it, I was shocked to see
that it was the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay upon his side,
his limbs drawn up, and his head screwed round at a most unnatural
angle, so that he seemed to be looking straight over his own shoulder.
I gave a cry to warn my friends that something was amiss, and running
forwards I stooped over the body. Surely my guardian angel was very
near me then, for some instinct of fear, or it may have been some faint
rustle of leaves, made me glance upwards. Out of the thick green
foliage which hung low over my head, two long muscular arms covered
with reddish hair were slowly descending. Another instant and the
great stealthy hands would have been round my throat. I sprang
backwards, but quick as I was, those hands were quicker still. Through
my sudden spring they missed a fatal grip, but one of them caught the
back of my neck and the other one my face. I threw my hands up to
protect my throat, and the next moment the huge paw had slid down my
face and closed over them. I was lifted lightly from the ground, and I
felt an intolerable pressure forcing my head back and back until the
strain upon the cervical spine was more than I could bear. My senses
swam, but I still tore at the hand and forced it out from my chin.
Looking up I saw a frightful face with cold inexorable light blue eyes
looking down into mine. There was something hypnotic in those terrible
eyes. I could struggle no longer. As the creature felt me grow limp
in his grasp, two white canines gleamed for a moment at each side of
the vile mouth, and the grip tightened still more upon my chin, forcing
it always upwards and back. A thin, oval-tinted mist formed before my
eyes and little silvery bells tinkled in my ears. Dully and far off I
heard the crack of a rifle and was feebly aware of the shock as I was
dropped to the earth, where I lay without sense or motion.
I awoke to find myself on my back upon the grass in our lair within the
thicket. Someone had brought the water from the brook, and Lord John
was sprinkling my head with it, while Challenger and Summerlee were
propping me up, with concern in their faces. For a moment I had a
glimpse of the human spirits behind their scientific masks. It was
really shock, rather than any injury, which had prostrated me, and in
half-an-hour, in spite of aching head and stiff neck, I was sitting up
and ready for anything.
"But you've had the escape of your life, young fellah my lad," said
Lord Roxton. "When I heard your cry and ran forward, and saw your head
twisted half-off and your stohwassers kickin' in the air, I thought we
were one short. I missed the beast in my flurry, but he dropped you
all right and was off like a streak. By George! I wish I had fifty
men with rifles. I'd clear out the whole infernal gang of them and
leave this country a bit cleaner than we found it."
It was clear now that the ape-men had in some way marked us down, and
that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to fear from
them during the day, but they would be very likely to rush us by night;
so the sooner we got away from their neighborhood the better. On three
sides of us was absolute forest, and there we might find ourselves in
an ambush. But on the fourth side--that which sloped down in the
direction of the lake--there was only low scrub, with scattered trees
and occasional open glades. It was, in fact, the route which I had
myself taken in my solitary journey, and it led us straight for the
Indian caves. This then must for every reason be our road.
One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp behind us,
not only for the sake of the stores which remained there, but even more
because we were losing touch with Zambo, our link with the outside
world. However, we had a fair supply of cartridges and all our guns,
so, for a time at least, we could look after ourselves, and we hoped
soon to have a chance of returning and restoring our communications
with our negro. He had faithfully promised to stay where he was, and
we had not a doubt that he would be as good as his word.
It was in the early afternoon that we started upon our journey. The
young chief walked at our head as our guide, but refused indignantly to
carry any burden. Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our
scanty possessions upon their backs. We four white men walked in the
rear with rifles loaded and ready. As we started there broke from the
thick silent woods behind us a sudden great ululation of the ape-men,
which may have been a cheer of triumph at our departure or a jeer of
contempt at our flight. Looking back we saw only the dense screen of
trees, but that long-drawn yell told us how many of our enemies lurked
among them. We saw no sign of pursuit, however, and soon we had got
into more open country and beyond their power.
As I tramped along, the rearmost of the four, I could not help smiling
at the appearance of my three companions in front. Was this the
luxurious Lord John Roxton who had sat that evening in the Albany
amidst his Persian rugs and his pictures in the pink radiance of the
tinted lights? And was this the imposing Professor who had swelled
behind the great desk in his massive study at Enmore Park? And,
finally, could this be the austere and prim figure which had risen
before the meeting at the Zoological Institute? No three tramps that
one could have met in a Surrey lane could have looked more hopeless and
bedraggled. We had, it is true, been only a week or so upon the top of
the plateau, but all our spare clothing was in our camp below, and the
one week had been a severe one upon us all, though least to me who had
not to endure the handling of the ape-men. My three friends had all
lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads,
their clothes hung in ribbons about them, and their unshaven grimy
faces were hardly to be recognized. Both Summerlee and Challenger were
limping heavily, while I still dragged my feet from weakness after the
shock of the morning, and my neck was as stiff as a board from the
murderous grip that held it. We were indeed a sorry crew, and I did
not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us occasionally
with horror and amazement on their faces.
In the late afternoon we reached the margin of the lake, and as we
emerged from the bush and saw the sheet of water stretching before us
our native friends set up a shrill cry of joy and pointed eagerly in
front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us.
Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming
straight for the shore upon which we stood. They were some miles out
when we first saw them, but they shot forward with great swiftness, and
were soon so near that the rowers could distinguish our persons.
Instantly a thunderous shout of delight burst from them, and we saw
them rise from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in
the air. Then bending to their work once more, they flew across the
intervening water, beached their boats upon the sloping sand, and
rushed up to us, prostrating themselves with loud cries of greeting
before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly man, with a
necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass beads and the skin of
some beautiful mottled amber-colored animal slung over his shoulders,
ran forward and embraced most tenderly the youth whom we had saved. He
then looked at us and asked some questions, after which he stepped up
with much dignity and embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his
order, the whole tribe lay down upon the ground before us in homage.
Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this obsequious adoration,
and I read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but
Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun.
"They may be undeveloped types," said he, stroking his beard and
looking round at them, "but their deportment in the presence of their
superiors might be a lesson to some of our more advanced Europeans.
Strange how correct are the instincts of the natural man!"
It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for every
man carried his spear--a long bamboo tipped with bone--his bow and
arrows, and some sort of club or stone battle-axe slung at his side.
Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which we had come, and the
frequent repetition of the word "Doda," made it clear enough that this
was a rescue party who had set forth to save or revenge the old chief's
son, for such we gathered that the youth must be. A council was now
held by the whole tribe squatting in a circle, whilst we sat near on a
slab of basalt and watched their proceedings. Two or three warriors
spoke, and finally our young friend made a spirited harangue with such
eloquent features and gestures that we could understand it all as
clearly as if we had known his language.
"What is the use of returning?" he said. "Sooner or later the thing
must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. What if I have
returned safe? These others have been done to death. There is no
safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready." Then he pointed
to us. "These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters,
and they hate the ape-men even as we do. They command," here he
pointed up to heaven, "the thunder and the lightning. When shall we
have such a chance again? Let us go forward, and either die now or
live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to
our women?"
The little red warriors hung upon the words of the speaker, and when he
had finished they burst into a roar of applause, waving their rude
weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to us, and asked us
some questions, pointing at the same time to the woods. Lord John made
a sign to him that he should wait for an answer and then he turned to
us.
"Well, it's up to you to say what you will do," said he; "for my part I
have a score to settle with these monkey-folk, and if it ends by wiping
them off the face of the earth I don't see that the earth need fret
about it. I'm goin' with our little red pals and I mean to see them
through the scrap. What do you say, young fellah?"
"Of course I will come."
"And you, Challenger?"
"I will assuredly co-operate."
"And you, Summerlee?"
"We seem to be drifting very far from the object of this expedition,
Lord John. I assure you that I little thought when I left my
professional chair in London that it was for the purpose of heading a
raid of savages upon a colony of anthropoid apes."
"To such base uses do we come," said Lord John, smiling. "But we are
up against it, so what's the decision?"
"It seems a most questionable step," said Summerlee, argumentative to
the last, "but if you are all going, I hardly see how I can remain
behind."
"Then it is settled," said Lord John, and turning to the chief he
nodded and slapped his rifle.
The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men cheered
louder than ever. It was too late to advance that night, so the
Indians settled down into a rude bivouac. On all sides their fires
began to glimmer and smoke. Some of them who had disappeared into the
jungle came back presently driving a young iguanodon before them. Like
the others, it had a daub of asphalt upon its shoulder, and it was only
when we saw one of the natives step forward with the air of an owner
and give his consent to the beast's slaughter that we understood at
last that these great creatures were as much private property as a herd
of cattle, and that these symbols which had so perplexed us were
nothing more than the marks of the owner. Helpless, torpid, and
vegetarian, with great limbs but a minute brain, they could be rounded
up and driven by a child. In a few minutes the huge beast had been cut
up and slabs of him were hanging over a dozen camp fires, together with
great scaly ganoid fish which had been speared in the lake.
Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others roamed
round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something more of this
strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had
already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic
vents, and for some reason excited the greatest interest in Lord John.
What attracted Challenger, on the other hand, was a bubbling, gurgling
mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon
the surface. He thrust a hollow reed into it and cried out with
delight like a schoolboy then he was able, on touching it with a
lighted match, to cause a sharp explosion and a blue flame at the far
end of the tube. Still more pleased was he when, inverting a leathern
pouch over the end of the reed, and so filling it with the gas, he was
able to send it soaring up into the air.
"An inflammable gas, and one markedly lighter than the atmosphere. I
should say beyond doubt that it contained a considerable proportion of
free hydrogen. The resources of G. E. C. are not yet exhausted, my
young friend. I may yet show you how a great mind molds all Nature to
its use." He swelled with some secret purpose, but would say no more.
There was nothing which we could see upon the shore which seemed to me
so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our numbers and
our noise had frightened all living creatures away, and save for a few
pterodactyls, which soared round high above our heads while they waited
for the carrion, all was still around the camp. But it was different
out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and
heaved with strange life. Great slate-colored backs and high serrated
dorsal fins shot up with a fringe of silver, and then rolled down into
the depths again. The sand-banks far out were spotted with uncouth
crawling forms, huge turtles, strange saurians, and one great flat
creature like a writhing, palpitating mat of black greasy leather,
which flopped its way slowly to the lake. Here and there high serpent
heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a
little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising
and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went. It was
not until one of these creatures wriggled on to a sand-bank within a
few hundred yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge
flippers behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee,
who had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration.
"Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!" cried Summerlee. "That I
should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, my dear
Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!"
It was not until the night had fallen, and the fires of our savage
allies glowed red in the shadows, that our two men of science could be
dragged away from the fascinations of that primeval lake. Even in the
darkness as we lay upon the strand, we heard from time to time the
snort and plunge of the huge creatures who lived therein.
At earliest dawn our camp was astir and an hour later we had started
upon our memorable expedition. Often in my dreams have I thought that
I might live to be a war correspondent. In what wildest one could I
have conceived the nature of the campaign which it should be my lot to
report! Here then is my first despatch from a field of battle:
Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by a fresh batch of
natives from the caves, and we may have been four or five hundred
strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was thrown out in
front, and behind them the whole force in a solid column made their way
up the long slope of the bush country until we were near the edge of
the forest. Here they spread out into a long straggling line of
spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and Summerlee took their position upon the
right flank, while Challenger and I were on the left. It was a host of
the stone age that we were accompanying to battle--we with the last
word of the gunsmith's art from St. James' Street and the Strand.
We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild shrill clamor rose from
the edge of the wood and suddenly a body of ape-men rushed out with
clubs and stones, and made for the center of the Indian line. It was a
valiant move but a foolish one, for the great bandy-legged creatures
were slow of foot, while their opponents were as active as cats. It
was horrible to see the fierce brutes with foaming mouths and glaring
eyes, rushing and grasping, but forever missing their elusive enemies,
while arrow after arrow buried itself in their hides. One great fellow
ran past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his
chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell
sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot fired, for the
attack had been on the center of the line, and the Indians there had
needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all the ape-men who had
rushed out into the open, I do not think that one got back to cover.
But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an
hour or more after we entered the wood, there was a desperate struggle
in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out from among
the scrub the ape-men with huge clubs broke in upon the Indians and
often felled three or four of them before they could be speared. Their
frightful blows shattered everything upon which they fell. One of them
knocked Summerlee's rifle to matchwood and the next would have crushed
his skull had an Indian not stabbed the beast to the heart. Other
ape-men in the trees above us hurled down stones and logs of wood,
occasionally dropping bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously
until they were felled. Once our allies broke under the pressure, and
had it not been for the execution done by our rifles they would
certainly have taken to their heels. But they were gallantly rallied
by their old chief and came on with such a rush that the ape-men began
in turn to give way. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my
magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we heard
the continuous cracking of our companion's rifles.
Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and
howling, the great creatures rushed away in all directions through the
brushwood, while our allies yelled in their savage delight, following
swiftly after their flying enemies. All the feuds of countless
generations, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all
the memories of ill-usage and persecution were to be purged that day.
At last man was to be supreme and the man-beast to find forever his
allotted place. Fly as they would the fugitives were too slow to
escape from the active savages, and from every side in the tangled
woods we heard the exultant yells, the twanging of bows, and the crash
and thud as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the
trees.
I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and Challenger
had come across to join us.
"It's over," said Lord John. "I think we can leave the tidying up to
them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep."
Challenger's eyes were shining with the lust of slaughter.
"We have been privileged," he cried, strutting about like a gamecock,
"to be present at one of the typical decisive battles of history--the
battles which have determined the fate of the world. What, my friends,
is the conquest of one nation by another? It is meaningless. Each
produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of
the ages the cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger folk, or
the elephants first found that they had a master, those were the real
conquests--the victories that count. By this strange turn of fate we
have seen and helped to decide even such a contest. Now upon this
plateau the future must ever be for man."
It needed a robust faith in the end to justify such tragic means. As
we advanced together through the woods we found the ape-men lying
thick, transfixed with spears or arrows. Here and there a little group
of shattered Indians marked where one of the anthropoids had turned to
bay, and sold his life dearly. Always in front of us we heard the
yelling and roaring which showed the direction of the pursuit. The
ape-men had been driven back to their city, they had made a last stand
there, once again they had been broken, and now we were in time to see
the final fearful scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the
last survivors, had been driven across that same little clearing which
led to the edge of the cliff, the scene of our own exploit two days
before. As we arrived the Indians, a semicircle of spearmen, had
closed in on them, and in a minute it was over, Thirty or forty died
where they stood. The others, screaming and clawing, were thrust over
the precipice, and went hurtling down, as their prisoners had of old,
on to the sharp bamboos six hundred feet below. It was as Challenger
had said, and the reign of man was assured forever in Maple White Land.
The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and
young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of
untold centuries had reached its bloody end.
For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were able to
visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we were able to
communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle from
afar of an avalanche of apes falling from the edge of the cliff.
"Come away, Massas, come away!" he cried, his eyes starting from his
head. "The debbil get you sure if you stay up there."
"It is the voice of sanity!" said Summerlee with conviction. "We have
had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to our character or
our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards
you devote your energies to getting us out of this horrible country and
back once more to civilization."