The Weed Men

Now, on that night, when I came to my watch, I discovered that there was

no moon, and, save for such light as the fire threw, the hill-top was in

darkness; yet this was no great matter to trouble me; for we had been

unmolested since the burning of the fungi in the valley, and thus I had

lost much of the haunting fear which had beset me upon the death of Job.

Yet, though I was not so much afraid as I had been, I took all

precautions that suggested themselves to me, and built up the fire to a

goodly height, after which I took my cut-and-thrust, and made the round

of the camping place. At the edges of the cliffs which protected us on

three sides, I made some pause, staring down into the darkness, and

listening; though this latter was of but small use because of the

strength of the wind which roared continually in my ears. Yet though I

neither saw nor heard anything, I was presently possessed of a strange

uneasiness, which made me return twice or thrice to the edge of the

cliffs; but always without seeing or hearing anything to justify my

superstitions. And so, presently, being determined to give way to no

fancifulness, I avoided the boundary of cliffs, and kept more to that

part which commanded the slope, up and down which we made our journeys

to and from the island below.

Then, it would be near halfway through my time of watching, there came to

me out of the immensity of weed that lay to leeward, a far distant sound

that grew upon my ear, rising and rising into a fearsome screaming and

shrieking, and then dying away into the distance in queer sobs, and so at

last to a note below that of the wind's. At this, as might be supposed, I

was somewhat shaken in myself to hear so dread a noise coming out of all

that desolation, and then, suddenly, the thought came to me that the

screaming was from the ship to leeward of us, and I ran immediately to

the edge of the cliff overlooking the weed, and stared into the darkness;

but now I perceived, by a light which burned in the hulk, that the

screaming had come from some place a great distance to the right of her,

and more, as my sense assured me, it could by no means have been possible

for those in her to have sent their voices to me against such a breeze as

blew at that time.

And so, for a space, I stood nervously pondering, and peering away into

the blackness of the night; thus, in a little, I perceived a dull glow

upon the horizon, and, presently, there rose into view the upper edge of

the moon, and a very welcome sight it was to me; for I had been upon the

point of calling the bo'sun to inform him regarding the sound which I had

heard; but I had hesitated, being afraid to seem foolish if nothing

should befall. Then, even as I stood watching the moon rise into view,

there came again to me the beginning of that screaming, somewhat like to

the sound of a woman sobbing with a giant's voice, and it grew and

strengthened until it pierced through the roar of the wind with an

amazing clearness, and then slowly, and seeming to echo and echo, it sank

away into the distance, and there was again in my ears no sound beyond

that of the wind.

At this, having looked fixedly in the direction from which the sound had

proceeded, I ran straightway to the tent and roused the bo'sun; for I had

no knowledge of what the noise might portend, and this second cry had

shaken from me all my bashfulness. Now the bo'sun was upon his feet

almost before I had made an end of shaking him, and catching up his great

cutlass which he kept always by his side, he followed me swiftly out on

to the hill-top. Here, I explained to him that I had heard a very

fearsome sound which had appeared to proceed out of the vastness of the

weed-continent, and that, upon a repetition of the noise, I had decided

to call him; for I knew not but that it might signal to us of some coming

danger. At that, the bo'sun commended me; though chiding me in that I had

hesitated to call him at the first occurrence of the crying, and then,

following me to the edge of the leeward cliff, he stood there with me,

waiting and listening, perchance there might come again a recurrence of

the noise.

For perhaps something over an hour we stood there very silent and

listening; but there came to us no sound beyond the continuous noise of

the wind, and so, by that time, having grown somewhat impatient of

waiting, and the moon being well risen, the bo'sun beckoned to me to make

the round of the camp with him. Now, just as I turned away, chancing to

look downward at the clear water directly below, I was amazed to see that

an innumerable multitude of great fish, like unto those which I had seen

on the previous night, were swimming from the weed-continent towards the

island. At that, I stepped nearer the edge; for they came so directly

towards the island that I expected to see them close inshore; yet I could

not perceive one; for they seemed all of them to vanish at a point some

thirty yards distant from the beach, and at that, being amazed both by

the numbers of the fish and their strangeness, and the way in which they

came on continually, yet never reached the shore, I called to the bo'sun

to come and see; for he had gone on a few paces. Upon hearing my call, he

came running back; whereat I pointed into the sea below. At that, he

stooped forward and peered very intently, and I with him; yet neither one

of us could discover the meaning of so curious an exhibition, and so for

a while we watched, the bo'sun being quite so much interested as I.

Presently, however, he turned away, saying that we did foolishly to stand

here peering at every curious sight, when we should be looking to the

welfare of the camp, and so we began to go the round of the hill-top.

Now, whilst we had been watching and listening, we had suffered the fire

to die down to a most unwise lowness, and consequently, though the moon

was rising, there was by no means the same brightness that should have

made the camp light. On perceiving this, I went forward to throw some

fuel on to the fire, and then, even as I moved, it seemed to me that I

saw something stir in the shadow of the tent. And at that, I ran towards

the place, uttering a shout, and waving my cut-and-thrust; yet I found

nothing, and so, feeling somewhat foolish, I turned to make up the fire,

as had been my intention, and whilst I was thus busied, the bo'sun came

running over to me to know what I had seen, and in the same instant there

ran three of the men out of the tent, all of them waked by my sudden cry.

But I had naught to tell them, save that my fancy had played me a trick,

and had shown me something where my eyes could find nothing, and at that,

two of the men went back to resume their sleep; but the third, the big

fellow to whom the bo'sun had given the other cutlass, came with us,

bringing his weapon; and, though he kept silent, it seemed to me that he

had gathered something of our uneasiness; and for my part I was not sorry

to have his company.

Presently, we came to that portion of the hill which overhung the

valley, and I went to the edge of the cliff, intending to peer over; for

the valley had a very unholy fascination for me. Yet, no sooner had I

glanced down than I started, and ran back to the bo'sun and plucked him

by the sleeve, and at that, perceiving my agitation, he came with me in

silence to see what matter had caused me so much quiet excitement. Now,

when he looked over, he also was astounded, and drew back instantly;

then, using great caution, he bent forward once more, and stared down,

and, at that, the big seaman came up behind, walking upon his toes, and

stooped to see what manner of thing we had discovered. Thus we each of us

stared down upon a most unearthly sight; for the valley all beneath us

was a-swarm with moving creatures, white and unwholesome in the

moonlight, and their movements were somewhat like the movements of

monstrous slugs, though the things themselves had no resemblance to such

in their contours; but minded me of naked humans, very fleshy and

crawling upon their stomachs; yet their movements lacked not a surprising

rapidity. And now, looking a little over the bo'sun's shoulder, I

discovered that these hideous things were coming up out from the pit-like

pool in the bottom of the valley, and, suddenly, I was minded of the

multitudes of strange fish which we had seen swimming towards the island;

but which had all disappeared before reaching the shore, and I had no

doubt but that they entered the pit through some natural passage known to

them beneath the water. And now I was made to understand my thought of

the previous night, that I had seen the flicker of tentacles; for these

things below us had each two short and stumpy arms; but the ends appeared

divided into hateful and wriggling masses of small tentacles, which slid

hither and thither as the creatures moved about the bottom of the valley,

and at their hinder ends, where they should have grown feet, there seemed

other flickering bunches; but it must not be supposed that we saw these

things clearly.

Now it is scarcely possible to convey the extraordinary disgust which the

sight of these human slugs bred in me; nor, could I, do I think I would;

for were I successful, then would others be like to retch even as I did,

the spasm coming on without premonition, and born of very horror. And

then, suddenly, even as I stared, sick with loathing and apprehension,

there came into view, not a fathom below my feet, a face like to the face

which had peered up into my own on that night, as we drifted beside the

weed-continent. At that, I could have screamed, had I been in less

terror; for the great eyes, so big as crown pieces, the bill like to an

inverted parrot's, and the slug-like undulating of its white and slimy

body, bred in me the dumbness of one mortally stricken. And, even as I

stayed there, my helpless body bent and rigid, the bo'sun spat a mighty

curse into my ear, and, leaning forward, smote at the thing with his

cutlass; for in the instant that I had seen it, it had advanced upward by

so much as a yard. Now, at this action of the bo'sun's, I came suddenly

into possession of myself, and thrust downward with so much vigor that I

was like to have followed the brute's carcass; for I overbalanced, and

danced giddily for a moment upon the edge of eternity; and then the

bo'sun had me by the waistband, and I was back in safety; but in that

instant through which I had struggled for my balance, I had discovered

that the face of the cliff was near hid with the number of the things

which were making up to us, and I turned to the bo'sun, crying out to him

that there were thousands of them swarming up to us. Yet, he was gone

already from me, running towards the fire, and shouting to the men in the

tent to haste to our help for their very lives, and then he came racing

back with a great armful of the weed, and after him came the big seaman,

carrying a burning tuft from the camp fire, and so in a few moments we

had a blaze, and the men were bringing more weed; for we had a very good

stock upon the hill-top; for which the Almighty be thanked.

Now, scarce had we lit one fire, when the bo'sun cried out to the big

seaman to make another, further along the edge of the cliff, and, in the

same instant, I shouted, and ran over to that part of the hill which lay

towards the open sea; for I had seen a number of moving things about the

edge of the seaward cliff. Now here there was a deal of shadow; for there

were scattered certain large masses of rock about this part of the hill,

and these held off both the light of the moon, and that from the fires.

Here, I came abruptly upon three great shapes moving with stealthiness

towards the camp, and, behind these, I saw dimly that there were others.

Then, with a loud cry for help, I made at the three, and, as I charged,

they rose up on end at me, and I found that they overtopped me, and their

vile tentacles were reached out at me. Then I was smiting, and gasping,

sick with a sudden stench, the stench of the creatures which I had come

already to know. And then something clutched at me, something slimy and

vile, and great mandibles champed in my face; but I stabbed upward, and

the thing fell from me, leaving me dazed and sick, and smiting weakly.

Then there came a rush of feet behind, and a sudden blaze, and the bo'sun

crying out encouragement, and, directly, he and the big seaman thrust

themselves in front of me, hurling from them great masses of burning

weed, which they had borne, each of them, up a long reed. And immediately

the things were gone, slithering hastily down over the cliff edge.

And so, presently, I was more my own man, and made to wipe from my throat

the slime left by the clutch of the monster: and afterwards I ran from

fire to fire with weed, feeding them, and so a space passed, during

which we had safety; for by that time we had fires all about the top of

the hill, and the monsters were in mortal dread of fire, else had we been

dead, all of us, that night.

Now, a while before the dawn, we discovered, for the second time since we

had been upon the island, that our fuel could not last us the night at

the rate at which we were compelled to burn it, and so the bo'sun told

the men to let out every second fire, and thus we staved off for a while

the time when we should have to face a spell of darkness, and the things

which, at present, the fires held off from us. And so at last, we came to

the end of the weed and the reeds, and the bo'sun called out to us to

watch the cliff edges very carefully, and smite on the instant that any

thing showed; but that, should he call, all were to gather by the central

fire for a last stand. And, after that, he blasted the moon which had

passed behind a great bank of cloud. And thus matters were, and the gloom

deepened as the fires sank lower and lower. Then I heard a man curse, on

that part of the hill which lay towards the weed-continent, his cry

coming up to me against the wind, and the bo'sun shouted to us to all

have a care, and directly afterwards I smote at something that rose

silently above the edge of the cliff opposite to where I watched.

Perhaps a minute passed, and then there came shouts from all parts of the

hilltop, and I knew that the weed men were upon us, and in the same

instant there came two above the edge near me, rising with a ghostly

quietness, yet moving lithely. Now the first, I pierced somewhere in the

throat, and it fell backward; but the second, though I thrust it through,

caught my blade with a bunch of its tentacles, and was like to have

snatched it from me; but that I kicked it in the face, and at that,

being, I believe, more astonished than hurt, it loosed my sword, and

immediately fell away out of sight. Now this had taken, in all, no more

than some ten seconds; yet already I perceived so many as four others

coming into view a little to my right, and at that it seemed to me that

our deaths must be very near, for I knew not how we were to cope with the

creatures, coming as they were so boldly and with such rapidity. Yet, I

hesitated not, but ran at them, and now I thrust not; but cut at their

faces, and found this to be very effectual; for in this wise disposed I

of three in as many strokes; but the fourth had come right over the cliff

edge, and rose up at me upon its hinder parts, as had done those others

when the bo'sun had succored me. At that, I gave way, having a very

lively dread; but, hearing all about me the cries of conflict, and

knowing that I could expect no help, I made at the brute: then as it

stooped and reached out one of its bunches of tentacles, I sprang back,

and slashed at them, and immediately I followed this up by a thrust in

the stomach, and at that it collapsed into a writhing white ball, that

rolled this way and that, and so, in its agony, coming to the edge of the

cliff, it fell over, and I was left, sick and near helpless with the

hateful stench of the brutes.

Now by this time all the fires about the edges of the hill were sunken

into dull glowing mounds of embers; though that which burnt near to the

entrance of the tent was still of a good brightness; yet this helped us

but little, for we fought too far beyond the immediate circle of its

beams to have benefit of it. And still the moon, at which now I threw a

despairing glance, was no more than a ghostly shape behind the great bank

of cloud which was passing over it. Then, even as I looked upward,

glancing as it might be over my left shoulder, I saw, with a sudden

horror, that something had come anigh me, and upon the instant, I caught

the reek of the thing, and leapt fearfully to one side, turning as I

sprang. Thus was I saved in the very moment of my destruction; for the

creature's tentacles smeared the back of my neck as I leapt, and then I

had smitten, once and again, and conquered.

Immediately after this, I discovered something to be crossing the dark

space that lay between the dull mound of the nearest fire, and that which

lay further along the hill-top, and so, wasting no moment of time, I ran

towards the thing, and cut it twice across the head before ever it could

get upon its hind parts, in which position I had learned greatly to dread

them. Yet, no sooner had I slain this one, than there came a rush of

maybe a dozen upon me; these having climbed silently over the cliff edge

in the meanwhile. At this, I dodged, and ran madly towards the glowing

mound of the nearest fire, the brutes following me almost so quick as I

could run; but I came to the fire the first, and then, a sudden thought

coming to me, I thrust the point of my cut-and-thrust among the embers

and switched a great shower of them at the creatures, and at that I had a

momentary clear vision of many white, hideous faces stretched out towards

me, and brown, champing mandibles which had the upper beak shutting into

the lower; and the clumped, wriggling tentacles were all a-flutter. Then

the gloom came again; but immediately, I switched another and yet another

shower of the burning embers towards them, and so, directly, I saw them

give back, and then they were gone. At this, all about the edges of the

hilltop, I saw the fires being scattered in like manner; for others had

adopted this device to help them in their sore straits.

For a little after this, I had a short breathing space, the brutes

seeming to have taken fright; yet I was full of trembling, and I glanced

hither and thither, not knowing when some one or more of them would come

upon me. And ever I glanced towards the moon, and prayed the Almighty

that the clouds would pass quickly, else should we be all dead men; and

then, as I prayed, there rose a sudden very terrible scream from one of

the men, and in the same moment there came something over the edge of the

cliff fronting me; but I cleft it or ever it could rise higher, and in my

ears there echoed still the sudden scream which had come from that part

of the hill which lay to the left of me: yet I dared not to leave my

station; for to have done so would have been to have risked all, and so I

stayed, tortured by the strain of ignorance, and my own terror.

Again, I had a little spell in which I was free from molestation; nothing

coming into sight so far as I could see to right or left of me; though

others were less fortunate, as the curses and sounds of blows told to me,

and then, abruptly, there came another cry of pain, and I looked up again

to the moon, and prayed aloud that it might come out to show some light

before we were all destroyed; but it remained hid. Then a sudden thought

came into my brain, and I shouted at the top of my voice to the bo'sun to

set the great cross-bow upon the central fire; for thus we should have a

big blaze--the wood being very nice and dry. Twice I shouted to him,

saying:--"Burn the bow! Burn the bow!" And immediately he replied,

shouting to all the men to run to him and carry it to the fire; and this

we did and bore it to the center fire, and then ran back with all speed

to our places. Thus in a minute we had some light, and the light grew as

the fire took hold of the great log, the wind fanning it to a blaze. And

so I faced outwards, looking to see if any vile face showed above the

edge before me, or to my right or left. Yet, I saw nothing, save, as it

seemed to me, once a fluttering tentacle came up, a little to my right;

but nothing else for a space.

Perhaps it was near five minutes later, that there came another attack,

and, in this, I came near to losing my life, through my folly in

venturing too near to the edge of the cliff; for, suddenly, there shot up

out from the darkness below, a clump of tentacles, and caught me about

the left ankle, and immediately I was pulled to a sitting posture, so

that both my feet were over the edge of the precipice, and it was only by

the mercy of God that I had not plunged head foremost into the valley.

Yet, as it was, I suffered a mighty peril; for the brute that had my

foot, put a vast strain upon it, trying to pull me down; but I resisted,

using my hands and seat to sustain me, and so, discovering that it could

not compass my end in this wise, it slacked somewhat of the stress, and

bit at my boot, shearing through the hard leather, and nigh destroying my

small toe; but now, being no longer compelled to use both hands to retain

my position, I slashed down with great fury, being maddened by the pain

and the mortal fear which the creature had put upon me; yet I was not

immediately free of the brute; for it caught my sword blade; but I

snatched it away before it could take a proper hold, mayhaps cutting its

feelers somewhat thereby; though of this I cannot be sure, for they

seemed not to grip around a thing, but to _suck_ to it; then, in a

moment, by a lucky blow, I maimed it, so that it loosed me, and I was

able to get back into some condition of security.

And from this onwards, we were free from molestation; though we had no

knowledge but that the quietness of the weed men did but portend a

fresh attack, and so, at last, it came to the dawn; and in all this

time the moon came not to our help, being quite hid by the clouds which

now covered the whole arc of the sky, making the dawn of a very

desolate aspect.

And so soon as there was a sufficiency of light, we examined the valley;

but there were nowhere any of the weed men, no! nor even any of their

dead for it seemed that they had carried off all such and their wounded,

and so we had no opportunity to make an examination of the monsters by

daylight. Yet, though we could not come upon their dead, all about the

edges of the cliffs was blood and slime, and from the latter there came

ever the hideous stench which marked the brutes; but from this we

suffered little, the wind carrying it far away to leeward, and filling

our lungs with sweet and wholesome air.

Presently, seeing that the danger was past, the bo'sun called us to the

center fire, on which burnt still the remnants of the great bow, and here

we discovered for the first time that one of the men was gone from us. At

that, we made search about the hilltop, and afterwards in the valley and

about the island; but found him not.