THE SERVANT OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF HUO.
Hinauri took up her torch and came round the lake towards us, but
Kahikatea met her half-way, his dripping sword still in his hand. I
heard the sword clink as he cast it on the rocks--he had no further
use for it as they stood facing each other in the torchlight. At this
moment my attention was diverted by something brushing against my
sleeve. I put out my hand and clutched what seemed to be a stick
pointed towards the spot where the two stood. A quick horror shot
through me, for at the instant I touched it I heard a peculiar hiss
that I knew only too well. It was the reed tube of the negro wizard.
But I had spoilt his aim, and before he knew what had happened I had
thrust him backwards and wrenched the tube from his hand as he fell
into the water, which had now risen above the aperture and was rapidly
finding its level. My first impulse was to fling the accursed weapon
of the Poisoner into the abyss; my second to keep it and use it
against him, for I remembered how the darts had been arranged around
the one I had taken from him at our first encounter. But, in case of
accidents, Hinauri must be placed out of danger. With all my lungs I
roared across the lake.
“Kahikatea! for God’s sake, and for her sake, get out of this infernal
place as soon as you can.”
“Is it urgent?” he called back.
“Yes,” I yelled excitedly, “do as I say; go up the rope, quick!”
“All right,” he returned, and I knew he would not go alone.
Then I struck a match and directed my attention to the wizard, whom I
could see struggling in the water below, surrounded by ghastly
corpses. Not without an inward misgiving, even a feeling of dread, at
what I was about to do, I turned away, and, detaching one of the
poisoned darts from its receptacle, placed it in the tube. By the
dying light of the match I saw the glistening of his skinny black back
as he pushed his way between the floating bodies and made for the
further wall. I raised the tube, took careful aim, and puffed the
dart. The match, which was burning my fingers, fell into the water
with a hiss, and all was dark. The wizard pushed on a little before he
spoke, and then it was in a hollow guttural voice that rattled in his
throat: “He got me!” he said, and this was followed by a harsh grating
shriek which sounded like the final curse of an incarnate fiend who
knew his time had come. Yet it seemed a trifle strange to me that he
should not have cried out directly he was struck. Such an accurate aim
with an untried weapon was a matter for self-congratulation, and
having succeeded so far I went on to use his own black art against
himself.
“You are powerless,” I said; “powerless to act except in obedience to
my voice. Keep on swimming--you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear--and obey,” came from the wizard in meek, obedient tones.
I struck another match, and walked along the rim of the basin to the
ledge of rock which Kahikatea had held against the Maoris. There I
held the light so that he could see to ascend, and presently we were
standing face to face. By still another match I examined his
countenance. Hideous, repulsive it was, hate and malice written on
every line, and in the piercing eyes was a suppressed alertness which
did not seem natural in one in the passive state.
[image: img286.jpg
caption: “I RAISED THE TUBE, TOOK CAREFUL AIM, AND PUFFED THE DART.”]
“Who are you?” I asked, fixing my eyes on his; “and why are you here?”
“I am the servant of Cazotl,” he replied in fairly good English; “and
I have come here to look for gold hidden in this mountain.”
“Why did you attempt to carry off the white maiden?”
“She has the power of spirit-sight,” he said again. “A witch described
her to us, and I have been looking for her for years among the Maoris.
When I had found her my master came from Mexico, for she could tell us
where the gold is hidden--many, many tons of gold--and sparkling
stones.”
I was nonplussed. Was it merely a matter of gold after all? I paused
and, while I paused, the match went out. As I drew another from my
waistcoat pocket I heard a faint movement before me; it was very
faint, but I heard it and stepped back. Then as the lucifer fizzed--I
remember it was a double-headed one--I saw the negro in the act of
springing towards me with arm uplifted and a small pointed thing in
his hand. In a flash I saw that he had been shamming so as to take me
unawares, that my dart had never struck him at all, that he had a
spare one in his hand, that--but the end of this lightning grasp of
the situation was finished in the air, and the whole was checked point
by point beneath the water, for I had sprung aside into the lake to
avoid the possibility of a prick with that poisonous thing. That
spring saved me so far, and when I reached the surface, still grasping
the reed tube, I realised it was now a level fight in the dark--a
weird, subtle, creepy contest to be determined by a mere prick of the
skin.
The hissing of the water as it welled up from below, laden with
bubbles that burst all about me, made a cover of sound sufficient to
conceal my movements from the listening ear of my enemy. Still I made
no more noise than was necessary in reaching the margin. But in
grasping the rock, which was scarcely a foot above the water, the tube
in my hand came in contact with it and made a slight click. Instantly
I pushed it back in my armpit, and made my way a yard or two further
along, knowing that he must have heard the sound. My next move was to
push off a little again and extract two darts from their places. With
one I loaded the tube, and the other I retained in my left hand ready
for use at close quarters. Then I held the rock with one finger and
strained my ears to catch the faintest sound. The ceaseless seething
of the water disturbed the silence as little as it lightened the utter
darkness, and here in this terrible suspense I recalled a moment, not
long since, when my arms had enclosed the form of Crystal not many
yards away on the rock. At that time I had felt with a wild thrill of
delight that the whole heaven of a world contained only us two, but
now the same thing came over me with shudderings, and it was again as
if the whole hell of a world held only the thing of evil and myself,
both watching in the dark.
Suddenly something touched my finger on the rock. Instantly I threw
myself back on the water and, raising the tube to my mouth, puffed a
dart at a venture. No sound followed, and I cautiously approached the
bank again at a different spot, loading the tube with my spare dart as
I went. But a better idea occurred to me. A light would give me a
great advantage, for, having the tube, I could fire from a short
distance, while my antagonist could only strike at close quarters. I
remembered that the smouldering punk was kept near the heap of
pinehearts in the recess in the wall; perhaps with care I should be
able to get a light before I was seen. Accordingly I struck out across
the lake, guessing the direction as nearly as I was able, and finally
grasped the rock at a distance which conveyed to me the idea that I
had cut off a considerable arc of the lake’s circumference. With great
care, and a horrible feeling that at any moment I might feel the prick
of the skin which would place me and everything else in the power of
the wizard, I raised myself on to the ledge and groped along the wall
to find the recess. The vividness with which I could see my
surroundings--all except the position of my enemy--in my mental eye,
surprised me: yes, the recess should be just here; no, it was not
there, and for a moment I grew giddy and lost my bearings. I recalled
myself with an effort, and continued my way. Suddenly I stopped, and
selecting another dart from the tube, held it at arm’s length before
me with one hand, while I felt the wall with the other, and suspended
the tube from between my teeth. It seemed hours before I found the
recess, and hours more before I crouched, with the punk in one hand
and a torch in the other, gently blowing to get a flame; and all that
time I endured the most frightful suspense lest the light, carefully
as I sheltered it in the furthest corner of the recess, should be seen
too soon.
At last the pineheart ignited, and the resinous wood began to hiss and
blaze. I held it aloft, and placing the tube ready to my lips,
advanced on to the side of the lake. The light fell on the swelling
bosom of the water, on the rocky wall above, and on the narrow margin
at my feet, but I could not see any enemy at first. Yet I knew I had
now the best of the situation, and proceeded boldly round towards the
basin. When I had gone some dozen paces I stopped suddenly, for there
was the figure of the wizard crouching down on the ledge, with his
eyes fixed on the water and his arm upraised as if about to strike. He
seemed unconscious of the light, and, as I advanced nearer, remained
fixed in the same position. Had the dart I fired before striking
across the lake reached its mark, or was this another piece of
cunning? I drew still nearer, covering him with the tube, and saw that
his frame was rigid, while on his set face there rested a look of the
most diabolical hatred.
I was not in a mood to trust to appearances, however, and, to make
certain, I puffed another of his own poisoned darts at him. It pierced
his shoulder, but he did not move. Then I realised that at last he was
at my mercy.
I passed behind him, told him to stand up and follow me, for my voice
was the only thing, and he would obey it. He prepared to follow me
like a dog.
“Throw away that dart,” I said, pointing to the small thing he still
held in his hand.
He did so without any hesitation.
“Now follow.”
I went before him with the torch, past the landing-place, and on to
the rim of the basin, where I made him proceed first to the outer lip.
“Stand there on the very brink and do not move from it,” I said, and
held the torch so that he could see.
He obeyed. Now I would have the truth, for I was convinced the
information he had volunteered before was false. I drew near him and
stood at his side.
I said, “Again, who are you? Speak, and speak the truth, and nothing
but the truth.”
No sooner had I spoken than I heard the most extraordinary scheme of
echoes imaginable. My last word--truth, multiplied from crag to crag
about the vaulted roof, ended in strange gurgling sounds, in which the
meaning was wholly lost. I had not heard this echo from any other spot
of the cavern, and I wondered if this, too, was a mysterious device of
the ancient giants, or whether it was one of Nature’s more accurate
calculations, with mighty pebbles, in acoustics. When the wailing
sounds had almost died away the wizard answered:
“I am one of the Brotherhood of Huo,” he spoke in deep, hollow tones,
“and I have come here at their command to carry out their will--to
degrade and destroy one who threatens their power in the world.”
“What is their power? Answer from your own knowledge and
intelligence.”
The terms in which he answered astonished me; they were those of a man
well versed in occult things.
“The power of the Brotherhood of Huo is the power of the Single Eye
looking downwards. They strive for what men call Evil--Pure Evil; and
when they attain it, they become one with all Evil on the earth, with
increased powers to further it.”
“And why,” I asked, “why was it worth your while to come half-way
round the world to do this particular piece of evil?”
“It was revealed to us in the great mirror of the Daughter of
Darkness, whom we worship, that the ancient spirit of Hia would return
to this temple with a magic sign of motherhood which would undo our
work in the world. Cazotl, our chief, and I, his servant, then came to
degrade and darken the maiden Hia, so that she might forget, as other
women have forgotten, this sign which threatens our power. But the
magic of this place is stronger than ours: Cazotl was overpowered by
his own evil flung back on him by one stronger than our strongest--one
who must have mastered our own magic to do it. Many of our number have
set out to find the magic which controls our own in this place, but
none of them has ever returned. I, too, was struck and crawled away to
die, but recovered, and came here to find Hia and destroy her.”
“The sign is already given,” I said. “Hear me and understand: the sign
of motherhood, of birth and remembering, is already given. What does
that mean to you?”
“It means that our power is doomed. Our ancient enemies, the giants in
what men call Good, will be born again upon the earth. These strong
ones can only come back by means of the pure white magic of the woman.
It has been the aim of our Brotherhood from earliest times to bind
woman down in darkness, to narrow her mind, to degrade and blind her
lest she should recall this magic. But now the sign is given, and we
are doomed.”
“And what is your punishment?”
“We have no punishment,” he said. “Punishment exists only for those
who have a spark of good left in them. We have severed all connection
with that. Remorse, the hell of those who vacillate between good and
evil, has no existence for us.”
“But you can suffer physical pain?” I exclaimed.
“Yes; pain and pleasure are in our bodies,” he replied.
“Then before you go out into darkness”--my words hissed out in a voice
that sounded strange to my own ears--“you must suffer. You cannot act
except in obedience to my voice; but you are conscious, acutely
conscious in all your body, to feel what my words will work in you.
You cannot stir from this spot, neither can you move a limb nor yet
cry out. Servant of the Vile Brotherhood of Huo, hear your punishment.
You have a raging fire in your vitals, so that your blood seethes and
hisses through your veins. For one hour as we count time, this fire
will rage through your being with the most horrible pain. In the
darkness before you, you will see the face of a great timepiece, and
every second as marked there shall seem to you like the time that
passes between sunset and sunset, fully stretched out and crammed with
agony. Yet you will neither faint nor fall, but endure the whole.”
My voice was the voice of cursing, and, as the last words echoed round
the cavern walls and finally died away on shapeless granite lips in
the high vaults overhead, I recoiled at the awful nature of the thing
I had uttered. The torch fell from my fingers; then, in the darkness
that ensued, I staggered and fell backwards into the water in the
great basin.
I struck out for the rim, but no sooner had I drawn myself up than I
was startled by another voice than my own in the darkness near by.
“Ngha! the lizard looks in vain into Ngaraki’s eyes,” it said
fiercely.
At the sound, I knew that the terrible chief, having, in consideration
of the indignity heaped upon him, accepted _utu_[26] from Tu, the
war-god; and, having, moreover, left a full receipt and acknowledgment
thereof on the cracked and battered heads of his foes outside, had now
just come in by the ‘way of the fish.’ I heard him shake the water
from his hair and climb on to the ledge. The drops dripped, pattering
on the rock as he stood up, and then his quick footfalls passed away
round the margin of the lake. Presently I saw a faint glow in the
recess, and in another minute he came out holding a blazing torch
above his head, and stood looking across the lake towards the abyss.
But the light of the torch did not carry far enough, and he passed
with rapid strides round the further side.
When he reached the ledge by the partition between the lake and the
abyss, and held his flaring torch out and gazed forward at the empty
air where the spar had been, a wild yell of triumph came from his
great chest, ringing like a clarion through the spaces of the cavern
above and below. Hinauri had hurled the long spar and the rolling
stone down upon the heads of his granite enemies of old time in the
pit. His _meré_, still in his hand, was whirled again and again round
his head. Then his furious outburst was checked and, with a sudden
fierce pant of the breath like an escaping throb of energy at bursting
pressure, he stood still. He would take it more methodically. A high
triumph over the broken heads of the Vile Tohungas of the Pit was now
for him, and he would hold that triumph in due form. This was in his
manner as the _meré_ shook fiercely in his grasp, and he turned and
strode, with head held high, along the path that led down into the
abyss.
I knelt on the rock and watched him go, while my heart went out to him
across the gulf. More than ever, the heroic bearing, the grand, fierce
spirit, the noble and graceful dignity of this savage had my
admiration. I would go and witness his triumph and hear the words he
would speak to the Vile Tohungas.
Carefully I made my way round the lake, lighted another torch in the
recess, and proceeded after Ngaraki; but when I came to the ledge
where he had stood I began to wonder if the wizard negro on the other
side of the abyss was suffering all the torture I had suggested. I
stopped and pondered my doubt awhile. At last I determined to speak to
him across the darkness, for the light of the torch fell short, and I
could not see him standing there on the basin’s rim.
“Servant of the Brotherhood of Huo,” I called, “listen! my voice is
the only thing. You cannot move from where you stand nor can you fall
forward into the darkness, but your tongue is loosened for me to hear
what you suffer and----”
But I proceeded no further, for as the words left my lips there came
out of the darkness on the further side a sudden harsh roar, rising to
a shriek, that seemed to strike and grate against the rocks of the
gloomy place, wringing harsh echoes of an indescribable agony from
their time-worn sides, and calling hollow murmurs of woe out of the
abysmal abode of the Vile Tohungas. Weirder and more terrible came the
cries of the tortured wizard, mingled with articulate gnashing of
words that sounded like curses in a barbarous tongue. From the echoes
of his cries the whole place seemed filled with the shrieking and
moaning and dismal wailing of the vile ones of far time come back to
be torn by fiends in the darkness. Had every granite facet of every
crag on the walls and roof of that terrible place been a rack on which
was stretched a living, shrieking victim, the effect could not have
been more awful. My God! What had I done! Who was I to judge this man?
The voice of mercy rose up in my soul, and I thought to retrace my
steps in the hope of undoing this horrible curse, but before I could
turn to carry out my purpose a strange thing happened. A chill blast
of air came from across the abyss and struck my face. A thrill shot
down my spine. My flesh crept and my hair rose. Then, far within my
brain--it seemed to come from an immeasurable distance--a voice spoke,
“Let him alone! it is our will, the will of the One above us. Who are
you to show mercy when we, the Lords of Compassion, have set our seal
to this man’s doom?”
I passed my hand across my forehead: it was cold and wet. Awed and
full of tremblings, I turned and walked swiftly towards the giants’
window, hurrying away from those awful sounds which were still ringing
in my ears like the imagined cries of hell. In the twilight that
pushed the thick darkness back from the huge grating, I partly
recovered myself and stood for a moment on the sill, looking out. I
wanted a breath of air--some tonic sign of human life from the outside
world, and chance gave it me in a small sweetened draught, for which I
was thankful.
It came in this way. While I was looking out into the blue sky and
listening to the faint music of the wind across the great stone bars,
I heard a murmur of voices without, speaking in low tones. I set down
my torch and stepped outside to listen. The sounds came from behind
the rock on my left. It was the sweet, plaintive, happy-sad voice of a
woman that spoke:
“And through all these long years you have forgotten me. I have had no
existence to you, no part in your life, no place in your heart. I know
the reason of it only too well, dear--Te Makawawa offered me the same
forgetfulness, but I would not.” The owner of this voice evidently
knew nothing of the terrible things which had just taken place in the
interior of the cavern.
“I had no option,” replied a man’s voice, which I knew to be Grey’s;
“but I did not wholly forget. Many times in the day and night a
strange reminiscence of a tender face flitted across my memory like
the face of an angel I might have seen long ago in dreams. They called
me ‘Dreamer Grey,’ because at odd times I would stop in what I was
saying or doing, and look into the air, trying to follow this fleeting
glimpse which was all I knew of some forgotten heaven. But, as I told
you just now, the memory of these intervening years is fading away,
and I recall these things but dimly. It is beginning to seem but
yesterday when I came with you a prisoner to this place. Strange--but
I almost think that soon those eighteen years without you will be
crowded out, and I shall take up my life again where I left it off--my
old life and my old love for you, dear.”
The voice ceased and a happy sigh, breathed all about the one word
“Husband!” fell upon my ears. It dismissed the faint, far-off wailings
that came from the interior of the mountain; it swept away even the
consciousness that I was playing the part of a paltry listener. When
this did occur to me some time later the lump that had risen in my
throat, and the mist that had gathered in my eyes seemed to take away
the paltriness of my part.
Again the sigh, again the tender word as the happy wife replied: “When
you saw my face it was when I, too, paused in what I was doing or woke
from sleep and stretched out my arms to you. Oh! how I have loved you
night and day through all these long years of my imprisonment, and now
we are together again, never to be sep----”
The voice stopped, arrested perhaps by some sudden doubt.
“What is it, dearest?”
“You told me just now”--her words had a ring of pain in them--“that
your old memory was coming back and the intervening years were
slipping away.”
“Yes, they are almost gone. It seems as if some powerful hand is
slackening its hold on my brain, and long-forgotten memories are
flooding in and taking up their old places. Even now the eighteen
years is a mere blank covered with flitting dreams.”
As I listened I remembered the aged chief’s words concerning the spell
he had cast over Grey, and a strange thought came to me. I said within
my breath, “Te Makawawa is dying. His aged face is turned to the
golden west. Soon the lights of heaven will come out in the depths of
the sky; soon the eyes of the great chiefs gazing down to see what
noble needs are done among mortals will be opened, and Te Makawawa’s
eye will shine there--a new star.”
But Miriam Grey spoke again, and her voice was like a moan of pain.
“Dear husband, tell me--I did not think of it before--and forgive me
for thinking of it now--but when you forgot me--forgot that--that you
ever had a wife, dear--did you--was there anyone----”
“Good God!” said Grey suddenly, “it’s too late; it’s all a blank--I
remember nothing--nothing!”
And then I knew that the aged chief Te Makawawa was dead.
“No, it can’t be,” she cried, in answer to his words. “I should have
seen it in your face before. I am certain it can’t be; I should have
felt it. Dear husband! take me in your arms again and call me wife. No
one has ever come between us.”
“And no one ever shall,” he replied.
In the silence that followed I withdrew, and when the manifold sound
of agony and wailing, coming out of the far darkness of the interior,
again fell upon my ears, I felt toned up to endure it. But another
voice, rising up out of the abyss, high and jubilant, told me that
Ngaraki was there holding his grim triumph. I picked up my torch and
made my way down.
When at last my feet found the great granite steps at the bottom of
the vast place, I saw lights flickering below. The chief was preparing
many torches and placing them all about, chanting in measured tones
the while. I put out my own light and crept down almost to the lowest
step, where I stood and witnessed a scene of a savage drama so wild
and strange that I must lay down my pen awhile before attempting to
describe it.