THE FIRST VICTIM.
In a second he was up again, and ran desperately until he reached my
side. Blood was flowing down his cheeks from five deep scratches.
"The pongo," he gasped. "Nearly did for me. Jumped me, but I got in
two shots. Then he grabbed for me but I got away. Stumbled just as you
fired. Damn lucky."
I stood still, facing the menacing jungle, but not a sound came from it
except the monotonous, rhythmic beating of the drums from three sides,
where juju priests worked their followers into a frenzy of hatred
against the white men. Evan went slowly up to the house, exhausted and
shaken by his narrow escape from death.
We held a council immediately. The drums on every side of us meant evil
brewing. So much was certain. For a white man to attempt to stop the
juju councils would be perilous in the extreme, but it was our only
chance. On the other hand, for one of us to get through the jungle
to take that desperate chance meant eluding the watchfulness of the
hate-mad gorilla, whose cunning was increasing.
"I don't know how he got to me," said Evan, still shaking from the
unexpectedness of the whole affair. "I heard a snarl, and he was coming
for me not ten paces away. Startled, I pulled the trigger without
aiming, and he came on. I got my rifle halfway to my shoulder, when he
reached me. One of his great, hairy paws grasped the muzzle as I fired
the second time, while the other reached for my throat. When the rifle
went off, he started back and burst out in his screaming. It must have
burned or injured his paw. I turned and ran, but he had done this to me
in the meantime."
His coat was half torn from him, and the deep scratches on his cheek
showed where the claws had just grazed his face.
"I don't mind facing natives," Evan admitted in conclusion, "but I'll
tell you frankly I don't care to go through that jungle again while
that beast is in it."
The eternal menace of the drums came to our ears, borne to us through
the open windows. Arthur began to pace up and down the room, cursing
under his breath. Alicia bit her lip and tapped nervously on the floor
with her foot. Mrs. Braymore carefully began to fold and refold her
handkerchief. Quite suddenly, I noticed that it was falling into shreds
beneath her fingers. Struggle as any of us would, our nerves were badly
worn.
The strain grew worse during the day. There were two or three dogs
about the place, and it was curious to see them puzzled over our
abstraction. They kept alertly out of Evan's way, but they were
obviously disconcerted by the absence of the servants who usually
attended to them, and they looked at us with perplexity in their
eyes. They could get no attention from the solitary native girl who
remained. She had withdrawn into panic-stricken silence, serving us
when necessary, but spending most of her time in the room to which she
had been assigned. We had ordered her to leave the servants' quarters
and stay in the house itself.
All the morning the drums beat rhythmically. During lunch they
continued their hypnotic muttering. And all afternoon they kept on,
kept on, until it seemed as if we would be crushed by their regular,
pulselike, ominous rumbling. Far off in the bush, where we could never
reach them, we knew juju councils were going on. Weirdly painted and
tattooed witch doctors whirled in their mystic dances and inflamed the
minds of the blacks against us.
Men beat upon the drums and yelled and yelled, closing their eyes
and surrendering themselves to the ecstasy of the rhythm until they
became all but unconscious of the words they reiterated. Slowly and
surely the blacks were nerving themselves to lift their hands against
their masters. Given time, a drum and a rhythmic phrase, a native can
convince himself of anything simply by pounding on the drum and yelling
over and over the phrase that contains the idea. He will luxuriate
in the rhythm, he will hypnotize himself by the monotony of the drum
beats. He will go into an ecstasy, simply yelling over and over the one
phrase.
Dinner that night was a repetition of breakfast and lunch. We sat
down to the table, our rifles by our sides, our movements jerky and
uncertain from the strain of waiting for we knew not what. The dogs lay
about on the floor, watching us anxiously. The single servant waited
on us, her face dull with apathy, though flickers of panic lighted
her eyes from time to time. And always we heard the drums beating far
off in the bush. I caught myself sitting with a fork full of food in
mid-air, listening to their sullenly menacing rumble.
Arthur, Evan, and myself divided the night into watches. I took the
first, and waited tensely until after one o'clock. I heard nothing but
the muffled drumming to the northeast, northwest, and south. The moon
shone brightly down and made the clearing about the casa like a lake of
molten silver. I heard the noises of insects--the loud-voiced African
insects--and the cries of the night birds. I heard nothing else. The
night was quiet and peaceful, save for the ceaseless throbbing of the
drums all about.
Evan relieved me. He came out on the porch and lit a cigarette.
"That drumming gets monotonous." He yawned. "I wish they'd come on and
have the suspense over with."
"If they come," I remarked, "we're done for."
"Not necessarily. If we hold them off for a week and kill enough of
them, they'll get tired and go away."
"That wouldn't help us much. I hardly see how we could make a hundred
and fifty miles through the bush with two women and no carriers."
"We might try, anyway. Some of us would get through. You've heard
nothing?"
"No," I replied. "Just the drums."
I went indoors and lay down to sleep. When I surrendered myself to the
rhythm of the drumming, it put me quickly into a deep slumber. I knew
what the sound meant, that naked savages yelled and danced themselves
into a frenzy of hatred against us, but if one allowed it to become so,
it was very soothing.
At one time I half started from my sleep. Some sound within the house
aroused me, but a moment later I heard Evan's footstep on the veranda
and recognized the sound of his shoe soles on the flooring. He was
humming a little tune to himself. I was reassured and slept again.
I heard when Arthur relieved Evan, too. Their voices came clearly in to
me as they exchanged greetings.
"Nothing new?" asked Arthur nervously.
"No. I say, Arthur, the natives are taking a deuced long time to
get worked up to the sticking point. I had them pretty thoroughly
frightened. Perhaps they'll hold a big palaver for several days, yell
and dance themselves into exhaustion, and let it go at that. I've known
such things to happen. Our primitive ancestors used to hold hee-hee
councils and work off their surplus emotions in the same way. If this
juju festival lasts two days more, I think it will peter out and wind
up in a palm-wine debauch. Then they'll come back and be good!"
"It's the gorilla I'm worried most about just now," said Arthur grimly.
"The natives are men, and you can anticipate their moves, but there's
no telling what an animal will do, particularly a pongo."
Evan laughed. "I had a start just now," he said. "I heard a queer
sound in Biheta's room." Biheta was the native girl. "She gave a queer
gurgle. I didn't know what was up, and I went and peered in the door.
She was lying there quite still, evidently sound asleep. She must have
had a nightmare, but it gave me the creeps for an instant."
Arthur seemed to pick up his rifle.
"Well, I'm going indoors to get some beauty sleep," said Evan with a
yawn. "Cheer up, Arthur. There's a damn good chance that the natives
will just yell themselves hoarse and come peaceably back to work. As
long as the drums stay at a distance, we're all right. But wake all of
us if they stop."
He came into the house and went into his own room. I dozed off again.
When I woke, it was well after daylight. Evan had stuck his head inside
my door and was grinning cheerfully.
"Get up," he ordered. "Breakfast will be ready in a minute or two."
I rolled out of bed and heard him go to the rear of the house. He
rasped out an order in the local dialect, but there was no reply. He
spoke again, harshly. There was still no reply. I heard him fling open
a door. Then he exclaimed aloud.
"Arthur! Murray! Come here!"
We went quickly, and into the room in which he was. It was the room
assigned to the native girl. Evan was standing over her couch, looking
grimly down at the figure lying there.
The dull features of the girl were twisted into an expression of the
most horrible fear. It was appalling that such ultimate terror could
show itself upon a human face. The eyes were wide and staring, the
mouth was drawn back in a voiceless shriek of utter, despairing
fright. The hands were clenched so that the nails bit into the flesh of
the palms, and the head was oddly askew. The girl was dead.
Evan lifted up her shoulders and the head fell back.
"Neck broken," he said laconically. "The gorilla!"
"Great Heaven!" said Arthur desperately, white as a sheet. "What next?
How did he get in here? Alicia!" He ran from the room and called
hoarsely.
Alicia's voice answered instantly. "What's the matter?"
"The native girl's dead, killed by the gorilla during the night. Are
you safe?"
Alicia appeared in person and proved it. She was pale, but composed.
"Where? What----?"
I lost the rest of her question. Evan and myself were searching for the
gorilla's means of ingress and exit. The flimsily screened window was
intact. The door had been unlocked, but Evan remembered that he had
found it closed and had closed it again after peering into the room
during the night.
Was it possible that the monstrous animal possessed the cunning to
unlatch the door gently before entering, and then the diabolical
forethought to latch it again on leaving? It seemed impossible, but
what other explanation was there?
"He's been in the house," said Evan grimly. "Where is he now?"
I went out and got one of the dogs. We brought it into the room and
it sniffed at the dead body. Then we led it about the house. Once we
thought it showed some excitement. It sniffed at the door of a room
that was used as a storeroom.
With our rifles at the ready, we flung open the door. No sound
came from within. The dog, bristling, walked slowly into the room.
Cautiously, we followed. Boxes and bales were scattered all about, but
there was no sign of the animal that had killed the native girl. The
dog growled, and moved about, stiff-legged, but soon grew puzzled and
sniffed perplexedly all over the place. He could find nothing.
We explored the room thoroughly, though with our hearts in our mouths.
Three men and a gorilla in a small store room would be unpleasant for
the men, armed though they might be. We could find no niche in which
the beast might have hidden, nor any evidence of his presence. After
a time the dog gave it up, and lay down on the floor with his tongue
lolling out.
"Do you suppose it could be a black that killed her?" asked Arthur
suddenly. "A native would have known about the latch. One of them might
have crept into the house and killed the girl in punishment for her
having stayed behind when the rest left."
"If he did," I remarked grimly, "it's safe to say we'd better not touch
any of the food he could have got at. Those voodoo poisons are deadly
things, and you can bank on it he was prepared to use them."
"Hardly likely," said Evan.
"It must have been a native," insisted Arthur anxiously. "No animal
would have had the cunning to creep in, kill the poor girl silently,
and then creep out again. It must have been one of the blacks."
"Gorilla," said Evan, shaking his head.
Arthur suddenly looked up.
"I've got it! We'll take a photo of the girl's eyes. I saw a cloudy
form on the retina. I've got an insect camera in my luggage, and can
make sure what it was that frightened her that last moment of her life."
The expression on the girl's face had been one of terrible fear.
Whatever it was that had killed her, she had seen it before she
died--seen and known it for a deadly and horrible thing.
"Try it," I urged. "We can't be sure otherwise. If it was a native, our
food is poisoned for a certainty."
Arthur went to his room and presently appeared with the queer camera.
It was a long box, and evidently the lens was one of great focal
length. It took Arthur a long time to adjust it properly. He proposed
to take advantage of the fact that the eye of a dead person will retain
for from twenty-four to forty-eight hours the impression of what it saw
last while living. A great many people think that the shining image on
the outer surface of the eye retains that picture, and wonder at it. As
a matter of fact the picture is kept on the retina, in the inside of
the eyeball. It is extremely difficult to photograph the retina without
dissecting the eye, but it can be done--as Arthur proceeded to prove.
I went outside and searched around the house for possible footprints.
After a preliminary search, I got Evan to help me. We could find no
single sign of tracks leading toward or away from the house. There had
been a heavy dew, and the top layer of the earth was dark and damp.
Footprints would inevitably have been shown. When we had completed our
search, we stared at each other. Whatever or whoever had killed the
native girl must be still in the house. There were absolutely no signs
of his having left.
We went inside. Beast or man, _something_ had been in the house, moving
quietly and undiscovered despite our watching. It had entered the room
occupied by the native girl and had awakened her. She had seen it, and
it had been a thing she recognized as frightful. Her horror-stricken
face was proof of that. It had been cunning enough to latch the door
of the room after the killing. That meant a native. On the other hand,
it had broken the girl's neck, a feat that would require incredible
strength. That spoke of a monstrous animal. We heard Arthur shuffling
about in his improvised dark room, and the clink of the dishes in which
he had mixed his solutions.
How had the creature--man or beast--reached the house? How had it made
its way silently through the rooms at midnight, with one of us awake
and on guard? Could it be that one of the servants had remained, hidden
in some secret place while the others had left, and now prowled about
at night while the rest far off in the bush yelled and howled, drummed
and danced, and gradually became ripe to attack us?
Arthur came out of his dark room with a glass plate in his hand. His
face was pale.
"Look at this," he said quietly. "If you'll hold it so the light
strikes it diagonally, you'll see it in its proper lights and shades,
instead of reversed."
The plate was still wet, where he had just taken it from the fixing
bath. We looked. We saw, running aimlessly here and there, curiously
like the branches of a tree, little dark lines. Those were the blood
vessels that nourished the eye. We gave no heed to them, however. The
sight that made both Evan and myself gasp was the strange picture that
we saw amid all those little blood vessels.
There, distorted and hideous, menacing and terrible, we saw the cause
of the native girl's death, and of her terror. We saw the head of a
gorilla, with its horrible, discolored fangs protruding from blackened
lips in a grimace of unspeakable ferocity.