THE KILLERS
I could not say if the others slept, for I knew nothing more till I
waked bewildered in a dim golden light, with my comrade of the night
touching my hand to rouse me. The rest of the troop had begun to move
forward already.
I was sunk deeply in the soft moss, which was of a very close texture,
and of so dark a green as to look black in the shadow. The branches
overhead spread low and wide, as do those of a beech. The leaves also
were beech-like, but of a golden yellow. Not the yellow of Autumn, but
one of an abundant vitality. I noticed the fragrance which had soothed
my exhaustion when we entered. It gave me now a sense of contentment and
physical well-being such as I had never experienced.
It must have been full daylight without, for the light did not increase
farther within the wood, but here it was a golden twilight only. I was
able to look clearly for the first time at my companion. The human mind
is so ductile that already the slim furred form gave an impression of
familiarity. Not being one of the Seven, she had the distinctive
patterning by which each was individualised. In her case, a zebra-like
striping on the back, produced by trimming the fur shorter, as it was of
a darker shade beneath, the silver-grey marking of the back being
superficial only.
We conversed freely as we crawled forward for some hours over the
springy moss. I met here with a mind of a ready friendliness, and a very
lively curiosity. I suppose, by our reckoning, she had lived for an
enormous period, but the mind that met me gave an impression of an
invincibly child-like quality,--but it had other characteristics which I
was to learn more slowly. The impression which I gave to her was, no
doubt, somewhat different.
Her keen delight in the new world,--as new to her as to me,--through
which we were passing, contended with her curiosity to learn the still
stranger world of which I could tell her, and gave little time for me to
learn of her, or of the life to which she was native. But she gave me
glimpses of an existence which found its pleasure in wandering through a
marine world which was as much more extensive than the dry ground as it
is to-day, and which I judged to have changed but little. One episode
she gave me vividly because of the indelible impression which it had
made upon her. It appeared that her kind can wander freely among the
huge savage creatures of the ocean-depths, exploring its heights and
valleys, and penetrating its caves with impunity, because they can
control every form of life it contains by a will-power which works
without effort. She had attempted, in a spirit of mischief, to allow
various savage creatures to attack her, intending to forbid them at the
latest second, but she found invariably that though their minds were
confused by a feeling of her complacence, the respect of her kind was
too deep an instinct for them to disobey, until she tried the trick upon
a species of shark of an exceptional ferocity. Vividly I saw it, under
depths of green water, from which all weaker forms of life had withdrawn
in terror. The savage rushes of the hungry fish which she had foiled at
the last moment with a thought of derision, and the snap of his
disappointed jaws. And then,--the instant’s diversion of mind in its
too-confident certainty, and the half-second too late,--the passionate
repulse that sent the great fish cowed and grovelling to the sea-floor a
hundred feet below,--and the consciousness that her right arm was
hanging torn and useless. And then the long swim homeward for two
thousand miles to the only place where help could be given, and how she
had told her tale to the Seven, and they had decreed that the arm should
never entirely heal, so that it should be a warning to her and all her
race for ever. And in evidence she showed the scars, where no fur grew,
and I understood that the scar of a healed wound was something beyond
the previous experience of her kind.
Of the swimming of the great tunnel she told me also, which extends for
several thousand miles from one sea to another, through an intervening
continent, and of strange forms that lurk in its labyrinth of caves,
such as the open oceans have never seen,--labyrinths in which you may
wander for many months, seeking in vain for an exit.
Of such things I learnt much, but I noticed that her mind was little
fixed upon the object of the expedition. That she understood that it was
very dangerous, and might terminate her bodily life was clear enough,
and that the thought of such potential sacrifice for her Leader’s rescue
filled her with a pleasurable exhilaration that was stronger than fear,
this I understood; but of the thought of any possible aggressive
violence to achieve her end, her mind seemed as incapable as her body
seemed ill-adapted for such a purpose. Frequently her thoughts were of
the movements in the moss below, which must have teemed with life,
though it did not annoy us in any way; or of the occasional sound of
wings in the boughs above us; or of the straight and narrow paths that
cut through the moss continually, down which we once saw a small form
disappearing, looking like a beetle running upright on its hind legs,
and of the size of a field-mouse.
But though her mind was not anxious as to the result of the expedition,
I soon had evidence that those of her Leaders were differently occupied.
A thought came down the line to halt, and for me alone to go forward.
This I did, till I came to an open space in the forest. Here I found the
five Leaders seated where the moss-carpet extended somewhat beyond the
trees, and for a moment they waited while my mind was held by the beauty
of the sight which met me.
The trees which surrounded the glade were of one kind only: beech-like
in growth, though the branches spread and drooped with greater
regularity. The gold which shows faintly on an oak in springtime was
here the dominant colour, tinged with green if the wind lifted the
leaves, which were of a fine transparency, or deepening to the
background of a Tuscan fresco, as it sank again into quietude. The moss,
which extended on all sides outward from the trees for a short distance,
showed dark in a strong sunlight. Beyond this, the glade was covered
with a short growth of coral-pink, on which blue pigeons, such as I had
seen before, were feeding, and showing no concern at our presence.
Grace of line and harmony of colour--everywhere I found them, as in the
world I had left. Surely beauty is more fundamental than righteousness!
Or may the two be one only?
If there were any difference in the new world, it was only that nature
produced her effects with greater economy of material, massing her
colours, and content to display a few varieties of plant or tree only,
where I had been used to the combinations of hundreds. But I recognised
that I had seen too little to justify such generalisations. It would be
as though a man were to spend a few days on the Norfolk Broads, or in
the Highlands of Scotland, and imagine the whole surface of the earth to
be similar to the scenes he witnessed.
But the Five were waiting. My guide of the previous night addressed her
mind to mine, and the others arranged themselves to perceive us. I was
first asked if I were willing to give my aid to the object of the
expedition, if it should be of any utility. It did not appear to occur
to them to offer any reward or inducement, and in reply I consented
unconditionally.
I was then asked to explain the purpose of the axe I carried, with which
I had defeated the vegetable octopus of my first adventure. This led me
to inquire why its victim had not been able to save herself by the power
of will on which they relied for their protection, to which I received
the answer that it would have been of little avail, as the whole forest
was against her, and was conscious that it was carrying out the duty for
which it had been planted, whereas she was breaking the treaty with its
originators. I recalled the way in which it had quailed before me, but
it was pointed out that I was not under the obligations of the
Amphibians. None the less, I felt that the incident gave me some
increased prestige in the minds that considered it. The fact was that my
hatred of the creature as an octopus was blended with the contempt which
I felt for it as a cabbage--the first idea persisting--and that this
attitude toward something which they regarded as formidable, both in
itself and in its anger, impressed them inevitably.
But I soon modified this advantage. In explaining the uses of the axe, I
offered to demonstrate it by felling one of the trees around us. The
idea that I should destroy life for an illustration broke upon their
minds with incredulity, that gave way to contempt. For a moment they
regarded me as morally unfit to be associated with their enterprise, but
recalling that they were contending against creatures even baser than
myself (if that were possible) they decided to interrogate me further.
It was first explained to me that the spirit of her whom I had rescued
so unsuccessfully was now guiding the expedition, and I was asked to put
my mind at her disposal, so that I might see the creatures against which
we were operating. On doing this, I received a vision of a forest path,
on which three of them were walking in single file. They were about
three feet in height, and in appearance they seemed to me such
caricatures of humanity as might be the outcome of a nightmare dream. In
colour they were a bright worm-pink, and of a surface which was
repulsive beyond the resource of any word we have to describe it. Their
heads were bald, but of a darker colour than their bodies and limbs.
Their eyes moved continuously with an alert and restless malignity.
Their lips--or rather the orifice of their mouths--elongated into a
narrow tube about twelve inches long, through which they could take
nourishment by suction only. Through these tubes they could make
whistling sounds, by which they communicated with one another. They
could stand easily on their legs if sight or reach required it, but
squatting was their more natural posture. Each of them carried some kind
of rope or cord in considerable quantity.
There was a fourth that followed, of the same form and colour, but of
more than twice the size, and of a ferocity more brutal, though not more
malevolent, than that of those who preceded him. He carried a powerful
bow of dark wood, bent for use, and with a shaft ready for the cord.
It was conveyed to me that these were not adult and young of the
species, but that the archer was of an exceptional growth, of which they
had two or three only in each generation.
In the vision, I could hear plainly that others of their kind were
whistling to them through the trees, to whom they replied with notes of
rising excitement. Soon I perceived that one of the frog-mouthed apes
that I had already encountered was being driven towards the party that I
watched. I understood that it had been separated from its companions,
and headed off from the safety of its native rocks. It now came bounding
in a heavy bewildered terror toward the waiting archer.
Remembering how my own axe had cut through the throat of one of these
creatures without apparently disturbing its equanimity, I was curious to
see how a shaft could discommode it. I soon learnt. The hunted creature
saw its new foes, and turned sideways. As it did so, it crossed the bole
of a giant tree, and at the instant the archer wrenched the bow back to
his ear, and the shaft flew. It drove through its victim’s neck, and
deep into the trunk behind it. Before the shaft had ceased to quiver,
the three that bore the ropes leapt forward and were twining them round
the now struggling victim, binding it first to the trunk, and then,
heedless of the gnashing teeth above the fastened neck, till every limb
was useless.
By now the beasts that had driven it were arriving, and with an inferno
of exultant whistlings the worm-pink crowd had loosed it from the tree,
and drawn the shaft out of its neck, that they might drag it with them,
now roped beyond movement. I watched it drawn for some miles in this
way, clear of the woods, and up by rocky paths, until a high plateau was
reached, a mile-wide shelf of rock, beyond which the mountain rose
abruptly once again. On this shelf was their stronghold. A low,
continuous, smooth-sided back-sloping stone-seeming wall, very broad at
the base, and rising to a sharp ridge, swept crescent-shaped from the
cliff, and enclosed the larger half of the plateau.
To this wall there was one barricaded entrance only, through which the
hunters dragged their victim. Many more of their kind, of all sizes,
were within the enclosure, but the sight of the captured prey was
evidently too commonplace to attract their attention, and I saw that
they squatted in the sun, or moved on their own errands, in complete
indifference, while it was dragged toward a large cistern of boiling
water, which was sunk in the ground, and into the centre of which a
stone pier jutted. By carrying their ropes round the sides of the
cistern they were able to draw their victim along this pier, so that it
fell off at the extremity into the boiling vat. It was bound too tightly
to struggle, and sank at once to the bottom, where it continued to move
spasmodically as long as I observed it. I understood that it would boil
there for many hours till the contents of the tough skin should be
reduced to a semi-liquid form, such as its captors could draw in through
their sucking mouths, and the whole sight filled me with a loathing for
these bestial forms, and for the cruelties they practised. I did not
reflect that the boiling of living fish, which is common in Asia, or of
lobsters in our own country, is a far greater cruelty, being exercised
on creatures of higher sensibility, and with far less excuse, as they
could be killed without difficulty, which was by no means certain in the
instance which I was observing.
I saw also that the centre of the crescent did not contain any buildings
except such as were of a public character. Of these one confined the
selected victims of the approaching feast, and this was built over one
end of the boiling tank, and guarded by one of the giant archers, with a
number of assistants round him. There was one other giant lying with a
leg discoloured and useless against the cliff-wall, in an evidently
dying condition,--shortly, no doubt, to share the fate of a dead body of
one of their number which I saw flung over the farther side of the
plateau, where it fell abruptly to a great depth.
I saw that the wall was hollow, with many doorways on the inner side,
and that it formed the dwellings of the settlement. There were many
young, moving in a more lively manner than the adults, and including two
of the archer kind, which, though evidently immature, were already
larger than the rest of the tribe.