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Title: Red shadows
Author: Robert E. Howard
Release Date: April 17, 2023 [eBook #70570]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED SHADOWS ***
Red Shadows
By ROBERT E HOWARD
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales August 1928.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_1. The Coming of Solomon_
The moonlight shimmered hazily, making silvery mists of illusion among
the shadowy trees. A faint breeze whispered down the valley, bearing
a shadow that was not of the moon-mist. A faint scent of smoke was
apparent.
The man whose long, swinging strides, unhurried yet unswerving, had
carried him for many a mile since sunrise, stopped suddenly. A movement
in the trees had caught his attention, and he moved silently toward the
shadows, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of his long, slim rapier.
Warily he advanced, his eyes striving to pierce the darkness that
brooded under the trees. This was a wild and menacing country; death
might be lurking under those trees. Then his hand fell away from the
hilt and he leaned forward. Death indeed was there, but not in such
shape as might cause him fear.
"The fires of Hades!" he murmured. "A girl! What has harmed you, child?
Be not afraid of me."
The girl looked up at him, her face like a dim white rose in the dark.
"You--who are--you?" her words came in gasps.
"Naught but a wanderer, a landless man, but a friend to all in need."
The gentle voice sounded somehow incongruous, coming from the man.
The girl sought to prop herself up on her elbow, and instantly he
knelt and raised her to a sitting position, her head resting against
his shoulder. His hand touched her breast and came away red and wet.
"Tell me." His voice was soft, soothing, as one speaks to a babe.
"Le Loup," she gasped, her voice swiftly growing weaker. "He and
his men--descended upon our village--a mile up the valley. They
robbed--slew--burned----"
"That, then, was the smoke I scented," muttered the man. "Go on, child."
"I ran. He, the Wolf, pursued me--and--caught me----" The words died
away in a shuddering silence.
"I understand, child. Then----?"
"Then--he--he--stabbed me--with his dagger--oh, blessed
saints!--mercy----"
Suddenly the slim form went limp. The man eased her to the earth, and
touched her brow lightly.
"Dead!" he muttered.
Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark
scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless
vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.
"Men shall die for this," he said coldly.
_2. The Lair of the Wolf_
"You are a fool!" The words came in a cold snarl that curdled the
hearer's blood.
He who had just been named a fool lowered his eyes sullenly without
answer.
"You and all the others I lead!" The speaker leaned forward, his fist
pounding emphasis on the rude table between them. He was a tall,
rangy-built man, supple as a leopard and with a lean, cruel, predatory
face. His eyes danced and glittered with a kind of reckless mockery.
The fellow spoken to replied sullenly, "This Solomon Kane is a demon
from hell, I tell you."
"Faugh! Dolt! He is a man--who will die from a pistol ball or a sword
thrust."
"So thought Jean, Juan and La Costa," answered the other grimly. "Where
are they? Ask the mountain wolves that tore the flesh from their dead
bones. Where does this Kane hide? We have searched the mountains and
the valleys for leagues, and we have found no trace. I tell you, Le
Loup, he comes up from hell. I knew no good would come from hanging
that friar a moon ago."
The Wolf strummed impatiently upon the table. His keen face, despite
lines of wild living and dissipation, was the face of a thinker. The
superstitions of his followers affected him not at all.
"Faugh! I say again. The fellow has found some cavern or secret vale of
which we do not know where he hides in the day."
"And at night he sallies forth and slays us," gloomily commented the
other. "He hunts us down as a wolf hunts deer--by God, Le Loup, you
name yourself Wolf but I think you have met at last a fiercer and more
crafty wolf than yourself! The first we know of this man is when we
find Jean, the most desperate bandit unhung, nailed to a tree with his
own dagger through his breast, and the letters S. L. K. carved upon his
dead cheeks. Then the Spaniard Juan is struck down, and after we find
him he lives long enough to tell us that the slayer is an Englishman,
Solomon Kane, who has sworn to destroy our entire band! What then? La
Costa, a swordsman second only to yourself, goes forth swearing to meet
this Kane. By the demons of perdition, it seems he met him! For we
found his sword-pierced corpse upon a cliff. What now? Are we all to
fall before this English fiend?"
"True, our best men have been done to death by him," mused the bandit
chief. "Soon the rest return from that little trip to the hermit's;
then we shall see. Kane can not hide forever. Then--ha, what was that?"
The two turned swiftly as a shadow fell across the table. Into the
entrance of the cave that formed the bandit lair, a man staggered. His
eyes were wide and staring; he reeled on buckling legs, and a dark
red stain dyed his tunic. He came a few tottering steps forward, then
pitched across the table, sliding off onto the floor.
"Hell's devils!" cursed the Wolf, hauling him upright and propping him
in a chair. "Where are the rest, curse you?"
"Dead! All dead!"
"How? Satan's curses on you, speak!" The Wolf shook the man savagely,
the other bandit gazing on in wide-eyed horror.
"We reached the hermit's hut just as the moon rose," the man muttered.
"I stayed outside--to watch--the others went in--to torture the
hermit--to make him reveal--the hiding-place--of his gold."
"Yes, yes! Then what?" The Wolf was raging with impatience.
"Then the world turned red--the hut went up in a roar and a red rain
flooded the valley--through it I saw--the hermit and a tall man clad
all in black--coming from the trees----"
"Solomon Kane!" gasped the bandit. "I knew it! I----"
"Silence, fool!" snarled the chief. "Go on!"
"I fled--Kane pursued--wounded me--but I
outran--him--got--here--first----"
The man slumped forward on the table.
"Saints and devils!" raged the Wolf. "What does he look like, this
Kane?"
"Like--Satan----"
The voice trailed off in silence. The dead man slid from the table to
lie in a red heap upon the floor.
"Like Satan!" babbled the other bandit. "I told you! 'Tis the Horned
One himself! I tell you----"
He ceased as a frightened face peered in at the cave entrance.
"Kane?"
"Aye." The Wolf was too much at sea to lie. "Keep close watch, La Mon;
in a moment the Rat and I will join you."
The face withdrew and Le Loup turned to the other.
"This ends the band," said he. "You, I, and that thief La Mon are all
that are left. What would you suggest?"
The Rat's pallid lips barely formed the word: "Flight!"
"You are right. Let us take the gems and gold from the chests and flee,
using the secret passageway."
"And La Mon?"
"He can watch until we are ready to flee. Then--why divide the treasure
three ways?"
A faint smile touched the Rat's malevolent features. Then a sudden
thought smote him.
"He," indicating the corpse on the floor, "said, 'I got here first.'
Does that mean Kane was pursuing him here?" And as the Wolf nodded
impatiently the other turned to the chests with chattering haste.
The flickering candle on the rough table lighted up a strange and wild
scene. The light, uncertain and dancing, gleamed redly in the slowly
widening lake of blood in which the dead man lay; it danced upon
the heaps of gems and coins emptied hastily upon the floor from the
brass-bound chests that ranged the walls; and it glittered in the eyes
of the Wolf with the same gleam which sparkled from his sheathed dagger.
The chests were empty, their treasure lying in a shimmering mass upon
the blood-stained floor. The Wolf stopped and listened. Outside was
silence. There was no moon, and Le Loup's keen imagination pictured the
dark slayer, Solomon Kane, gliding through the blackness, a shadow
among shadows. He grinned crookedly; this time the Englishman would be
foiled.
"There is a chest yet unopened," said he, pointing.
The Rat, with a muttered exclamation of surprize, bent over the
chest indicated. With a single, catlike motion, the Wolf sprang upon
him, sheathing his dagger to the hilt in the Rat's back, between the
shoulders. The Rat sagged to the floor without a sound.
[Illustration: "He sheathed his dagger to the hilt in the Rat's back."]
"Why divide the treasure two ways?" murmured Le Loup, wiping his blade
upon the dead man's doublet. "Now for La Mon."
He stepped toward the door; then stopped and shrank back.
* * * * *
At first he thought that it was the shadow of a man who stood in the
entrance; then he saw that it was a man himself, though so dark and
still he stood that a fantastic semblance of shadow was lent him by the
guttering candle.
A tall man, as tall as Le Loup he was, clad in black from head to foot,
in plain, close-fitting garments that somehow suited the somber face.
Long arms and broad shoulders betokened the swordsman, as plainly as
the long rapier in his hand. The features of the man were saturnine
and gloomy. A kind of dark pallor lent him a ghostly appearance in the
uncertain light, an effect heightened by the satanic darkness of his
lowering brows. Eyes, large, deep-set and unblinking, fixed their gaze
upon the bandit, and looking into them, Le Loup was unable to decide
what color they were. Strangely, the mephistophelean trend of the lower
features was offset by a high, broad forehead, though this was partly
hidden by a featherless hat.
That forehead marked the dreamer, the idealist, the introvert, just as
the eyes and the thin, straight nose betrayed the fanatic. An observer
would have been struck by the eyes of the two men who stood there,
facing each other. Eyes of both betokened untold deeps of power, but
there the resemblance ceased.
The eyes of the bandit were hard, almost opaque, with a curious
scintillant shallowness that reflected a thousand changing lights and
gleams, like some strange gem; there was mockery in those eyes, cruelty
and recklessness.
The eyes of the man in black, on the other hand, deep-set and staring
from under prominent brows, were cold but deep; gazing into them, one
had the impression of looking into countless fathoms of ice.
Now the eyes clashed, and the Wolf, who was used to being feared, felt
a strange coolness on his spine. The sensation was new to him--a new
thrill to one who lived for thrills, and he laughed suddenly.
"You are Solomon Kane, I suppose?" he asked, managing to make his
question sound politely incurious.
"I am Solomon Kane." The voice was resonant and powerful. "Are you
prepared to meet your God?"
"Why, _Monsieur_," Le Loup answered, bowing, "I assure you I am as
ready as I ever will be. I might ask _Monsieur_ the same question."
"No doubt I stated my inquiry wrongly," Kane said grimly. "I will
change it: Are you prepared to meet your master, the Devil?"
"As to that, _Monsieur_"--Le Loup examined his finger nails with
elaborate unconcern--"I must say that I can at present render a most
satisfactory account to his Horned Excellency, though really I have no
intention of so doing--for a while at least."
Le Loup did not wonder as to the fate of La Mon; Kane's presence in the
cave was sufficient answer that did not need the trace of blood on his
rapier to verify it.
"What I wish to know, _Monsieur_," said the bandit, "is why in the
Devil's name have you harassed my band as you have, and how did you
destroy that last set of fools?"
"Your last question is easily answered, sir," Kane replied. "I myself
had the tale spread that the hermit possessed a store of gold, knowing
that would draw your scum as carrion draws vultures. For days and
nights I have watched the hut, and tonight, when I saw your villains
coming, I warned the hermit, and together we went among the trees back
of the hut. Then, when the rogues were inside, I struck flint and steel
to the train I had laid, and flame ran through the trees like a red
snake until it reached the powder I had placed beneath the hut floor.
Then the hut and thirteen sinners went to hell in a great roar of flame
and smoke. True, one escaped, but him I had slain in the forest had not
I stumbled and fallen upon a broken root, which gave him time to elude
me."
"_Monsieur_," said Le Loup with another low bow, "I grant you the
admiration I must needs bestow on a brave and shrewd foeman. Yet tell
me this: Why have you followed me as a wolf follows deer?"
"Some moons ago," said Kane, his frown becoming more menacing, "you
and your fiends raided a small village down the valley. You know the
details better than I. There was a girl there, a mere child, who,
hoping to escape your lust, fled up the valley; but you, you jackal
of hell, you caught her and left her, violated and dying. I found her
there, and above her dead form I made up my mind to hunt you down and
kill you."
"H'm," mused the Wolf. "Yes, I remember the wench. _Mon Dieu_, so the
softer sentiments enter into the affair! _Monsieur_, I had not thought
you an amorous man; be not jealous, good fellow, there are many more
wenches."
"Le Loup, take care!" Kane exclaimed, a terrible menace in his voice,
"I have never yet done a man to death by torture, but by God, sir, you
tempt me!"
The tone, and more especially the unexpected oath, coming as it did
from Kane, slightly sobered Le Loup; his eyes narrowed and his hand
moved toward his rapier. The air was tense for an instant; then the
Wolf relaxed elaborately.
"Who was the girl?" he asked idly, "Your wife?"
"I never saw her before," answered Kane.
"_Nom d'un nom!_" swore the bandit. "What sort of a man are you,
_Monsieur_, who takes up a feud of this sort merely to avenge a wench
unknown to you?"
"That, sir, is my own affair; it is sufficient that I do so."
Kane could not have explained, even to himself, nor did he ever seek an
explanation within himself. A true fanatic, his promptings were reasons
enough for his actions.
"You are right, _Monsieur_." Le Loup was sparring now for time;
casually he edged backward inch by inch, with such consummate acting
skill that he aroused no suspicion even in the hawk who watched him.
"_Monsieur_," said he, "possibly you will say that you are merely
a noble cavalier, wandering about like a true Galahad, protecting
the weaker; but you and I know different. There on the floor is the
equivalent to an emperor's ransom. Let us divide it peaceably; then if
you like not my company, why--_nom d'un nom!_--we can go our separate
ways."
Kane leaned forward, a terrible brooding threat growing in his cold
eyes. He seemed like a great condor about to launch himself upon his
victim.
"Sir, do you assume me to be as great a villain as yourself?"
Suddenly Le Loup threw back his head, his eyes dancing and leaping with
a wild mockery and a kind of insane recklessness. His shout of laughter
sent the echoes flying.
"Gods of hell! No, you fool, I do not class you with myself! _Mon
Dieu_, Monsieur Kane, you have a task indeed if you intend to avenge
all the wenches who have known my favors!"
"Shades of death! Shall I waste time in parleying with this base
scoundrel!" Kane snarled in a voice suddenly blood-thirsting, and his
lean frame flashed forward like a bent bow suddenly released.
At the same instant Le Loup with a wild laugh bounded backward with a
movement as swift as Kane's. His timing was perfect; his back-flung
hands struck the table and hurled it aside, plunging the cave into
darkness as the candle toppled and went out.
Kane's rapier sang like an arrow in the dark as he thrust blindly and
ferociously.
"_Adieu_, Monsieur Galahad!" The taunt came from somewhere in front
of him, but Kane, plunging toward the sound with the savage fury of
baffled wrath, caromed against a blank wall that did not yield to his
blow. From somewhere seemed to come an echo of a mocking laugh.
Kane whirled, eyes fixed on the dimly outlined entrance, thinking his
foe would try to slip past him and out of the cave; but no form bulked
there, and when his groping hands found the candle and lighted it, the
cave was empty, save for himself and the dead men on the floor.
_3. The Chant of the Drums_
Across the dusky waters the whisper came: boom, boom, boom!--a sullen
reiteration. Far away and more faintly sounded a whisper of different
timbre: thrum, throom, thrum! Back and forth went the vibrations as the
throbbing drums spoke to each other. What tales did they carry? What
monstrous secrets whispered across the sullen, shadowy reaches of the
unmapped jungle?
"This, you are sure, is the bay where the Spanish ship put in?"
"Yes, _Senhor_; the negro swears this is the bay where the white man
left the ship alone and went into the jungle."
Kane nodded grimly.
"Then put me ashore here, alone. Wait seven days; then if I have not
returned and if you have no word of me, set sail wherever you will."
"Yes, _Senhor_."
The waves slapped lazily against the sides of the boat that carried
Kane ashore. The village that he sought was on the river bank but set
back from the bay shore, the jungle hiding it from sight of the ship.
Kane had adopted what seemed the most hazardous course, that of going
ashore by night, for the reason that he knew, if the man he sought
were in the village, he would never reach it by day. As it was, he was
taking a most desperate chance in daring the nighttime jungle, but all
his life he had been used to taking desperate chances. Now he gambled
his life upon the slim chance of gaining the negro village under cover
of darkness and unknown to the villagers.
At the beach he left the boat with a few muttered commands, and as the
rowers put back to the ship which lay anchored some distance out in the
bay, he turned and engulfed himself in the blackness of the jungle.
Sword in one hand, dagger in the other, he stole forward, seeking to
keep pointed in the direction from which the drums still muttered and
grumbled.
He went with the stealth and easy movement of a leopard, feeling his
way cautiously, every nerve alert and straining, but the way was not
easy. Vines tripped him and slapped him in the face, impeding his
progress; he was forced to grope his way between the huge boles of
towering trees, and all through the underbrush about him sounded vague
and menacing rustlings and shadows of movement. Thrice his foot touched
something that moved beneath it and writhed away, and once he glimpsed
the baleful glimmer of feline eyes among the trees. They vanished,
however, as he advanced.
Thrum, thrum, thrum, came the ceaseless monotone of the drums: war and
death (they said); blood and lust; human sacrifice and human feast! The
soul of Africa (said the drums); the spirit of the jungle; the chant of
the gods of outer darkness, the gods that roar and gibber, the gods men
knew when dawns were young, beast-eyed, gaping-mouthed, huge-bellied,
bloody-handed, the Black Gods (sang the drums).
All this and more the drums roared and bellowed to Kane as he worked
his way through the forest. Somewhere in his soul a responsive chord
was smitten and answered. You too are of the night (sang the drums);
there is the strength of darkness, the strength of the primitive in
you; come back down the ages; let us teach you, let us teach you
(chanted the drums).
Kane stepped out of the thick jungle and came upon a plainly defined
trail. Beyond, through the trees came the gleam of the village fires,
flames glowing through the palisades. Kane walked down the trail
swiftly.
He went silently and warily, sword extended in front of him, eyes
straining to catch any hint of movement in the darkness ahead, for the
trees loomed like sullen giants on each hand; sometimes their great
branches intertwined above the trail and he could see only a slight way
ahead of him.
Like a dark ghost he moved along the shadowed trail; alertly he stared
and harkened; yet no warning came first to him, as a great, vague bulk
rose up out of the shadows and struck him down, silently.
_4. The Black God_
Thrum, thrum, thrum! Somewhere, with deadening monotony, a
cadence was repeated, over and over, bearing out the same theme:
"Fool--fool--fool!" Now it was far away, now he could stretch out his
hand and almost reach it. Now it merged with the throbbing in his head
until the two vibrations were as one: "Fool--fool--fool--fool----"
The fogs faded and vanished. Kane sought to raise his hand to his head,
but found that he was bound hand and foot. He lay on the floor of a
hut--alone? He twisted about to view the place. No, two eyes glimmered
at him from the darkness. Now a form took shape, and Kane, still mazed,
believed that he looked on the man who had struck him unconscious. Yet
no; this man could never strike such a blow. He was lean, withered and
wrinkled. The only thing that seemed alive about him were his eyes, and
they seemed like the eyes of a snake.
The man squatted on the floor of the hut, near the doorway, naked save
for a loin-cloth and the usual paraphernalia of bracelets, anklets and
armlets. Weird fetishes of ivory, bone and hide, animal and human,
adorned his arms and legs. Suddenly and unexpectedly he spoke in
English.
"Ha, you wake, white man? Why you come here, eh?"
Kane asked the inevitable question, following the habit of the
Caucasian.
"You speak my language--how is that?"
The black man grinned.
"I slave--long time, me boy. Me, N'Longa, ju-ju man, me, great fetish.
No black man like me! You white man, you hunt brother?"
Kane snarled. "I! Brother! I seek a man, yes."
The negro nodded. "Maybe so you find um, eh?"
"He dies!"
Again the negro grinned. "Me pow'rful ju-ju man," he announced apropos
of nothing. He bent closer. "White man you hunt, eyes like a leopard,
eh? Yes? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Listen, white man: man-with-eyes-of-a-leopard,
he and Chief Songa make pow'rful palaver; they blood brothers now. Say
nothing, I help you; you help me, eh?"
"Why should you help me?" asked Kane suspiciously.
The ju-ju man bent closer and whispered, "White man Songa's right-hand
man; Songa more pow'rful than N'Longa. White man mighty ju-ju!
N'Longa's white brother kill man-with-eyes-of-a-leopard, be blood
brother to N'Longa, N'Longa be more pow'rful than Songa; palaver set."
And like a dusky ghost he floated out of the hut so swiftly that Kane
was not sure but that the whole affair was a dream.
Without, Kane could see the flare of fires. The drums were still
booming, but close at hand the tones merged and mingled, and the
impulse-producing vibrations were lost. All seemed a barbaric clamor
without rime or reason, yet there was an undertone of mockery there,
savage and gloating. "Lies," thought Kane, his mind still swimming,
"jungle lies like jungle women that lure a man to his doom."
Two warriors entered the hut--black giants, hideous with paint and
armed with crude spears. They lifted the white man and carried him out
of the hut. They bore him across an open space, leaned him upright
against a post and bound him there. About him, behind him and to
the side, a great semicircle of black faces leered and faded in the
firelight as the flames leaped and sank. There in front of him loomed a
shape hideous and obscene--a black, formless thing, a grotesque parody
of the human. Still, brooding, blood-stained, like the formless soul of
Africa, the horror, the Black God.
And in front and to each side, upon roughly carven thrones of teakwood,
sat two men. He who sat upon the right was a black man, huge, ungainly,
a gigantic and unlovely mass of dusky flesh and muscles. Small,
hog-like eyes blinked out over sin-marked cheeks; huge, flabby red
lips pursed in fleshly haughtiness.
The other----
"Ah, _Monsieur_, we meet again." The speaker was far from being
the debonair villain who had taunted Kane in the cavern among the
mountains. His clothes were rags; there were more lines in his face; he
had sunk lower in the years that had passed. Yet his eyes still gleamed
and danced with their old recklessness and his voice held the same
mocking timbre.
"The last time I heard that accursed voice," said Kane calmly, "was in
a cave, in darkness, whence you fled like a hunted rat."
"Aye, under different conditions," answered Le Loup imperturbably.
"What did you do after blundering about like an elephant in the dark?"
Kane hesitated, then: "I left the mountain----"
"By the front entrance? Yes? I might have known you were too stupid to
find the secret door. Hoofs of the Devil, had you thrust against the
chest with the golden lock, which stood against the wall, the door had
opened to you and revealed the secret passageway through which I went."
"I traced you to the nearest port and there took ship and followed you
to Italy, where I found you had gone."
"Aye, by the saints, you nearly cornered me in Florence. Ho! ho! ho! I
was climbing through a back window while Monsieur Galahad was battering
down the front door of the tavern. And had your horse not gone lame,
you would have caught up with me on the road to Rome. Again, the ship
on which I left Spain had barely put out to sea when Monsieur Galahad
rides up to the wharfs. Why have you followed me like this? I do not
understand."
"Because you are a rogue whom it is my destiny to kill," answered Kane
coldly. He did not understand. All his life he had roamed about the
world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, he neither knew nor
questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life.
Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and
lasting, through his soul. When the full flame of his hatred was
wakened and loosed, there was no rest for him until his vengeance
had been fulfilled to the uttermost. If he thought of it at all, he
considered himself a fulfiller of God's judgment, a vessel of wrath to
be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous. Yet in the full sense of
the word Solomon Kane was not wholly a Puritan, though he thought of
himself as such.
Le Loup shrugged his shoulders. "I could understand had I wronged you
personally. _Mon Dieu!_ I, too, would follow an enemy across the
world, but, though I would have joyfully slain and robbed you, I never
heard of you until you declared war on me."
* * * * *
Kane was silent, his still fury overcoming him. Though he did not
realize it, the Wolf was more than merely an enemy to him; the bandit
symbolized, to Kane, all the things against which the Puritan had
fought all his life: cruelty, outrage, oppression and tyranny.
Le Loup broke in on his vengeful meditations. "What did you do with the
treasure, which--gods of Hades!--took me years to accumulate? Devil
take it, I had time only to snatch a handful of coins and trinkets as I
ran."
"I took such as I needed to hunt you down. The rest I gave to the
villages which you had looted."
"Saints and the devil!" swore Le Loup. "_Monsieur_, you are the
greatest fool I have yet met. To throw that vast treasure--by Satan, I
rage to think of it in the hands of base peasants, vile villagers! Yet,
ho! ho! ho! ho! they will steal, and kill each other for it! That is
human nature."
"Yes, damn you!" flamed Kane suddenly, showing that his conscience had
not been at rest. "Doubtless they will, being fools. Yet what could I
do? Had I left it there, people might have starved and gone naked for
lack of it. More, it would have been found, and theft and slaughter
would have followed anyway. You are to blame, for had this treasure
been left with its rightful owners, no such trouble would have ensued."
The Wolf grinned without reply. Kane not being a profane man, his rare
curses had double effect and always startled his hearers, no matter how
vicious or hardened they might be.
It was Kane who spoke next. "Why have you fled from me across the
world? You do not really fear me."
"No, you are right. Really I do not know; perhaps flight is a habit
which is difficult to break. I made my mistake when I did not kill
you that night in the mountains. I am sure I could kill you in a fair
fight, yet I have never even, ere now, sought to ambush you. Somehow I
have not had a liking to meet you, _Monsieur_--a whim of mine, a mere
whim. Then--_mon Dieu!_--mayhap I have enjoyed a new sensation--and I
had thought that I had exhausted the thrills of life. And then, a man
must either be the hunter or the hunted. Until now, _Monsieur_, I was
the hunted, but I grew weary of the rôle--I thought I had thrown you
off the trail."
"A negro slave, brought from this vicinity, told a Portugal ship
captain of a white man who landed from a Spanish ship and went into the
jungle. I heard of it and hired the ship, paying the captain to bring
me here."
"_Monsieur_, I admire you for your attempt, but you must admire me,
too! Alone I came into this village, and alone among savages and
cannibals I--with some slight knowledge of the language learned from a
slave aboard ship--I gained the confidence of King Songa and supplanted
that mummer, N'Longa. I am a braver man than you, _Monsieur_, for I had
no ship to retreat to, and a ship is waiting for you."
"I admire your courage," said Kane, "but you are content to rule
amongst cannibals--you the blackest soul of them all. I intend to
return to my own people when I have slain you."
"Your confidence would be admirable were it not amusing. Ho, Gulka!"
A giant negro stalked into the space between them. He was the hugest
man that Kane had ever seen, though he moved with catlike ease and
suppleness. His arms and legs were like trees, and the great, sinuous
muscles rippled with each motion. His apelike head was set squarely
between gigantic shoulders. His great, dusky hands were like the
talons of an ape, and his brow slanted back from above bestial
eyes. Flat nose and great, thick red lips completed this picture of
primitive, lustful savagery.
"That is Gulka, the gorilla-slayer," said Le Loup. "He it was who lay
in wait beside the trail and smote you down. You are like a wolf,
yourself, Monsieur Kane, but since your ship hove in sight you have
been watched by many eyes, and had you had all the powers of a leopard,
you had not seen Gulka nor heard him. He hunts the most terrible and
crafty of all beasts, in their native forests, far to the north, the
beasts-who-walk-like-men--as that one, whom he slew some days since."
Kane, following Le Loup's fingers, made out a curious, manlike thing,
dangling from a roof-pole of a hut. A jagged end thrust through the
thing's body held it there. Kane could scarcely distinguish its
characteristics by the firelight, but there was a weird, humanlike
semblance about the hideous, hairy thing.
"A female gorilla that Gulka slew and brought to the village," said Le
Loup.
The giant black slouched close to Kane and stared into the white man's
eyes. Kane returned his gaze somberly, and presently the negro's
eyes dropped sullenly and he slouched back a few paces. The look
in the Puritan's grim eyes had pierced the primitive hazes of the
gorilla-slayer's soul, and for the first time in his life he felt fear.
To throw this off, he tossed a challenging look about; then, with
unexpected animalness, he struck his huge chest resoundingly, grinned
cavernously and flexed his mighty arms. No one spoke. Primordial
bestiality had the stage, and the more highly developed types looked on
with various feelings of amusement, tolerance or contempt.
Gulka glanced furtively at Kane to see if the white man was watching
him, then with a sudden beastly roar, plunged forward and dragged a man
from the semicircle. While the trembling victim screeched for mercy,
the giant hurled him upon the crude altar before the shadowy idol. A
spear rose and flashed, and the screeching ceased. The Black God looked
on, his monstrous features seeming to leer in the flickering firelight.
He had drunk; was the Black God pleased with the draft--with the
sacrifice?
Gulka stalked back, and stopping before Kane, flourished the bloody
spear before the white man's face.
Le Loup laughed. Then suddenly N'Longa appeared. He came from nowhere
in particular; suddenly he was standing there, beside the post to
which Kane was bound. A lifetime of study of the art of illusion had
given the ju-ju man a highly technical knowledge of appearing and
disappearing--which after all, consisted only in timing the audience's
attention.
He waved Gulka aside with a grand gesture, and the gorilla-man slunk
back, apparently to get out of N'Longa's gaze--then with incredible
swiftness he turned and struck the ju-ju man a terrific blow upon the
side of the head with his open hand. N'Longa went down like a felled
ox, and in an instant he had been seized and bound to a post close to
Kane. An uncertain murmuring rose from the negroes, which died out as
King Songa stared angrily toward them.
Le Loup leaned back upon his throne and laughed uproariously.
"The trail ends here, Monsieur Galahad. That ancient fool thought I
did not know of his plotting! I was hiding outside the hut and heard
the interesting conversation you two had. Ha! ha! ha! ha! The Black
God must drink, _Monsieur_, but I have persuaded Songa to have you two
burnt; that will be much more enjoyable, though we shall have to forego
the usual feast, I fear. For after the fires are lit about your feet
the devil himself could not keep your carcasses from becoming charred
frames of bone."
Songa shouted something imperiously, and blacks came bearing wood,
which they piled about the feet of N'Longa and Kane. The ju-ju man had
recovered consciousness, and he now shouted something in his native
language. Again the murmuring arose among the shadowy throng. Songa
snarled something in reply.
* * * * *
Kane gazed at the scene almost impersonally. Again, somewhere in his
soul, dim primal deeps were stirring, age-old thought memories, veiled
in the fogs of lost eons. He had been here before, thought Kane; he
knew all this of old--the lurid flames beating back the sullen night,
the bestial faces leering expectantly, and the god, the Black God,
there in the shadows! Always the Black God, brooding back in the
shadows. He had known the shouts, the frenzied chant of the worshipers,
back there in the gray dawn of the world, the speech of the bellowing
drums, the singing priests, the repellent, inflaming, all-pervading
scent of freshly spilt blood. All this have I known, somewhere,
sometime, thought Kane; now I am the main actor----
He became aware that someone was speaking to him through the roar of
the drums; he had not realized that the drums had begun to boom again.
The speaker was N'Longa:
"Me pow'rful ju-ju man! Watch now: I work mighty magic. Songa!" His
voice rose in a screech that drowned out the wildly clamoring drums.
Songa grinned at the words N'Longa screamed at him. The chant of the
drums now had dropped to a low, sinister monotone and Kane plainly
heard Le Loup when he spoke:
"N'Longa says that he will now work that magic which it is death to
speak, even. Never before has it been worked in the sight of living
men; it is the nameless ju-ju magic. Watch closely, _Monsieur_;
possibly we shall be further amused." The Wolf laughed lightly and
sardonically.
A black man stooped, applying a torch to the wood about Kane's feet.
Tiny jets of flame began to leap up and catch. Another bent to do the
same with N'Longa, then hesitated. The ju-ju man sagged in his bonds;
his head drooped upon his chest. He seemed dying.
Le Loup leaned forward, cursing, "Feet of the Devil! is the scoundrel
about to cheat us of our pleasure of seeing him writhe in the flames?"
The warrior gingerly touched the wizard and said something in his own
language.
Le Loup laughed: "He died of fright. A great wizard, by the----"
His voice trailed off suddenly. The drums stopped as if the drummers
had fallen dead simultaneously. Silence dropped like a fog upon the
village and in the stillness Kane heard only the sharp crackle of the
flames whose heat he was beginning to feel.
All eyes were turned upon the dead man upon the altar, _for the corpse
had begun to move_!
First a twitching of a hand, then an aimless motion of an arm, a motion
which gradually spread over the body and limbs. Slowly, with blind,
uncertain gestures, the dead man turned upon his side, the trailing
limbs found the earth. Then, horribly like something being born, like
some frightful reptilian thing bursting the shell of non-existence,
the corpse tottered and reared upright, standing on legs wide apart
and stiffly braced, arms still making useless, infantile motions.
Utter silence, save somewhere a man's quick breath sounded loud in the
stillness.
Kane stared, for the first time in his life smitten speechless and
thoughtless. To his Puritan mind this was Satan's hand manifested.
Le Loup sat on his throne, eyes wide and staring, hand still half
raised in the careless gesture he was making when frozen into silence
by the unbelievable sight. Songa sat beside him, mouth and eyes wide
open, fingers making curious jerky motions upon the carved arms of the
throne.
Now the corpse was upright, swaying on stiltlike legs, body tilting far
back until the sightless eyes seemed to stare straight into the red
moon that was just rising over the black jungle. The thing tottered
uncertainly in a wide, erratic half-circle, arms flung out grotesquely
as if in balance, then swaying about to face the two thrones--and the
Black God. A burning twig at Kane's feet cracked like the crash of a
cannon in the tense silence. The horror thrust forth a black foot--it
took a wavering step--another. Then with stiff, jerky and automatonlike
steps, legs straddled far apart, the dead man came toward the two who
sat in speechless horror to each side of the Black God.
"Ah-h-h!" from somewhere came the explosive sigh, from that shadowy
semicircle where crouched the terror-fascinated worshippers. Straight
on stalked the grim specter. Now it was within three strides of the
thrones, and Le Loup, faced by fear for the first time in his bloody
life, cringed back in his chair; while Songa, with a superhuman effort
breaking the chains of horror that held him helpless, shattered the
night with a wild scream and, springing to his feet, lifted a spear,
shrieking and gibbering in wild menace. Then as the ghastly thing
halted not its frightful advance, he hurled the spear with all the
power of his great, black muscles, and the spear tore through the dead
man's breast with a rending of flesh and bone. Not an instant halted
the thing--for the dead die not--and Songa the king stood frozen, arms
outstretched as if to fend off the terror.
An instant they stood so, leaping firelight and eery moonlight etching
the scene forever in the minds of the beholders. The changeless
staring eyes of the corpse looked full into the bulging eyes of Songa,
where were reflected all the hells of horror. Then with a jerky motion
the arms of the thing went out and up. The dead hands fell on Songa's
shoulders. At the first touch, the king seemed to shrink and shrivel,
and with a scream that was to haunt the dreams of every watcher through
all the rest of time, Songa crumpled and fell, and the dead man reeled
stiffly and fell with him. Motionless lay the two at the feet of the
Black God, and to Kane's dazed mind it seemed that the idol's great,
inhuman eyes were fixed upon them with terrible, still laughter.
[Illustration: "The dead man reeled and fell with him."]
At the instant of the king's fall, a great shout went up from the
blacks, and Kane, with a clarity lent his subconscious mind by the
depths of his hate, looked for Le Loup and saw him spring from his
throne and vanish in the darkness. Then vision was blurred by a rush
of black figures who swept into the space before the god. Feet knocked
aside the blazing brands whose heat Kane had forgotten, and dusky hands
freed him; others loosed the wizard's body and laid it upon the earth.
Kane dimly understood that the blacks believed this thing to be the
work of N'Longa, and that they connected the vengeance of the wizard
with himself. He bent, laid a hand on the ju-ju man's shoulder. No
doubt of it: he was dead, the flesh was already cold. He glanced at the
other corpses. Songa was dead, too, and the thing that had slain him
lay now without movement.
Kane started to rise, then halted. Was he dreaming, or did he really
feel a sudden warmth in the dead flesh he touched? Mind reeling, he
again bent over the wizard's body, and slowly he felt warmness steal
over the limbs and the blood begin to flow sluggishly through the veins
again.
Then N'Longa opened his eyes and stared up into Kane's, with the blank
expression of a new-born babe. Kane watched, flesh crawling, and saw
the knowing, reptilian glitter come back, saw the wizard's thick lips
part in a wide grin. N'Longa sat up, and a strange chant arose from the
negroes.
Kane looked about. The blacks were all kneeling, swaying their bodies
to and fro, and in their shouts Kane caught the word, "N'Longa!"
repeated over and over in a kind of fearsomely ecstatic refrain of
terror and worship. As the wizard rose, they all fell prostrate.
N'Longa nodded, as if in satisfaction.
"Great ju-ju--great fetish, me!" he announced to Kane. "You see? My
ghost go out--kill Songa--come back to me! Great magic! Great fetish,
me!"
Kane glanced at the Black God looming back in the shadows, at N'Longa,
who now flung out his arms toward the idol as if in invocation.
I am everlasting (Kane thought the Black God said); I drink, no matter
who rules; chiefs, slayers, wizards, they pass like the ghosts of dead
men through the gray jungle; I stand, I rule; I am the soul of the
jungle (said the Black God).
Suddenly Kane came back from the illusory mists in which he had been
wandering. "The white man! Which way did he flee?"
N'Longa shouted something. A score of dusky hands pointed; from
somewhere Kane's rapier was thrust out to him. The fogs faded and
vanished; again he was the avenger, the scourge of the unrighteous;
with the sudden volcanic speed of a tiger he snatched the sword and was
gone.
_5. The End of the Red Trail_
Limbs and vines slapped against Kane's face. The oppressive steam of
the tropic night rose like mist about him. The moon, now floating
high above the jungle, limned the black shadows in its white glow
and patterned the jungle floor in grotesque designs. Kane knew not
if the man he sought was ahead of him, but broken limbs and trampled
underbrush showed that some man had gone that way, some man who fled
in haste, nor halted to pick his way. Kane followed these signs
unswervingly. Believing in the justice of his vengeance, he did not
doubt that the dim beings who rule men's destinies would finally bring
him face to face with Le Loup.
Behind him the drums boomed and muttered. What a tale they had to tell
this night! of the triumph of N'Longa, the death of the black king,
the overthrow of the white-man-with-eyes-like-a-leopard, and a more
darksome tale, a tale to be whispered in low, muttering vibrations: the
nameless ju-ju.
Was he dreaming? Kane wondered as he hurried on. Was all this part of
some foul magic? He had seen a dead man rise and slay and die again; he
had seen a man die and come to life again. Did N'Longa in truth send
his ghost, his soul, his life essence forth into the void, dominating
a corpse to do his will? Aye, N'Longa died a real death there, bound
to the torture stake, and he who lay dead on the altar rose and did
as N'Longa would have done had he been free. Then, the unseen force
animating the dead man fading, N'Longa had lived again.
Yes, Kane thought, he must admit it as a fact. Somewhere in the
darksome reaches of jungle and river, N'Longa had stumbled upon the
Secret--the Secret of controlling life and death, of overcoming the
shackles and limitations of the flesh. How had this dark wisdom, born
in the black and blood-stained shadows of this grim land, been given to
the wizard? What sacrifice had been so pleasing to the Black Gods, what
ritual so monstrous, as to make them give up the knowledge of this
magic? And what thoughtless, timeless journeys had N'Longa taken, when
he chose to send his ego, his ghost, through the far, misty countries,
reached only by death?
There is wisdom in the shadows (brooded the drums), wisdom and magic;
go into the darkness for wisdom; ancient magic shuns the light; we
remember the lost ages (whispered the drums), ere man became wise and
foolish; we remember the beast gods--the serpent gods and the ape gods
and the nameless, the Black Gods, they who drank blood and whose voices
roared through the shadowy hills, who feasted and lusted. The secrets
of life and of death are theirs; we remember, we remember (sang the
drums).
Kane heard them as he hastened on. The tale they told to the feathered
black warriors farther up the river, he could not translate; but they
spoke to him in their own way, and that language was deeper, more basic.
The moon, high in the dark blue skies, lighted his way and gave him
a clear vision as he came out at last into a glade and saw Le Loup
standing there. The Wolf's naked blade was a long gleam of silver in
the moon, and he stood with shoulders thrown back, the old, defiant
smile still on his face.
"A long trail, _Monsieur_," said he. "It began in the mountains of
France; it ends in an African jungle. I have wearied of the game at
last, _Monsieur_--and you die. I had not fled from the village, even,
save that--I admit it freely--that damnable witchcraft of N'Longa's
shook my nerves. More, I saw that the whole tribe would turn against
me."
Kane advanced warily, wondering what dim, forgotten tinge of chivalry
in the bandit's soul had caused him thus to take his chance in the
open. He half suspected treachery, but his keen eyes could detect no
shadow of movement in the jungle on either side of the glade.
"_Monsieur_, on guard!" Le Loup's voice was crisp. "Time that we ended
this fool's dance about the world. Here we are alone."
* * * * *
The men were now within reach of each other, and Le Loup, in the midst
of his sentence, suddenly plunged forward with the speed of light,
thrusting viciously. A slower man had died there, but Kane parried and
sent his own blade in a silver streak that slit Le Loup's tunic as the
Wolf bounded backward. Le Loup admitted the failure of his trick with
a wild laugh and came in with the breath-taking speed and fury of a
tiger, his blade making a white fan of steel about him.
Rapier clashed on rapier as the two swordsmen fought. They were
fire and ice opposed. Le Loup fought wildly but craftily, leaving
no openings, taking advantage of every opportunity. He was a living
flame, bounding back, leaping in, feinting, thrusting, warding,
striking--laughing like a wild man, taunting and cursing.
Kane's skill was cold, calculating, scintillant. He made no waste
movement, no motion not absolutely necessary. He seemed to devote more
time and effort toward defense than did Le Loup, yet there was no
hesitancy in his attack, and when he thrust, his blade shot out with
the speed of a striking snake.
There was little to choose between the men as to height, strength
and reach. Le Loup was the swifter by a scant, flashing margin, but
Kane's skill reached a finer point of perfection. The Wolf's fencing
was fiery, dynamic, like the blast from a furnace. Kane was more
steady--less the instinctive, more the thinking fighter, though he,
too, was a born slayer, with the co-ordination that only a natural
fighter possessed.
Thrust, parry, a feint, a sudden whirl of blades----
"Ha!" the Wolf sent up a shout of ferocious laughter as the blood
started from a cut on Kane's cheek. As if the sight drove him to
further fury, he attacked like the beast men named him. Kane was forced
back before that blood-lusting onslaught, but the Puritan's expression
did not alter.
Minutes flew by; the clang and clash of steel did not diminish. Now
they stood squarely in the center of the glade, Le Loup untouched,
Kane's garments red with the blood that oozed from wounds on cheek,
breast, arm and thigh. The Wolf grinned savagely and mockingly in the
moonlight, but he had begun to doubt.
His breath came hissing fast and his arm began to weary; who was this
man of steel and ice who never seemed to weaken? Le Loup knew that the
wounds he had inflicted on Kane were not deep, but even so, the steady
flow of blood should have sapped some of the man's strength and speed
by this time. But if Kane felt the ebb of his powers, it did not show.
His brooding countenance did not change in expression, and he pressed
the fight with as much cold fury as at the beginning.
Le Loup felt his might fading, and with one last desperate effort he
rallied all his fury and strength into a single plunge. A sudden,
unexpected attack too wild and swift for the eye to follow, a dynamic
burst of speed and fury no man could have withstood, and Solomon Kane
reeled for the first time as he felt cold steel tear through his body.
He reeled back, and Le Loup, with a wild shout, plunged after him, his
reddened sword free, a gasping taunt on his lips.
Kane's sword, backed by the force of desperation, met Le Loup's in
midair; met, held and wrenched. The Wolf's yell of triumph died on his
lips as his sword flew singing from his hand.
For a fleeting instant he stopped short, arms flung wide as a
crucifix, and Kane heard his wild, mocking laughter peal forth for
the last time, as the Englishman's rapier made a silver line in the
moonlight.
* * * * *
Far away came the mutter of the drums. Kane mechanically cleansed his
sword on his tattered garments. The trail ended here, and Kane was
conscious of a strange feeling of futility. He always felt that, after
he had killed a foe. Somehow it always seemed that no real good had
been wrought; as if the foe had, after all, escaped his just vengeance.
With a shrug of his shoulders Kane turned his attention to his bodily
needs. Now that the heat of battle had passed, he began to feel weak
and faint from the loss of blood. That last thrust had been close; had
he not managed to avoid its full point by a twist of his body, the
blade had transfixed him. As it was, the sword had struck glancingly,
plowed along his ribs and sunk deep in the muscles beneath the
shoulder-blade, inflicting a long, shallow wound.
Kane looked about him and saw that a small stream trickled through the
glade at the far side. Here he made the only mistake of that kind that
he ever made in his entire life. Mayhap he was dizzy from loss of blood
and still mazed from the weird happenings of the night; be that as it
may, he laid down his rapier and crossed, weaponless, to the stream.
There he laved his wounds and bandaged them as best he could, with
strips torn from his clothing.
Then he rose and was about to re-trace his steps when a motion among
the trees on the side of the glade where he first entered, caught
his eye. A huge figure stepped out of the jungle, and Kane saw, and
recognized, his doom. The man was Gulka, the gorilla-slayer. Kane
remembered that he had not seen the black among those doing homage
to N'Longa. How could he know the craft and hatred in that dusky,
slanting skull that had led the negro, escaping the vengeance of his
tribesmen, to trail down the only man he had ever feared? The Black God
had been kind to his neophyte; had led him upon his victim helpless and
unarmed. Now Gulka could kill his man openly--and slowly, as a leopard
kills, not smiting him down from ambush as he had planned, silently and
suddenly.
A wide grin split the negro's face, and he moistened his lips. Kane,
watching him, was coldly and deliberately weighing his chances. Gulka
had already spied the rapiers. He was closer to them than was Kane. The
Englishman knew that there was no chance of his winning in a sudden
race for the swords.
A slow, deadly rage surged in him--the fury of helplessness. The blood
churned in his temples and his eyes smoldered with a terrible light as
he eyed the negro. His fingers spread and closed like claws. They were
strong, those hands; men had died in their clutch. Even Gulka's huge
black column of a neck might break like a rotten branch between them--a
wave of weakness made the futility of these thoughts apparent to an
extent that needed not the verification of the moonlight glimmering
from the spear in Gulka's black hand. Kane could not even have fled had
he wished--and he had never fled from a single foe.
The gorilla-slayer moved out into the glade. Massive, terrible, he was
the personification of the primitive, the Stone Age. His mouth yawned
in a red cavern of a grin; he bore himself with the haughty arrogance
of savage might.
Kane tensed himself for the struggle that could end but one way. He
strove to rally his waning forces. Useless; he had lost too much blood.
At least he would meet his death on his feet, and somehow he stiffened
his buckling knees and held himself erect, though the glade shimmered
before him in uncertain waves and the moonlight seemed to have become a
red fog through which he dimly glimpsed the approaching black man.
Kane stooped, though the effort nearly pitched him on his face; he
dipped water in his cupped hands and dashed it into his face. This
revived him, and he straightened, hoping that Gulka would charge and
get it over with before his weakness crumpled him to the earth.
Gulka was now about the center of the glade, moving with the slow,
easy stride of a great cat stalking a victim. He was not at all in a
hurry to consummate his purpose. He wanted to toy with his victim, to
see fear come into those grim eyes which had looked him down, even
when the possessor of those eyes had been bound to the death stake. He
wanted to slay, at last, slowly, glutting his tigerish blood-lust and
torture-lust to the fullest extent.
Then suddenly he halted, turned swiftly, facing another side of the
glade. Kane, wondering, followed his glance.
* * * * *
At first it seemed like a blacker shadow among the jungle shadows.
At first there was no motion, no sound, but Kane instinctively knew
that some terrible menace lurked there in the darkness that masked and
merged the silent trees. A sullen horror brooded there, and Kane felt
as if, from that monstrous shadow, inhuman eyes seared his very soul.
Yet simultaneously there came the fantastic sensation that these eyes
were not directed on him. He looked at the gorilla-slayer.
The black man had apparently forgotten him; he stood, half crouching,
spear lifted, eyes fixed upon that clump of blackness. Kane looked
again. Now there was motion in the shadows; they merged fantastically
and moved out into the glade, much as Gulka had done. Kane blinked: was
this the illusion that precedes death? The shape he looked upon was
such as he had visioned dimly in wild nightmares, when the wings of
sleep bore him back through lost ages.
He thought at first it was some blasphemous mockery of a man, for it
went erect and was tall as a tall man. But it was inhumanly broad and
thick, and its gigantic arms hung nearly to its misshapen feet. Then
the moonlight smote full upon its bestial face, and Kane's mazed mind
thought that the thing was the Black God coming out of the shadows,
animated and blood-lusting. Then he saw that it was covered with hair,
and he remembered the manlike thing dangling from the roof-pole in the
native village. He looked at Gulka.
The negro was facing the gorilla, spear at the charge. He was not
afraid, but his sluggish mind was wondering over the miracle that
brought this beast so far from his native jungles.
The mighty ape came out into the moonlight and there was a terrible
majesty about his movements. He was nearer Kane than Gulka but he did
not seem to be aware of the white man. His small, blazing eyes were
fixed on the black man with terrible intensity. He advanced with a
curious swaying stride.
Far away the drums whispered through the night, like an accompaniment
to this grim Stone Age drama. The savage crouched in the middle of the
glade, but the primordial came out of the jungle with eyes bloodshot
and blood-lusting. The negro was face to face with a thing more
primitive than he. Again ghosts of memories whispered to Kane: you have
seen such sights before (they murmured), back in the dim days, the dawn
days, when beast and beast-man battled for supremacy.
Gulka moved away from the ape in a half-circle, crouching, spear ready.
With all his craft he was seeking to trick the gorilla, to make a swift
kill, for he had never before met such a monster as this, and though he
did not fear, he had begun to doubt. The ape made no attempt to stalk
or circle; he strode straight forward toward Gulka.
The black man who faced him and the white man who watched could not
know the brutish love, the brutish hate that had driven the monster
down from the low, forest-covered hills of the north to follow for
leagues the trail of him who was the scourge of his kind--the slayer of
his mate, whose body now hung from the roof-pole of the negro village.
The end came swiftly, almost like a sudden gesture. They were close,
now, beast and beast-man; and suddenly, with an earth-shaking roar, the
gorilla charged. A great hairy arm smote aside the thrusting spear,
and the ape closed with the negro. There was a shattering sound as of
many branches breaking simultaneously, and Gulka slumped silently to
the earth, to lie with arms, legs and body flung in strange, unnatural
positions. The ape towered an instant above him, like a statue of the
primordial triumphant.
Far away Kane heard the drums murmur. The soul of the jungle, the soul
of the jungle: this phrase surged through his mind with monotonous
reiteration.
The three who had stood in power before the Black God that night, where
were they? Back in the village where the drums rustled lay Songa--King
Songa, once lord of life and death, now a shriveled corpse with a face
set in a mask of horror. Stretched on his back in the middle of the
glade lay he whom Kane had followed many a league by land and sea. And
Gulka the gorilla-slayer lay at the feet of his killer, broken at last
by the savagery which had made him a true son of this grim land which
had at last overwhelmed him.
Yet the Black God still reigned, thought Kane dizzily, brooding back in
the shadows of this dark country, bestial, blood-lusting, caring naught
who lived or died, so that he drank.
Kane watched the mighty ape, wondering how long it would be before the
huge simian spied and charged him. But the gorilla gave no evidence
of having even seen him. Some dim impulse of vengeance yet unglutted
prompting him, he bent and raised the negro. Then he slouched toward
the jungle, Gulka's limbs trailing limply and grotesquely. As he
reached the trees, the ape halted, whirling the giant form high in
the air with seemingly no effort, and dashed the dead man up among
the branches. There was a rending sound as a broken projecting limb
tore through the body hurled so powerfully against it, and the dead
gorilla-slayer dangled there hideously.
A moment the clear moon limned the great ape in its glimmer, as he
stood silently gazing up at his victim; then like a dark shadow he
melted noiselessly into the jungle.
Kane walked slowly to the middle of the glade and took up his rapier.
The blood had ceased to flow from his wounds, and some of his strength
was returning, enough, at least, for him to reach the coast where his
ship awaited him. He halted at the edge of the glade for a backward
glance at Le Loup's upturned face and still form, white in the
moonlight, and at the dark shadow among the trees that was Gulka, left
by some bestial whim, hanging as the she-gorilla hung in the village.
Afar the drums muttered: "The wisdom of our land is ancient; the wisdom
of our land is dark; whom we serve, we destroy. Flee if you would live,
but you will never forget our chant. Never, never," sang the drums.
Kane turned to the trail which led to the beach and the ship waiting
there.
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