CHAPTER XXIII
THE OBEAH
Together, as in a dream--a nightmare, dazed, incredible,grotesque--they advanced out into the dim-shaded forest aisles.
"Don't look!" Stern exclaimed, shuddering at sight of the unspeakablehideousness of the Things, at glimpses of gnawed bones, grisly bits offlesh, dried gouts of blood upon the woodland carpet. "Don'tthink--just come along!
"Five minutes, and we're safe, there and back again. S-h-h-h! Don'thurry! Count, now--count your steps--one, two, three--four, five,six--steady, steady!--"
Now they were ten yards from the tower, now twenty. Bravely theywalked, now straight ahead among the trees, now circling someindividual, some horrid group. Stern held the water-pail firmly. Hegripped the revolver in a grasp of iron. The magazine-rifle lay inboth the girl's hands, ready for instant use.
Suddenly Stern fired again, three shots.
"Some of 'em are moving, over there!" he said in a crisp, ugly tone."I guess a little lead close to their ears will fix 'em for a while!"
His voice went to a hoarse whisper.
"Gods!" he repeated. "Don't forget it, for a moment; don't lose thatthought, for it may pull us through! These creatures here, _if_they're descended from the blacks, must have some story, sometradition of the white man. Of his mastery, his power! We'll use itnow, by Heaven, as it never yet was used!"
Then he began to count again; and so, tense, watching witheager-burning eyes and taut muscles, the man and woman made their wayof frightful peril.
A snuffling howl rose.
"You will, will you?" Stern cried, adding another kick to the one hehad just dealt to one of the creatures, who had ventured to look up attheir approach. "Lie down, ape!" And with the clangorous metal pail hesmote the ugly, brutish skull.
Beatrice gasped with fear; but the bluff made good. The creaturegrovelled, and again the pair strode forward, masterfully. Masterfullythey had to go, or not at all. Masterfully, or die. For now theirall-in-all lay just in that grim, steel-hard sense of mastery.
Before the girl's eyes a sort of haze seemed forming. Her heart beatthick and heavy. Stern's counting sounded very far away and strange;she hardly recognized his voice. To her came wild, disjointed,confused impressions--now a bony and distorted back, now a simianhead; again a group that crouched and cowered in its filthy squalor,hideously.
Then all at once, there right before her she saw the little woodlandpath that, slightly descending, led past a big oak she well knew, downto the margin of the pool.
"Steady, girl, steady!" came the engineer's warning, tense aspiano-wire. "Almost there, now. What's _that?_"
For a brief instant he hesitated. The girl felt his arm grow even moretaut, she heard his breath catch. Then she, too, looked--and saw.
It was enough, that sight, to have smitten with sick horror thebravest man who ever lived. For there, beside the smouldering embersof the great feast-fire, littered with bones and indescribable refuse,a creature was squatting on its hams--one of the Horde, indeed, yetvastly different, tremendously more venomous, more dangerous ofaspect.
Stern knew at once that here, not prostrate nor yet crouching, was thechief of the blue Horde.
He knew it by the superior size and strength of the Thing, by thealmost manlike cunning of the low, gorilla face, the gleam ofintelligence in the reddened eye, the crude wreath of maple-leavesupon the head, the necklace of finger-bones strung around the neck.
But most of all, he knew it by a thing that shocked him more than thesight of stark, outright cannibalism would have done. A simple thing,yet how ominous! A thing that argued reason in this reversion from thehuman; a thing that sent the shuddering chills along the engineer'sspine.
For the chief, the obeah-man of this vile drove, rising now frombeside the fire with a gibbering chatter and a look of bestial malice,held between his fangs a twisted brown leaf.
Stern knew at a glance the leaf was the rudely cured product of somedegenerated tobacco-plant. He saw a glow of red at the tip of theclose-rolled tobacco. Vapor issued from the chief's slit-mouth.
"Good Lord--he's--_smoking!_" stammered the engineer. "And _that_means--means an almost human brain. And--quick, Beatrice, the water! Ididn't expect this! Thought they were all alike. Back to the tower,quick! Here, fill the pail--I'll keep him covered!"
Up he brought the automatic, till the bead lay fair upon the naked,muscular breast of the obeah.
Beatrice handed Stern the rifle, then snatching the pail, dipped it,filled it to the brim. Stern heard the water lap and gurgle. He knewit was but a few seconds, yet it seemed an hour to him, at the veryleast.
Keener than ever before in his whole life, his mental pictures nowlimned themselves with lightning rapidity upon his brain.
Stamped on his consciousness was this lithe, lean, formidable body,showing beyond dispute its human ancestry; the right hand that held a_steel-pointed_ spear; the horrible ornament (a withered little smokedhand) that dangled from the left wrist by a cord of platted fiber.
Vividly Stern beheld a deep gash or scar that ran from the chief'sright eye--a dull, fishlike eye, evidently destroyed by thatwound--down across the leathery cheek, across the prognathous jaw; areddish-purple wale, which on that clay-blue skin produced an effectindescribably repulsive.
Then the chief grunted, and moved forward, toward them. Stern saw thatthe gait was almost human, not shuffling and uncertain like that ofthe others, but firm and vigorous. He estimated the height at morethan five feet, eight inches; the weight at possibly one hundred andforty pounds. Even at that juncture, his scientific mind, alwaysaccustomed to judging, instinctively registered these data, with theothers.
"Here, you, get back there!" shouted Stern, as the girl rose againfrom filling the pail.
The cry was instinctive, for even as he uttered it, he knew it couldnot be understood. A thousand years of rapid degeneration had longwiped all traces of English speech from the brute-men, who now, atmost, chattered some bestial gibberish. Yet the warning echoed loudlythrough Madison Forest; and the obeah hesitated.
The tone, perhaps, conveyed some meaning to that brain behind thesloping forehead. Perhaps some dim, racial memory of human speechstill lingered in that mind, in that strange organism which, by somefreak of atavism, had "thrown back" out of the mire of returninganimality almost to the human form and stature once again.
However that may have been, the creature-chief halted in his advance.Undecided he stood a moment, leaning upon his spear, sucking at therude mockery of a cigar. Stern remembered having seen Consul, thetrained chimpanzee, smoke in precisely the same manner, and a namelessloathing filled him at his mockery of the dead, buried past.
"Let me carry the pail!" said he. "We've got to hurry--hurry--or itmay be too late!"
"No, no--I'll keep the water!" she answered, panting. "You need bothhands clear! Come!"
Thus they turned, and, with a shuddering glance behind, started backfor the tower again.
But the obeah, with a whining plaint, spat away his tobacco-leaf. Theyheard a shuffle of feet. And, looking round again, both saw that hehad crossed the little brook.
There he stood now, his right hand out, palm upward, his lips curledin the ghastly imitation of a smile, blue gums and yellow lushesshowing, a sight to freeze the blood with horror. Yet through it all,the meaning was most clearly evident.
Beatrice, laden as she was with the heavy water-bucket, more preciousnow to them than all the wealth of the dead world, would still haveretreated, but with a word of stern command he bade her wait. Hestopped short in his tracks.
"Not a step!" commanded he. "Hold on! _If_ he makes friends withus--with gods--that's a million times better every way! Hold on--wait,no--this is _his_ move."
He faced the obeah. His left hand gripped the repeating rifle, hisright the automatic, held in readiness for instant action. The muzzlesight never for a second left its aim at the chief's heart.
And for a second silence fell there in the forest. Save for therustling murmu
r of the Horde, and a faint, woodland trickle of thestream, you might have thought the place untouched by life.
Yet death lurked there, and destiny--the destiny of the whole world,the future, the human race, forever and ever without end; and thecords of Fate were being loosed for a new knitting.
And Stern, with Beatrice there at his side, stood harsh and strong andvery grim; stood like an incarnation of man's life, waiting.
And slowly, step by step, over the yielding, noiseless moss, thegrinning, one-eyed, ghastly obeah-man came nearer, nearer still.