Authors: George England
He still, for a moment, kept his eye to the crack, fascinated by the
very horror of the sight. Then all at once another figure shambled
into view.
"A female one!" he realized, shuddering. Too monstrously hideous, this
sight, to be endured. With a gasp, the man turned back.
About Beatrice he drew his arm. Together, almost as soundlessly as
wraiths, they stole away, out through the office, out to the hallway,
into the dim light of the arcade once more.
Here, for a few moments, they knew that they were safe. Retreat
through the Marble Court and up the stairs was fairly clear. There was
but one entrance open into the arcade, the one through Pine Tree Gate;
and this was blocked so narrowly by the giant bole that Stern knew
there could be no general mob-rush through it—no attack which he
could not for a while hold back, so long as his ammunition and the
girl's should last.
Thus they breathed more freely now. Most of the tumult outside had
been cut off from their hearing, by the retirement into the arcade.
They paused, to plan their course.
At Stern the girl looked eagerly.
"Oh, oh, Allan—how horrible!" she whispered. "It was all my fault for
having been so headstrong, for having insisted on a look at them!
Forgive me!"
"S-h!" he cautioned again. "No matter about that. The main thing, now,
is whether we attack or wait?"
"Attack? Now?"
"I don't think much of going up-stairs without that pail of water.
We'll have a frightful time with thirst, to say nothing of not being
able to make the Pulverite. Water we must have! If it weren't for your
being here, I'd mighty soon wade into that bunch and see who wins!
But—well, I haven't any right to endanger—"
Beatrice seized his hand and pulled him toward the doorway.
"Come on!" cried she. "If you and I aren't a match for
them
, we
don't deserve to live, that's all. You know how I can shoot now! Come
along!"
Her eyes gleamed with the light of battle, battle for liberty, for
life; her cheeks glowed with the tides of generous blood that coursed
beneath the skin. Never had Stern beheld her half so beautiful, so
regal in that clinging, barbaric Bengal robe of black and yellow,
caught at the throat with the clasp of raw gold.
A sudden impulse seized him, dominant, resistless. For a brief moment
he detained her; he held her back; about her supple body his arm
tightened.
She raised her face in wonder. He bent, a little, and on the brow he
kissed her rapturously.
"Thank God for such a comrade and a—friend!" said he.
Some few minutes later, together they approached Pine Tree
Gate, leading directly out into the Horde.
The girl, rosier than ever, held her Krag loosely in the hollow of her
bare, warm right arm. One of Stern's revolvers lay in its holster. The
other balanced itself in his right hand. His left held the precious
water-pail, so vital now to all their plans and hopes.
Girt in his garb of fur, belted and sandaled, well over six feet tall
and broad of shoulder, the man was magnificent. His red beard and
mustache, close-cropped, gave him a savage air that now well fitted
him. For Stern was mad—mad clear through.
That Beatrice should suffer in any way, even from temporary thirst,
raised up a savage resentment in his breast. The thought that perhaps
it might
not
be possible to gain access to the spring at all, that
these foul Things might try to blockade them and siege them to death,
wrought powerfully on him.
For himself he cared nothing. The girl it was who now preoccupied his
every thought. And as they made their way through the litter of the
explosion, toward the exit, slowly and cautiously, he spied out every
foot of the place for possible danger.
If fight he must, he knew now it would be a brutal, utterly merciless
fight—slaughter, extermination without any limit, to the end.
But there was scant time for thought. Already they could see daylight
glimmering in through the gate, past me massive column of the conifer.
Daylight—and with it came a thin and acrid smoke—and sounds of the
uproused Horde in Madison Forest.
"Slow! Slow, now!" whispered Stern. "Don't let 'em know a thing until
we've got 'em covered! If we surprise 'em just right, who knows but
the whole infernal mob may duck and run? Don't shoot till you have to;
but when you
do
—!"
"I know!" breathed she.
Then, all at once, there they were at the gate, at the big tree,
standing out there in the open, on the thick carpet of pine-spills.
And before them lay the mossy, shaded forest aisles—with what a
horror camped all through that peaceful, wondrous place!
"Oh!" gasped Beatrice. The engineer stopped as though frozen. His hand
tightened on the revolver-butt till the knuckles whitened. And thus,
face to face with the Horde, they stood for a long minute.
Neither of them realized exactly the details of that first impression.
The narrow slit of view which they had already got through the crack
in the wall had only very imperfectly prepared them for any
understanding of what these Things really were, en masse.
But both Beatrice and the engineer understood, even at the first
moment of their exit there, that they had entered an adventure whereof
the end could not be foreseen; that here before them lay possibilities
infinitely more serious than any they had contemplated.
For one thing, they had underestimated the numbers of the Horde. They
had thought, perhaps, there might be five hundred in all.
The torches had certainly numbered no more than that. But now they
realized that the torch-bearers had been but a very small fraction of
the whole; for, as their eyes swept out through the forest, whence the
fog had almost wholly risen, they beheld a moving, swarming mass of
the creatures on every hand. A mass that seemed to extend on, on to
indefinite vistas. A mass that moved, clicked, shifted, grunted,
stank, snarled, quarreled. A mass of frightful hideousness, of
inconceivable menace.
The girl's first impulse was to turn, to retreat back into the
building once more; but her native courage checked it. For Stern, she
saw, had no such purpose.
Surprised though he was, he stood there like a rock, head up, revolver
ready, every muscle tense and ready for whatsoever might befall. And
through the girl flashed a thrill of admiration for this virile,
indomitable man, coping with every difficulty, facing every peril—for
her sake.
Yet the words he uttered now were not of classic heroism. They were
simple, colloquial, inelegant. For Stern, his eyes blazing, said only:
"We're in bad, girl! They're on—we've got to bluff—bluff like the
devil!"
Have you ever seen a herd of cattle on the prairie, a herd of
thousands, shift and face and, as by instinct, lower their horned
heads against some enemy—a wolf-pack, maybe?
You know then, how this Horde of dwarfish, blue, warty, misformed
little horrors woke to the presence of the unknown enemy.
Already half alarmed by the warning given by the one, which, near the
crack in the wall, had sniffed the intruders and had howled, the pack
now broke into commotion. Stern and Beatrice saw a confused upheaving,
a shifting and a tumult. They heard a yapping outcry. The long, thin
spears began to bristle.
And all at once, as a dull, ugly hornet-hum rose through the wood,
they knew the moment for quick action was upon them.
"Here goes!" cried Stern, raging. "Let's see how
this
will strike
the hell-hounds!"
His face white with passion and with loathing hate, he raised the
automatic. He aimed at none of the pack, for angry as he was he
realized that the time was not yet come for killing, if other means to
reach the spring could possibly avail.
Instead he pointed the ugly blue muzzle up toward the branches of a
maple, under which a dense swarm of the Horde had encamped and now was
staring, apelike, at him.
Then his finger sought the trigger. And five crackling spurts of
flame, five shots spat out into the calm and misty air of morning. A
few severed leaves swayed down, idly, with a swinging motion. A broken
twig fell, hung suspended a moment, then detached itself again and
crapped to earth.
"Good Lord! Look a'
that
, will you?" cried Stern.
A startled cry broke from the girl's lips.
Both of them had expected some effect from the sudden fusillade, but
nothing like that which actually resulted.
For, as the quick shots echoed to stillness again, and even before the
first of the falling leaves had spiraled to the ground, an absolute,
unbroken silence fell upon that vile rabble of beast-men—the silence
of a numbing, paralyzing, sheer brute terror.
Some stood motionless, crouching on their bandy legs, holding to
whatsoever tree or bush was nearest, staring with wild eyes.
Others dropped to their knees.
But by far the greater part, thousands on thousands of the little
monstrosities, fell prone and grovelling. Their hideous masklike faces
hidden, there they lay on the moss and all among the undergrowth, the
trampled, desecrated, befouled undergrowth of Madison Forest.
Then all at once, over and beyond them, Stern saw the blue-curling
smudge of the remains of the great fire by the spring.
He knew that, for a few brief, all-precious moments, the way might
possibly be clear to come and go—to get water—to save Beatrice and
himself from the thirst—tortures—to procure the one necessary thing
for the making of his Pulverite.
His heart gave a great, up-bounding leap.
"Look, Beatrice!" cried he, his voice ringing out over the
terror-stricken things. "Look—we're gods! While this lasts—
gods!
Come, now's our only chance!
Come on!
—"
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 unspeakable
hideousness of the Things, at glimpses of gnawed bones, grisly bits of
flesh, dried gouts of blood upon the woodland carpet. "Don't
think—just come along!
"Five minutes, and we're safe, there and back again. S-h-h-h! Don't
hurry! Count, now—count your steps—one, two, three—four, five,
six—steady, steady!—"
Now they were ten yards from the tower, now twenty. Bravely they
walked, now straight ahead among the trees, now circling some
individual, some horrid group. Stern held the water-pail firmly. He
gripped the revolver in a grasp of iron. The magazine-rifle lay in
both 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 that
thought, for it may pull us through! These creatures here,
if
they're descended from the blacks, must have some story, some
tradition of the white man. Of his mastery, his power! We'll use it
now, by Heaven, as it never yet was used!"
Then he began to count again; and so, tense, watching with
eager-burning eyes and taut muscles, the man and woman made their way
of frightful peril.
A snuffling howl rose.
"You will, will you?" Stern cried, adding another kick to the one he
had just dealt to one of the creatures, who had ventured to look up at
their approach. "Lie down, ape!" And with the clangorous metal pail he
smote the ugly, brutish skull.
Beatrice gasped with fear; but the bluff made good. The creature
grovelled, and again the pair strode forward, masterfully. Masterfully
they had to go, or not at all. Masterfully, or die. For now their
all-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 beat
thick 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 simian
head; again a group that crouched and cowered in its filthy squalor,
hideously.
Then all at once, there right before her she saw the little woodland
path that, slightly descending, led past a big oak she well knew, down
to the margin of the pool.
"Steady, girl, steady!" came the engineer's warning, tense as
piano-wire. "Almost there, now. What's
that?
"
For a brief instant he hesitated. The girl felt his arm grow even more
taut, she heard his breath catch. Then she, too, looked—and saw.
It was enough, that sight, to have smitten with sick horror the
bravest man who ever lived. For there, beside the smouldering embers
of the great feast-fire, littered with bones and indescribable refuse,
a creature was squatting on its hams—one of the Horde, indeed, yet
vastly different, tremendously more venomous, more dangerous of
aspect.
Stern knew at once that here, not prostrate nor yet crouching, was the
chief of the blue Horde.
He knew it by the superior size and strength of the Thing, by the
almost manlike cunning of the low, gorilla face, the gleam of
intelligence in the reddened eye, the crude wreath of maple-leaves
upon 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 the
sight of stark, outright cannibalism would have done. A simple thing,
yet how ominous! A thing that argued reason in this reversion from the
human; a thing that sent the shuddering chills along the engineer's
spine.
For the chief, the obeah-man of this vile drove, rising now from
beside the fire with a gibbering chatter and a look of bestial malice,
held between his fangs a twisted brown leaf.