The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes (25 page)

             
"At the foot of the dock, Poole turned again, the cold eyes gleaming in the sunlight. 'I presume you wish to see our little town? You will find it quiet. This is a festival of our church, and all of our people rest during the day to prepare for the evening service, by fasting and by prayer. 1 would be doing so too, but for the duties of hospitality, which are paramount.'

             
"I had been trying to analyze his very odd accent since I'd first heard it. It was not West Indian, but a curiously altered Cockney, flat and nasal, something like the worst sort of Australian, what they call '
Stryne
.' I thought then, and still think, that I know exactly how Uriah
Heep
must have sounded.

             
"As we walked up the silent main street, which lay dreaming in the white heat, our feet kicking up tiny clouds of coral dust, I suddenly saw something move in the shadow of a house. At first I thought it was a cat, then a large rat, but as it moved, it came momentarily into a patch of sunlight, and I stopped to stare.

             
"It was a soldier, a hermit crab, but enormous in size, at least a foot long, its naked body hidden in and carrying a huge conch shell as it scuttled clumsily along. As we came abreast of it, its stalked eyes seemed to notice us, and to my surprise, instead of retreating, it ran out toward us and stopped only a foot away. Its great orange and purple claws looked capable of severing one's wrist, or a finger, at any rate.

             
"Poole had stopped too, and then, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a linen bag from which he extracted a strip of dried meat. He leaned down, do you know, and placed it in front of the crab. It seized it and began to shred it in the huge claws, passing bits back to its mouth, where other smaller appendages chewed busily. It was as thoroughly nasty a sight as I'd ever glimpsed. Also, I wondered at the meat.

             
" 'That's a monster,' I said. 'How on earth do you
tame
them? I had no idea they grew so big. And I thought you ate no meat?'

             
" 'They are not
tame,
as you in the gross world think of it,' said Poole sharply. 'They are our little brothers, our friends, as much a part of life as we, and all units of the great chain live here in peace, some higher, some lower, but all striving to close the great circle which holds us to the material earth, at peace, yet in competition, the lower sinking, failing, the higher mastering the lower, then aiding. It is all a part of—' His whining voice rose as he spoke, but then suddenly stopped as he realized that our expressions were baffled, unmoved by the exposition of his extraordinary creed. 'You would not understand,' he finished lamely, and pocketing the still unexplained meat, he turned to lead us on. We followed, glancing at one another. Behind us, the huge crab
slill
crunched on its dainty, clicking and mumbling.

             
"Wrapped in thought about Poole and his religion, I really didn't notice that we had come to the town square, until I almost ran into Joe, who had stopped in front of me.

             
"Before us now stood the church we had glimpsed earlier, a massive, white-
stuccoed
structure with a pointed spire. As I looked up, I could see by squinting that the shiny object on the steeple was, indeed, not a cross. It was a huge crab claw, gilded and gleaming in the sunlight!

             
"My jaw must have dropped, because Poole felt it incumbent on himself to explain. 'We have abandoned the more obvious Christian symbols,' he said. 'And since our friends, the soldiers, are the commonest local inhabitants, we choose to symbolize the unity of all life by placing their limb on our little place of worship.'

             
" 'Rather! I can see it's their church,' said Joe pointing. 'Look there, Donald.'

             
"As he spoke, I saw what he had seen first, that the shadows around the base of the church were moving and alive—alive with the great hermit crabs.

             
"Large, small, and a few immense, they rustled and clanked in and around the coral blocks which formed the base, and the scrubby bushes which flanked the blocks, a sea of shells, claws, spiny legs and stalked eyes.

             
"Poole must have seen that we were revolted, because he moved on abruptly, leaving us no choice except to follow him. As we moved, I heard a distant human sound break the hot silence for the first time that morning, the sound of hammering. It came from our right, toward the edge of town, and peering down a sandy street in that direction, I thought I could identify the source as a long shed-like structure, about a third of a mile away.

             
" 'I thought everyone had retired to pray?' said Joe at the same moment. 'What's that hammering?'

             
"Poole looked annoyed. I never met a man less good at disguising his feelings, but since he normally never had to while on his island, it must have been quite hard to learn. Finally, his face cleared and the spurious benevolence gained control.

             
" 'A few of the men are working on religious instruments,' he said. 'We have a festival coming: we call it the Time of the Change, so there is a dispensation for them. Would you like to see them at work?'

             
"Since the silent town had so far yielded nothing of interest except the soldiers, which we loathed, we said yes.

             
"We came at length to one end of the long building, and Poole held aside a rattan screen door so that we could go in first. A blast of frightful heat hit us in the face as we entered.

             
"Inside, the building was one long open shed, lit by vents in the walls, and by a fire which blazed in a trench running half the length of the structure. Several giant metal cauldrons bubbled over the fire, with huge pieces of some horn-like material sticking out of them.

             
"Over against one wall were several long benches, and at these, a number of bronzed white men, stripped to tattered shorts, were furiously hammering at more pieces of the horny substance, flattening it and bending it, forcing it into huge wooden clamps and vises and pegging it together.

             
"As we watched, several of them stopped work and seized a huge piece of the stuff and dragging i
n
to the fire, dumped it into one of the giant pots. No one paid us the slightest attention, but simply kept working as though driven by some frantic need, some internal pressure. The whole affair was most mysterious.

             
"I stepped close to one of the pots to see if I could learn what it was they were working on, and as I looked I saw, to my amazement, it was tortoise shell.

             
"Now, a hawksbill sea turtle, the only known source of shell, seldom grows one much over a yard long, you know. The pieces these men were working on must have been made with many dozens of them at least. What on earth were they doing?

             
"Poole, who had been surveying our bewilderment with a sardonic smile, decided to mystify us further. Tapping Joe on the shoulder and pointing, he started walking down the length of the long shed, skirting the fires and the workmen, but ignoring them.

             
"His goal was the far left-hand corner, which we now saw had a palm-thatch curtain extending from floor to ceiling, masking what lay behind.

             
"With the air of a second-rate showman on his unpleasant face, he pulled on a rope and drew the high brown curtain aside. 'Behold our aim, gentlemen. Here is a fitting offering that we make for the altar of the Most High!'

             
"What we saw was certainly worth more than a little showmanship. Before us, poised on seven or eight large sawhorses, was a giant, gleaming shell, as if some colossal and quite improbable snail had washed up from the deeps of the sea. Golden, mottled and semi-translucent, it towered over our heads, and must have been at least twelve feet in diameter from the great opening in the base to the peak of the spiral tip. As we drew closer we saw that the whole marvelous object was artificial, being made of plates of overlapping tortoise shell pegged so cunningly that it was hard to see any joint. At one place on the side, a large gap showed where the work was not yet complete. Obviously, this was why the silent, half-naked workers were toiling so industriously. It was a very beautiful and awe-inspiring sight, if still a mysterious one.

             
"Poole drew the curtain closed and stood with his arms in his coat pockets smiling at our amazement. 'That's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen,' I said, quite honestly. 'May I ask what you do with it when it's finished?'

             
"Some strong emotion flashed for a second across his face, to be replaced by a bland expression of benignity. 'We set it afloat on a large raft, surrounded by offerings of fruit and flowers,' he said. 'An offering to God, to be swept where He wills by the waves and winds.'

             
"Seeing our incomprehension at the idea of so much hard work going to waste, he elaborated, still smiling in his sneering way. 'You see, it takes a long time to make the shell. The whole community, our whole little island, participates. Men must catch turtles. Then they must be killed, as mercifully as possible, the shell cured in a special manner and so on, right up until the final work. Then, when we gather at the ceremony of departure, all our people share in the delight of speeding it forth. We feel that we send our sins with it and that our long labor and offering to God may help our souls to Paradise. A naive idea to you, cultivated men of the great, outside world, no doubt, but very dear to us. My father, of blessed memory, the Founder, devised the whole idea.'

             
"Actually, you know, the idea was a lovely and reverent one. It reminded me of the Doge of Venice marrying the Sea, and other ceremonies of a similar nature. Brother Poole must have spent some time indeed on the composition of his tale, for it was quite the pleasantest thing we had heard about the island.

             
"While he had been speaking, we had passed out of the shed into the glaring sunlight, which seemed cool after the inferno we had left behind us.

             
"As we stood blinking in the sun, Poole turned to us with the false benignity now vanished from his face. 'So, gentlemen, you have seen all there is to see of our little town. There is an important religious festival tonight, the launching of our offering. I must ask you to purchase such supplies as you need and leave before this evening, since non-believers are not permitted here during our holy night and day, which is tomorrow. I can sell you any supplies you may need.'

             
"Well, we had no reason to linger. Personally, as I said earlier, I had taken a profound dislike to the whole town and particularly to Brother Poole, who seemed to embody it, as well as actually to direct it. We walked to the wharf, discussing what we needed on the way. Poole seemed ready to sell fruit, bananas, mangoes and papayas, as well as bread, at perfectly honest prices, and offered us fresh water free of any charge at all.

             
"Only once did any hardness come back into his voice, and that was when I asked if any spiny lobsters,
langouste,
were for sale.

             
" 'We do not take life here,' he said. 'I told you earlier of our rule.'

             
"Joe could not help breaking in with an obvious point, although he should have known better when dealing with a fanatic.

             
" 'What about the turtles. You kill them for their shells and presumably eat the meat? And what about the fish you catch?'

             
"Poole looked murderous. 'We do not eat meat,' he snapped. 'You would not understand, being heretics, unaware of the Divine Revelation, but the turtles' deaths are allowable, since we beautify our offering to God with their shells. The greater cause is served through a smaller fault. Also, the fish are set aside to us as our portion, although a sinful one. But what is the use of explaining these holy things to you, since you have not seen the Light?'