"I knew we should have brought along that flask of brandy," I said. "We have absolutely nothing for snakebite."
"No time for reproaches, you imbecile!"
Holmes said. "Besides, what kind of medical man are you? It's sheer superstitious nonsense that alcohol helps prevent the effects of venom."
"Really, Holmes," I said. He had been getting so irascible lately, so insulting. Part of this could be excused, since he became very nervous without the solace of tobacco. Even so, I thought . . . The thought was never finished. The cobra struck, and Holmes and I both jumped, yelling at the same time.
Something hissed through the air. The cobra was knocked aside by the impact of a missile, and it writhed dying on the ground. An arrow transfixed it just back of the head.
"Steady, Watson!" Holmes said. "We are saved, but the savage who shot that may have preserved us only so he'll have fresher meat for his pot!"
Suddenly, we leaped into the air again, uttering a frightened scream.
Seemingly out of the air, a man had appeared before us.
My heart was beating too hard and my breath was coming too swiftly for me to say anything for a moment.
Holmes recovered first.
He said, "Lord Greystoke, I presume?"
7
He seemed to be a giant, though actually he was only about three inches taller than Holmes. His bones were large, extraordinarily so, and though he was muscular, the muscles were not the knots of the professional strong man. Where a wrestler or weight lifter recalls a gorilla, he resembled a leopard. The face was handsome and striking. His hair was chopped off at the base of the neck, apparently by use of the huge hunting knife in the scabbard suspended by an antelope-skin belt just above the leopard-skin loincloth. The hair was as black as an Arab's, as was the bronzed skin which was criss-crossed with scars. His eyes were large and dark grey and had about them something both feral and remote. His nose was straight, his upper lip was short, and his chin was square and clefted.
He held in one hand a short thick bow of some wood and carried on his back a quiver with a dozen more arrows.
So this is Lord Greystoke, I thought. Yes, his features are enough like those of the ten-year-old Lord Saltire we rescued in the adventure of the Priory School for him to be a twin. But this man radiates a frightening ferality, a savagery more savage than any possessed by the most primitive of men. This could not possibly be the scion of an ancient British stock, not by any stretch of the fancy the English gentleman that Saltire had been even at the age of ten. This man had been raised in a school that made the hazing of the Priory, Rugby, and Oxford seem like the child's play that it was.
Of course, I thought, he may be mad. How otherwise account for the strange tales that floated about the clubs and the salons of our nobility and gentry?
However, I thought, he could be a product which the British occasionally turn out. Every once in a while, a son of our island, affected in some mystical way by the Orient or Africa, goes more native than the native. There was Sir Richard Francis Burton, more Arab than the Arab, and Lord John Roxton, who was said to be wilder than the Amazon Indians with whom he consorted.
During the next few minutes I decided that the first guess, that he had gone mad, was the correct one.
He said, in a deep rich baritone, "I am known as Lord Greystoke, among other things." Without offering to shake our hands or determine our identity, as any true gentleman would, he put upon the snake one naked foot, calloused an inch thick on its sole, and he pulled the arrow out. He wiped it on the grass, replaced the arrow in the quiver, and cut off the head of the reptile. While we stared in fascination and disgust, he skinned the cobra and then began biting off chunks of its meat and chewing it. The blood dripped down his chin while he stared with those beautiful but wild eyes at us.
"Would you care for some?" he said, and he grinned at us most bloodily.
"Not unless it's cooked," Holmes replied coolly.
"Cooked or raw, I'd rather starve," I said, ungrammatically but sincerely.
"Starve then," Greystoke said.
"I say," I protested. "We are fellow Englishmen, aren't we? Would you let us die of hunger while those Germans are . . . "
He stopped chewing, and his face became quite fierce.
"Germans!" he said. "Here ? Nearby? Where are they?"
Holmes outlined our story, leaving certain parts out for security purposes. Greystoke listened him out, though impatiently, and he said, "I will kill them."
"Without giving them a chance to surrender?" I said horrifiedly.
"I don't take prisoners," he said, glaring at me. "Not any soldier, black or white, who fights for Germany. It was a band of black soldiers, under white officers, who murdered my wife and my warriors who were guarding her and burned down my house around her. I have sworn to kill every German I come across until this war ends."
He added, "And perhaps after it ends!"
"But these men are not soldiers!" I said weakly. "They are sailors, members of the Imperial German Navy!"
"They will die no less."
"Their commander dealt with us as an officer and a gentleman should," Holmes said. "In fact, we owe our lives to him."
"For that he shall have a quick and painless death."
Holmes said, "Could we at least make a fire and cook that reptile first and perhaps hear your story?"
Greystoke threw the skeleton, which was stripped of most of its meat, to one side. "I'll hunt something more suitable to your civilised palates," he said. "After all, they won't get away."
He said this so grimly and assuredly that shivers ran up my spine, "And you two stay here," he said. He was gone, taken in swiftly and silently by the vegetation.
"Good God, Holmes!" I cried. "The man is a beast, a savage engine geared for vengeance! And, Holmes, whoever he is, he was certainly never the child whom we brought back safely to the duke at Pemberley House!* Why, surely he would have recognised his saviours even though we are older! Fifteen years have not made that much difference in us!"
[*The true name of the ducal mansion Watson called Holdernesse Hall in "The Adventure of the Priory School." A description of the estate is found in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Editor.]
"But they have in him, heh?" Holmes said.
"Watson, there are muddy waters in this stream. I have kept a watch on that family over the years, an infrequent watch, it is true. For some reason, we keep bumping into members of the duke's family or into people who've been involved with them. It was the duchess who shot Milverton, it was Black Peter Carey who, I strongly suspect, murdered our present Lord Greystoke's uncle, you know, the Socialist duke who drove a cab for a while . . . "
"In the affair of the hound of the Baskervilles?" I broke in.
"You know I don't like being interrupted, Watson," he said testily. "As I was saying, Carey probably murdered the fifth duke before he came to a bad, but deserved, end at Forest Row. I have reason to believe that Carey, under another name, was aboard the ship carrying the fifth duke's son and his wife to Africa when it was lost with all hands aboard — for all the public knew, that is. Then I was called in again by the sixth duke to find his illegitimate son, who, it turned out, settled in the States instead of in Australia. It is a weird web which has tangled our fortunes with those of the Greystokes."*
[*For a fuller description of this involvement, see my definitive biography of Lord Greystroke. Editor.]
"I just can't believe that this man is the sixth duke's son!" I said.
"The jungle can change a man," Holmes said. "However, I agree with you, even though his features and his voice are remarkably similar. Our Lord Greystoke is an impostor. But how in the world did he succeed in passing himself off as the real Lord Greystoke? And when? And what happened to the sixth duke's son, the child we knew as Lord Saltire?"*
[*It is the English custom to address the sons of noblemen with an honorary title, though legally the sons are commoners. The duke had several secondary ti
tles, the highest of which was Marquess of Saltire. Thus the duke's son was known as Lord Saltire. Editor.]
"Good Lord!" I said. "Do you suspect murder?"
"Anybody is capable of murder, my dear Watson," he said. "Even you and I, given the proper circumstances and the proper, or improper, state of emotion. But I have a feeling, a hunch, that this man would not be capable of cold-blooded murder. He may be emotionally unstable, though."
"Fingerprints!" I cried, elated because I had anticipated Holmes.
He smiled and said, "Yes, that would establish whether or not he is an impostor. But I doubt that there is any record of Saltire's fingerprints."
"His handwriting?" I said, somewhat crushed.
"He would search out and destroy all papers bearing Saltire's handwriting, all he could get his hands on. There must be many that he could not obtain, however, and if these could be found, we could compare Saltire's holographs with Greystoke's. I imagine that Greystoke has trained himself to write like Saltire, but an expert, myself, for instance, could easily distinguish the forgery. However, we are now in no position to do such a thing, and from the looks of things we may never be in such a position. Also, before I went to the authorities, I would make sure that the revelation would be useful. After all, we don't know why Greystoke has done this. He may be innocent of murder."
"Surely," I said, "You aren't thinking of asking Greystoke to confess?"
"What? With a high certainty that we might be killed on the spot? And perhaps eaten? I don't think Greystoke would put us on his menu if other meat were available. If he were starving, he might not be so discriminating."
I hesitated and then I said, "I am going to confess something to you, Holmes. You remember when we were discussing Greystoke in Mycroft's office? You said that you had heard about the novel, the highly fictionalised and romanticised account of Greystoke's adventures in Africa? You also mentioned that very few copies of the novel had reached England because of the declaration of hostilities shortly before the book was published?"
"Yes ?" Holmes said, looking at me strangely.
"Knowing your attitude toward my reading of what you consider trash, I did not tell you that a friend of mine in San Francisco-he was my best man when I married my first
wife-sent me a copy not only of the first book but of its sequel. I have read them . . . "
"Good Lord!" Holmes said. "I can understand your shame, Watson, but withholding evidence . . . "
"What evidence?" I replied more hotly than was my wont, no doubt due to fatigue, hunger, and anxiety. "There was no crime then of which we were aware!"
"Touche!" Holmes said. "Pray accept my apologies. And continue."
"The American author, and what a wild imagination he has, pretends that the real Lord Greystoke was born in a cabin off the shore of western Africa. In his novel Greystoke's parents are marooned by mutineers. Unable to make their way back to civilisation, they build a hut and young Greystoke is born in it. When his parents die the baby is adopted bya female of a band of intelligent anthropoid apes. These apes are a product of the inflamed imagination of the author, who, by the way, has never been to Africa or apparently read much about it. To make a long story short, the boy grows, up, learns to read and write English without ever having heard a word of English . . . "
"Preposterous!"
"Perhaps, but the author makes it seem possible. Then a white girl, American, of course, and her family and associates, among whom is the youth who inherited the title of Greystoke . . . "
"Please speak in shorter sentences, Watson.
And back up in your story a little."
is that the American read some newspaper or magazine accounts of how Lord Greystoke, a prime example of English eccentricity, or of madness, had abandoned his heritage, for all practical purposes, and settled down in Africa. To make matters worse, he'd gone native. No, worse than native, since no native would be caught dead living as he does, alone in the jungle, killing lions with a knife, eating meat raw, consorting with chimpanzees and gorillas. So, this Yank sees a highly sensational novel in all this and formulates a plot and characters which are bound to appeal to the public."
"Perhaps," I said. "Allow me to tell you what transpired in the sequel which the Yankee wrote."
I proceeded to do so, after which I waited for Holmes to comment. He sat leaning against a tree trunk, his brows knit, much as I have seen him sit for an entire night while he considered a case. After several minutes he burst out, "God I How I miss my pipe, Watson! Nicotine is more than an aid to thought, it is a necessity! It's a wonder that anything was done in the sciences or the arts before the discovery of America!"
Absently, he reached out and picked up a stick off the ground. He put it in his mouth, no doubt intending to suck on it as a substitute, however unsatisfactory, for the desiderated pipe. The next moment he leaped up with a yell that startled me. I cried, "What have you found, Holmes? What is it?"
"That, curse it!" he shouted and pointed at the stick. It was travelling at a fast rate on a number of thin legs toward a refuge under a log.
"Great Scott!" I said. "It's an insect, a mimetic!"
"How observant of you," he said, snarling.
But the next moment he was down on his knees and groping after the creature.
"What on earth are you doing?" I said.
"It does taste like tobacco," he said. "Expediency is the mark of a . . . "
I never heard the rest. An uproar broke out in the jungle nearby, the shouts of men mortally wounded.
"What is it?" I said. "Could Greystoke have found the Germans ?"
Then I fell silent and clutched him, as he clutched me, while a yell pierced the forest, a yell that ululated and froze our blood and hushed the wild things.
8
Holmes unfroze and started in the direction of the sound. I said, "Wait, Holmes! Greystoke ordered us not to leave this place! He must have his reasons for that!"
"Duke or not, he isn't going to order me around!" Holmes said. Nevertheless, he halted. It was not a change of mind about the command; it was the crashing of men thrusting through the jungle toward us. We turned and plunged into the bush in the opposite direction while a cry behind us told us that we had been seen. A moment later, heavy hands fell upon us and dragged us down. Someone gave an order in a language unknown to me, and we were jerked roughly to our feet.
Our captors were four tall men of a dark Caucasian race with features somewhat like those of the ancient Persians. They wore thick quilted helmets of some cloth, thin sleeveless shirts, short kilts, and knee-high leather boots. They were armed with small round steel shields, short heavy two-edged swords, heavy two-headed steel axes with long wooden shafts, and bows and arrows.
They said something to us. We looked blank.
Then they turned as a weak cry came from the other side of the clearing. One of their own staggered out from the bush only to fall flat on his face and lie there unmoving. An arrow, which I recognized as Greystoke's, projected from his back.
Seeing this, the men became alarmed, though I suppose they had been alarmed all along. One ran out, examined the man, shook his head, and raced back. We were half-lifted, half-dragged along with them in a mad dash through vegetation that tore and ripped our clothes and us. Evidently ·they had run up against Greystoke, which was not a thing to be recommended at any time. I didn't know why they burdened themselves with two exhausted old men, but I surmised that it was for no beneficent purpose.
I will not recount in detail that terrible journey. Suffice it to say that we were four days and nights in the jungle, walking all day, trying. to sleep at night. We were scratched, bitten, and torn, tormented with itches that wouldn't stop and sometimes sick from insect bites. We went through almost impenetrable jungle and waded waist-deep in swamps which held hordes of blood-sucking leeches. Half of the time, however, we progressed fairly swiftly along paths whose ease of access convinced me that they must be kept open by regular work parties.
&
nbsp; The third day we started up a small mountain. The fourth day we went down it by being let down in a bamboo cage suspended by ropes from a bamboo boom. Below us lay the end of a lake that wound out of sight among the precipices that surrounded it. We were moved along at a fast pace toward a canyon into which the arm of the lake ran. Our captors pulled two dugouts out of concealment and we were paddled into the fjord. After rounding a corner, we saw before us a shore that sloped gently upward to a precipice several miles beyond it. A village of bamboo huts with thatched roofs spread along the' shore and some distance inland.
The villagers came running when they saw us. A drum began beating some place, and to its beat we were marched up a narrow street and to a hut near the biggest hut. We were thrust into this, a gate of bamboo bars was lashed to the entrance, and we sat against its back wall while the villagers took turns looking in at us. As a whole, they were a good-looking people, the average of beauty being much higher than that seen in the East End of London, for instance. The women wore only long cloth skirts, though necklaces of shells hung around their necks and their long hair was decorated with flowers. The prepubescent children were stark naked.
Presently, food was brought to us. This consisted of delicious baked fish, roasted pygmy antelope, unleavened bread, and a brew that would under other circumstances have been too sweet for my taste. I am not ashamed to admit that Holmes and I gorged ourselves, devouring everything set before us.
I went to sleep shortly afterward, waking after dusk with a start. A torch flared in a stanchion just outside the entrance, at which two guards stood. Holmes was sitting near it, reading his Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, With Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen. "Holmes," I began, but he held up his hand for silence. His keen ears had detected a sound a few seconds before mine did. This swelled to a hubbub with the villagers swarming out while the drum beat again. A moment later we saw the cause of the uproar. Six warriors, with Reich and Von Bork among them, were marching toward us. And while we watched curiously the two Germans were shoved into our hut.
The Adventure of the Peerless Peer Page 5
