Rapidly, he gave orders to the four men, and then addressed himself to the Scaly Men, partly by signs and partly by means of strange whistling sounds, to which they replied.
In a quarter of an hour, the expedition was ready, the men armed with rifles and each of the Scaly Men with a sort of red harpoon and a semi-circular plate. Leather bags were suspended from their waists.
“Let’s go!” said Darnley.
As the troop left the red ground, he said to the young woman: “There’s no reason to be anxious. The fact is that they aren’t murderous. Even when the acceleration and the sleep are prolonged, there’s no great harm done. I’ve seen animals weighed down or put to sleep for three or four days without suffering any lasting damage.”
“But what if carnivorous animals invade the camp while they’re asleep?” Muriel objected. “Your crocodiles and giant leopards are terrible.”
“Nothing to fear! Our friends will wake up automatically before any animal has reached their camp. The sleep wears off about an hour after the termination of the ‘acceleration’—and during that hour, any region subjected to the phenomenon is respected…except by those who fill the roles of humans and are less obedient to instinct…but almost all the tribes in the vicinity are among my allies.”
The humans and pseudo-humans followed the trail, powerfully aided by the scaly animals.
“What would they do?” Muriel asked, tremulously. “I mean, the ones who aren’t your allies…”
“I don’t know, exactly. The various tribes don’t have the same mores. Besides, there are two races. The less numerous is the more dangerous.” He shook his head, and a shadow passed over his eyes, but he smiled and added: “It’s almost certain that we’ll find the caravan safe and sound. Come on!”
Muriel scarcely recognized the locations through which she had passed. She talked to Darnley about the forest of giant Mimosas. “Is it dangerous to go into it?” she asked.
“The region contains several such forests. If one doesn’t commit any depredation or any imprudence, and if one refrains from entering any forbidden zone, one can move freely there.”
“How does one recognize the forbidden zones?”
“One perceives them, my child. The acceleration is one sign. Whenever it occurs, it’s necessary to stop and wait, or go around the obstacle. A mysterious anguish is another sign: one chokes, and is gripped by dread. Sometimes, it’s a fever. It gets worse the further one advances into the forbidden region. It sometimes happens that one is simply repelled…”
“Are there boundaries that must never be crossed?”
“No—there are only actions from which it’s necessary always to abstain. You find out what they are very quickly.”
They had passed the mound where the blue predator had attacked Muriel. It was now necessary to follow an unknown trail, for the young woman could only give her companions vague directions. The Scaly Men and the pseudo-dogs applied themselves to the task with surprising flair.
Finally, they all stopped. Then they explored a strip of land in every direction.
“The caravan stopped here!” said Darnley. “Here’s the proof.” He pointed to traces left by the tent-pegs, a box of conserves that had fallen on to the ground and a frayed rope.
One of the men uttered an exclamation, soon echoed by the others. The Scaly Men were digging in the ground.
“Master,” said the man who spoke English, “they’ve been here—see their footprints.”
Anxiety stiffened Samuel Darnley’s features. “No traces of a struggle?” he asked.
“None, Master.” The native looked alternately at Darnley and Muriel.
“Speak, I beg you!” said the young woman.
Samuel made a fatalistic gesture; it would do no good to beat around the bush—the young woman would always assume the worst. “Yes, speak,” he said in his turn.
“They have taken the caravan prisoner.”
“Which they?”
“Those who are like men.”
An obscure fear chilled Muriel, and visions of death haunted her.
Samuel saw her grow pale. “I don’t think they’ll kill them,” he said. “At least, not for a long time…” He seemed to regret having pronounced the last words. He went on: “Let’s not waste any time! Let’s go!”
The men, the animals and the Scaly Men now followed the trail as easily as if the abductors and their prisoners were visible. They passed through the heath of pines, ferns and hairy mosses. The latter became gigantic, and the tall arborescent ferns rustled in the breeze, sheltering a population of marsupials.
Darnley hardly said a word.
They reached the red gorge in this fashion. The pursuers had advanced prudently; occasionally, one of the natives would put his ear to the ground. The Scaly Men stopped periodically. Darnley knew that they were interrogating the surroundings, being endowed with a sense comparable to that of bats.
“Do you think we’re getting close?” asked Muriel, timidly.
“Not yet,” said Samuel. “They had several hours start. We can’t count on catching them up before dusk, if they stop.”
“What if they don’t stop?”
Darnley raised his eyebrows dubiously.
“Do you have any hope of saving our friends?” asked Muriel, tremulously.
“I have every hope.” Seeing the young woman’s tearful face, he thought it as well to give her a few details. “In all probability, it’s the Red Circus tribe. It has about a 150 combatants. We only have 40, but I’ve sent for reinforcements—so there’s no need to worry. Ah!”
One of the men had just signaled the abductors’ first halt. The terrain was explored in every direction, and having revealed nothing out of the ordinary, the pursuit continued. They went into the red gorge, where they halted. The natives and Darnley had a short meal; Muriel had difficulty swallowing a few mouthfuls of some sort of biscuit. The Scaly Men nourished themselves on fern-roots and a sort of mucilaginous paste made from lichens.
Afterwards, a Scaly Man appeared to spring from a rocky outcrop, and whistled softly.
“The reinforcements are arriving,” said Darnley.
“My God!” murmured the young woman. “Will there be a battle, then?”
“Perhaps not. The people of the Red Circus know us; they know we’re better armed than they are.”
“They’ll have the prisoners’ weapons.”
“They’re incapable of making use of them.”
The expedition advanced, with increasing precautions, preceded by a guard of natives, hounds and a few Scaly Men. Two hours before dusk, the scouts returned. Darnley conferred with them briefly and came back to Muriel. His expression was very grave.
“It’s definitely the people of the Red Circus,” he said. Our scouts don’t think they’ve been seen. Anyway, whatever happens, it’s in the Circus that the outcome will be decided. They can’t abandon it, because of their women and children, and it’s there that they feel strongest. Let’s take our precautions.”
He took a bottle from his pocket, poured a few drops into a minuscule cup, and said to Miss Ironcastle: “This is an antidote. Take it!”
Muriel drank the liquor without hesitation, immediately imitated by Darnley. She could see that the natives and the Scaly Men were doing the same. The Africans were using cups, like Darnley; the others were making use of a sort of pipe that contained the liquid.
“Now we’re armored!” said Darnley. “Let’s go!”
They moved forward more rapidly, but without omitting the necessary precautions.
“The tribes all possess the art of provoking sleep, by the incineration or evaporation of certain substances,” Darnley said, “but they also know the remedy, which is what we’ve just employed. It has to be taken at least half an hour in advance in order that it has time to take effect.”
“When shall we arrive?” Muriel asked.
“We’re no more than three kilometers from the Red Circus. Permit me to give the final orders.”
He summoned two men and two of his allies. For a few minutes, words and whistles alternated.
“We’re ready!” said the explorer, having returned to Muriel. “Now we need a little luck.”
Muriel was surprised to see some 15 Scaly Men climbing the rocks. As they reached the summits they disappeared.
“They’re veritable experts in matters of stone,” Samuel explained. “They know the exits from the Red Circus.”
The march slowed down again. Humans and animals maintained a profound silence. Darnley had moved closer to the advance guard, having instructed Muriel to follow at a distance.
About half an hour passed, and then whistles burst forth. Darnley and his men accelerated to a trot. Muriel could not help doing likewise.
The Red Circus was there. Smoke was billowing, which spread an aromatic odor—and they saw several hundred frenzied creatures whirling around, while a group of white and black men lay on the ground.
“My father!” Muriel exclaimed—and added, in a lower voice: “Philippe!”
Darnley, his followers and his allies blocked the entrance to the Circus. Scaly Men seemed to surge from the rocks; they launched flaming projectiles, which burned brightly, producing green smoke. Among the troops massed at the entrance to the gorge, 20 Scaly Men were doing identical work.
Gradually, the turbulent mass relented in its movements. Two sorts of adults became discernible; some, identical to those accompanying Darnley, were presumably the males; the others, shorter and stouter, with strange pockets of skin on their abdomens, had to be the females. Finally, thinner individuals, some of whom were very small, could only be children.
Within a moment, the men gathered together, and Darnley considered them with a certain anxiety.
“They’re beaten!” he said to Muriel, who had just caught up with him. “In a few minutes, they’ll be powerless—but a moment of desperation is possible, and might cost lives needlessly.”
No attack occurred. The children were beginning to collapse; then a few women fell and the men began to vacillate.
“Praise the Lord!” murmured Darnley. “We have them, and we’ve arrived in time.”
“My father and his friends?”
“Nothing to fear. Even if I didn’t have what’s needed to revive them, we’d only have to wait for the narcotic to wear off—but I’ve been armed for some time.”
Meanwhile, the people of the Red Circus were falling down one after another, so rapidly that after ten minutes, not one was still standing.
“They’ll be out for several hours,” said Darnley.
Muriel was already running to her father, whom she embraced convulsively. Darnley took a translucent bottle from one of his pockets, uncorked it and plunged a fine syringe into it. He gave successive injections to Ironcastle, Maranges, Farnham, Guthrie, Dick and Patrick, and then to the men, while his companions loosened their bonds.
Muriel waited, her heart beating rapidly.
Ironcastle awoke first, then Maranges and Sir George. For a few minutes, their thoughts remained blurred and slow. Finally, Hareton’s eyes shone; he saw his daughter, and uttered a great cry of joy; then he saw Darnley, and memories of yesteryear came flooding back.
“What happened?” he murmured. “We were prisoners.”
“You’re free!” said Darnley, kissing him on both cheeks.
In their turn, Philippe and Sir George recovered consciousness.
The sight of Muriel dazzled Philippe. “Safe! You’re safe!”
Guthrie was the last to wake up. When his consciousness emerged from the fog, he uttered a cry of fury. The sight of a group of Scaly Men lying on the ground fascinated him. He ran toward them, and lifted two of them into the air with a loud grunt.
“Stop!” Hareton shouted. “They’re vanquished!”
Guthrie, confused, replaced the two inert bodies on the ground.
“This is my friend Darnley,” said Ironcastle. “It’s thanks to him that we’ve escaped…” He stopped.
Sir George asked: “From the jaws of what peril have we been snatched?”
Darnley smiled. “I don’t know. Not immediate death, at any rate. At the moment when we intervened, you were about to serve as their prey—in a very particular fashion. They don’t eat flesh, but they drink blood. When it’s a matter of their own kind, or the animals of the region, it’s rare that it causes death, but you might have been weakened excessively…and thus incapable of reconstituting yourselves. In this land, creatures have adapted to long fasts and considerable losses of blood.”
“So these brutes are vampires!” growled Sydney, disgustedly.
“Not in the legendary sense,” said Darnley, laughing.
Epilogue
The Vegetal Legend
“This fish is astonishingly reminiscent of a salmon-trout!” Guthrie remarked, eating with enthusiasm.
“Yes,” Darnley replied. “As flesh, that’s incontestable—but as to genre and species, that’s another matter entirely. It’s more closely related to goldfish…although, in fact, it has no place in the known classification.”
“I’ll give it a nice place in my stomach, at any rate!” Guthrie joked.
The diners were lunching in a granite room, whose furniture was due to the genius of natives and Scaly Men and the industry of Darnley. Comfort was not lacking; the seats were upholstered. As for knives, forks, spoons, plates and dishes, the caravan, having been brought back safe and sound, had furnished the necessary complement.
Through open windows, they could see an area of red stone surrounded by a locale of pines, ferns, giant mosses and monstrous lichens.
The travelers, who had returned three or four hours before dawn, frightfully tired, had slept like bears.
“No Mimosas hereabouts?” said Hareton.
“No,” Darnley replied, “we’re at home—for these pines, ferns, mosses and lichens are as harmless as those in our old fatherlands. The pre-eminence of the vegetation begins with the angiosperms and, as you already know, attains its full amplitude in the Mimosas.”
Servants brought in two haunches of roast antelope, which obtained Sydney’s eager and disrespectful attention.
“Is that because the animals and the sort of humans that took us prisoner don’t have any means of defense against the plants?” asked Sir George.
“Against the superior plants—those, at least, that are superior here—they have no resource but avoidance or strict obedience to their ‘laws and decrees’. Free license, as I’ve already said, with gymnosperms and, a fortiori, cryptogams, but as soon as one arrives at monocotyledons, the danger commences and is subsequently aggravated, according to an irregular norm. I don’t know why the all-powerful vegetables are the Mimosas, or, rather, certain gamopetalous plants.42 One would be tempted to think, a priori, that the inferior plants would perish, but they remain prosperous, occupying almost as much territory as the others. I think I’ve discovered the cause of that. The superior plants exhaust the soil; they need to alternate with the inferior plants. The latter remake a propitious soil, sometimes by gradually replacing the dominant plants, sometimes by growing in the same terrain. In their turn, the dominant plants take possession of terrain amended by the others. It’s especially where large, long-lived trees are concerned that the primitive plants grow among the others; in that case, their presence serves to maintain an efficacious soil permanently.”
“That would have filled the writers who used to celebrate the harmonies of nature with admiration,” Philippe remarked.
“Yes,” Darnley replied. “And in this instance, they would not have been mistaken.”
“What interests me more,” said Guthrie, helping himself to a vast slice of antelope, “are the relationships between the plants and animals—particularly with the monsters that nearly drank our blood. After all, animals have to be able to live…”
“The relationships are complicated, but there are two major factors. Firstly, on the territories of cryptogams and gymnosperms, me
n and animals live as they do among us—they use plants according to their whim. Those which fill the role of humans can even devote themselves to cultivation, with the restriction that their fields are always threatened by invasion by the invincible plants that cannot be domesticated.
“The second factor is that, if they obey the laws, they are not forbidden to circulate among the superior plants, nor even to obtain some nourishment from them. There are times when herbivores are allowed to graze the grains with as much impunity as the mosses, lichens, ferns and young pines. They’re warned as to when they cannot do so by the taste of the plants themselves, which causes them an invincible repugnance, and, complementarily, by the poison that they secrete at the appropriate time. Finally, there are sacrificed fruits—I don’t know why; one recognizes them on contact and by odor. The forbidden grains and fruits immediately cause a feeling of nausea and give off an exceedingly bitter odor. No animal can make a mistake! All things considered, animal life is less precarious here than under the human regime; it is merely submissive to other restrictions, compensated by real advantages.”
“We’ve already seen,” said Sir George, “that the laws have all the more chance of being obeyed because some are unbreakable, under pain of death.”
“In certain environments, they’re all unbreakable,” Darnley said. “Everywhere the Mimosas flourish, the rules do not tolerate any breach; even elsewhere, transgression results in a sufficiently harsh and rapid punishment for the animals and Scaly Men to obey them. To touch any Mimosa whatsoever will cause malaise or suffering; if it’s a large one, it can keep you at a distance by means of a repulsive force whose nature I don’t know. You’ve seen that with the aid of an ‘acceleratory’ force—I call it that because it resembles gravity, and weight is certainly caused by a gravitational acceleration—they can render all movement impossible. They also have—as you’ve also observed—soporific powers. They can co-ordinate their forces perfectly; no single plant, even a giant Mimosa, would have been able to paralyze your caravan at a distance. Finally, when the Mimosas are in the vicinity of endangered angiosperm plants, they can assist them by subterranean means, by charging them with defensive fluids or radiations.”
The Mysterious Force Page 31
