Stewart broke out laughing, his brow wet and his eyes hooded in the firelight. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s what makes these people backward to believe in such nonsense.”
“Where I come from,” said the giant Paduan, “we are taught to believe or disbelieve only after the evidence is collected. I have seen things in the mountain villages of Italy, where outsiders scarcely travel, that would set your teeth - how you say? - on the edge.”
“What kinds of things, mate?” asked Banks.
“Witchcraft and the evil eye,” said G.B.. “Ridiculous, but I have seen them at work, and the people do not believe it is ridiculous. Sometimes to believe is to make it so.”
Sobered for a moment, we sat in quiet, listening to the call of the wind and other night creatures. Occasionally, a strangled cry from some desert beast or other raised our hackles. With Belzoni’s words in our minds, we settled ourselves as comfortably as we could on the stony ground and sought sleep, secure in the knowledge that our sentries were alert. The Bashaw made good use of his military experience by acting not as a monarch to be coddled, but as a soldier just like his men, and soon we were off in a fitful doze.
In the light of morning, when our two occupied tents emptied into the narrow valley between temples, we found each and every sentry murdered, a dozen men in all - partially consumed, their inner organs missing and brains removed - each at his post, hands still grasping muskets and the remains of their faces frozen in terror. Hardly a drop of blood was to be found in any of the dead, and it was a miracle the others did not desert, for they were so distraught I thought they would turn their muskets on us instead and flee for their lives. The horses had somehow disappeared as well, their shoeprints fading into the new day.
We were stranded.
“I think we are safe in daylight, though I am not sure,” said G.B. when asked about starting on the way back to the far-off city. With an interpreter, a man who presumably spoke enough Italian and French to aid him, G.B. spent two hours conversing heatedly with several of the remaining Syrian cavalrymen, and I noted that items and coins exchanged hands more than once in some sort of elaborate purchase-cum-barter affair. Afterwards, G.B. spoke with the outfit’s cook, and soon they were huddled over the military cookstove which had given us a steady diet of bad coffee. Much thick, black smoke was produced, and a smell the nature of which eluded me.
Later yet, after a hasty meal of dried meat and dates, chased by brackish water from a nearby wadi, we assembled again within sight of the laid-out corpses of the night’s victims. Clearly, Giovanni Battista Belzoni was in his element as director, for he placed us in a circle and set himself up in the centre.
The Bashaw, for all his leadership qualities and roguish charm, allowed himself to be treated as any other, a fact which I noted with some alarm - did it not indicate that the monarch believed he would not survive? Was he simply a pragmatist? This was the man into whose hands G.B. would deliver his financial success or lack thereof on the hydraulic machine project, yet now this mighty ruler of a strangely beautiful if frightening country was reduced to a cavalryman’s rations and huddling in a dead soldier’s threadbare blanket at night.
G.B. began his proposal - for that is what it was - in late afternoon, when the sun’s heat was still at its peak even though the promise of a break was in the air. The tent flaps had been rolled up to allow some air circulation, but the heat still stifled one’s breath.
“I believe I can stop this carneficina - eh? Help, Hoodson.”
“Carnage?”
“Yes! I can stop this carnage if a few things I learned in my youth, at my grandmother’s knee, are true. But if I am wrong, probably we will all die. So we have no choice.”
“Get on with it, man!” Stewart had taken on a feverish look. The heat of the day, combined with the cold at night did not agree with him. Added to the fear we all felt, the climate threatened to sap his strength.
“Yes, I go. Now, we all have seen that the beast leaves no footprints. No tracks at all to be found, even around the men we found this morning, no? So we know we are no dealing with something normal here. We know the supernatural is not acceptable, yet there are no tracks. Which do we believe? No tracks, no blood, organs missing. Does anyone notice anything about the sky the last two nights?” He waited to see if someone would answer. “No? I tell you, the last two nights we have had a full moon.”
Banks threw up his hands. “Now, what the hell are you saying, man? You think there’s some bloody great man-wolf out there? You can convince me about the wolf, but don’t for a second tell me-”
“We heard jackal sounds last night, and I contend it is a jackal - but not an ordinary jackal. In my grandmother’s village one day, there were many disappearances of children. No one could understand what was happening, but they could figure out that it happened once a month. Someone noticed one day that during the days of these tragic events, the moon was full. And so it was that they were able to trap the creature who devastated them so.”
“And the creature was…” Banks spoke the words we all thought.
“The creature was a lupo mannaro - I don’t know how to say, a wolf that is also man.”
“A werewolf!”
“Yes,” G.B. agreed. “That was it.”
“Please excuse me, Signor Belzoni,” said the Bashaw, who had been silent for a while. “But I cannot believe you think we have here such a creature. For one thing, there are no wolves in Egypt.”
“Sire, I believe the beast is your jackal god, or one of his minions, who has been disturbed by the digging here, and who rises to his strength with the full moon. If I am correct, tonight will be the last night we may kill him.”
“But kill him how?” Stewart invoked. “We can’t even see the buggering thing!”
“No, but we can hear him. And we kill him with these.” G.B. held out his hand. In it was a dozen or so lead balls of typical caliber for the pistols we carried. Then I looked again.
“Silver!”
I understood then what G.B. had been about all day, gathering up enough silver to have the cook press into balls for our weapons.
“Yes, Hoodson! This is how my grandmother’s village ended their terrible experience with such a creature, and I believe it will save our lives. My grandmother was never wrong about these things!”
Anubis Rises
Nightfall arrived, and G.B. situated the remaining cavalrymen among the tents, and surrounding the temple entrance. We had debated the strategy a little, but his contention that the creature lived in the temple was ultimately declared the most logical. Also, his deduction that the creature had not been able to smell the Europeans among us meant that there was a chance we were still immune from his attentions.
G.B., heroic as he was even then, in the early days of his long career as an explorer of some note, easily took upon himself the role of bait, wearing the portions of several of the soldiers’ clothing which fit him, and wrapping himself up in their blankets. His own clothes hung on the frame of the Bashaw, who it was hoped would escape the creature’s attention thus.
The rest of us took up positions at the mouth of the temple, a silver ball loaded in each of our pistols. We were ready, by the time the moon rose majestically over the not so distant Pyramids, a strange and awesome sight indeed. And every one of us knew by then that we faced some manifestation of the supernatural - we knew it because there was a smell in the air we couldn’t identify, as when a thunderstorm approaches and the air is pregnant with Galvanic energy and water and human hair stands on end. The feeling was thus, but there were no rain clouds. It was not difficult to imagine that this was the smell of ancient magic brought to life by the folly of foolish man.
With no knowledge or prediction of precisely when the creature would attack, we waited, anxious, as the cold darkness descended. Fresh, dry powder in the pan and the hammer cocked on my pistol, I almost felt as though the silver ball heated the air around it. With such thoughts, I began to doze even as I crouched
near the temple mouth.
And then G.B.‘s most serious miscalculation became obvious, though it was too late. Rather than in the temple proper, the jackal creature began its feast at the outermost edges of our perimeter!
The screams brought me out of my daze, but by then there was no more than a gurgle. One cavalryman down, I thought with irrational good cheer as I hefted my pistol and charged in the direction of the attack. Behind me, I heard the steps of Stewart and Banks and the heavy tread of G.B. himself, who had emerged from the tunnel still wrapped in his smelly blankets.
“Hurry, Hoodson!” he shouted at my heels. “The creature has outflanked us!”
In the shadows thrown by the soldiers’ fires I thought I saw the shape of our monster, a two-legged human shape fleet of foot and long of stride, but where the head should have been was the elongated snout of a jackal! It was just as depicted in the colorful temple paintings and reliefs!
Gasping in amazement, I stopped and leveled my weapon, but before I could center the muzzle on the blur I thought was the monster, it crashed headfirst into a cavalryman who backed away in confused horror, his musket held limply. The blur intensified and suddenly the soldier was hurled upward and tossed from side to side, as if shaken by a gigantic dog. His shrieks were pitiful to hear, so horrible I longed to cover my ears.
“Shoot, man! Take him!” shouted Banks beside me.
“It’s too late for the Syrian,” said Stewart as he discharged his weapon. I saw the ball miss its target and tear the head off the hapless soldier, but even then the jackal-shadow was clawing at the man’s torso, blood and gore somehow disappearing inside his invisible maw, and his organs undoubtedly following.
I took careful aim and sensed both Banks and G.B. doing the same, and then our volley crashed out among the hills and mounds, and the soldier’s hacked-up carcass dropped to the ground. But the shadow-beast had eluded us once more.
“Where is the Sire?” G.B. shouted as he switched pistols.
“I am here, Signor Belzoni, behind you.”
Indeed, the Bashaw stood behind us in G.B.‘s clothes, his pistol dangling uselessly from his hand. “My men! How can we save my men?”
I could see the anger written on G.B.‘s face. His miscalculation had caused greater harm than he would ever have wished. His grim features were set now, and I knew the hunter in him would not stop the quest to silence this profane eater of human flesh.
“Damn it, I saw a shadow!” shouted Stewart. “There!”
We dashed off toward one of the tents, but before we could near it, another poor wretch was eviscerated before our eyes, his shrieks lasting only seconds, and then the grotesque sounds of hurried feeding reached our ears all too soon.
This time the Bashaw joined us in our fusillade, himself an expert marksmen who often took target practice in the courtyard of his palace, as he had told us on the previous day. We five levelled our weapons and let loose in a ragged volley that once again ripped the remains of the soldier to shreds, but missed the elusive beast which had torn him asunder.
“We can’t go on like this!” called out Banks. “We’ll run out of men!”
G.B. suddenly reared up, a bellow torn from his throat, and hurled himself toward the nearest tent, the place anyone might have imagined the beast would attack next. Indeed, we heard the mewling of the cavalryman stationed there - the newest victim.
“I see him!” I shouted. The long snout of the jackal rippling as a shadow on the flapping tent wall had nearly reached the helpless soldier, when G.B. hurled himself onto the spot the beast must by all rights have occupied. And then he wrestled with the creature mano a mano, one bearded giant grappling with the arms and claws of an invisible monster god whose snapping jaws would tear the heart straight from his ribcage. “Don’t shoot!” I shouted. “You’ll hit Belzoni!”
I know not what made them hold their fire, their fingers likely already bringing pressure to bear on the triggers, but they obeyed and we watched in awed silence as our employer and friend, the Great Belzoni, heaved his massive bulk onto the creature - which now seemed to be on its back - all the while avoiding invisible claws that shredded his robes about him. The giant’s grunts of effort were magnified by the mounds around us, and in the torchlight the battle seemed to go on for hours, though truly it must have been only seconds. We waited, somehow powerless to act in any other way, but hoping we would not see our friend disembowelled like the others. It was as if this portion of the struggle had been fated, the giant and the invisible monster, hand to hand in the ancient dust of the land under the Pyramids.
For a moment it seemed as though the creature had gained the upper hand, but that was only because G.B. had grasped its squirming shadow-form in the gigantic grip of one hand, the hand of the Patagonian Sampson, which also held the snapping jaws away from his chest while with the other hand he painstakingly drew his pistol from the folds of his shredded clothing and gently, almost tenderly placed the muzzle into the space below him where only he could feel the animal’s snout was located.
The shot echoed forever in the hills of Gizah.
Belzoni fell to the ground as if the beast below him had been blown to dust and, as we approached, we saw that it had indeed become a pile of shiny black shards. It was as if a statue had been shattered there.
G.B.‘s breathing was loud and fast, but the smile on his face assured us that he was all right. As he stood, however, we saw that the invisible claws of the Anubis thing had raked a dozen deep furrows into his chest and stomach, and only by the grace of God had he kept enough distance between himself and the marauding beast to finally end its obscene hunt.
“Are you all right, Hoodson?”
Typically, the first words from his mouth were of concern for my well-being. Embarrassed, I stammered a response, and then Banks and Stewart and I were shaking hands and patting him on the back heartily. Only when he winced did we realize that there, too, the claws had wreaked havoc upon his flesh. Then the Bashaw embraced him as well, promising a firman which would be honored for years throughout the land. Banks and Stewart pledged their allegiance to any expedition we might mount, and the remaining Syrian soldiers celebrated their survival with some sort of local grain distillate which we found altogether too much to our satisfaction, dispelling as it did the cold and dampness of the desert night.
When the sun god rose over the sands of Egypt on the morn, we left a detail to guard the victims’ remains and set off on foot toward Cairo, hoping to find our wayward horses on the way.
G.B. referred to the business of the night before only once, and then only after we had done what we could to salve his wounds.
“My grandmother was never wrong about these things!”
And so, in good humour, we set off in search of other adventures in the land of the Pharaohs.
Cambridge 1960
And so the glittering ruby-eyed godhead vases gave up their contents in the form of stories. Some were written after my ancestor John Hudson’s retirement in Casablanca. Others were jotted with crude implements in the heat of the desert sun, or in the frigid air of its night. Some became farewell notes as the intrepid adventurers faced monstrous evils which threatened to overwhelm them. All of these stories paint a portrait of the Great Belzoni that no one else could have attempted - none but his friend, fellow explorer, and chronicler. Though some of my ancestor’s accounts will seem fanciful and, indeed, impossible to the modern reader, be it known that John Hudson was himself a skeptic and not prone to flights of fancy. His words are thus convincing for their simplicity.
Besides the sarcophagus of jars filled with writings where a proud ancient ruler’s viscera would have been stored, an exploration of the many sealed crates ignored by my family for generations turned up various treasures, each with its own story. G.B. Belzoni and John Hudson had their own reasons for removing these artifacts from circulation, and these reasons will become clear once the stories are read.
It should be stated that some of these accou
nts will curdle the blood and stoke the very fears our ancient ancestors felt as they huddled over sputtering campfires. The accounts are forthcoming, Dear Reader, if only you dare return to these pages.
J. W. Hudson
Cambridge
November 1960
For Tim Powers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
and Giovanni Battista Belzoni
* * *
THE GREAT BELZONI AND
THE MONSTER OF GOA
by
John Balfour Hudson
(As edited by W.D. Gagliani)
Published in SMALL BITES
It is rarely known that after my employer’s first Egyptian expedition in search of antiquities, we embarked on a journey which led us to the west coast of India, a wretched place called Goa.
Giovanni Battista Belzoni dwarfed everyone on the ship, his giant’s body and circus strongman physique easily impressing the natives. Goa was but a fueling stop, but we were dragged into yet another monstrous affair. The village elders, as ship’s guests, told us of a man-eating tiger ravaging their coastline. The demented animal had already accounted for a dozen locals, acquiring a taste for human flesh. It would undoubtedly account for more.
“Perhaps we can be helpful,” Belzoni said, a sideways look at me.
“How, G.B.?”
“Eh, what can we hurt? Fueling will take days.”
I resigned myself. Since I had been in his employ, we had accosted all manner of creatures. What was one more?
“Vieni, Hudson, and we will plan.”
The next day, Belzoni hired elephant and handler, plus two porters. In his finest hunting garb, he looked like a king among his tiny subjects. Loaded with rifles and sidearms and powder, we set off ponderously through the oppressive jungle.
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