NIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE

by Margery Lawrence

  ‘He stumped away speechless, and hailed Palafin, my servant, with a volley of objurgations to cover his feelings; a chorus of voices answered him. Palafin was missing. I lost my temper and cursed freely—Palafin, very much alert and to the fore a few moments before, had, on hearing that he was to accompany me down into the dreaded valley, discreetly and completely faded away!

  ‘The surrounding scrub was thick, if low, and the clumps of bushes gave plenty of shelter to a cunningly inserted black body, so after much precious time had been wasted in beating about, calling and cursing, Jenks ordered Kwala, though obviously terrified, to take Palafin’s place with me, and we set out, the dogs at our heels, a sober little party watching us depart. Incidentally half-an-hour after our departure Palafin reappeared from his hiding-place, wherever it was, and philosophically took the sound hiding Jenks promptly administered. He had escaped the Death Valley. It was worth it. . . .

  ‘The sweat poured off me as we picked our way down the steep winding path of the valley—this end certainly deserved the name of ravine rather than valley, for it was more like a ragged cleft splitting the heart of the hills in twain than the gentle, smiling valley it had seemed from the other end. Deeper and deeper we went into the green gloom, till the path grew level at last, though still wild and stony, and we had to force our way through tangled creeper and giant tough-stemmed growths that hung from the branches and sprawled across the tree-roots. Something odd struck me immediately I entered the wilderness—the silence; more and more it was borne in upon me that here was something more than the intense silence of the bush, deep as that is; but there is always the faint churring note of insects, the cheep of unseen things, and the occasional screech or flurry of a startled bird, or the crash of a beast in the undergrowth. But here was none of these—even Jack and Bella padded along, subdued in the utter hush-silence and the damp, utterly enervating heat ruled alone, the sweat dripped from my fingers and forehead and ran down my back, soaking my shirt through and through as we forced our way along.

  ‘Kwala, always taciturn, had fallen dead silent as I glanced back at him—he was still behind me, but his great black eyes rolled from side to side ceaselessly, furtive, terrified. I laughed grimly as I realised that whatever terrors lay hid in this death-hole for me to face must be faced alone!

  ‘Suddenly the path widened, and I saw that we had emerged into the wider part of the valley, nearer the end by which poor Hill had entered; at the same moment I noticed that the path, hitherto a mere blind trail through jungle, was the remains of a real track—more, a cart track. Overgrown, almost obliterated, by the sprawling green tangle, but under my feet I could still feel the deep ruts of the wheels, and see the curve of the road where the driver used to swing wide to avoid a tree, and the sight suddenly cheered me immensely. A track—a track implied a house or hut at least—I was near my goal, and I pressed on quickly, my helmet pulled over my eyes to keep off the sun. My horse seemed to sense things, too, and quickened his pace—good old Gaylad! The bush was infinitely less heavy about the path, and had evidently been cut away to keep the track clear; all at once the trees ended, and I was close to a stockade. Almost Gaylad blundered into it, but I pulled him up just in time—it was the house, the “white man’s house” of Mbwana’s floundering story, and I stared at it, awestruck. A small log-house it was, and the stockade round it of wooden logs and sturdily made; the square garden space within it was pitifully overgrown, and but a riot now of jungle flowers and weeds and upspringing young green things flourishing lustily where once a pretty pair of hands—who knows?—may have planted and watered, sown and weeded, with pathetic industry.

  ‘The house, too, was no slipshod affair, but a square-built shanty, substantially put together, though now its roof showed split and gappy, and the tiny windows were broken, the door hung ajar, and the crooked chimney slanted perilously. Silent in the brilliant sun the broken house, crouched in the rioting green, stared at me, its dusty windows like hooded eyes. I sat my horse and stared back, fascinated, till a chill began to grow up my spine, and with a curse I shook myself back to sanity. This was no time for letting my imagination run away with me; my chum lay dead in this infernal house, and I was going to find out how.

  “‘Kwala!” There was no answer, and I turned to find Kwala had withdrawn to the shelter of the trees, and stood watching me with eyes round with fright. I rode after him, as he would not come, in a towering rage.

  ‘“Kwala! You lazy, disobedient devil, come here! Get my things and come and see about Boss Hill this minute, blast you!”

  ‘Kwala was a nervy sort of fellow, though brave enough in a fight; he stared at me now eye to eye, quite unmoved.

  ‘“Boss Dennison goin’ into house?”

  ‘“Of course I am, and so are you, make no mistake about that. Get a move on.”

  Kwala shook his head, and raising his hands, held them level with his head.

  ‘“No, boss. Kill me, boss, kill me here with stick, with gun, but Kwala no go in house. Boss no go either. Better no go, Boss Dennison.”

  ‘I gaped—he meant it, quite simply. He would rather I killed him than go into that shack with me, where Hill lay mysteriously dead. . . . There was more than the fear of death in the steady black eyes that stared into mine, and with a curse I dropped my raised hand and turned away.

  ‘“I’ll have you well thrashed by Boss Jenks when we get to camp, all the same, Kwala, for mutiny on service,” I said over my shoulder. “However, now get me something to eat; I’ll have a rest.”

  ‘I spent a much-needed hour on my back in the shade, facing the silent little house, inside its crumbling stockade. I knew I must spend the next six hours at least there, waiting till the doctor should arrive, and I was not too anxious to go in over-soon. The brooding silence, utter and profound, the heavy heat, the blazing sunshine, united to breed a very real sense of “funk”, hard though I fought against it; at last, shaking myself for a nervy fool, I rose, and jamming my helmet hard over my eyes strode over the broken fence into the overgrown garden, whistling the dogs after me. There was no response, and to my astonishment I saw them still under the tree where I had lain to rest, eyeing me doubtfully, but making no movement to obey. This joined with my own increasingly jumpy nerves to make me lose my temper and I shouted at them, cracking my whip; reluctantly at last they came after me, and with the long rank grass brushing the dust from my boots I tramped up the long-untrodden path to the door of the waiting house, the dogs at my heels.

  ‘Pushing open the shaky wooden door I peered in. The one room was dark, as the three windows were small and high up in the log walls. At first, in the dimness, it seemed curiously unlike a deserted house; indeed, it looked as if the owner had but just walked out for a moment, leaving his goods about to await his return. A small camp bed stood against the wall on my right, the rug and blanket thrown back as if someone had just arisen; only on close inspection did one see that the whole was grey with dust, and the clothes tattered, moth-eaten, mere rags. A saddle and horse-cloths, also riddled with moths and ants, hung from nails above the rude fireplace; one or two old wooden chairs and one armchair with a tartan cushion on it, still crumpled with the weight of an elbow lately thrust into it but filmed with long-undisturbed dust; and a wooden table littered with the remains of a half-eaten meal, stood in the middle, with an overturned chair beside it.

  ‘I tiptoed in and stood beside the table; there was the dark stain of dried coffee still in the cups, the grease-marks and scattered crumbs still on the plates and knives. . . . All alike with the shadow of old dust still over them, grey and menacing. Picking up a plate, I put it down again hastily. In the corner, facing the door, lay the body of my chum, Hill, huddled back against the wall in a half-sitting position, his hands lax, fallen to his sides, and his head on his chest, thrust forward, the open eyes fixed on the blank wall to the right of the door. I choked down a gulp, and kneeling down, felt for his heart; he was dead and cold, and if I know the look in a dead man’s
eyes—and I should, by God!—he had died of fright.

  ‘The pale mouth was frozen into a dreadful square of horror, and the eyes were blank and staring. . . . I propped him up, poor old chap, and threw one of the tattered rugs from the bed over his body. Why, I don’t quite know, but it seemed more decent somehow.

  “Then a thought struck me, and taking a straight line to the wall, where Hill’s eyes were fixed, I found something startling. In a small space as large as the palm of my hand there were five bullet-holes in the wood! Going back to the body, I picked up the dropped revolver, and shook out the spent cartridges—five!

  ‘Something—or someone—had stood facing Hill against that wall, had stood immovable while he, backing, backing away from the terror that stood there, had fired off his last five shots and dropped in his tracks, slithering down the wall to the floor, the revolver dropping from his nerveless hand, his eyes fixed, glaring! Stooping, I measured the height of the shots from the floor—just the height of a man’s heart they were, and all close together. Hill was a fine shot, and these had found their billet—but at what had he shot, in God’s name?

  ‘Not a footprint but his, and now mine, disturbed the deep carpet of dust that spread the floor, and ours were unmistakable, in our thick square-heeled riding boots. Scratching my head, utterly perplexed, I stood staring from the holes in the wall to the white face of the corpse in the corner.

  ‘What—what had stood there smiling while Hill, mad with fear, pumped shot after shot pell mell into its heart, and sank? . . . I jumped, a cold nasty little feeling at my heart. What on earth had made me think of that particular word “smiling”? . . . Yet it was there, had been there, most distinctly! Pulling myself savagely together I shouted to the shrinking dogs, who still sat outside. Whining, they poked their great heads cautiously into the room one after the other, and promptly retreated.

  ‘It was only by dint of much swearing that at last they entered, mincing nervously in, nose to tail, their lucent brown eyes peering into every corner. I watched them interestedly. It was not the corpse they feared—Jack and Bella had both known Hill well, and Bella especially nosed piteously round him, moaning at his silence, poor bitch; no, it was something else. Together they trotted silently about the room, sniffing, inspecting, as a dog does—but I noticed that they avoided the bed in particular, and that neither of them went near the corner with the bullet-holes. I went and stood there and called Bella, my pet—she stood pawing the ground gently a little distance off, moaning in her great throat and staring at me and at the wall, but come nearer she would not.

  ‘Well, there was nothing to do but wait, and I’d explored the room thoroughly. I had to write my report, so I pushed one or two of the crocks on the rickety table to one side, drew up the soundest chair, and settled down with my pad and a Waterman. Jack and Bella were huddled together under the table at my feet, quite silent and subdued; on my right lay the body of poor Hill in the corner; facing me, the door, which I had now closed and bolted. There was quite a sound bolt on it—and another thing that struck me was that I wondered why Hill hadn’t used it to fasten himself in. The fireplace was at my back, directly opposite the door—the shack was a longish, narrow shape, remember, with a small window each side, and one on the left of the door as I faced it. The other side of the door was blank, wooden wall, with the mysterious group of bullet-holes in the middle; the bed was on my left under the window.

  ‘Well, there I sat writing and smoking, and the time went on; once or twice I went to the door and shouted an order to Kwala, but he would not come. I heard my horse cropping grass outside the stockade, the only sound in all that queer silence, and I give you my word, as the night drew on, things grew more and more eerie, and every time I looked round that little shanty I liked the job less, but there was nothing to do but to stick it, so there I sat.

  ‘I’d taken in a good supply of food with me, and ate my solitary supper in silence, ruminating on this extraordinary affair; Jack and Bella got most of it, as really I didn’t feel like eating much at all with my old pal’s blank white face so damn close, though I had hidden it under the rug. The dusk came down swiftly, as it always does out there, and I knew I was in for a night of it—even if Mayhew had brought the doctor, they’d never risk coming down that fearfully steep descent this time of night, but would wait till morning. I drew my belt a trifle tighter, lit a couple of candles and stuck them in two bottles I’d found in a corner, and went on writing doggedly—letters, diary, reports, anything to keep me from sitting imagining things.

  ‘The hut was pitch dark, of course, but for those two little yellow flares on the table, and the tiny windows showed squares of vivid purple night-sky spattered with huge stars; there was a little wind, that came and sighed and rustled the trees and grasses outside, and then stole away again suddenly, and came and sighed again. A curious furtive little wind—there wasn’t a sound but for that, and somehow it got on my nerves, bit by bit! I wanted to get up and yell, anything for a noise, but there I sat with my jaw set. I simply wasn’t going to get rattled. I went on writing, and my pen went scratch, scratch, on the papers, and the dogs sighed and squeezed close together. I tell you, it was a beastly atmosphere! As if one was waiting for something, for some One, and the whole damned shack and silent valley was waiting too, waiting to see what you would do . . . beastly!

  ‘Well, things were getting to a rather severe pitch, when suddenly one of the dogs sat up and whined sharply, bristling—Bella it was—and at the same moment a sound broke the stillness. The tiny, hesitant sound of a latch being tried, very cautiously! I seized the candles and held them high; their light fell full on the door, and there I saw the latch drop into place again, with a faint click of metal. My back crept, but I kept still—thank Heaven I had shot the bolt—and yet in my fright there was a sudden sense of relief. Ghosts would surely never bother to lift a latch—some prowling native was trying to get in! I didn’t fear creatures of my own species, and the bolt was proof against them all right. As I put down the candles I sent a cursory glance at the bolt and snatched them up again, a cold chill at my heart. The bolt had been drawn back!

  ‘Now I knew for certain I had bolted the door! It was a heavy bolt and much rusted, and had cost me some wrenching and pushing before it would consent to act; however, it had gone home at last, but I remember thinking that it would take me some wrestling to draw it back in the morning. Now the door stood unbolted—without a sound, something had drawn it back! I strode over to the door, stamping down the sudden quiver of fear that shook me, and peered outside—not a soul in sight; savagely I shot the bolt home again, and, retreating to the table, took up my pen afresh, though what I wrote I couldn’t tell you.

  ‘The dogs quieted, and silence filled the room once more, veiled, stealthy, velvet-shod . . . I took a tot of neat brandy—felt I needed it too—and resumed my writing. I got absorbed, and for a while the odd incident faded out of my mind, when suddenly, again Bella sat up, but this time she didn’t whine. The hackles on her back lifted, sharply, bristling, and in a second Jack raised his head, startled, attentive, and with a quick growl he scrambled out from under the table. Retreating to the fireplace, they both stood, great heads lowered, sawing from side to side as they do before attacking, teeth gleaming from under lifted lips, dangerous, at bay.

  ‘Seizing the candles again, I looked at the door; the bolt was drawn back, and even as I saw, with a shock of terror, that this was so, I saw the latch lift and the door swing gently open. Dashing down the candles, which flickered out as they fell, I sprang to my feet—but nobody stood in the doorway! Nobody! The door swung open on empty night, and the black tree-tops across the stockade silhouetted against the violet sky; but a sudden cold wind eddied softly into the room, a cold draught like an icy hand on my neck, and lifted softly, lightly, my papers from the table and strewed them over the floor.

  ‘Behind me the dogs retreated, whining, terrified, into the deep fireplace; the wind stretched a stealthy hand to them, ru
ffled the bristling hair on their great backs, and Bella’s nerve broke. With a screech of terror and fury she sprang into the air, lunging forward wildly at nothingness, only to scurry back to Jack’s side, growling, defeated. Madly I glared from side to side, but there was nothing. Only silence—the door that swung idly on its hinges—and now at my back the cold wind crept, and stroked icy fingers across my shivering neck; for a second I tried to face it out, but it was useless. Creeping, furtive, smiling, that bitter little wind eddied behind me till my sweat-soaked shirt froze on my back and my hair stirred beneath its stealthy caress; with a panic yell my nerve gave out, and I made one frantic dive for the doorway and freedom . . . and I couldn’t get through!

  ‘Man, if I could ever get you to feel what I felt then! Nothing there—nothing, but all the same, a blank impalpable wall, elastic, but mercilessly strong, and there was I, clean mad with rage and a terror that grew worse every second, fighting like a maniac to get through that invisible barrier! Digging my fingers into the chinks between the logs that made the door-lintel, I fought like mad, sweating, babbling with panic.

  ‘I tell you, I was too far gone to think of decent pluck or sanity, or anything but that I must somehow fight through, get past this thing, whatever it was, for in my blind fear I knew that every minute this Terror in the room behind was growing stronger, more sure of itself, and if I couldn’t get through . . . God, what poor Hill had seen, eh? Before kindly death came. . . . And all the time in that ghastly room behind those two poor beasts were howling like lunatics, shrieking their very souls out. . . .

  ‘The end came suddenly. By the Lord’s mercy I was strong, and in a fury of despairing energy I clawed my way forward round the door, one bitterly-contested inch at a time—one mighty heave and plunge forward, and I tumbled into the rank grass outside, more dead than alive, and quivering in every fibre! For a second I lay there, shaken and stunned, then, rolling over, I crawled shakily away towards the fence, panting. Dimly I realised that the appalling din in the hut seemed to have diminished, when a fresh outburst made me pause and look back over my shoulder, and I saw a frightful thing!