Professor Clavering had to leave his resting place. The weight of his hatchet reminded him that he at least had a weapon. A good scare, he thought, a minor wound might discourage them. He knew they were hungry, that their teeth could tear his flesh more easily than they tore trees, and that alive or dead, he would be eaten by these snails if he permitted it to happen. He drew his hatchet and faced them, conscious that he cut a not very formidable figure with his slight paunch, his pale, skinny legs, his height of five feet seven, about a third the snails’ height, but his brows above his glasses were set with a determination to defend his life.
The first snail reared when it was ten feet away. The professor advanced and swung the hatchet at the projecting mantle on the snail’s left side. He had not dared get close enough, his aim was inches short, and the weight of the hatchet pulled the professor off balance. He staggered and fell under the raised muzzle, and had just time to roll himself from under the descending mouth before it touched the ground where he had been. Angry now, he circled the snail and swung a blow at the nacreous shell, which turned the blade. The hatchet took an inch-deep chip, but nothing more. The professor swung again, higher this time and in the centre of the shell’s posterior, trying for the lung valve beneath, but the valve was still higher, he knew, ten feet from the ground, and once more his hatchet took only a chip. The snail began to turn itself to face him.
The professor then confronted the second snail, rushed at it and swung the hatchet, cutting it in the cheek. The hatchet sank up to its wooden handle, and he had to tug to get it out, and then had to run a few yards, as the snail put on speed and reared its head for a biting attack. Glancing back, the professor saw that no liquid (he had not, of course, expected blood) came from the cut in the snail’s cheek, and in fact he couldn’t see the cut. And the blow had certainly been no discouragement to the snail’s advance.
Professor Clavering began to walk at a sensible pace straight for the snails’ lair on the other side of the island. By the time he scrambled down the side of the gulley, he was winded and his legs hurt. But he saw to his relief that the gulley narrowed to a sharp V. Wedged in that, he would be safe. Professor Clavering started into the V, which had an overhanging top rather like a cave, when he saw that what he had taken for some rounded rocks were moving—at least some of them were. They were baby snails! They were larger than good-sized beach balls. And the professor saw, from the way a couple of them were devouring grass blades, that they were hungry.
A snail’s head appeared high on his left. The giant parent snail began to descend the gulley. A crepitation, a pair of antennae against the sky on his right, heralded the arrival of the second snail. He had nowhere to turn except the sea, which was not a bad idea, he thought, as these were land snails. The professor waded out and turned left, walking waist-deep in water. It was slow going, and a snail was coming after him. He got closer to the land and ran in thigh-deep water.
The first snail, the darker one, entered the water boldly and crept along in a depth of several inches, showing signs of being willing to go into deeper water when it got abreast of Professor Clavering. The professor hoped the other snail, maybe the mother, had stayed with the young. But it hadn’t. It was following along the land, and accelerating. The professor plunged wildly for the shore where he would be able to move faster.
Now, thank goodness, he saw rocks. Great igneous masses of rocks covered a sloping bill down to the sea. There was bound to be a niche, some place there where he could take shelter. The sun was sinking into the ocean, it would be dark soon, and there was no moon, he knew. The professor was thirsty. When he reached the rocks, he flung himself like a corpse into a trough made by four or five scratchy boulders, which caused him to lie in a curve. The rocks rose two feet above his body, and the trough was hardly a foot wide. A snail couldn’t, he reasoned, stick its head down here and bite him.
The peachy curves of the snails’ shells appeared, and one, the second, drew closer.
‘I’ll strike it with my hatchet if it comes!’ the professor swore to himself. ‘I’ll cut its face to ribbons with my knife!’ He was now reconciled to killing both adults, because he could take back a pair of the young ones, and in fact more easily because they were smaller.
The snail seemed to sniff like a dog, though inaudibly as its muzzle hovered over the professor’s hiding place. Then with majestic calm it came down on the rocks between which the professor lay. Its slimy foot covered the aperture and within seconds had blocked out almost all the light.
Professor Clavering drew his hunting knife in anger and panic, and plunged it several times into the snail’s soft flesh. The snail seemed not even to wince. A few seconds later, it stopped moving, though the professor knew that it was not only not dead, as the stabs hadn’t touched any vital organs, but that it had fastened itself over his trench in the firmest possible way. No slit of light showed. The professor was only grateful that the irregularity of the rocks must afford a supply of air. Now he pressed frantically with his palms against the snail’s body, and felt his hands slip and scrape against rock. The firmness of the snail, his inability to budge it, made him feel slightly sick for a moment.
An hour passed. The professor almost slept, but the experience was more like a prolonged hallucination. He dreamed, or feared, that he was being chewed by twenty thousand pairs of teeth into a heap of mince, which the two giant snails shared with their offspring. To add to his misery, he was cold and hungry. The snail’s body gave no warmth, and was even cool.
Some hours later, the professor awoke and saw stars above him. The snail had departed. It was pitch dark. He stood up cautiously, trying not to make a sound, and stepped out of the crevice. He was free! On a sandy stretch of beach a few yards away, Professor Clavering lay down, pressed against a vertical face of rock. Here he slept the remaining hours until dawn.
He awakened just in time, and perhaps not the dawn but a sixth sense had awakened him. The first snail was coming toward him and was only ten feet away. The professor got up on trembling legs, and trotted inland, up a slope. An idea came to him: if he could push a boulder of, say, five hundred pounds—possible with a lever—on to an adult snail in the gulley, and smash the spot below which its lung lay, then he could kill it. Otherwise, he could think of no other means at his disposal that could inflict a fatal injury. His gun might, but the gun was on the Samantha. He had already estimated that it might be a week, or never, that help would come from the Matusas. The Samantha would not necessarily float back to the Matusas, would not necessarily be seen by any other ship for days, and even if it was seen, would it be apparent she was drifting? And if so, would the spotters make a beeline for the Matusas to report it? Not necessarily. The professor bent quickly and licked some dew from a leaf. The snails were twenty yards behind him now.
The trouble is, I’m becoming exhausted, he said to himself.
He was even more tired at noon. Only one snail pursued him, but the professor imagined the other resting or eating a tree top, in order to be fresh later. The professor could trot a hundred yards, find a spot to rest in, but he dared not shut his eyes for long, lest he sleep. And he was definitely weak from lack of food.
So the day passed. His idea of dropping a rock down the gulley was thwarted by two factors: the second snail was guarding the gulley now, at the top of its V, and there was no such rock as he needed within a hundred yards.
When dusk came, the professor could not find the hill where the igneous rocks were. Both snails had him in their sight now. His watch said a quarter to seven. Professor Clavering took a deep breath and faced the fact that he must make an attempt to kill one or both snails before dark. Almost without thinking, or planning—he was too spent for that—he chopped down a slender tree and hacked off its branches. The leaves of these branches were devoured by the two snails five minutes after the branches had fallen to the ground. The professor dragged his tree several yards inland, and sharpened one end of it with the hatchet. It was too heavy a weap
on for one hand to wield, but in two hands, it made a kind of battering ram, or giant spear.
At once, Professor Clavering turned and attacked, running with the spear pointed slightly upward. He aimed for the first snail’s mouth, but struck too low, and the tree end penetrated about four inches into the snail’s chest—or the area below its face. No vital organ here, except the long, straight oesophagus, which in these giant snails would be set deeper than four inches. He had nothing for his trouble but lacerated hands. His spear hung for a few seconds in the snail’s flesh, then fell out on to the ground. The professor retreated, pulling his hatchet from his belt. The second snail, coming up abreast of the other, paused to chew off a few inches of the tree stump, then joined its mate in giving attention to Professor Clavering. There was something contemptuous, something absolutely assured, about the snails’ slow progress toward him, as if they were thinking, ‘Escape us a hundred, a thousand times, we shall finally reach you and devour every trace of you.’
The professor advanced once more, circled the snail he had just hit with the tree spear, and swung his hatchet at the rear of its shell. Desperately, he attacked the same spot with five or six direct hits, for now he had a plan. His hacking operation had to be halted, because the second snail was coming up behind him. Its snout and an antenna even brushed the professor’s legs moistly and staggered him, before he could step out of its way. Two more hatchet blows the professor got in, and then he stopped, because his right arm hurt. He had by no means gone through the shell, but he had no strength for more effort with the hatchet. He went back for his spear. His target was a small one, but he ran toward it with desperate purpose.
The blow landed. It even broke through.
The professor’s hands were further torn, but he was oblivious of them. His success made him as joyous as if he had killed both his enemies, as if a rescue ship with food, water, and a bed were even then sailing into Kuwa’s beach.
The snail was twisting and rearing up with pain.
Professor Clavering ran forward, lifted the drooping spear and pushed it with all his might farther into the snail, pointing it upward to go as close as possible to the lung. Whether the snail died soon or not, it was hors de combat, the professor saw. And he himself experienced something like physical collapse an instant after seeing the snail’s condition. He was quite incapable of taking on the other snail in the same manner, and the other snail was coming after him. The professor tried to walk in a straight line away from both snails, but he weaved with fatigue and faintness. He looked behind him. The unhurt snail was thirty feet away. The wounded snail faced him, but was motionless, half in and half out of its shell, suffering in silence some agony of asphyxiation. Professor Clavering walked on.
Quite by accident, just as it was growing dark, he came upon his field of rocks. Among them he took shelter for the second time. The snail’s snout probed the trench in which he lay, but he could not quite reach him. Would it not be better to remain in the trench tomorrow, to hope for rain for water? He fell asleep before he could come to any decision.
Again, when the professor awakened at dawn, the snail had departed. His hands throbbed. Their palms were encrusted with dried blood and sand. He thought it wise to go to the sea and wash them in salt water.
The giant snail lay between him and the sea, and at his approach, the snail very slowly began to creep toward him. Professor Clavering made a wobbling detour and continued on his way toward the water. He dipped his hands and moved them rapidly back and forth, at last lifted water to his face, longed to wet his dry mouth, warned himself that he should not, and yielded anyway, spitting out the water almost at once. Land snails hated salt and could be killed by salt crystals. The professor angrily flung handfuls of water at the snail’s face. The snail only lifted its head higher, out of the professor’s range. Its form was slender now, and it had, oddly, the grace of a homed gazelle, of some animal of the deer family. The snail lowered its snout, and the professor trudged away, but not quickly enough: the snail came down on his shoulder and the suctorial mouth clamped.
The professor screamed. My God, he thought, as a piece of his shirt, a piece of flesh and possibly bone was torn from his left shoulder, why was I such an ass as to linger? The snail’s weight pushed him under, but it was shallow here, and he struggled to his feet and walked toward the land. Blood streamed hotly down his side. He could not bear to look at his shoulder to see what had happened, and would not have been surprised if his left arm had dropped off in the next instant. The professor walked on aimlessly in shallow water near the land. He was still going faster than the snail.
Then he lifted his eyes to the empty horizon, and saw a dark spot in the water in the mid-distance. He stopped, wondering if it were real or a trick of his eyes: but now he made out the double body of a catamaran, and he thought he saw Dr. Stead’s straw hat. They had come from the Matusas!
‘Hello!’ the professor was shocked at the hoarseness, the feebleness of his voice. Not a chance that he had been heard.
But with hope now, the professor’s strength increased. He headed for a little beach—not his beach, a smaller one—and when he got there he stood in its centre, his good arm raised, and shouted, ‘Dr. Stead! This way!—On the beach!’ He could definitely see Dr. Stead’s hat and four dark heads.
There was no answering shout. Professor Clavering could not tell if they had heard him or not. And the accursed snail was only thirty feet away now! He’d lost his hatchet, he realized. And the camera that had been under water with him was now ruined, and so were the two pictures in it. No matter. He would live.
‘Here!’ he shouted, again lifting his arm.
The natives heard this. Suddenly all heads in the catamaran turned to him.
Dr. Stead pointed to him and gesticulated, and dimly Professor Clavering heard the good doctor urging the boatman to make for the shore. He saw Dr. Stead half stand up in the catamaran.
The natives gave a whoop—at first Professor Clavering thought it a whoop of joy, or of recognition, but almost at once a wild swing of the sail, a splash of a couple of oars, told him that the natives were trying to change their course.
Pebbles crackled. The snail was near. And this of course was what the natives had seen—the giant snail.
‘Please—Here!’ the professor screamed. He plunged again into the water. ‘Please!’
Dr. Stead was trying, that the professor could see. But the natives were rowing, paddling with hands even, and their sail was carrying them obliquely away.
The snail made a splash as it entered the sea. To drown or to be eaten alive? The professor wondered. He was waist-deep when he stumbled, waist-deep but head under when the snail crashed down upon him, and he realized as the thousands of pairs of teeth began to gnaw at his back, that his fate was both to drown and to be chewed to death.
The activity and rhythms of riding dominate several poems and songs of the supernatural, one of the most famous of which is “The Erl-King” by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOËTHE (1749—1843), author of the great German poem-drama, Faust. “The Erl-King,” subject of at least one art song, probably inspired “The Demon of the Gibbet” by Fitz-James O’Brien, but also note Bürger’s “Lenore” (both included in this volume).
The Erl-King
By Johann Wolfgang Von Goëthe
Who spurs his steed so late this night?
A man whose son is sick with fright.
He hugs his child to keep him warm
But can’t outride the fearful storm.
“Why do you shiver, son, and cry?”
“Because the Erl-King’s drawing nigh—
I see his shroud. I hear him moan.”
“ ’Tis but the fog—we ride alone.”
“O, little child, come ride with me.
We’ll greet my mother merrily.
She’ll pick you flowers, and presents bring,
And dress you like a little king.”
“O, father, help! Do you not know
T
he Erl-King’s voice that whispers low?”
“O, rest my son. O, peace, my child—
’Tis but the wind that blows so wild.”
“O, little child, let’s ride away.
With you my daughters wish to play.
They’ll give you gifts that you may keep.
They’ll dance. They’ll sing so you may sleep.”
“O, father, help! O, can’t you see
The Erl-King’s daughters beckon me?”
“My son, forget these idle fears—
You see the willow weep its tears.”
“O, little child, I love you so
That I will never let you go.”
“O, father, help, or I’ll take flight!
The Erl-King’s clutch is cold and tight!”
The shivering rider hugs his son,
Then spurs his steed into a run
That brings them home. The father cries,
For in his arms his baby dies.
English adaptation by Marvin Kaye
The legend of the imp in a bottle is said to be traceable to folktales told in remote German villages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Richard John Smith, actor and stage manager, turned the myth into a stage play, The Bottle Imp, produced in 1828, but he based his theatre piece on a literary reworking of the same theme published in 1826 (date approximate) and variously attributed to La Motte Fouqué and Johann Karl August Musäus. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, renowned author of Treasure Island, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Body Snatcher, saw the Smith stage play and decided to create his own idiosyncratic version of the plot. He set his story in his beloved South Seas, and here it is.
The Bottle Imp
By Robert Louis Stevenson
There was a man of the island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. The man was poor, brave, and active; he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a whaleboat on the Kamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe’s mind to have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a vessel bound to San Francisco.
Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural Page 6
