Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “How horrible!”

  “I screamed in terror and heard Languequetrou’s voice behind me. He was raging. He was carrying his lash. He launched out with tremendous blows at the Botocudos, and ordered them to dig a hole, and under our eyes they buried the mortal remains of my hapless friend without daring to utter a protest. Then Languequetrou made a cross with two pieces of wood and placed it over the newly-made grave. After that he went for them.”

  “He went for them?”

  “Yes, he bitterly reproached them, declaring that they had betrayed his confidence, and he would never have thought they would so soon return to their hideous practices after all he had done for them; and he threatened to leave them to their fate. They threw themselves on their knees, entreated his pardon, and swore never to be guilty of such a thing again.

  “We all returned to the fazenda. What could I do? I walked behind him. We had not spoken to each other. He accompanied me to my room.

  “‘That poor fellow was very unlucky to fall into their hands,’ he said. ‘It is not so very long ago that I began my efforts to civilize them. I am infuriated with them, and if they start a thing like this again within the year I will flog the whole lot of them to death, the old witch-doctor at their head.’

  “So saying, he came up to me and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away with indignation. I must tell you, madame, that when we first arrived at the fazenda, seized with resentment at the roughness with which I had been treated, and with despair at being cut off from Raphael whom I loved beyond anything else, I declined to listen to Languequetrou’s attentions. It was not at the moment when the horror of the sight I had just witnessed was still upon me, and had awakened in me every sort of suspicion — I think now that they were unfounded, but am not quite sure — that I was prepared to submit to Languequetrou’s assiduities....

  “I repulsed him therefore in no uncertain manner. I may even have emphasized my action with some insult of which I was unable, in that state of mind, to realize the folly. Be that as it may, there was a flash before my eyes, as I told you just now, blood gushed over my mutilated face, and my nose fell at my feet.”

  Mademoiselle Amanda had no sooner finished her story than the cry of the red monkey, repeated three times, was heard out of doors. She hurriedly took leave and disappeared. Irene, trembling, rose to her feet to go after her. She entered the wardrobe but was unable to find the door through which Mademoiselle Amanda had fled.

  She crept back to her room. A mirror stood before her. She could see her reflection from head to foot. She looked like a ghost. Instinctively her hand went up to her nose. It was ice-cold. But it was still there! Yet how much longer would it remain there? It was a horrible question, for her nose was the most beautiful nose that could possibly be imagined, in the sense that it was a lovely feminine nose with something nobly masculine about it. Looked at separately and then in relation to her face, it indicated pride, courage, determination, dignity. Julius Cæsar had a nose like that.

  Just then she heard footsteps stealthily moving in the next room. She imagined that it was Mademoiselle Amanda come back. She made up her mind not to part from her again. She darted forward.

  She found herself confronted with the old witchdoctor and two other Botocudos who quickly stifled her cries and wrapped a rug around her. They carried her out of the fazenda. And she heard Languequetrou’s voice behind her:

  “Don’t make a noise, Demonio.”

  She no longer feared Mademoiselle’s fate but Raphael’s. Languequetrou had handed her over to cannibals!

  CHAPTER XXI

  HOW THE BOTOCUDO INDIANS DRESS THEIR MEAT

  HER CAPTORS REFRAINED from bandaging her eyes. She saw that they had laid her on a stretcher which in no way resembled the splendid litter in which she had made her triumphant entrance into the fazenda. It consisted of coarse canvas between two poles which two Botocudos carried on their shoulders.

  The old witch-doctor gave the order, and they set out at the double in the bright clear night, passing through the farm lands belonging to the fazenda. Next they plunged into the darkness of the forest, which seemed in no way to hamper them. They must have been able to see in the dark like cats.

  Languequetrou remained at the fazenda. His barbarity, apparently, did not go so far as to enable him to be present and rejoice at the hideous spectacle of death to which he had condemned her for refusing the throne of Patagonia.

  When the poor thing beheld through the trees the light of a fire, and the convoy emerged into a clearing upon which she had never set her eyes, but at once recognized, she no longer entertained any doubt of her fate. Not far from the fire stood a wooden cross, the cross which Languequetrou with his own hands had placed over the grave of the luckless Raphael.

  Round about the fire were what is still called in the country a toldoria; in other words a collection of tents common to Tobas Indians and sometimes Mangos Indians — Indians who have already attained some degree of civilization. But these tents did not belong to Tobas or Mangos Indians, they formed the abode of the last of the Botocudos.

  Though they were not to savour Monsieur Casimir’s cookery that night their faces wore a horrible grin which in itself bore witness to their joy. Irene was placed on the ground, still black from previous fires, between the fire, whose flames crackled cheerfully, and the little wooden cross.

  Soon, she thought, there would be two crosses in the clearing. And yet it was not wholly certain. Languequetrou was not there to pay the last honours to her. She was sorry. Had he been present she would not have lost all hope. But, in truth, after having done so much to break the Botocudos of their taste for human flesh it would have been contrary to his principles to assist at a feast which he had always held in abhorrence.

  Strange to say, Irene did not give way to the horror of her position, nor even faint; her eyes were still wide open. Terror has its limits, and after a certain time the human being, like the brute beast, is incapable of the least reaction. Resigned to the inevitable she waited.

  An ox outside a slaughter-house will often resist before he is forced to enter it. A sure instinct tells him of his coming fate. The diffused stench of blood, the roar of his fellows as they are being led to the slaughter, excites him to a last revolt. He braces himself to meet the onslaught, trembling in every limb. But at last he is in the slaughter-house... and for him the struggle is over.... His eyes are unseeing and dazed, and when the mallet is raised he does not shrink. He falls under the stroke, but the life was already out of him....

  Thus Irene did not stir a limb when the old witch-doctor came up to her with his knife.... Her mind was a perfect blank, and even had she been capable of thought she would certainly not have supposed that he was running his knife over her figure solely to cut her bonds. She began to collect her thoughts when she realized that her limbs were free. She drew herself up. Life began to flow in her veins again. And then fear seized her anew.

  A huge cauldron was swinging over a fire. Now and again Indians stirred the contents with a long stick, gazing at her with a hideous smile. Others seated round her held their knives in their hands. She had the supreme courage to ask the old Botocudo what it all meant.

  “We are going on a long journey,” he said. “We don’t know how many days it will last. Therefore we are obliged to preserve some meat. We boil down pieces of fat in the cauldron. Then we allow the fat to cool. Next we spread it over cooked meat, trimming the meat in such a way that the air can’t get to it. The meat quickly becomes dried and as black as coal. When we want to eat any of it we scrape off the dried layer of fat, and come to the meat which completely retains its flavour. Washed down with rum or gin it is delicious. It was Monsieur Casimir who taught us to drink rum or gin with it, but the method itself is as old as our fathers. We call this meat barbacoa.”

  “So do we in Paris,” Irene could not help interjecting, for she was not ignorant of slang terms.

  Barbacoa in Brazil and barbaque in Paris. How wonderfully everythin
g is connected in this world!

  “But where is the meat?” she asked, suddenly a prey to a new feeling of anxiety.

  “It has just come,” returned the old man, rising and leaving her as he spoke, and once again she was plunged into the abyss.

  CHAPTER XXII

  PURSUIT

  “You shall bequeath your name to new peoples.”

  — Leconte de Lisle.

  IRENE did not begin to feel at ease until she saw great chunks of beef and venison ready for preserving brought in on the shoulders of Indians whom she recognized as having formed her first escort.

  They lost no time in setting to work and did not appear to pay further heed to her. The old man, who had momentarily disappeared, returned and urged them on to renewed effort. Suddenly he gave a signal. A dead silence ensued in the encampment, and the fire was extinguished.

  In a few minutes tents were struck and rolled up. The pack-horses were brought together. Then Languequetrou appeared in sight. He was mounted, and had been riding hard, for his horse was covered with foam.

  Irene was once more hurried into her litter, and the entire body of men marched into the densest part of the forest. Languequetrou drew near her, and apologized for the abruptness with which she had been forced to leave the fazenda.

  “Nothing led me to foresee such a contingency,” he declared. “A military detachment has just landed on the coast and is crossing the sertao. It has already reached ‘The Three Virgins.’ Brazil is sending her forces against me. Time will show.”

  Irene drew herself up, quivering in every limb.

  “On the contrary, everything should have led you to foresee that you wouldn’t be allowed to treat Irene de Troie of the Comédie Française as you have treated Mademoiselle Amanda. You will have the whole world against you. Give up this madness. There is still time. Think!”

  “I have thought,” he returned. “And now a word of advice: If you value your life don’t make a sound.”

  “I don’t value my life. I haven’t valued it since I met you.”

  “All the same, don’t make a sound,” he returned, allowing her to pass ahead of him with the two carriers and the witch-doctor. The old man was not smoking his pipe that night, but held on to his knife.

  She kept silent, but almost at once the sound of cries and yells struck her ears. The forest seemed alive with an extraordinary ferment. The noise drew nearer and nearer, and the carriers quickened their pace. An immense hope filled Irene’s heart. She imagined for a moment that the native soldiery had succeeded in overtaking them, and she was about to be delivered at last from her nightmare.

  It seemed all the more likely as she perceived by the flickering light which fell from the starry heavens through the branches of the trees a veritable army of dark forms gesticulating and uttering piercing cries round her escort. They were on every hand, and even the trees seemed to be alive with them. Hundreds of shaggy acrobats were leaping overhead, swinging at the ends of tropical creepers. They were monkeys of incredible daring, who seemed determined to block the way to the new “undesirables.”

  Languequetrou levelled his rifle and fired at the most brazen among them, a fellow who had taken up his quarters in the fork of a cacao tree, and was showing and grinding his teeth with rage; and the monkey came tumbling to the ground. Straightway the trees seemed to be tossing like a ship in a gale, and the army of monkeys, leaping from tree to tree, raced off into the darkness.

  At daybreak a dozen men with the mules and horses laden with the tents followed another trail. Thus the column was divided into two sections, a manoeuvre which was obviously intended to put their pursuers off the scent.

  Languequetrou was now on foot bringing up the rear of the section which included Irene in her litter. Worn out mentally and physically she closed her eyes. When she came to herself from this sort of stupor she noticed that they had halted on the banks of a stream. She rose and went down to the water for a wash. An Indian bathed her feet.

  They gave her some tinned milk. When they set out again, as they marched parallel with the stream she did not at once return to her litter. She walked on, a prey to the gloomiest thoughts. Each step, each turning seemed to be carrying her towards the most tragic part of her adventure — her separation from the rest of the world.

  She was but a plaything in the hands of the most deceitful and cruel of savages, a savage newly civilized, who added to his society manners the craft and patience and open duplicity of his kind....

  She was walking on with difficulty through the tall grass when suddenly she stopped, quivering with horror. Her wide open mouth was unable to utter a sound.

  “Don’t move,” said Languequetrou behind her, “and pray to Notre Dame de la Victoire.”

  Hoarse cries — prayers or curses — burst from the throats of the Botocudos.... Facing Irene, a few steps away, was a monster as tall as she. It was like a huge black and yellow cable standing erect and barring her path.... The boa-constrictor did not stir. Only a slight flicker of the eyelids indicated that it was not asleep. To the Indians it was the panga, a demi-god among reptiles.

  Suddenly it made a movement to draw back its head and strike at Irene, but Languequetrou had shot forward. There was a flash between Irene and the boa like that which had cost Mademoiselle Amanda her nose, and the monster lay writhing in two sections which seemed to be twisting frantically one towards the other as though to unite again. Languequetrou’s forest knife had done its work.... Irene had to be carried to her litter.

  For two days and nights they threaded their way through the jungle. At night the call of some animal roused Irene from her feverish stupor. It was like the snarl of the jaguar, now seemingly near, then distant, and then near again; the branches of the trees opened out, and Irene in her terror dared not stir a limb lest the brute should leap on her. The brute, in fact, appeared on the trail. It was one of the Botocudos who had been making a tour round about, and had borrowed the language of the great cat to inform his people that no danger threatened them.

  Since the incident of the boa-constrictor Irene had not seen Languequetrou, who had returned to the rear guard. She had no opportunity of thanking him for his intervention. On the fourth day she perceived that they had reached the coast. There had been no need to traverse the bush. They had arrived at the coast under cover of the forest whose thickly wooded borders stood on the high cliffs of a wild-looking creek.

  A temporary shelter was built with a few branches. Irene was given a sort of hut to herself. Languequetrou came to call on her. She at once left it. Her temples were throbbing. He was quite calm.

  “How you hate me!” he said.

  “Yes, why did you save my life?”

  “Because I had to,” he replied in icy tones. “Your life is sacred. It does not belong either to you or me.”

  “Whom does it belong to then?” she asked in renewed bewilderment, for this man was an enigma more difficult to solve each time they met. “To our children.”

  “Our children?”

  “Yes. Between us we shall unite the two hemispheres, and the new Patagonia will be born from this union. The spirit of Ouenetrou is in me....”

  “Are you taking me away to Patagonia?”

  “Yes, we shall be there in a few days.”

  “But you promised to land me at Montevideo.”

  “It was Languequetrou who made that promise. But Languequetrou is dead! Ouenetrou has spoken.... Ouenetrou wills that we should have beautiful children!...”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  IN WHICH IRENE MEETS SYLVIA AGAIN

  THEY REMAINED THREE days on the coast hidden among the gaunt masses of grey rock where the stretch of forest died down. Irene was wondering the while whence assistance would come to her. She gazed into the distance, and the distance echoed where. Where was the Brazilian army? Where was the Brazilian fleet?

  On the evening of the third day she descried a wisp of smoke in the north-east, and soon made out a small vessel hugging the coast. It must
be the foremost vessel of the fleet whose errand was to rescue her. But she quickly realized that the vessel was not followed by any other. And yet, if this ship were armed and took the encampment by surprise it would serve just as well.

  The Botocudos did not seem to have observed the ship. Languequetrou, shut up in his hut, was spending his time in putting down columns of figures. He was apparently working out his civil list, an absorbing occupation for a new king!

  An hour later Irene felt that it was impossible for the coming of the ship to have escaped them, and the complete serenity with which they saw her heading for the creek was not calculated to give Irene any satisfaction. Soon she recognized the Ma Casa. It was the yacht in which Languequetrou was to carry her off to Patagonia! Just then Languequetrou came up and confirmed her impression.

  “Yes, senhora, soon you will be in my country.”

  Ma Casa dropped anchor at that moment opposite them. It was the same smart little vessel with her highly polished masts, cool looking sails and deck-houses, and the same short, swaggering funnel which seemed to say: “Come with me for a jolly little trip.” How well Irene knew the motor-boat which put off from her! It was an ill-fated moment when she set foot on that yacht for the first time!

  Before they boarded her, Languequetrou made a long speech to the Botocudos, promising to send for them if they continued to behave themselves properly, and to form them, in his country, into a special guard for the palace. He embraced the old witch-doctor, who clung to his pipe the while, and sprang into the motor-boat after Irene had first taken her seat.

  When they boarded Ma Casa, she was flying Ouenetrou’s flag — a red sun in the form of a shield pierced with four arrows on a white background. A man at once stepped out from the crew and bowed low three times. He was a sort of long-haired, amber-coloured giant over six feet in height clad in a somewhat peculiar robe.