Everything had seemed to mock them—the crawling, sour-miasmic jungle; the slippery roots and timber falls; the sun of the tropics, brown, decayed, like the sun on the Day of Judgment; the very flowers, spiky, odorous, waxen, unhealthy, lascivious.
At night, when they had rested in some clearing, they had even feared their own campfire—flaring up, twinkling, flickering, then coiling into a ruby ball. It had seemed completely isolated in the purple night.
Isolated!
And they had longed for human companionship—white companionship.
White faces. White slang. White curses. White odors. White obscenities.
Why—they would have welcomed a decent, square, honest white murder; a knife flashing in some yellow-haired Norse sailor’s brawny fist; a belaying pin in the hand of some bullying Liverpool tramp-ship skipper; some Nome gambler’s six-gun splattering leaden death; some apache of the Rue de Venise garroting a passerby.
But here, in the African jungle—and how Stuart McGregor remembered it—the fear of death had seemed pregnant with unmentionable horror. There had been no sounds except the buzzing of the tsetse flies and a faint rubbing of drums, whispering through the desert and jungle like the voices of disembodied souls, astray on the outer rim of creation.
And, overhead, the stars. Always, at night, three stars, glittering, leering; and Stuart McGregor, who had gone through college and had once written his college measure of limping, anemic verse, had pointed at them.
“The three stars of Africa!” he had said. “The star of violence! The star of lust! And the little stinking star of greed!”
And he had broken into staccato laughter which had struck Farragut Hutchinson as singularly out of place and had caused him to blurt forth with a wicked curse:
“Shut your trap, you—”
For already they had begun to quarrel, those two pals of a dozen tight, riotous adventures. Already, imperceptibly, gradually, like the shadow of a leaf through summer dusk, a mutual hatred had grown up between them.
But they had controlled themselves. The diamonds were good, could be sold at a big figure; and, even split in two, would mean a comfortable stake.
Then, quite suddenly, had come the end—the end for them.
And the twisting, gliding skill of Stuart McGregor’s fingers had made sure that Farragut Hutchison should be that one.
Years after, when Africa as a whole had faded to a memory of coiling, unclean shadows, Stuart McGregor used to say, with that rather plaintive, monotonous drawl of his, that the end of this phantasmal African adventure had been different from what he had expected it to be.
In a way, he had found it disappointing.
Not that it had lacked in purely dramatic thrills and blood-curdling trimmings. That wasn’t it. On the contrary, it had had a plethora of thrills.
But, rather, he must have been keyed up to too high a pitch; must have expected too much, feared too much during that journey from the Bakoto village back through the hinterland.
Thus when, one night, the Bakoto warriors had come from nowhere, out of the jungle, hundreds of them, silent, as if the wilderness had spewed them forth, it had seemed quite prosy.
Prosy, too, had been the expectation of death. It had even seemed a welcome relief from the straining fatigues of the jungle pull, the recurrent fits of fever, the flying and crawling pests, the gnawing moroseness which is so typically African.
“An explosion of life and hatred,” Stuart McGregor used to say, “that’s what I had expected, don’t you see? Quick and merciless. And it wasn’t. For the end came—slow and inevitable. Solid. Greek in a way. And so courtly! So polite! That was the worst of it!”
For the leader of the Bakotos, a tall, broad, frizzy, odorous warrior, with a face like a black Nero with a dash of Manchu emperor, had bowed before them with a great clanking of barbarous ornaments. There had been no marring taint of hatred in his voice as he told them that they must pay for their insults to the fetish. He had not even mentioned the theft of the gold dust and diamonds.
“My heart is heavy at the thought, white chiefs,” he said. “But—you must pay!”
Stuart McGregor had stammered ineffectual, foolish apologies:
“We—we were drunk. We didn’t know what—oh—what we—”
“What you were doing!” the Bakoto had finished the sentence for him, with a little melancholy sigh. “And there is forgiveness in my heart—”
“You—you mean to say—” Farragut Hutchison had jumped up, with extended hand, blurting out hectic thanks.
“Forgiveness in my heart, not the juju’s,” gently continued the black man. “For the juju never forgives. On the other hand, the juju is fair. He wants his just measure of blood. Not an ounce more. Therefore,” the Bakoto had gone on, and his face had been as stony and as passionless as that of the Buddha who meditates in the shade of the cobra’s hood, “the choice will be yours.”
“Choice?” Farragut Hutchison had looked up, a gleam of hope in his eyes.
“Yes. Choice which one of you will die.” The Bakoto had smiled, with the same suave courtliness which had, somehow, increased the utter horror of the scene. “Die—oh—a slow death, befitting the insult to the juju, befitting the juju’s great holiness!”
Suddenly, Stuart McGregor had understood that there would be no arguing, no bargaining whatsoever; and, quickly, had come his hysterical question:
“Who? I—or—”
He had slurred and stopped, somehow ashamed, and the Bakoto had finished the interrupted question with gentle, gliding, inhuman laughter: “Your friend? White chief, that is for you two to decide. I only know that the juju has spoken to the priest, and that he is satisfied with the life of one of you two; the life—and the death. A slow death.”
He had paused; then had continued gently, so very, very gently: “Yes. A slow death, depending entirely upon the vitality of the one of you two who will be sacrificed to the juju. There will be little knives. There will be the flying insects which follow the smell of blood and festering flesh. Too, there will be many crimson-headed ants, many ants—and a thin river of honey to show them the trail.”
He had yawned. Then he had gone on: “Consider. The juju is just. He only wants the sacrifice of one of you, and you yourselves must decide which one shall go, and which one shall stay. And—remember the little, little knives. Be pleased to remember the many ants which follow the honey trail. I shall return shortly and hear your choice.”
He had bowed and, with his silent warriors, had stepped back into the jungle that had closed behind them like a curtain.
Even in that moment of stark, enormous horror, horror too great to be grasped, horror that swept over and beyond the barriers of fear—even in that moment Stuart McGregor had realized that, by leaving the choice to them, the Bakoto had committed a refined cruelty worthy of a more civilized race, and had added a psychic torture fully as dreadful as the physical torture of the little knives.
Too, in that moment of ghastly, lecherous expectancy, he had known that it was Farragut Hutchison who would be sacrificed to the juju—Farragut Hutchison who sat there, staring into the camp fire, making queer little, funny noises in his throat.
Suddenly, Stuart McGregor had laughed—he remembered that laugh to his dying day—and had thrown a greasy pack of playing cards into the circle of meager, indifferent light.
“Let the cards decide, old boy,” he had shouted. “One hand of poker—and no drawing to your hand. Showdown! That’s square, isn’t it?”
“Sure!” the other had replied, still staring straight ahead of him. “Go ahead and deal—”
His voice had drifted into a mumble while Stuart McGregor had picked up the deck, had shuffled, slowly, mechanically.
As he shuffled, it had seemed to him as if his brain was frantically telegraphing to his fingers, as if all those delicate little nerves that ran from the back of his skull down to his finger tips were throbbing a clicking little chorus:
“Do—it—Mac!
Do—it—Mac! Do—it—Mac!” with a maddening, syncopated rhythm.
And he had kept on shuffling, had kept on watching the motions of his fingers—and had seen that his thumb and second finger had shuffled the ace of hearts to the bottom of the deck.
Had he done it on purpose? He did not know then. He never found out—though, in his memory, he lived through the scene a thousand times.
But there were the little knives. There were the ants. There was the honey trail. There was his own, hard decision to live. And, years earlier, he had been a professional faro dealer at Silver City.
Another ace had joined the first at the bottom of the deck. The third. The fourth.
And then Farragut Hutchison’s violent: “Deal, man, deal! You’re driving me crazy. Get it over with.”
The sweat had been pouring from Stuart McGregor’s face. His blood had throbbed in his veins. Something like a sledgehammer had drummed at the base of his skull.
“Cut, won’t you?” he had said, his voice coming as if from very far away.
The other had waved a trembling hand, “No, no! Deal ’em as they lie. You won’t cheat me.”
Stuart McGregor had cleared a little space on the ground with the point of his shoe.
He remembered the motion. He remembered how the dead leaves had stirred with a dry, rasping, tragic sound, how something slimy and phosphorous-green had squirmed through the tufted jungle grass, how a little furry scorpion had scurried away with a clicking tchk-tchk-tchk.
He had dealt.
Mechanically, even as he was watching them, his fingers had given himself five cards from the bottom of the deck. Four aces—and the queen of diamonds. And, the next second, in answer to Farragut Hutchison’s choked: “Show-down! I have two pair—kings—and jacks!” his own well simulated shriek of joy and triumph:
“I win! I’ve four aces! Every ace in the pack!”
And then Farragut Hutchison’s weak, ridiculous exclamation—ridiculous considering the dreadful fate that awaited him:
“Geewhittaker! You’re some lucky guy, aren’t you, Mac?”
At the same moment, the Bakoto chief had stepped out of the jungle, followed by half a dozen warriors.
Then the final scene—that ghastly, ironic moon squinting down, just as Farragut Hutchison had walked away between the giant, plumed, ochre-smeared Bakoto warriors, and bringing into stark relief the tattoo mark on his back where the shirt had been torn to tatters—and the leering, evil wink in the eagle’s eye as Farragut Hutchison twitched his shoulder blades with absurd, nervous resignation.
Stuart McGregor remembered it every day of his life.
He spoke of it to many. But only to Father Aloysius O’Donnell, the priest who officiated in the little Gothic church around the corner, on Ninth Avenue, did he tell the whole truth—did he confess that he had cheated.
“Of course I cheated!” he said. “Of course!” And, with a sort of mocking bravado: “What would you have done, padre?”
The priest, who was old and wise and gentle, thus not at all sure of himself, shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t know.”
“Well—I do know. You would have done what I did. You wouldn’t have been able to help yourself.” Then, in a low voice: “And you would have paid! As I pay—every day, every minute, every second of my life.”
“Regret, repentance,” murmured the priest, but the other cut him short.
“Repentance—nothing. I regret nothing! I repent nothing! I’d do the same tomorrow. It isn’t that—oh—that—what d’ye call it—sting of conscience, that’s driving me crazy. It’s fear!”
“Fear of what?” asked Father O’Donnell.
“Fear of Farragut Hutchison—who is dead!”
* * * *
Ten years ago!
And he knew that Farragut Hutchison had died. For not long afterward a British trader had come upon certain gruesome but unmistakable remains and had brought the tale to the coast. Yet was there fear in Stuart McGregor’s soul, fear worse than the fear of the little knives. Fear of Farragut Hutchison who was dead?
No. He did not believe that the man was dead. He did not believe it, could not believe it.
“And even suppose he’s dead,” he used to say to the priest, “he’ll get me. He’ll get me as sure as you’re born. I saw it in the eye of that eagle—the squinting eye of that infernal, tattooed eagle!”
Then he would turn a grayish yellow, his whole body would tremble with a terrible palsy and, in a sort of whine, which was both ridiculous and pathetic, given his size and bulk, given the crimson, twisted adventures through which he had passed, he would exclaim:
“He’ll get me. He’ll get me. He’ll get me even from beyond the grave.”
And then Father O’Donnell would cross himself rapidly, just a little guiltily.
It is said that there is a morbid curiosity which forces the murderer to view the place of his crime.
Some psychic reason of the same kind may have caused Stuart McGregor to decorate the walls and corners of his sitting room with the memories of that Africa which he feared and hated, and which, daily, he was trying to forget—with a shimmering, cruel mass of jungle curios, sjamboks and assegais, signal drums and daggers, knobkerries and rhino shields and what not.
Steadily, he added to his collection, buying in auction rooms, in little shops on the waterfront, from sailors and ship pursers and collectors who had duplicates for sale.
He became a well-known figure in the row of antique stores in back of Madison Square Garden, and was so liberal when it came to payment that Morris Newman, who specialized in African curios, would send the pick of all the new stuff he bought to his house.
* * * *
It was on a day in August—one of those tropical New York days when the very birds gasp for air, when orange-flaming sun rays drop from the brazen sky like crackling spears and the melting asphalt picks them up again and tosses them high—that Stuart McGregor, returning from a short walk, found a large, round package in his sitting room.
“Mr. Newman sent it,” his servant explained. “He said it’s a rare curio, and he’s sure you’ll like it.”
“All right.”
The servant bowed, left, and closed the door, while Stuart McGregor cut the twine, unwrapped the paper, looked.
And then, suddenly, he screamed with fear; and, just as suddenly, the scream of fear turned into a scream of maniacal joy.
For the thing which Newman had sent him was an African signal drum, covered with tightly stretched skin-human skin—white skin! And square in the center there was a tattoo mark—an eagle in red and blue, surmounted by a lopsided crown, and surrounded by a wavy design.
Here was the final proof that Farragut Hutchison was dead, that, forever, he was rid of his fear. In a paroxysm of joy, he picked up the drum and clutched it to his heart.
And then he gave a cry of pain. His lips quivered, frothed. His hands dropped the drum and fanned the air, and he looked at the thing that had fastened itself to his right wrist.
It seemed like a short length of rope, grayish in color, spotted with dull red. Even as Stuart McGregor dropped to the floor, dying, he knew what had happened.
A little venomous snake, an African fer-de-lance, that had been curled up in the inside of the drum, been numbed by the cold, and had been revived by the splintering heat of New York.
* * * *
Yes—even as he died he knew what had happened. Even as he died, he saw that malign, obscene squint in the eagle’s eye. Even as he died, he knew that Farragut Hutchison had killed him—from beyond the grave!
LUCIFER, by John D. Swain
The notorious Remsen Case was table-talk a year or so ago, although a few today could quote the details offhand. Because of it, half a dozen men were discussing psychic trivialities, in a more or less desultory way. Bliven, the psychoanalyst, was speaking.
“It all hinges on a tendency which is perhaps best expressed in such old saws as: �
�Drowning men clutch at straws,’ ‘Any port in a storm,’ or, ‘A gambling chance.’
“When men have exhausted science and religion, they turn to mediums, and crystal-gazers, and clairvoyants, and patent medicines. I knew an intelligent pharmacist who was dying of a malignant disease. Operated on three times. Specialists had given him up. Then he began to take the nostrums and cure-alls on his own shelves, although he knew perfectly well what they contained—or could easily enough have found out. Consulted a lot of herb doctors, and long-haired Indian healers, and advertising specialists.”
“And, of course, without result,” commented the little English doctor.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Bliven. “It kept alive the forlorn spark of hope in his soul. Better than merely folding his hands and waiting for the inevitable! He was just starting in with a miraculous Brazilian root, when he snuffed out. On the whole, he lived happier, and quite possibly longer, because of all the fake remedies and doctors he spent so much money on. It’s all in your own mind, you know. Nothing else counts much.”
“All fakes, including the records of the P.S.R.,” nodded Holmes, who lectured on experimental psychology.
The little doctor shook his head depreciatingly.
“I shouldn’t go as far as that, really,” he objected, “because, every now and then, in the midst of their conscious faking, as you call it, with the marked cards and prepared slates, the hidden magnets and invisible wires and all, these mediums and pseudo-magicians come up against something that utterly baffles them. I have talked with a well-known prestidigitator who has a standing bet of a hundred guineas that he can duplicate the manifestations of any medium; and yet he states that every now and then he finds himself utterly baffled. He can fake the thing cleverly, you understand; but he cannot fathom the unknown forces back of it all. It is dangerous ground. It is sometimes blasphemy! It is blundering in where angels fear to tread.”
“Piffle!” snorted Bliven. “The subconscious mind explains it all; and we have only skirted the edge of our subject. When we have mastered it, we shall do thing right in the laboratory that will put every astrologer and palmist and tea-ground prophet out of business.”
The Horror Megapack Page 20
