by E. C. Tubb
“‘I’ll stay with you,’ I promised. ‘Try and get some sleep now.’
“He nodded and finished his drink and settled himself for sleep. He closed his eyes and I heard his breathing alter the way it does when a man drops off. He was asleep for about ten minutes then he jerked, twisting and writhing beneath the covers then, with a repeat performance of that terrible scream, he sat upright and began to tear the clothes from his body.
“‘Snakes!’ he screamed. ‘They’re all over me. Help! Help!’
“I managed to calm him before the captain arrived and I soothed the officer by explaining that Bill was still suffering from fever. He shrugged, there was nothing he could do, and went away again. After he had gone I looked at my companion. He looked ghastly.
“‘I’ve got to get some sleep, Sam,’ he muttered. ‘I haven't been able to sleep since we started. Every time I drop off I get those horrible nightmares. At first I managed to wake up without screaming, in fact I managed to stay awake all the time, but I can’t keep it up. I’ve got to get some sleep soon or I’ll collapse.’
“‘Did you sleep in Burma?’ I knew he had but I wanted him to tell me. He nodded.
“‘Yes. No trouble then. It only happened after we left the land.’ He licked his lips. ‘Do you believe in curses, Sam?’
“I didn’t and I said so and I seemed to cheer him up.
“‘I don’t either,’ he said. ‘Dirty lot of natives making all sorts of threats. They might work on a savage but not a white man.’
“I didn’t answer that. I don’t consider natives as being either ‘dirty’ or ‘savage,’ most of them are a lot better than many white men I know, but I agreed with Bill about the powers of curses.”
Henshaw paused again. “At least,” he said slowly. “I believed that then. Now? I’m not so sure.”
“Nonsense,” said Winters. “Your friend was suffering from delirium caused by his fever. You should have given him morphine.”
“I did,” said Henshaw grimly. “I gave it to him on the fifth night out. He was pretty bad by that time, he hadn’t slept at all for almost a week. He kept dosing off and waking with one of those terrible screams. It began to upset the crew and they wouldn’t come near us. It got so that I had even to fetch our food myself and it began to play on my nerves too. Because I couldn’t leave him for a moment. He seemed to trust me and wanted me beside him all the time.”
“Morphine would have cured him,” insisted Winters. “That and firmness. You made a mistake in pampering to him.”
“It was a small ship,” reminded Henshaw. “His screams couldn’t be muffled and, frankly, I began to worry about his safety. The crew were murmuring to themselves, they were a superstitious lot, and even the officers looked as though they wished he were dead. Anyway, I tried morphine.”
“And it worked?”
“It worked,” admitted Henshaw. “That is it rendered him unconscious, but the after effects were even worse.”
“How do you mean?” Tony leaned forward his eyes reflecting his interest. Henshaw shrugged.
“I gave him a heavy dose,” he continued, “and Bill passed out. At first he seemed to be relaxed and normal but, after a time, I noticed that he kept twitching as though he wanted to awake but couldn’t because of the drug. He began to speak too, a jumble of nonsense, fragments of words and disconnected sentences in a couple of languages all mixed up together. I was tempted to give him another shot of morphine but didn’t because I was afraid of doing more harm than good.
“The mumbling grew worse and, quite suddenly, he began to speak in a different voice entirely. This time he spoke in Burmese. I knew enough of the language to make out what he was saying, and what I heard made me try and arouse him. It was useless. The drug still had him in its grip, so I just had to sit there and listen to the strange voice coming from between his lips.
“It was a curse. It was a man cursing the robber of a temple and it was one of the most unpleasant combinations of sound that I have ever listened to. I can’t give you a literal translation but, in effect, he was promising the curse of the things that crawled on the earth and the way he said it made me think of snakes and spiders and ants and all manner of insects.
“The voice died and Bill began to thresh about even worse than before. He struggled so hard that I had to hold him down and, while doing it, I felt the belt around his waist. It was the usual sort of money belt most people carry in the rough parts of the world, double canvas with straps and pockets, and he had it belted so tightly that it was cutting into his flesh. I removed it. I took it off because I thought that it might be hurting him and, as soon as I did so, he quieted and, in a few minutes, fell fast asleep.
“He told me about the belt when he woke.
“‘I meant to tell you about it before, Sam,’ he said. ‘You know why I went to Burma in the first place and you know what I hoped to do. Well, I did it.’ He fumbled with the belt and undid a secret pocket. From it he took a ruby and held it out to me on the palm of his hand. It was one of the biggest and finest rubies I have even seen. Flawless, of good colour and worth a fortune. I examined it while he told me his story.
“‘I managed to get into the temple,” he said, and there was pride in his voice. ‘They had an ugly great idol set up on some sort of an altar and this gem was set into its forehead. Well, I decided to get it and hung around for a couple of weeks making my plans. The temple was guarded, of course, I knew that, and they had an old man, a priest I suppose you’d call him, on duty at night. Well, to make it short, I managed to draw off the guards and entered the temple. The old man tried to stop me so I hit him with the butt of my gun. I must have hit harder than I intended, that or perhaps he had a thin skull, because he dropped like a stone and just as dead.
“‘You can guess the rest. I prised out the ruby and hid it in my belt. I made for Rangoon as fast as I could and I would have made it too if I hadn’t come down with fever. That slowed me up and the rest you know.’
“He took back the ruby and held it in his hand. “‘It’s got a curse on it,’ he said casually. ‘Most of these things have but I don’t think I need worry about that. Once I get it to a decent jeweller who can pay me its worth the new owners can worry about the curse. Me? I’ll be too busy spending money.’
“‘If you take my advice,’ I said seriously, ‘you’ll send this gem back to the place you took it from.’
“‘Why should I?’ He laughed as he strapped the belt around his waist. ‘I’ve been ill but that’s all over now. How can anyone harm me in the middle of the ocean?’ He was still laughing when we went up to dinner.
“It was the first time he had eaten with the officers and I noticed that he drank far more than was good for him. He knew German so he and the captain got on well together and, after we returned to our cabin, I suggested that he ask the officer to put the ruby in his safe. Bill wouldn’t hear of it but I did manage to persuade him to unstrap the belt when he went to bed.
“It was warm with that heavy, cloying heat you get in the tropics and sleep was a long time coming. Finally I managed to drop off and immediately experienced one of the most terrible nightmares in all my life. I was asleep, I knew it, but all over mc I could feel thousands of thin limbs scuttling over me. It was as though I were covered with spiders. I could sense them, even smell them, and I awoke with my throat sore from my screams.”
Henshaw shuddered as he recalled it and, warm though the fire was, he shivered as if with a sudden chill.
“I found out afterwards what had happened. Bill, either because he feared that I might rob him or for some other reason of his own, had hidden the ruby beneath my mattress. He confessed it to me next day after I had spent a wakeful night and he had slept like a log. The solution to his problem now seemed obvious. His nightmares only came while he was in contact with the ruby so, if he left it off, then he wouldn’t be troubled. He still wouldn’t hear of putting it in the captain’s safe however, and so he compromised by hiding it some
where in the cabin.
The next few days passed without incident, and I was just beginning to think that the entire episode was over, when the second phase of the curse began to take effect.”
Henshaw looked at the faces of the men around the fire. “This, to me, is the inexplicable part. All the rest has some sort of logical explanation. The dreams, well, we all have dreams. It could have been mere coincidence that the voice I heard speaking the curse and the actual dreams themselves had anything in common. It was, as you might say if you wanted to fit everything into a pattern, the preliminary warning. The first part of the curse. The hints of what was to come. That, at least, is how it strikes me looking back at it but at the time, of course, I had no idea of the horror which was to follow.”
“What happened?” Tony was impatient to hear the end. “Did Bill die?”
“Yes, he died,” said Henshaw grimly. “But let me tell it in my own way.”
“Sorry,” said the young man abashed. “Can I order you a drink?”
“You can order us all drinks,” said Winters testily. “As a punishment for your continual interruptions.” He nodded towards Henshaw. “Please continue, sir. I for one am very interested.”
“It began with a smell,” said Henshaw reminiscently. “I don’t know if any of you have ever smelt the inside of a native hut, especially the hut of a head-hunter, but it was like that. A sickly, dirty, fleshy sort of smell. It seemed to hang around the cabin and, no matter what we did, it persisted. I opened the portholes and door so that a draught would blow through. I gave one of the Lascars a hundred cigarettes and he scrubbed the entire cabin out with disinfectant. We even burned some joss sticks I bought from the steward but nothing made the slightest difference. The smell, if anything, grew stronger.
“The effect on Bill was extraordinary.
“‘They’re after me, Sam,’ he said one afternoon. ‘I thought that I’d beaten them but I should have known better. Those people never give up.’
“‘How can they get to you here?’ I said, and pointed to the limitless ocean all around us. Bill shrugged.
“‘Distance doesn’t mean anything to them,’ he muttered, and I was surprised to see that he was sweating with fear. ‘I laughed at first. What white man believes in a curse? But this is getting worse all the time.’ He stared at me. ‘That smell. Do you know what it is?’
“‘Not for certain.’
“‘I do,’ he said grimly. ‘I haven’t told you much about that temple but it was a pretty nasty sort of place. Snake-worship, you know. The idol I mentioned was that of a python. It had the jewel set in its forehead. I tell you it almost made me ill to dig it out.’ He paused and stared at the sea.
“’They had more than an idol,’ he said abruptly. ‘They had a living python too. They kept it in a pit and threw down goats and small animals for it to feed on. They used to throw down human sacrifices at one time and, as far as I know, they still do. There’s a lot goes on in the jungle which the Administrator doesn’t know about.’
“That, as I knew, was the truth. The natives accept the new order of things but they still cling to their own, older beliefs. It isn’t hard to believe in human sacrifice and the worship of primitive Gods when you’re deep in the jungles.
“‘I’m afraid,’ said Bill suddenly. ‘Those dreams are back, not the same ones, but others, even more terrible. I wish that I’d never taken the gem,’ he burst out. ‘It’s cursed!’
“‘Can’t you take it back?’ I said.
“‘I killed a man, remember?’ He shook himself. ‘If I took it back they would make me pay for violating their temple and killing their priest. I know what would happen. They would throw me into the pit with that python and he’d crush me to death.’ He dabbed at his sweating features. ‘No, Sam. I won’t let that happen. I’d rather throw the thing into the sea.’
“The smell was worse that night. Despite the joss sticks and incense we burned it pervaded everywhere. Strangely enough it wasn’t noticeable anywhere else on the ship, it only hung around in the vicinity of the stolen jewel. Or it may have hung around Bill himself but, as he insisted on keeping the gem close to him, there was no way of finding out.
“I wanted to sleep out on deck, it was a quiet night and I favoured getting out of doors and feeling the fresh wind on my face. The cabin was stifling and the heat together with the smell was making me sick. Bill, when he learned of my intentions, was almost frantic.
“‘Don’t leave me, Sam,’ he pleaded. ‘We’re in this together. See me through and I’ll give you a half of what the gem fetches. It should be worth a fortune, and we’ll both be rich. Please, Sam, say that you’ll stick by me.’
“I hesitated. I’ll admit that his offer was tempting and his need was great. He sensed my hesitation for he re-doubled his pleas.
“‘We’ll dock in two days’ time,’ he urged. ‘Just two days, Sam, and then it’ll be over. We can find a jeweller in Candy and be rid of the thing for ever. Just two more days, Sam. Two days and we’ll both be rich.’
“I agreed to spend the night in the cabin and, just as a precaution, we bolted and locked the cabin door. The porthole was open, I insisted on that, but it had a heavy metal screen fastened over it and nothing larger than an ant could have got through it. I switched off the lights, checked the door again, and we retired for the night.
“It must have been very late when something woke me because the moon had set and only a faint gleam of star-light lightened the darkness. What had woken me I didn’t know but, as I tried to rise, something whipped across my body and held me fast to the bunk. At that moment, just as I was struggling with whatever it was held me, Bill began to scream.
“It was a terrible sound. It was a mixture of words and cries, begging and pleading and promising and, all the while he was screaming, I was fighting like a madman with the thing across my body. I wasted my time. It was smooth and round and felt somehow alive. It didn’t hurt me, but I was utterly helpless even though I bruised myself trying to get free.
“The crunching sounded just as the captain and the mate battered at the cabin door. Bill had stopped screaming by then but the new sounds were worse than the old. It was horrible. A soggy pulping sound and the threshing of something tremendously huge. I called out and broke my nails tearing at the thing which held me then, suddenly, it had gone, the door flung open and I blinked in the sudden flood of light the captain switched on.
“The cabin was empty. No great shape, nothing that could have held me, nothing at all to account for the reeking odour and disturbed furnishings. I sat up just as the captain stared towards Bill’s bunk.
“‘Gott in Himmel!’ The captain swallowed and turned white. I looked towards the bunk and became violently ill.
“Bill was dead, of course,” said the irrepressible Tony. “He had died while you were held down. Is that it?”
“He was dead,” agreed Henshaw sombrely. “But it was the manner of his death which was so horrible. He had been squeezed to a pulp. Literally, just as though he had been crushed by a giant python. The sheets and bedding were soaked with blood and, as for Bill himself, he was unrecognizable.
“The captain held an inquiry on the spot but there was nothing he could do. I was naturally the prime suspect but I had bruises to show on my own body and anyway, nothing human could have caused such injuries. In the end he put down death as due to natural causes and gave Bill a sea burial. I agreed to say nothing about the matter and, after we landed, I never saw any of them again.”
Henshaw stared at the circle of men. “Understand this. That cabin was sealed. Nothing larger than an ant could have entered it, and yet something large enough and strong enough to hold me down with one coil of its body and crush the life out of Bill had entered, did its work, and vanished without trace other than a smell and the disturbed furniture. Just to make sure that he hadn’t picked up something in his cargo the captain searched the ship but he didn’t find anything and I didn’t expect him to. I knew from wh
ere that python had come.”
“The curse?” Winters nodded as he refilled his pipe. “It seems the only logical explanation.” He struck a match. “That is…”
“If I’m telling the truth?” Henshaw shrugged. “I know how it must sound but you must accept my word for it that it happened. I have my own explanation as I told you but I can’t prove it and never will. The supernatural, unfortunately, is extremely hard to prove.”
“What about the gem?” said Tony. “Was that lost too?”
“I took it back,” said Henshaw quietly. “I found it, strangely enough, under my pillow though I will swear that it wasn’t there when I went to sleep. I held onto it for a couple of days and, I will admit, I was tempted to sell it. I even found a jeweller who would have bought it and then something made me change my mind.”
“A dream?”
“No,” said Henshaw looking at Tony. “Not a dream. A smell. It was faint at first but it began to get stronger and I knew that it was a warning. I decided to return the gem to its rightful owners and, as soon as I had made the decision the smell vanished. I caught the next boat back to Rangoon and as soon as I stepped off the gangplank a native was waiting for me. He was a peculiar type even for a native, taller than most and with the most penetrating eyes I have ever seen. He just stepped forward and held out his hand. I looked at it. On the palm was tattooed the shape of a python. I showed him the gem and he smiled at me.”
“So you gave it to him just like that?” Tony sounded dubious. “Suppose he had just been asking for alms?”
“I didn’t think of that,” said Henshaw. “I wanted to be rid of the stone and something seemed to tell me that he was the one to whom I should give it. So I dropped it into his hand and, without a word, he turned and walked away.”
“And that’s the end of the story,” said Winters. He sighed. “A pity that you didn’t keep the gem. After all you went through I should have thought that you were entitled to some reward.”
