Time went by quickly, the life of men diffused in the life of the forest and the grasslands. Frédéric dreamed of a wholehearted joy, without surprises, without anxiety, without anticipation, in which tomorrow evaporated in her bosom of slow duration. Abandoned to that state of mind as one abandons oneself to sleep, memories rose up in him, vaguer than clouds, becoming so confused that, in the end, he could not recognize them.
His tranquility would have been perfect without the slight frissons he felt at the approach of the Grafina. In the young woman’s shadowy face, he discerned a hostile mistrust.
Toward the middle of the third day, Mademoiselle de Gavres said: “There’s nothing more to fear. The Carabao-Men have never come this far. We’ll meet up with our friends tomorrow.”
Frédéric and Corisande looked at one another; a similar emotion passed over their faces. The legend of the man of whose inheritance they had come in search rose up in their minds. He had been a soldier of fortune, perhaps more passionate for adventure than money, and yet, he had made a fortune all the same.
Fortune had not hoarded its gifts from him. As clever with his hands as a Japanese conjuror, rich in effortlessly-acquired knowledge, an artist with neither difficulty nor vanity, a lively talker, ingenious and surprising, Raymond de Claverol seemed made for victory. There were no weapons, tools, instruments of which he had not learned to make use with a disconcerting facility, and there were few men he did not know how to please or could not amuse.
He would probably have succeeded in his native land, but the instinct of a wanderer had drawn him away into the great world; no other man had traveled so many deserts, climbed so many mountains, sailed on so many rivers, lakes and seas, or visited so many cities.
The fortune had been made all the same—at least, it seemed so—and quite unexpectedly: neither gold, nor legendary gems, but a wealth that was not that of other centuries, which a mountain had yielded to him in the midst of a rocky desert, where not a single tree or bush grew. He called it the Regal Stone. It lay there, having erupted from unknown depths, near a volcano that had been extinct, had reignited and then died down again.
The Regal Stone contained oxides and salts containing barium, lead, silver, bismuth and copper, and also uranium, polonium, actinium, radium and regalium. The radium was in very small quantities, but the regalium ore proved to be abundant—and the radioactive power of regalium was almost equal to that of radium.
“In a ton of regal stone,” Claverol had written, “one finds a little more regalium than the radium contained in a similar quantity of pitchblende. Its extraction is certainly difficult, but less so than the extraction of radium. I estimate at more than 100 grams the quantity that can be extracted from the stratum and a more considerable proportion in the whole deposit. I’ve bought the land, with all the exploitation rights. Dirk de Ridder is holding a sealed letter, which he will give to you; that man, whose honesty is certain, will facilitate your moves and grant you a limitless hospitality. You cannot exploit it yourselves; it will be possible, even easy, to find an American, British, Dutch or even French ‘consortium’ that will pay you a fortune to associate itself with you in the enterprise. You shall have the wealth that I wanted to share with you, but which is escaping me; I’m returning to the original dust. No hope my poor children. The illness will have carried me away in a few days’ time. I have hardly known you, but have loved you profoundly—you are my family! Adieu…”
The letter from his uncle had been combined with one from Dirk de Ridder, written in a strange but intelligible gibberish, which announced Claverol’s death and invited the young people to come, if they could, to claim their inheritance. Dirk put at their service his knowledge of the country and its peoples…
“Is it possible?” Frédéric had murmured. “Might uncle have been mistaken?” For he had that innate hunger for a fortune that is the predatory instinct accumulated by humans over time and space. Corisande scarcely thought about it. Her dreams were more concerned with the uncertain happiness that wealth brings, the lure of creatures attracted to pleasure.
“No!” she had affirmed. “He wasn’t mistaken. What he knew, he knew well. You’ll be rich, my dear Frédéric.”
“I want that more for your sake than mine.”
“What would I do with it? A simple life is sufficient for me.”
“Too simple.”
“Everything is within us—wanting too much from outside, my dear Frédéric, eats into us.”
“It’s not a matter of wanting…it’s only a matter of taking.”
“Well then, take it!” she had said, with a little laugh.
The forest opened up into a broad pastureland, punctuated by small hills and gorges, where mountain springs nourished the green flesh. Sometimes, they perceived a few herds of buffalo, guarded by a savage herdsman, a distant deer or a few seemingly surly wild pigs. Harsh sunlight stung the caravan, and a ferocious multitude of insects buzzed incessantly.
The Grafina was worried. She sent selected men out several times, especially when they went along the hillsides, accompanied by the wisest dogs.
As evening approached, the caravan was moving alongside a deep gorge. The gleam of water was discernible in the darkness of the abyss; stunted grasses and stubborn lichens led an indigent life therein; a few trees grew there, lodged in interstices in the rocks, extending a few pitiful branches toward the light.
Rak the Black, the best of the track-beaters, seemed to spring forth from the rocks. As supple as a python, with a face the color of cinnamon, the man looked at the Grafina with eyes reminiscent of the wing-cases of a scarab beetle, and said: “In truth, Mistress, we’re being followed by Carabao-Men.”
She took notice of him, having been warned by the mysterious signs of the desert and the noses of the dogs. “Have you seen them, Rak?”
“I’ve only seen one, Mistress—but there are several sets of tracks.”
“There can’t be very many of them, Rak. Otherwise it would have been impossible for them to hide while we passed over the plain.”
“I don’t think there are very many…not as many as we are!”
“They’ve never come as far before, Rak.”
“I don’t know, Mistress—I’ve hardly heard talk of them. The one we captured on your land was the first I ever saw. The second is the one in the gorge.”
Why have they followed us this far? thought the Grafina. It’s not for loot…what do men matter to them? Aloud, she said: “That’s good, Rak. You’ll always be the king of trackers.”
A grave smile formed on the ancient face. Rak claimed to be descended from “the men before men”—by which he meant a race that had preceded all the invasions of the island.
“Find out how many there are, Rak!” she added. “Thanks to you, nothing will happen without my being warned.”
“Rak will hear all that his ears can hear; he will see all that his eyes can see.”
“Go!” she said.
He had already disappeared; he was instantly invisible.
The other scouts had not seen any Carabao-Men, but they had all found traces. The Grafina watched over the cart that was carrying Corisande. From time to time, however, she went ahead of the caravan, mounted on her big black horse, accompanied by infallible dogs. They knew. The expanse yielded to them the secret of a presence that made them growl when it came closer—and they would have set off in pursuit had the horsewoman not stopped them.
The valley opened up, as broad as a plain, a grassland sown with a few spare clumps of trees; another numerous party could not approach without revealing its presence. The Grafina’s sharp eyes searched the tall grass, surveyed the hills and the stray blocks of stone occasionally washed down by torrents.
Dusk was falling when she distinguished a thickset form, which vanished in a flash—but Louise de Gavres had seen it as distinctly as if it had lingered. Rak was not mistaken. Carabao-Men were following the caravan.
Why? Louise repeated to her self. Especially as
there can’t be many of them!
Night was about to fall, abrupt and streaming with stars.
A river interrupted the caravan. Beyond it was the Red Forest, swarming with wild beasts. The water ran in a torrent at the bottom of a rocky bank, but on the other side, an indomitable vegetation devoured millennia-old humus; one could see occasional siamangs on watch in the branches, and furtive herbivores coming to drink. Three crocodiles were asleep on an islet, as motionless as blocks of granite.
One could divine the implacable war of living things, plants or animals, avid to accomplish their savage work, the consumption of earth and flesh, the formidable pullulation of births filling up the abysms of death incessantly…
Some 400 yards from the river, the Grafina saw a rocky mass, which she went to examine with Rak and Hendrik. “We’ll camp here,” she said.
It was a circle of granite open to the west by means of a large breach, from which the Copper River could no longer be seen. Three enormous stones, almost pyramidal in form, were balanced on their truncated points.
Rak, who had just reappeared, lay down, prone, with his arms extended, murmuring a melody with singular modulations in a plaintive voice. When he got up again, his eyes as phosphorescent as a panther’s, he looked at the Sumatran servants in a hostile manner. “These are the stones of the Gods and the Ancestors,” he said to the Grafina. “Our ancestors raised them when the world was newly born, long before those who have stolen our heritage.”
Having said that, he prostrated himself again, and continued: “It’s my duty to worship them, Mistress. Perhaps they’ll help me. I was only able to count nine Carabao-Men. They can’t be more numerous—of that, I’m sure!”
“There are 34 of us,” said the Grafina.
“Yes, Mistress—we would be able to defeat them in combat, even without you—but you’re more redoubtable than the entire caravan…”
She wore a faint smile, in which there was pride, assured that no visible man could escape her shot. “Rak,” she said, “it’s necessary to get rid of everything that might hide them during an attack. No one can oversee that work better than you…”
The caravan went into the enclosure with its carts, its horses and its buffaloes. The Grafina made sure that the men and beasts were camped no less than 100 yards from the rocks or the opening, while Rak began cutting the grass, clearing the bushes and removing large stones—although he had to leave a few, which were too heavy. To move the Ancestral stones would have required an army, but, situated as they were, with the others, in the very center of the camp, they could not facilitate ambushes by aggressors.
When the preparations were complete and the sentries in place the Grafina had the opening barricaded.
“Is there some danger, then?” Frédéric asked young Hendrik.
“I don’t know,” the latter replied. “We’re obviously taking very careful precautions.”
Without waiting for darkness, Louise de Gavres had the fires lit. The Sun was, at any rate, low on the horizon: a vast scarlet furnace setting the opening ablaze. It set. The night quickly devoured the twilight; the Southern Cross shone forth brightly in the black sky and the siamangs commenced a mournful howling at the edge of the forest.
As the Grafina passed close to him Frédéric repeated his question. She seemed taller in the firelight, very straight in her snow-white garments. Her large black eyes held a coppery reflection of the nearest fire.
“There ought not to be any danger,” she said. “A few Carabao-Men are watching the caravan, or at least keeping watch on it by day. They are too few in number to attack us.”
“All these precautions, though?”
A disdainful smile formed on the magnificent face, and Frédéric sensed himself blushing.
“Our duty is to take all the precautions that a company on the march can take. It’s stupid to neglect any—and you know that very well, since you were a soldier during that frightful war… I don’t believe that the Carabao-Men will attack us, but they might set traps—attempt to capture some of us.”
Her voice had become mysterious; Frédéric sensed threats that were all the more disquieting for being vague. “What good would that do them?”
“I’ve been asking myself that. Memories keep coming back to me. My grandfather spoke to us about human sacrifices. The Carabao-Men aren’t very avid for loot. They often transform what they pillage into fetishes. Captives destined for sacrifice naturally have an essential value. Besides which, they eat them after having immolated them, and such meals must have a religious significance.”
Louise fell silent, pensively, and Frédéric did not extend his interrogation any further.
The siamangs were howling frightfully; gigantic bats with wingspans comparable to an eagle’s fluttered beneath the stars.
Toward the middle of the night, the Grafina awoke abruptly, but without a start, having been accustomed since infancy to emerge from sleep instantaneously. Her dog Donder was standing up beside her, with his head raised, sniffing the air. It was probably him that had woken the young woman up.
“What is it, Donder?” she murmured, very softly.
In the dog’s dark head the eyes were shining like a wolf’s. Louise de Gavres had a profound confidence in his nose and his cleverness. He rubbed his cranium against his mistress’s shoulder, with an almost imperceptible growl. She sat up, listening, then put on a garment that was narrowly fitted to her body and checked that her revolver was loaded.
The fires were going red; copper gleams were reflected from the rocks. The sentries were at their posts, each one accompanied by a dog.
First, the Grafina made sure of the presence of the guests; they were asleep. Then she made a tour of the camp. Everything seemed tranquil in the starlight. The night was mysterious, wild and soft. Only a few distant voices denounced the immense tragedy that was still incessant in the region. Occasionally, a breath of wind conveyed the liquid melody of the river.
The Grafina interrogated the sentries as she passed; they had not seen anything. Rak was not among them; he had not been assigned a fixed post—his mission was to roam. He only slept by day, at the hour of the siesta in the morning, while the caravan was making preparations for the day’s journey, and during the pauses. He went to sleep instantaneously as soon as he consented to it, but he could have stayed awake for three days without feeling fatigued.
It did not take Louise long to reach the opening. It had been barricaded with tree-branches, in such a way as to prevent any abrupt attack. Two sentries were lying in ambush at the closure itself. The Grafina examined the place attentively, then moved to the right, where a granite wall loomed up. Donder manifested an increasing but mute agitation.
“Stil!” murmured the young woman.
The dog lifted his shining eyes toward her, expressive of submission and impatience.
“Stil!” she repeated.
He lay down, quivering with fervent instinct, while Louise started creeping along the wall. She crept like a leopard, rendered invisible by a bulge in the granite. When she reached the corner of the outcrop, in front of the open ground that extended to the river, she stopped.
She could hear the sound of the water distinctly—the sound of a torrent or rapids. By the light of the constellations and a hidden fire, she could see the flat ground and the large trees by the bank. To the left, the grass was dense; she slipped into it and steered obliquely toward the river. When the vegetation was high enough, she walked, then resumed creeping.
After ten minutes, she found herself next to the river and stopped, on her guard. The noise of the water drowned out all other noises, but the wind carried an indefinable odor: a bestial, musky and marshy odor that Louis de Gavres recognized.
She resumed walking with even more prudence, and reached a thicket. Through a gap in the rocks she perceived a beach some 80 meters below her hiding-place, which would be flooded in the rainy season.
In a feeble light, which seemed to spring from the rocks, a dozen silhouet
tes appeared, two of which were upright.
Were they definitely men who belonged to a species incapable of reproducing themselves with other humans, except in the limited manner in which onagers reproduce with horses? Jan Van de Casteele affirms that in a brochure published in Amsterdam in 1830 or thereabouts. He wrote (we are translating from the Dutch): “The Carabao-Men are, by comparison with other humans, as zebras are by comparison with horses or donkeys. If they abduct a woman, the woman’s children are afflicted with sterility. It is well-known that such anthropologists believe that Neanderthal Man belonged to a different humankind from our own. Perhaps several human species had appeared in the remote past. Perhaps the Carabao-Men are descended from one of those species; they have only ever been encountered in Sumatra, where their habitats are marshy, and situated in the bosom of the most inaccessible regions…”
The Grafina contemplated the encampment with less disgust than astonishment and interest. She was perennially fascinated by powerful or strange creatures. These, with their rounded faces, their green eyes—more phosphorescent than those of tigers—and their giant shoulders, were sustained by torsos of surprising depth whose sides came together like a prow, by short legs, with thick but smooth thighs and much-reduced calves, and by prismatic feet reminiscent of the multiple structures of bears, bovine animals, and tapirs. Their rounded faces, however, were intermediate between human faces and those of buffaloes; their hair also justified their name, by its nature and its color…
The strength of their musculature had to be far in excess of the strength of human musculature, although their short legs could not permit them to run very rapidly.
Although they had a sense of smell nearly as keen as that of wolves, they did not detect the presence of Louise, who was positioned both downwind and higher up than them. The rock that bore the thicket at its summit was vertical until half way up; a ledge projected there, which barred the route of any projectile except at the opening.
The Givreuse Enigma Page 18
