The Best of Argosy #5 - The Monster of the Lagoon

by George Worts

  Lucky turned, like a man in a drunken daze. His eyes were worse than mad. They were stark and horrible and empty.

  He suddenly shouted, “I’m gonna kill that thing! I’m gonna take this ship to Singapore and load it to the rail with powder, and I’m gonna blast that son-of-a —”

  “Steady!” Sammy stopped him. “We aren’t going to kill it. We aren’t going to drop our plan for any crazy man. Get in there and take a cold shower. Then get yourself drunk and stop raving.”

  Lucky lurched out of the room with the bottle in his hand. He ignored only one of Sammy’s suggestions: he didn’t take a shower.

  Larry returned from the Wanderer, wanting to know what had happened at the island.

  Sammy said, “Pete went down in that suit to try for the pearls in the cave — and it got him.”

  “Oh, God. That poor kid.”

  Sammy repeated portions of Lucky’s description of the gruesome and hideous end of “the best deep-sea diver on the Indian Ocean”.

  And Larry said, “Hell, Sam. You can’t blame Lucky. After what happened last night, it’s a wonder we all aren’t crazy. Over there, everybody on board is on the verge of cracking. It’s fierce. The crew is ready to mutiny. That woman is having hysterics. And Julie and Barling insist they’re going ashore tonight.”

  Drearily, Sam said, “Oh, nuts.”

  “I’ve been talking to them ever since I went over. There’s something gotten into them. That Barling is a little screwy, anyway. But I didn’t think Julie’d go haywire on us.”

  Bryce came in. He had overheard enough of the conversation to grasp its essentials.

  Sam said, “You’d better both go over there and try to talk sense into them. Tell ‘em I said it’s risky. Tell ‘em these white chieftains are rats — always rats. This Rebb is poison.”

  Lucky came in, staggering, with the look of a man awash. He said heavily. “You guys can listen to me now. I’m fed up. Do you get it I’m fed up. I’m through. I’ve seen three good men killed by that thing. It’s got a jinx on us.”

  Bryce said coldly: “What happened to Pete Cringle was needless. It was murder. It was —”

  “Stow it!” Sam barked, “We’re all in this — we’re all to blame. We could have stopped Pegleg from going ashore. It was my fault for losing Senga. We were too damned reckless. From now on, we use our heads.”

  “We’re through!” Lucky snarled. “We’re pullin’ out!”

  “No,” Bryce snapped.

  “By God, I’ll take you to pieces the way that thing took Pete —”

  “Pipe down!” Sammy shouted.

  Lucky glared blearily at him. “Who’s runnin’ this show?”

  Bryce said icily. “We have an agreement!”

  “To hell with the agreement! You agreed in the Mudhole for Sam and me and Larry to have the say. We’re sayin’ it now. We’re through!”

  “You’re out-voted,” Sam said quietly. “Now, clear out and finish getting yourself plastered. And if you sober up inside of two days, I’ll put it into you with a force pump.”

  Growling, Lucky staggered out. And Sam said, “Bryce, will you go back to the yacht with Larry and argue with Barling?”

  “No,” the scientist snapped. “They ought to know now how safe this place is. Tell them about Pete, Larry. Let them use their judgment.”

  Larry went to his room. He shaved, bathed, got into clean whites and returned to the Wanderer. When darkness fell and he had not come back to the schooner, Sammy supposed he was staying over there for dinner. And he presumed that Larry had talked them out of going ashore.

  But at a little after nine-thirty he heard the soft exhaust of the tender. And when the soft purring receded until it was finally lost in the far rumble of the barrier reef, he called Bryce below. The scientist said, “They went ashore at the mangrove point.”

  And Sam growled, “I have a feeling we’ll all be dead before this is through.”

  Mr. Barling, Julie and Larry McGurk had gone ashore. There was no moon, but the stars were so bright that a man’s face could be distinguished six or eight feet distant.

  Julie wore a sailor’s suit and a Sam Browne belt with an automatic pistol in the holster. Mr. Barling carried an automatic rifle, and Larry had a revolver in his hip pocket.

  When the keel of the tender scraped the sand, Jason Rebb, more mysterious and certainly more sinister by starlight than by sunlight, stepped out onto a patch of sand between the black mangroves.

  He greeted them heartily. He said he had been looking forward all day to their visit, but he addressed himself exclusively to Julie. Then he saw that she was armed.

  “My dear young lady,” Mr. Rebb said, in the accents of alarm, “you don’t want to be hurt, do you? And the same goes for you gents, too. My people are just like children, but they know what firearms mean. Firearms mean trouble, but if you have firearms, they’ll think I lied to them. They’ll think you mean to kill them.”

  Peering into the black wall of jungle, Julie said huskily, “Where are they?”

  The king of Little Nicobar chuckled. “Oh, they’re scared. Some of ‘em ain’t more than twenty feet away, peekin’ at you. But most of them are down at the old crater. The ceremony is on. Now, folks, if you’ll just leave your guns in the boat and follow me —”

  “But why.” Mr. Barling plaintively interrupted, “are you carrying that cutlass?”

  “I’ll show you. It’s part of the orchid ceremony.”

  Perhaps an eighth of a mile from the beach they passed the village, now dark. There were thatched huts on bamboo poles, after the Malay fashion, and there was one huge structure of riata, interlaced palm fronds and palm boles. It measured perhaps one hundred feet across the front, and must have been two hundred feet long, by thirty in height, with an arched roof and a floor made of logs from the goru palm.

  This, Mr. Rebb explained, was the DOBU, or communal house, where everyone except the sick lived. It was partitioned into stalls or small rooms.

  The embers of cook fires smouldered in front of the DOBU. They passed this and re-entered the jungle. Sharp yells accompanied by a barbaric thumping made it difficult to talk. The glare became brighter until they could see the fire through thinning trees.

  The king of Little Nicobar shouted to his guests, “You better start yellin’ SAMBIO now! Yell it good and loud and keep on yellin’ it.”

  So Julie, Mr. Barling and Larry started yelling, “SAMBIO! SAMBIO!” The yelling and the rhythm ahead of them did not diminish, but yells of “SAMBIO! SAMBIO!” were flung pack at them.

  Mr. Rebb and his guests entered the clearing. In the center of a wide, shallow depression which strangely reminded Julie of the craters of the moon, was a fire of blazing faggots. On the far side, half-naked men were beating on gourds and empty kerosene tins, setting up a barbaric clamor.

  A small roar greeted Mr. Rebb and his guests. He shouted to Julie, “They’re all ready now. They’re all set, my dear. You better stop right here. Don’t move. If anybody comes close, just yell SAMBIO!”

  Mr. Rebb left her side and walked part of the way around the enclosure to a great black tree from which hung a white and softly gleaming object as large as a man. It might have been, in fact, a man hanging.

  It was Julie’s first glimpse of the fabulous and monstrous blue orchids of Little Nicobar. She had grown so accustomed to the sickening sweetness of them that she had not particularly observed it tonight until now.

  Mr. Rebb was climbing upon a structure of some sort beside the gleaming white mass. He began chopping at the top of it with a cutlass. The natives stopped dancing and gathered around him until Mr. Rebb was lost from view.

  The great orchid suddenly dropped. There was a milling in the crowd. Six men were carrying the orchid toward Julie, Larry and Mr. Barling.

  When they were twenty-five feet away, they dropped it. The savage rhythm started again, and the black men and women again began to dance.

  A woman leaped at the great orchid, threw
herself across it, and, with her teeth, tore out great shreds of the sweetly reeking flesh. She tore out handfuls and leaned up, hopping back, in rhythm to the gourds and the kerosene tins. She held her long skinny arms over her head and squeezed the handfuls of fragrant flesh-like stuff until the juice ran down her arms and spattered into her upturned face.

  A black man had hurled himself down on the orchid. He, too, bit into the flesh of it, and tore out handfuls of the fibrous pale-blue stuff and leaned up, with hands held stiffly overhead.

  Julie grasped Larry’s elbow to steady herself. She felt sick. It was hideous. It was obscene.

  Jason Rebb rejoined them. He threw down his cutlass. He grinned and clapped his hands with the beat of the gourds and tins. The firelight in his eyes made them resemble glowing coals. And the fireplay on his impudent profile gave it a saturnine look.

  To Julie, he was suddenly an ogre — a human turned monster, offensive, loathsome.

  She tried, through her fright, to be polite. She shouted at him. “We must go! We’ve seen enough. It’s been wonderful!”

  He caught one of her hands and squeezed and held it. He stared at her face, baring his teeth, and playfully shook his head, not releasing her hand. “You can’t go tonight!”

  Larry seized his shoulder and spun him roughly about. “Why can’t she go tonight?”

  The king of Little Nicobar lost his grin. His fiery eyes seemed to glitter. He shook Larry’s hand away and snarled. “She is their guest of honor. They would be offended if she left now.”

  Larry gave him another push and shouted: “Let go her hand! We’re going!”

  “You’re going to hell!” shouted Mr. Rebb. “But she’s staying here! She’s staying with me! From now on! Get it?” And to Julie, with that satanic grin, “We need a queen. I need a queen.”

  But he had released Julie’s hand. She cried: “Larry! Hector! What are we going to do?”

  Some of the black men, perhaps a dozen, had stopped jumping about the fire and were now gathering in a semi-circle between Jason Rebb and the dancing fire, as if they were acting on a signal from him. Many of them carried spears — black-handled weapons with points elaborately and cruelly barked with native thorns and the spines of fish. They would rend and rip and tear flesh in a hideous manner.

  The king of Little Nicobar yelled, “Try it! Try and get away!”

  Julie had gone behind Larry. She was standing as close to him as she could, clasping him about the chest. He could feel the tremors running through her, he could hear the chattering of her teeth.

  Behind her, Mr. Barling panted: “Do something, McGurk. For God’s sake get us out of this!”

  Larry McGurk was not at all afraid for himself. He was a man who had been forced to accept the fact that he was to die very soon. He wished there was some way in which he could deliver Julie from this predicament. If he could do that, he would die gladly.

  Suddenly, in the midst of these somber reflection, he grinned. It was a hard and ferocious grin.

  He said to Rebb, “You call yourself a magician! I’m going to make you look like a tinhorn! Tell ‘em that! Tell ‘em I’m the man who can’t be killed. Tell ‘em I defy ‘em to kill me! They can’t do it! Tell ‘em!” And over his shoulder, “Beat it!”

  Julie whimpered, “I won’t desert you!”

  “Barling, get her out of here! Get her aboard that boat!”

  Jason Rebb did not hear this. The king of Little Nicobar was shouting at the semi-circle of spearmen. He was evidently translating Larry’s boast. For the black men were beginning to laugh. And those who had spears grasped them firmly and advanced on Larry McGurk.

  Larry had wanted to focus all attention upon himself. He had succeeded. For he was aware that Julie no longer clutched him. He assumed that Mr. Barling had acted without hesitation, and that he and Julie were making their way toward safety.

  Jason Rebb shouted a curt order. A spear plunged through the air. It started, accurately enough, for Larry’s chest. Then it was as if some magic diverted it in its flight. Mysteriously, the throw was wild — by inches.

  A yell went up. That had been, of course, an accident. The next spear grazed his chest on the left side, but it drew no blood. The dancers were stopping now, gathering about, grinning, watching the warriors at their target practice.

  Mr. Rebb shouted wrathfully. A third spear, at the moment of leaving a tall, black man’s hand, seemed to slip. At all events, it plunged into the ground between Larry McGurk’s feet.

  A fourth spear whizzed past his neck, but did not even tick him. And now there was bedlam.

  The king of Little Nicobar was roaring. He snatched the cutlass from the ground and sprang at Larry, swinging the wicked, curved sword over his head. A spear handle thumped on Jason Rebb’s head as he swung the blade. He fell to the ground at Larry’s feet and lay there, unconscious.

  The black giant who had hurled the last spear plucked from his loin cloth a knife with a bone handle. The blade, narrow and wickedly curved, like the blade of the Malay parang, was a full ten inches in length.

  With a savage yell he hurled himself at Larry McGurk, his eyes smoky-red, saliva frothing from his thick, dull-red lips.

  It was more than Larry McGurk could stand — but he stood it. He could feel the bite of that wicked blade in his heart. But, once again, providence magically intervened. The black giant, racing toward him, unexpectedly caught one foot in the protruding loop of a root.

  He went crashing to the ground. The knife, clutched in his big fist, struck the ground four inches from Larry’s foot.

  But it did not strike into the ground. The keen blade struck a stone — and snapped off at the hilt!

  And when the mass of yelling black men and women saw this, the yelling stopped. A sound like a deep, unearthly moan rose from the islanders. A woman ran forward, snatched up the bladeless handle and held it above her head with a shriek. Then she groveled at Larry McGurk’s feet.

  The moan persisted. It was like the humming of a million bees. The tribe of Little Nicobar dropped to knees and elbows and noses and groveled before Larry, as if he were a god — or a demon. And above the moaning, he heard Hector Barling’s faraway yells. Larry was starting to back away, down the path. He supposed Hector Barling and Julie had been captured. Abandoning his leisurely retreat, he turned to run. He collided with Julie.

  “I couldn’t go!” she cried. “I couldn’t leave you!”

  “Barling?”

  “He went when you told him to — ran!”

  “Come on!”

  And as they ran, Jason Rebb came drunkenly to his feet and staggered down the path after them.

  But Hector Barling had not been captured. He had reached the tender and was screaming at them in a panic to hurry.

  The engine was purring when Larry and Julie reached the boat. Larry gave it a heavy shove, when Julie had climbed in, and jumped aboard.

  “My God!” Hector Barling shrilled. “I thought you’d never come!”

  The king of Little Nicobar came running into view. As the boat backed swiftly into deep water, he ran down to the edge of the beach, waving his arms and hoarsely shouting.

  The crack of a rifle behind him deafened Larry’s left ear.

  Mr. Barling was clumsily holding the rifle with the aid of his bandaged-and-splintered arm. As Larry glanced at him, the automatic rifle cracked thrice, swiftly.

  The king of Little Nicobar plunged forward and buried his face to the ears in the water and lay there.

  Mr. Barling shouted exultantly, “I got him, I got him!”

  Larry barked: “You damned fool! Why did you do that?”

  “Why did I do it?” the patent medicine king crowed. “He had it coming, didn’t he? He was going to kill us and take Julie, wasn’t he? Wasn’t it justice?”

  “There’s no telling what that mob will do,” Larry said. “We’re going to have enough trouble without them.”

  Julie said, “You didn’t have to shoot him, Hector. After all, we
were safe.”

  Mr. Barling blew up. He raved. His nervous system had collapsed after last night’s adventure. Tonight’s excitement had shattered him again. He called Larry a conceited ass and a smart aleck. Julie, in hysterics, laughed and sobbed.

  “A show-off!” Mr. Barling yelled at Larry. “That’s all you are! The man who can’t be killed!”

  “Oh, let’s drop it,” Larry said.

  “Oh, no! We won’t drop it!” the millionaire panted. “I see right through you. I see through both of you.”

  Julie stopped sobbing to say, “Oh, stop talking like a lunatic.”

  “I’m not crazy enough not to know the truth when I see it. And I defy you to deny it!”

  “What?” Julie wailed.

  “That you’re madly in love with him — and he’s just as goofy about you!”

  “Oh, you poor sap,” Larry groaned. “In love with me? Don’t you know I’m going to be dead in a month?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Hector,” Julie said, “stop being an ass.”

  “It’s true!”

  “It isn’t true. You’re crazy.”

  “You don’t love him?”

  “No, no, no. Calm down.”

  But Mr. Barling did not, or could not, calm down. He shook and shivered and jabbered and babbled. Most of it didn’t make sense.

  “When you get him aboard,” Larry said, “you’d better have the doctor give him a shot.”

  He saw them safely aboard the Wanderer, rowed back to the schooner, and made his report to Sam Shay.

  “We ought to pull out,” the red-headed man said. “The expedition is jinxed. We’ve lost three good men. Lucky and Bryce are at each other’s throat. Barling has cracked wide open. Julie has gone primitive on us. But,” he said grimly, “we aren’t pulling out. Before we leave this damned place, we’re going to get what we came for — the Dutchman’s pearls and a live sample of that murdering jellyfish.”

  Chapter 20: Larry Swims In

  EARLY the next morning Julie came over to the Blue Goose. Obviously, she hadn’t slept. There were dark patches under her eyes, her lips were pale, her face was wan.