The World of the Variants

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Fecund and monstrous life was detectable in the river. Sometimes, an alligator slid along the bank, alarmed in its sleep; sometimes, a tapir fled from an enemy into the depths of the kingdom of the waves. As for smaller life-forms, they were frightful in their number and mystery.

  All in all, however, there was a semi-silence over the stream. Because of these rumors, the forest seemed extraordinarily powerful, beautiful and sinister. Eternal warfare was ongoing there, the furtive conjunctions of love, carnivorous ambushes, pursuit, terror, the genius of attack and defense in formidable freedom—and, above all, the fundamental need of the weak and the strong alike: hunger, for pasture or for prey.

  The electrical boat glided with a singular gentleness, scarcely a slight palpitation of its mechanism. It explored its surroundings with a long beam of white light. Three men were standing in the prow; a fourth manned the tiller.

  One of them—a short, thickset man—murmured: “Well, the old cacique was right. After the almost-insurmountable navigational problems of the early stages, here we are in broad and beautiful waters, only occasionally obstructed.”

  “Profound and abundant—whereas back there, at the confluence with the Amazon, the river is considerable in actuality, but poor in flow.”

  The man who had replied presented a round-shouldered silhouette, with long arms and a bald head, which gleamed with reflected moonlight. His voice was muffled and hoarse, made for whispering in the silence of study-halls.

  “Do you remember what the old man said?” the third put in. “The river comes from lakes that lie in the sunset. At first it is vaster than the Mother of Rivers, but the Earth drinks it with huge mouths, and the water diminishes every time…” This one, tall and barrel-chested, with a long, narrow head, further elongated by a silky beard, spoke loudly, with forceful gestures and rapidly-moving eyes.

  “In that case,” said the round-shouldered man, “we must already have passed one of these huge mouths that drink the river without seeing it.”

  “The one that’s invisible, no doubt,” said the man with the long head, “but the second opens in a rock—it’s a cave.”

  The thickset individual said, with a hint of irony: “They’re probably allegories! Wasn’t the only man slyly giving us a course in Indian cosmogony? Anyway, we’re losing nothing by it—we’re in virgin territory, beyond all known geography.”

  “Personally, I believe it,” said the man with the long head, with a kind of anger. “I believe in this strange land of subterranean waters, where the cacique’s great-grandfather nearly perished.”

  “We’ll see, Alglave.”

  “You’re forgetting the prisoner that the cacique gave us!” Alglave replied. “The captive from the tribe that lives underground.”

  “Well, the prisoner hasn’t recognized the landscape thus far.”

  “Patience! We were told that he wouldn’t recognize it until we’re near the second mouth.”

  Alglave started intoning some mysterious Indian incantation, and the boat continued its journey along the great river. The Moon was higher now, and bright; it was visible above the foliage, as if its edges were more clear-cut. The immense battle continued to rage in the vastness of the forest.

  Then, two of the interlocutors went below decks to sleep, while the man with the long head remained alone with the helmsman.

  Alglave stood in the prow, exploring the river with eyes as profound and sure as those of a condor. A reverie as mysterious as the night of this virgin country drifted through his mind. His intense desire was that the old Indian’s legend should be true. His entire being was excited by it and attached to it—for, man of action as he was, full of practical strength and foresight, he was more of a poet than his companion explorers.

  He repeated the vague but lovely legend to himself:

  “There are lands under the Earth, where long rivers run, and grasses grow, with pale beasts, blind birds and white vampires. Sometimes, there is a faint moonlight, which moves, and dies out after a time—then everything is in darkness again…”

  Why should the legend be a lie? Are there not subterranean rivers, even in the old countries of Europe? Are there not still strange and little-studied animals? Here, were everything is immense and free, why should subterranean lands not have an analogous scope? And what delectable mysteries, what magnificent poems of life beyond the life of the surface, what a wonderful dark territory of marvelous fauna and flora might be preserved in the bowels of the Earth!

  He recalled another legend that had been told to him eight years before by an old chief in Ouan-Mahlei. The African’s predictions had been marvelously realized; why should those of the Red Indian be deceptive? One doubt haunted him, however: could such rare adventures befall the same man twice? Would the old Earth offer him twice over the delightful spectacle of an unknown refuge of large animals?

  Why not? he said to himself. Have I not been traveling the planet relentlessly for 15 years on the run? Is it not the reward of my eternal wandering, and also of my obstinacy in pursuing to the end the meaning contained in the aboriginal legends of every land?

  While he thought about these things, he scrutinized the banks continually, hoping to see the Mouth of the Earth appear there—but he saw nothing but the sinuous shore, the forest, and the indecisive forms of large carnivores and herbivores.

  Night must be harsh, alone out there in the terrible struggle for existence: jaguars…anacondas…rattlesnakes!

  He shuddered with relief at the thought of being safe on the electric boat, so well-designed, well-provisioned and comfortable—not that he did not love adventure, or had any lack of reckless bravery, but even the most heroic of men likes to feel safe in confrontation with a magnificent poem of anguish and fear.

  The slender point of an islet appeared in the moonlight. Alglave concentrated all his attention on giving instructions to the helmsman. As the boat drew nearer, more obstacles appeared, in the form of debris and the trunks of uprooted trees, maintained by dense fluvial vegetation. The passage became difficult, and it was necessary to slow down.

  The Moon illuminated a solemn perspective: the islet, with its tall trees leaning over the water, the lianas and reeds of its edges, all the detritus of an indomitable vegetation, and extraordinary profiles set against the fragments of a silvery firmament, with cavernous gaps, huge palm-trees taller than the tallest crowns on the bank, floating in the lukewarm ether; the water, reflecting those confused splendors, gently lapping against the frayed bank, carrying away clods of Earth and roots. With all that majestic semi-darkness, the moonlight filtered by the treetops, an indefinable menace expanded: a severity of nature intimating to humans that they ought not to advance any further. And, indeed, the passage became increasingly awkward.

  At first, it was relatively easy for the slender prow of the boat to carve out a route through the obstacles, but an inextricable tangle of aquatic plants and large dead tree-trunks soon rendered further progress difficult, and perhaps perilous.

  Alglave gave the order to reduce speed; it became evident that he was assuming a great responsibility in acting alone. Primitive nature seemed to be full of ambushes; as far as the pilot’s eye could follow the beam of the electric searchlight, there was an uninterrupted sequence of vegetable remains floating on the river. On some of them, aquatic monsters were asleep or moving slowly. A flock of night-birds was perceptible; the murmurs, sighs and grunts of nearby beasts were audible, mingling with the slow susurrus of the waters and the foliage. Moreover, the boat had drifted; it was now no more than 20 meters from the shore of the islet, in the shadow of enormous trees leaning over the water.

  As Alglave brought the boat to a conclusive stop and decided to summon his companions to a council of war, a shadow bounded on to the deck: a large silhouette. The helmsman uttered an exclamation of fright.

  Revolver in hand, ready for attack or defense, Alglave peered into the indecisive gloom. He saw a human being, of rather small height but very thickset. Once the fi
rst shock was past, the helmsman also drew his revolver and took aim at the man.

  “Hold your fire!” said Alglave. “He doesn’t seem to be aggressive.”

  Indeed, the human being struck a supplicatory pose, pointing at the river with a fearful gaze. Alglave followed the direction of his gesture.

  On a kind of islet, caught in a ray of moonlight, stood a monstrous and splendid jaguar. Taken by surprise, the beast remained motionless, evidently torn between the desire to pursue its prey and fear of the electric lantern. But for that, nothing would have been easier for it than to reach the boat by means of a few bounds over the tree-trunks with which the river was littered.

  Alglave took advantage of the beast’s momentary hesitation to take out a rifle from a sort of locker close to the prow. He made a sign to the fugitive, telling him to have no fear, and, with the rifle shouldered, paused to admire the beast. With proportions equal to those of an ordinary tiger, with slightly shorter legs, it represented the regal forces of nature, the magnificent effort of a life of conflict. At ease in its supple skin, half-crouching, its entire attitude was expressive of speed, ferocious and graceful skill and the habit of victory. Almost inaccessible to terror, Alglave did not squeeze the trigger immediately, not liking to kill such superb beasts, poems of vigor—but the savage came closer, touched him, and pointed to the right of the islet. The explorer saw three more jaguars.

  Oh, damn! he thought.

  This time, his heart beat faster, sensing a profound peril. At the same time, he was astonished to see several of these large beasts together; they usually hunted in couples, not in packs. Whatever the reason was for the anomaly, though, the danger was there, terrible in these forests, where a few tribes of ill-armed and wretched indigenes had not given the jaguar any sense of the power of human beings. The same animal that the proximity of bellicose tribes or white men had rendered circumspect, and even cowardly, in other regions was here a perennial victor, certain of its strength, its incomparable superiority over all creation.

  In a strident voice, Alglave sounded the alarm, and then took careful aim at the large jaguar, between its eyes. While he still could not decide whether or not to fire, however, another shot rang out. It was the helmsman. Terrified by the sight of the wild beast, he fired his revolver: three shots in quick succession.

  Slightly wounded, the furious jaguar leapt to the side of the boat. Gripping with its claws, with a thrust of its hips it arrived on the deck, four paces from Alglave.

  You asked for it! the explorer thought.

  Swiftly, he fired—but at the exact moment when the beast pounced on him. Instead of penetrating the skull, his bullet broke the jaw of the beast, which fell upon him like a thunderbolt.

  His friends, who came up on deck at that moment, thought that he was doomed. He rolled on the deck, but sideways, hardly touched. As rapid as his frightful adversary, he found himself facing the murderous claws. Then, with two or three of those movements that the naked eye cannot capture and only photography can separate, there was a skirmish, the hammer-like blow of a rifle-butt—and they saw the jaguar lying still, while Alglave stood up. A revolver-shot finished the animal off.

  “It’s not over!” cried the victor. He pointed at the other jaguars, menacing on the islet.

  One of the explorers turned the beam of the electric searchlight on them; the blue-white beam frightened them.

  “They seem intimidated!” said the bald man.

  “They are, Fugère,” Alglave replied. “Quite probably, if no one shoots and wounds them, they won’t dare to attack us!”

  As he spoke, two shots rang out, by courtesy of two crewmen who had arrived on deck at the same time as the explorers. One of the jaguars—a female—was wounded, and bounded directly at the boat, furiously, swiftly followed by her mate. Alglave stopped the female dead with a bullet in the skull. The male stopped with a mighty miaow, then leapt again. A fusillade peppered the water around it without hitting it, and it appeared abruptly on the bridge, with prodigious speed. One man was knocked down on to the deck, beneath the colossal paws.

  “At the head!” Alglave shouted. Practicing what he preached, he aimed his revolver—then hesitated. The prostrate man screamed in terror, while the monstrous beast hesitated too, seeing itself surrounded by adversaries, and amazed. It was dangerous to fire, for fear of hitting the man.

  Meanwhile, with a visionary courage poignant in its awkwardness, Fugère had crept close enough to fire. His bullet went clean through the beast’s neck—and almost simultaneously, he was knocked over in his turn and shaken like a rag. They saw his breast penetrated, beneath his lacerated clothing, by dagger-sharp claws. Hypnotized, he did not defend himself, feeling infinitely weak—so weak that he resigned himself to his fate, experiencing no fear.

  His friends raced forward, though, and the animal, peppered with bullets, rolled over the scientist, crushing him with its weight.

  “Dead!” cried Alglave, sending one last bullet into the head for safety’s sake.

  Rapidly, they liberated Fugère. His wounds were quite deep, having ripped one of the pectoral muscles, but not dangerous. “I had a lucky escape!” he said, smiling.

  The explorers and crewmen looked at one another, astonished by the drama; until then, their boat had been an absolute safeguard against the animals of the river and its banks.

  “The fourth jaguar has disappeared!” Alglave said, while carrying out an attentive examination of his friend’s wounds.

  “Yes,” replied the third companion. “But we were in serious danger, all the same—which could have been avoided if no one had fired. The searchlight would have been enough to keep the beasts away.”

  “That’s true, Véraguez,” Alglave replied. “But what has become of the man who brought us the adventure?”

  “There he is!” said one of the crewmen.

  The savage advanced, invited to do so by a gesture. They saw a sturdy man with a nyctalopic gaze, a broad, grayish face, a sloping forehead and an enormous chin. He pronounced a few guttural syllables.

  “That’s the same dialect as our hostage!” said Véraguez, who had keen polyglot faculties.

  “And he’s the same physical type,” Fugère added. “Let’s bring them together.”

  “I have a feeling,” said Alglave, with a hint of irony, “that the old cacique wasn’t just giving us a course in Indian cosmogony.”

  A few minutes later, the Indian handed over by the cacique was brought forth. As soon as he saw the other one, he manifested an extreme joy, which was mutual. The two of them launched into an extensive conversation.

  “Is he one of your race, Whamo?” asked Véraguez, in an Akatl dialect.

  “He’s one of those who go into the caves in the rainy season.”

  “From your tribe?”

  “No, but a sister tribe.”

  “Ask him whether we’re far from his homeland—and tell him that he has nothing to fear, for himself or his relatives.”

  “Yes, master!”

  The dialogue resumed, in the midst of universal interest. It was a hoarse, vague exchange with plaintive intonations of astonishment.

  “We’re two days by canoe from the caves that open into the Underground Land,” Whamo said. “The tribes have dispersed into the forests now, and will only go back to the caves when the leaves are old.”

  “Would the man of your race care to take us there?”

  Whamo continued the interrogation; acquiescence and trust were observable in the other man’s gestures.

  “He can do it, Master! His life belongs to those who have saved him from the jaguar’s claws—but it’s necessary to go around the other side of the island, for passage is impossible here.”

  All night long, the boat sailed on placid waters on the other side of the island. After a short rest, Alglave had come back on deck, with Véraguez and the two Indians. The great peril of the night before seemed like a dream. The proud and slender boat was scornful of all ambushes, invincible on
the open river, in the blue light. Finally, dawn broke over the forest. It rapidly drowned out the light of the sinking Moon, and the vast rumor of diurnal life succeeded the terrors of the night.

  The island disappeared behind them, the river broadening out further, and rocky crags appeared on the horizon. Then, the Indian they had saved raised his arm and murmured a few words. Whamo translated them: “The Mouths of the caverns open over there!”

  The explorers’ hearts beat faster, an intense curiosity awakened in their inner being. In the light mist, the rocks were reminiscent of a herd of colossal buffalo that had come down to the water to drink. Then the river appeared to become a large lake, dilating into a circle surrounded by the rocky chain. The boat got closer rapidly; it soon reached the first hills.

  The spectacle had a severe and tranquil magnificence; the vegetation stopped almost dead; great arid spaces extended on the bank opposite the rocks; charred debris, lava and vitreous stones told of an ancient cataclysm, a plutonian tempest.

  “This is definitely the mysterious region,” said Alglave. “The land of dark and beautiful legends!”

  A new gesture from the Indian interrupted him; in one of the highest rocks, they perceived a prodigious portal, the peristyle of a temple of giants.

  “That’s it!” said Whamo.

  The river could be seen pouring into the immense opening, and they glimpsed enigmatic colonnades and profound vaults, into which the sunlight penetrated obliquely.

  Véraguez and Alglave contemplated the spectacle with a sort of mystical respect. “Look!” said the latter. “The water’s going in slowly—and Whamo, like the cacique, claims that it’s deep! We’re not taking much risk, in any case, by going in there, ready to renounce the enterprise at any moment…”

  “Let’s go!” Véraguez replied. “In any case, Fugère has agreed to run the risk with us.”