The World of the Variants

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  “Nothing good for us,” said Hendrik, who had got up, “but everything depends on their leader.”

  “Exactly!” his father agreed. “Fundamentally, the race is brave. If we want to get past, Hendrik, we’ll have to kill a great many of them!”

  “A great many!” sighed the son.

  Crouching distractedly beside one of the fires, on to which he threw branches that, being green, crackled before catching alight, van den Bosch remained silent.

  The stars faded; the equatorial twilight turned to dawn in a moment, and the Sun rose with lightning speed. The father of life, the immense red furnace, was reflected in the rapids, and the fearful animals abandoned themselves once again to the ambiguous joys of daylight.

  The Infernal Rocks were succeeded by infertile ground, in which only a few trees took root, the majority of them remaining paltry or perishing, malnourished and deprived of water. The jungle did not begin again for 500 or 600 meters, with the consequence that it was impossible to reach the fort without passing under the fire of its defenders.

  Would they dare? The big Dutchman asked himself again.

  He doubted it, but had not all his expectations been proved false? Besides which, if they did not attack, a siege might prove more redoubtable than combat. Then again, there was the enigma of the Boar Men.

  The whole caravan now knew what menaced it, and van den Bosch, going to his niece, said, in a melancholy tone: “Forgive us for having exposed you to danger.”

  “We’re the ones who need forgiveness!” Suzanne exclaimed.

  “No one could have foreseen what has happened!” Hendrik put in.

  “That’s true,” his farther said. “We’ve never seen anything similar before.”

  The half-breed Matzal came out of one of the defiles. Standing still, with his eyes fixed on the planter, he said: “Master, the Bandits are approaching. They might attack within the hour.”

  “We’re ready,” said the giant. Having made sure that all the sentinels were at their posts he shouted in a thunderous voice: “Let those who are afraid to fight make themselves known—but let them be quite certain that no treason will allow them to escape danger. The Bandits do not keep any promises or grant mercy to anyone. We need to hold out for two days. We’ll release the pigeons. In two hours, people will know that we’re in danger—the planters and the military post will come to our aid.”

  The men looked at him avidly.

  “The river is uncrossable at this point, so the camp can only be reached through the three defiles. There’s no cover between the forest and the Rocks; they’ll have to pass through our fire. There’s no reason to think that they’ll dare to attack us.”

  The men of the indigenous race listened to the immense voice without anxiety; none of them was positively cowardly, several possessed a stubborn and cunning bravery analogous to that of the Japanese. They could also have confidence in white/indigenous half-castes, but the Hindus were passive and the Chinese equivocal.

  When the men had eaten their breakfast the daylight was bright; the Sun was beginning to roast the bare rocks. The rocks seemed melancholy to the point of being funereal, bones of the old earth transpiercing a lichenous epidermis.

  The camp formed a bristling semicircle, in which the cryptogams and pellitories accomplished their eternal mission; a few wretched trees grew, having drilled their roots into fissures; one of them, crooked and verrucose, eaten away by animal and vegetable vermin, had persisted for more than a century. It stood at the summit of one of the rocks, putting forth branches that were alternately bare and leafy, a sickly victim of the Sun and the weather.

  A man, hoisted up there, alternately scanned the Blue Forest, the Red Forest and the river. Obstinate and crazy, life swarmed in the waters and the woods alike; the baroque voices of parrots pierced the silence like myriad drills, and the insects maintained their victorious existence, dominators of predatory beasts, holding in check the ferocious human race.

  The man stationed on high, the half-breed Matzal, who had the eyes of a bearded vulture, came down at midday to say: “The Bandits have arrived.”

  “With the Lord’s help, we shall defeat them!” said van den Bosch.

  The time went by: a time of expectation and peril. The enemy remained as invisible as if he had been shrouded in profound darkness, but every man in the camp knew that homicidal eyes were on watch in the foliage, the bushes and the tall ferns.

  When the Sun had quit the zenith, they heard a resounding voice that drowned out all of the noises of the forest. It was not the voice of a man or a buffalo, nor any beast, although it resembled an immense roaring or a giant’s plaint.

  Suzanne and Lodewyk had straightened up.

  “The horn of the Mountain Wolves!” said the Dutch leader. “I understand the Bandits’ audacity.” Seeing Suzanne’s interrogative expression, he went on: “They’re primitive Malays, as savage as real wolves, and very audacious. The others would not have dared to take on old van den Bosch, but those…!” He made an evasive gesture, discontented at having given way to his ill-humor once again. “If they show themselves,” he said, “it’s because they want to talk.”

  The trumpet had just fallen silent. A white pennant appeared above a thicket.

  “There’s the proof!” said the planter. “These hyenas are aping our customs.”

  A strident voice resounded at the forest’s edge. The Netherlander replied, as loud as a church bell: “The Bandits’ envoy may approach. Van den Bosch will answer for his life and liberty.”

  This speech must have inspired complete confidence, for a man with an ochreous complexion, prominent cheekbones and cruel narrow eyes appeared on the bare ground. Tall for a man of his race, when he appeared before the colossus he looked no bigger than a child. Their gazes met—the extraordinary honesty of the Dutchman’s blue eyes and the insectile gaze of the Malay.

  “I’ve never seen you before,” said the planter.

  “I am To-Tay, the Gray Eagle,” the man replied, not without pride, “second-in-command after the chief.”

  “And what do you want?” van den Bosch asked, rudely. “We’re peaceful folk, but we know how to defend ourselves and we aren’t afraid of bandits.”

  “We are not bandits!” the other retorted, standing up straight. “We are free men.”

  “Who murder and rob other free men.”

  “Men who have taken our valleys, our forests and our mountains, and who call themselves our masters. Have they not killed our forefathers, and, more recently, our rebellious brothers? We are waging war.”

  “Fine,” said the giant, impassively. “You’re refusing to let us pass?”

  “We need guns—and money to buy more guns.”

  “With which to fight us!” said the Dutchman, with a scornful smile. “So, if I promise you guns and money, we’ll have free passage?”

  “My brothers want you to surrender your weapons and pay 1000 guilder for your ransom.”

  “Oh! Knaap!20 Your brothers are imbeciles. They must know that if I promised guns and money, the guns and the money would be delivered at the agreed time and date.”

  “The Mountain Wolves do not know you.”

  The colossus saw that discussion was vain. “I know the Mountain Wolves. Go tell your brothers that we will not surrender our weapons.” The blood was rising in great waves in his powerful body, overtaken by wrath. “Your stupidity will cost you dear,” the Dutchman proclaimed.

  An ashen pallor invaded the negotiator’s face; doubtless he feared some violent action, for he had his kris in his hand.

  The giant shrugged his shoulders.

  The envoy had already recovered his composure. “We shall wait another hour,” he said.

  “We’re not asking for an hour, or even a minute.”

  The messenger withdrew at a slow pace and the planter turned to Lodewyk to say: “We’re at war, nephew!”

  Lodewyk, looking at Suzanne, felt his heart grow heavy.

  The harsh sunlight
became as mysterious as darkness; no night could have rendered the enemy more invisible, but the men in the camp knew, and the travelers divined, that the silence and stillness concealed redoubtable traps.

  The impassive van den Bosch went from one defile to the next, with vigilant slowness, and sometimes scaled a rock.

  “Unless they dig a tunnel underground they can’t take us by surprise for as long as the light lasts,” he said to Lodewyk, after one such inspection. “Without the Wolves, there’d be nothing to fear before dusk—but the Wolves are more impatient and more aggressive than their allies.” The howl of a siamang made him raise his head. “That’s Matzal!” he said. “Ah!”

  He advanced into the middle of a defile; a thick bush formed rapidly at the edge of the wood, between two teaks. Matzal seemed to spring out of the rock.

  “They’re going to attack, Master.”

  “Is it the bush that tells you that?”

  “Yes, Master—it’s a trick of the mountain folk. The bush is going to start moving.”

  “Carried by men?”

  “Carried by a cart. The men will be invisible—and shielded.”

  “So they’re counting on taking us by storm?”

  “They’ll try.”

  Conscious of the anxiety that the stratagem would sow among his men, the leader leaned forward.

  The bush, deployed over a width of 10 or 12 feet, had started moving slowly; as it came closer, thick branches became visible among the foliage; a superstitious dread immobilized the camp’s defenders.

  “Above all, don’t waste ammunition!” the leader’s thunderous voice proclaimed. “Fire on command, and only once each. Wait! One…two…three—fire!”

  Twenty shots rang out. A clamor of defiance rang out behind the bush and in the forest.

  “There are wounded, some doubtless mortally,” affirmed van den Bosch. “Ready, lads!”

  There was a second salvo, and the bush tottered; meanwhile, a further clamor challenged the besieged.

  “It’s too far away!” growled van den Bosch, who discerned a decrease in the shouts coming from the bush, while those in the forest were still as loud. He waited until the device had advanced for another 40 meters before ordering the third salvo. It was undoubtedly more murderous than the other two, for the bush was immobilized.

  “They’re still there, boys! Get ready!”

  The bush had started moving again. When it was less than 100 meters from the rocks, the planter gave the order to fire for the fourth time.

  In spite of the stoicism of the Malays, a few screams were mingled with the vociferations, and the apparatus tottered.

  “They’re having difficulty reorganizing themselves!” Lodewyk remarked.

  “There must be a lot of them, though. If not, you can be sure they wouldn’t have risked an attack.”

  The leader waited until the bush was only 30 meters from the rocks, then shouted: “One last salvo—and everyone take cover!”

  The cart swayed; ferocious howls went up; 40 individuals bounded forth, krises in hand. They were all Wolves, come from the highlands, more primitive, more ferocious and more impetuous than the Malays of the lower valleys.

  They headed straight for the central defile—the largest and the nearest—imagining that they would be able, by virtue of an excess of speed, to startle the besieged and cut their throats, as they cut people’s throats in ravines and caverns. The men in the camp were not unaware that the Wolves were formidable in hand-to-hand combat; trained in fighting with the kris since childhood, they knew the deadly blows that pierce the heart or cut through the entrails.

  The fusillade was now incessant; the giant, wedged between two rocky spurs, shot down a man a second—but after eight or ten seconds, the aggressors were in the defile. Without the thick branches and heavy stones accumulated there, the fate of the expedition would have been decided; inferior in hand-to-hand combat, the besieged forces would have been slaughtered like livestock, save for their giant leader, Hendrik and three or four elite fighting-men—but while the Wolves exhausted themselves climbing over the obstacles, and incessant fusillade decimated them; at short range, more than a third of the bullets struck home.

  Even so, 20 Wolves got past the obstacles and seven Sumatrans went down stabbed by krises, while Lodewyk fixed his bayonet, Hendrik, a revolver in each hand, continued shooting antagonists down, and van den Bosch, cornered by four Wolves, struck out with an enormous axe, which split a head of a shoulder at every stroke. Then the axe began to whirl, and the planter, carried away by a frenzied rage, all the more violent for having arisen slowly, gave voice to his war cry, louder than the clamor of ten siamangs. Three Wolves gave way to panic, two more were struck down by the axe. Lodewyk skewered a third with his bayonet. Hendrik discharged his weapon at point-blank range.

  Then, overwhelmed, the last aggressors stopped fighting. There were five of them. The leader granted them mercy.

  Events had moved so rapidly that Suzanne had not had time to form a resolution. She came forward to seize the weapon of a wounded Sumatran while the last Wolves were surrendering.

  “We’re victorious, and it’s sad!” growled van den Bosch. “Men shouldn’t die like that—but it wasn’t us who wanted it.”

  Five men from the caravan were dead and seven wounded. Of the dozen surviving indigenes, seven were conducting themselves with some bravery, increased by the victory; the other five were indubitably cowards. They made little attempt to calculate the enemy’s losses. In all probability, 30 Wolves had been killed during the bush’s advance; 20 had fallen before the palisades, and in the camp itself there were seven dead, six wounded and five prisoners.

  “They won’t attack again,” said the leader. “The punishment has been too harsh, and they don’t know our losses. In any case, with the seven men on whom we can depend, and you, nephew”—he turned to Lodewyk—“who fought well, and my son, we still have ten combatants.”

  “I hope we’ll have 11,” said Suzanne, softly. “I was taken by surprise—but I believe I would have fought!”

  “Very good! Very good!” murmured the planter, tenderly. “Ours is an ancient warrior race—our ancestors dared to fight the great peoples of Europe, and our mariners were able to conquer their share of the world!”

  Long, plaintive and sinister howls went up in the forest.

  “The clamor of defeat,” van den Bosch affirmed. “An attack is becoming more improbable. Only the Wolves would risk it, and they’re no longer numerous. You can be sure that the men of the valleys didn’t approve of that folly!”

  Silence fell again, scarcely troubled by the distant cries of parrots. The presence of the dead and wounded impregnated the men with a black melancholy.

  Hours passed; a fugitive dusk preceded the night. On the far bank, a troop of siamangs, like black dwarves, emerged and disappeared again, with cries that might have been cries of joy but which resembled the moans of brutes prey to an immense misery.

  Suzanne was on the river bank, her reverie filled with bitterness, pity and disgust. The darkness had grown more intense: the fugitive night of the planet beneath the eternal night of interstellar space; a night still warm from the Sun’s heat, enveloped by a night so cold that it would have reduced living beings to a mineral state in a matter of hours.

  The siamangs having fallen silent, and the silence making the darkness seem deeper, slighter sounds and distant clamors denouncing slaughter became audible; the red radiance of the camp fires pierced the mystery full of traps set by humans and animals. Under the branches and in the thickets hundreds of diligent and ferocious eyes watched the rocks. The young daughter of Holland sensed the law without appeal that spreads suffering and death untiringly.

  After a brief and melancholy meal, van den Bosch had given his orders for the night, adding: “The pigeons must have arrived by now. We shall have help the day after tomorrow.”

  Lodewyk wanted to take the first watch. Suzanne, alone in a cleft in the rock a few meters from t
he river, went to sleep, with difficulty.

  A noise woke her up.

  Flames were running between the forest and the rocks; the camp’s defenders had occupied the three defiles; gunshots rang out—and something floating through the air, falling upon the young woman, wrapped itself around her head.

  She tried to cry out, but she was firmly gripped and lifted off the ground; she was aware that she was being carried off. The river was rumbling, close at hand; Suzanne divined, by its bobbing, that she had been deposited in a boat, which the current drew away.

  There was an abrupt impact and a pause; carried off again, she struggled, full of a tenebrous terror without her imagination offering her any precise account of what was happening.

  Footsteps sounded softly on the forest floor.

  The immense power of human adaptation began to bring back coherence, and almost self-composure, to the young woman’s brain. She assumed that she was in the hands of the bandits who were besieging the camp. The idea of an obscure danger, which had no clear corresponding image, terrorized her. Had Lodewyk and his companions been taken by surprise, as she had been? Had they been put to death?

  The anguish became so strong that she could not bear it. She fainted.

  There was another pause. She was laid down on the ground. The animal skin in which she was wrapped was taken away. Coming round, she saw that she was in the middle of a clearing, in which hideous men were moving back and forth by the light of three red fires. Saurian gazes filtered between narrowed eyelids, shaded by enormous hairy brows. Thick hair bristled on pentagonal skulls. Their teeth were the color of jade; their ears were pointed.

  One of them, his torso like the torso of a bear, came toward the young woman and uttered sounds more reminiscent of the bellowing of a buffalo than human speech. The mobile face—uniformly mobile, however—recalled the wrinkles of the faces of certain dogs. His gestures were not manifestly threatening, and Suzanne thought that she was the captive of a strange animal race, intermediate between the great apes and wild boar.

  The man continued uttering sounds and gesticulating. The young woman discerned a vague chant, confused articulations drowned in the bellowing; if a bull could talk, its speech might resemble the pronunciation of that monstrous human.