The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  they ought to be . In fact, the symmetry of their faces was ideally

  perfect, and attracted more notice than anything else in their appear-

  ance except one thing, and that one thing was the malignity of their

  expression . That was utterly inhuman; it was diabolical . I declare

  that as I stood there behind the forest scrub and watched them, my

  very heart sank . I felt that I would rather see a dozen man-eating

  tigers or a herd of hungry wolves . I am not constitutionally timid

  and yet I repressed with difficulty a cry of despair.

  As I looked in sheer horror and terror I though I caught sight

  among the faces of a face that I knew . But surely I had never seen

  anything so frightful in my waking moments . Could I have dreamt

  of such a face, or could it be that amongst one’s acquaintance an

  expression like that was to be found, only in an undeveloped stage?

  I can remember quite distinctly how that last thought flashed across

  my mind as I stood hesitating whether to run for bare life, or to wait

  for some further development of the situation . I think that nothing

  but the shame of manhood kept me from running away . Just then I

  suddenly perceived that the men were under some strange and very

  comprehensive system of drill . The man who seemed to be their

  leader held them, to all appearance, under very close control And yet

  it seemed also as if their submission to his control were voluntary . It

  was like the way of a very perfect chorus with its conductor . Every

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  glance of the leader’s eye, every motion of his hand seemed to affect

  and direct them . But it did not seem as if there were anything abso-

  lutely compulsory about their obedience . They seemed not only to

  follow his eye and his hand but to look for the guidance of each . The

  very expression of their faces was moulded upon his, and I could

  well believe that the malignity which kindled it was kept alive by

  his .As I looked more steadily I could see waves of expression, so to

  speak, going out from his face to them . What particulars these might

  be conveying I could not guess, but that there were particulars I

  could not doubt . Their variety, regularity, and distinctive character

  were as remarkable as if they were spoken words . His hands also

  moved in harmony with this change of expression, and the bodies of

  the men swayed with a slight rhythmic movement, which seemed to

  rise and fall as they watched his changing face . For several seconds

  I verily thought that I was dreaming, and I even had the feeling that

  a dreaming man has when he knows that he is about to waken .

  Suddenly the leader turned away and the men fell to work as

  Before . I saw then that in his passage along the platform he was

  encountering group after group of men, and that he was holding with

  each group, so far as I could guess at the distance, the same sort of

  silent interview which I have just now described . Then I suddenly

  remembered my promise to Jack, and I stole away from where I was

  and ran down the dark passage with breathless haste . Fortunately

  I received no hurt beyond several scratches in the face from some

  thorny bushes, which I had not encountered on my way up .

  I found Jack very near where I had left him, sleeping under the

  shadow of a rock . I shook him, and he got up at once, quite broad

  awake . “Come,” I said, “come; I have found men, if they are men .”

  “White men?” he queried, briefly. “God knows,” I said, my voice, I

  believe, quivering with agitation . Jack said no more for the moment,

  but he gave me a drink of water which I drank very greedily, and he

  was proceeding leisurely to light his pipe . The water had steadied

  me a bit, and I said, “No, never mind the pipe now, Jack; I’ll tell you

  as we go along .”

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  So we both went back together over my track, and when we got

  into the covered way I told him all that I have now told you . Then,

  when we had got nearly as far as the upper opening of the cave, we

  sat down and held a short and hurried consultation .

  “Let them be what they will,” Jack whispered, “we must go

  straight up and speak to them: if we don’t get help soon we shall

  perish miserably .”

  “Agreed,” I said; “but let us watch them for a little and wait for a

  favourable moment .” And so we both crawled on to the opening of

  which I have already told you, and looked through .

  Everything was just as before, except that the leader was now en-

  gaged with a group of men further away . After a brief survey of the

  surroundings, Jack pulled out his little telescope and looked steadily

  at the leader and the group of men he was engaged with, and then

  he handed the glass to me . I could see them with the glass about as

  plainly as I had seen the near group with the naked eye . Everything

  was the same, except that the malignant expression of the men and

  their leader was much less easily recognisable . I handed back the

  glass, and we both by one impulse drew back from the opening .

  We drew further back still into a dark and retired corner, quite out

  of the rough pathway, and held a brief conference .

  “It’s a queer start,” Jack said, “but we must go on with it; it is our

  only chance .”

  “It’s queerer than you think,” said I; “you haven’t seen the fel-

  lows’ faces as I saw them at first.”

  “No, no, I am taking account of that,” said he . “I saw what you

  mean, although I might no have taken much notice of it if you had

  not mentioned it . I am afraid they are a very bad lot, or I should say

  rather he is a bad lot, for they are mere puppets in his hands .”

  “Not quite that,” said I . “I don’t suppose they would be much

  without him, but they are following him with a will .”

  “That may be,” he replied; “but now tell me, how shall we work

  it? We have no time to lose, for he knows we are coming .”

  “I don’t see how he could know it,” said I, “unless he is the devil

  himself .”

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  Jack gave a short but unpleasant chuckle; then he said,

  “Well, perhaps he is; he is bad enough to be, or else I am much

  mistaken . Anyway, he knows we are coming; that is why the malig-

  nant look is partly hidden; he is getting ready for us .”

  I wished for the light that I might see Jack’s face, for his voice

  began to have an odd ring about it . Then I said, “What can he want

  with us, Jack?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but I made a study of his face just now .

  I’m not much on—what do you call it?—physiognomy? but that

  beggar’s face told me a story .”

  “What was the story?”

  “Well, that he knows we are coming, and that he wants us, and

  that he is going to make use of us . What are we going to do?”

  “We will go straight up to him and ask him to help us .”

  “Very well,” Jack said. “Rest, and a guide, and food, and fire.

  And what story shall
we tell him of ourselves?”

  “We will tell him the truth,” said I .

  “And shame the devil,” said he, with another uncomfortable

  chuckle .

  “What language shall I try him with?” said I .

  “Bet you a pound he knows English,” said Jack .

  “Oh, that’s the sort of devil you think he is; very well, I’ll take

  your bet, though I dare say you are right enough .” I declare, al-

  though I knew very well what ruffians outlawed Englishmen are apt

  to be, I felt quite light-hearted as I thought that perhaps after the men

  we were going to meet might be no worse than such . “Come on,”

  I said, and we walked straight to the light . I pulled aside the rustic

  frame, which came with my hand quite easily; then I walked straight

  through, Jack following me closely .

  The strange leader saw us at once, stood still, and looked at us .

  We walked forward and saluted him . I felt at the moment that Jack

  was right, that he knew that we were coming, although he wore an

  air of surprise, interested and self-possessed . I thought at the very

  first, “After all, he looks noble.” But almost immediately I changed

  the word “noble” for “very strong .”

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  He spoke to us in English . I looked at Jack, who smiled grimly

  and whispered, “Lost, old man .” The strange leader said,

  “Who are you, and whence do you come?” He spoke perfectly,

  quite perfectly, and in a commanding and confident tone. But there

  was a something, I know not what, about his accent, which told me

  that he was speaking a language foreign to him, and then and after-

  wards I noticed also that he did not use the conversational idiomatic

  English of any of those who speak English as their mother tongue .

  “We are Englishmen,” I said, “and we come from the eastward .

  We went among the blacks and they left us, and we do not know our

  way . Can you give us food and clothes, and guide us to the nearest

  English settlement?”

  “I can give you both food and clothes,” he said; “about guidance

  we shall speak further when you have made up your mind whither

  your purpose is to go .”

  I was about to thank him when I suddenly noticed the aspect of

  his men . They were looking at us eagerly, and it seemed as if they

  were waiting for some expected word of command . I could not help

  thinking that they were about to spring upon us, and I put my hand

  instinctively to the pocket where I kept my pistol .

  The leader said shortly, “never mind that .” Then he turned to his

  men . I could not see his face, but I saw that he lifted his hand . Pres-

  ently the men were working away at their previous work, and were

  taking no more note at all of us .

  “Come with me,” said the leader, and he walked down the broad

  stone stairway . It was a very broad stairway, with stone balustrades

  on each side, light in appearance, but immensely strong . Every step,

  as well as the whole of the balustrade, was diversified with a variety

  of pictures and devices wrought upon stone by some method which

  rendered them proof against the weather . On this occasion I noticed

  little but the colours, but I observed them very closely afterwards .

  They appeared not only here, but everywhere in the valley, whether

  under cover or in the open air, where-ever there was any space to

  receive them, on walls, floors, ceilings, pillars, and doors.

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  All these pictures and devices presented one pervading idea; and

  as one passed backward and forward over steps and through doors,

  past pillars and balustrades, and wails, this idea gradually wrought

  its way into one’s mind, until it seemed to dominate, or at least to

  claim to dominate everywhere . The idea so presented was that of an

  unequal but very determined conflict. Sometimes there was a simple

  device, a heavy drawn sword, for one, falling sheer, a cloud hiding

  the arm that sped it, and a gauntleted hand raised in resistance . This

  hand was but small and slight as compared with the sword, but there

  was expression in every sinew of it and in its very poise .

  Again, you would see a hand coming out of a cloud and wield-

  ing a flash of lightning, and underneath two smaller hands lifted up

  as if trying to catch the extremities of the zigzag line of light . But

  the eeriest of all the devices was that of he two eyes: the larger eye

  was above and the lesser beneath, and how such expression could

  be given to an eye by itself I do not understand, but certainly there

  it was . Either eye was looking steadfastly into the other, and in the

  upper eye you saw conscious power, harsh, stern, and unrelenting;

  and in the lower and lesser one you saw, quite as plainly, the spirit

  of hopeless but unquelled resistance . The same idea was repeated in

  many pictures . In one of them you saw a great host bearing down

  upon a few antagonists of determined if despairing aspect . And in

  the background a dark mass of cloud, forest, and rock hid all but

  the forefront of the mightier combatants and gave you the notion

  of unseen and inscrutable power . Still, the simpler devices, I think,

  suggested with more awful certainty the actual presence of desper-

  ate and deadly struggle .

  As I have said, however, I was conscious of but little of all this

  as I walked down the broad stone stair . I was weary, and hungry,

  and thirsty, and utterly taken by surprise, and I was quite ready to

  attribute’ to these feelings the sense of eeriness and fear which was

  creeping over me .

  Our host conducted us down the stair with stately courtesy, and

  he gave us briefly to understand that he was about to ask us to refresh

  ourselves with food and rest and change of raiment . At the foot of

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  the stair a very broad roadway led straight on toward the other end

  of the valley, but our host beckoned us to the right by a shorter and

  narrower way . We entered one of the low buildings which I had seen

  from above . These were not very large, but they proved to be consid-

  erably larger than I had supposed . We passed through a little porch

  into a fair-sized room, the floor of which was covered with a stuff of

  curious texture . It looked like some sort of metal; it felt beneath the

  feet like the softest pile . The walls on one side of the room exhibited

  a number of drawers with handles . Both drawers and handles were

  of strange and irregular shapes, exhibiting, nevertheless, a sort of

  regular recurrence in their very irregularities . In the centre of each

  of the remaining walls was a picture wrought upon the surface of the

  wall and occupying about a third of the whole wall, and over the rest

  of the wall there was inscribed a variety of devices . Both picture and

  devices were of the sort which I have already indicated .

  There was an elliptical table in the middle of the room, and here

  and there on the floor were several chairs and a few couches, all of

  a very bizarre pattern, and all—tables,
couches, chairs, drawers, and

  floorcloth—were covered with devices, some similar in form and

  all similar in spirit to those upon the wall . In the wall opposite the

  drawers there was a door, and our host, opening this, showed us into

  a room of lesser size where there were all sorts of appliances for

  bathing and for dressing . Clothes also, like those worn by himself

  and his men, hung round on racks . The walls and furniture, here as

  well as elsewhere, presented repetitions under various forms of the

  same pictured idea .

  Before taking us into the bath-room, our host pulled out three

  drawers, calling our attention to the numbers marked upon them .

  Out of each he took a number of little round cakes or lozenges, each

  of a little less than the circumference of a two-shilling piece, but

  rather thicker . These he placed on several dishes, a different sort

  on each dish, and two spoons, or like spoons, on each dish also . He

  told us to take each, after the bath, a few of these, and he told us in

  what order we were to take them . Then, with a salutation, he left us

  to ourselves .

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  We bathed quickly, and after our bath we availed ourselves gladly

  of the change of raiment which our host had placed at our disposal .

  We exchanged a very few words, and those few did not attempt to

  deal with the mystery which was thickening about us . Jack’s face

  expressed a mixture of surprise and mistrust, each in an extreme

  degree . My own face, as Jack told me later on, expressed sheer be-

  wilderment . Certainly that was my feeling until far into the middle

  of the next day . I did not really believe that I was awake and in my

  senses, and I kept going back and back in my thoughts trying to find

  out when and where I fell asleep or was stunned .

  After our bath we returned into the larger room . We were then

  very hungry, and we lay down each upon a couch, expecting o be

  soon summoned to the evening meal, for by this time he afternoon

  was well advanced . The weather was pleasantly warm, and we

  would have dropped asleep if we had not been kept awake by hun-

  ger . We both remembered a the same moment the plates of confec-

  tions which our host had offered us. We took first one and then an-

  other of each kind in the order which he had indicated, letting them