The Mysterious Force

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  From their story, stammered chaotically in fits and starts, it emerged that a numerous company had mounted a surprise attack on Rougues. Before the inhabitants had been able to take stock of the situation, the stables and pig-sties had been demolished and the animals killed or wounded with axe-blows. Attracted by the noise and even more so by the links that attached them to the animals, the people of Rougues had raced outside. They had been greeted by sustained gunfire. The attackers, massed at first around the houses, had rapidly dispersed—they were no longer visible; only their continuous and murderous fire indicated their positions. The men of Rougues had tried to respond; surprise and an unusual bravery—a collective, vertiginous bravery—had precipitated them simultaneously in an assault on their enemies. Their losses, far from intimidating them, enraged them; all of them, even the women and the children, had continued their hazardous course, in the hope of reaching and massacring the murderers. The latter had retreated, retrenched, and continued their salvos. In this fashion, they killed three-quarters of those under siege. Then excitement was succeeded in the survivors by a feverish terror; they fled pell-mell, at random, making the same circuits several times over. The assailants exterminated them like hinds in a clearing.

  “Had they no animals with them?” asked Langre.

  “They had!” replied the oldest of the fugitives, whose name was Pierre Roussard. “We saw them, but they kept them at a distance.”

  “A necessary strategy,” Meyral observed. “The animals would be easier to kill than the humans…and the humans’ fate is linked to theirs.”

  The woman screamed, raised her arms as if to grab hold of something, and collapsed in a heap. She was no longer moving; she was stiff, her limbs extended. Her fall somehow caused her companions to fall too, but while Pierre Roussard collapsed into an armchair, the other sank down gradually in a corner, where he remained huddled.

  For a minute, Meyral and Langre remained paralyzed. A thrill of fear passed through them. It was Sabine who leaned over the woman and tried to bring her round. The body remained inert and breathless.

  “She’s dead!” Georges whispered.

  Her heart was no longer beating; a mirror, placed against her mouth, revealed no vapor. As for the men, they were unconscious, Pierre Roussard less profoundly than the other.

  “It’s the rupture of the group that has killed her,” said Gérard, sadly. “And them…”

  He did not finish; a funereal stupor dilated his pupils. The rustling of the forest evoked perils more hideous that those of the centuries when bears and wolves devoured solitary travelers…

  For several seconds, the dog had been showing signs of anxiety. Outside, the hens were clucking; pigeons and songbirds had taken flight in the cloudy moonlight. The nervousness of the animals was communicated to the humans; they perceived fluidly that something was approaching.

  The impression intensified. Soon, it was evident that living beings were moving toward the lodge. The dog sometimes growled, sometimes sniffed the shadows feverishly. Finally, they began to hear a dull rumor. Meyral, Gérard and the gardener hastened to lock the doors all around the lodge and arm themselves.

  In the woods, human forms appeared.

  “Who goes there?” shouted Georges.

  “Friends!” replied a clarion voice. “We’re from Collimarre.”

  “It’s Jacques Franières,” said the gardener. “What’s happened to them?”

  “Nothing good,” said Gérard.

  “This way!” shouted Meyral.

  They could now make out a horde of men, women, children, livestock, dogs, birds and rodents. At the head marched Jacques Franières, an athletic individual whose barrel-shaped torso rested on the legs of a rhinoceros.

  “What news?” asked the gardener.

  “The region’s been invaded,” Franières replied. “Roche and Vanesse are surrounded. We had time to take refuge in the forest.”

  “There are more than 1000 of them!” moaned a pale individual, lamentably.

  “Have they attacked?”

  “Not yet—the brigands are keeping their distance.”

  Distant gunfire interrupted the peasant. Weak and intermittent at first, it became furious.

  “That’s the village!” said Franières, his ear cocked.

  A long shudder passed through the groups; even the beasts held their breath, subtly penetrated by the human’s terror. An immense despair hovered in the air.

  “Let’s organize our defenses!” said Langre. His voice was imperious; it lent the circumstances a tragic force. The rustics submitted to his authority with superstitious docility. After a pause, he went on: “We must hide the women and children. It’s also necessary to hide the animals; they’re too easy to kill—their death would weaken us dangerously and threaten our lives!”

  “There’s no shortage of cellars, fortunately,” said Père Castelin.

  “The men can conceal themselves behind the barriers, the walls and the retrenchments,” Langre went on. “Who are the best shots?”

  Jacques Franières and three other men came forward. In addition, the gardener was a marksman and Meyral had practiced shooting passionately since his adolescence.

  “We need a detachment in the mushroom-farm,” Georges said.

  The rustics looked at one another, indecisively. They all wanted to stay with the “sorcerers.”

  “It’s necessary!” the young man said.

  Jacques made the decision. “That will be us,” he said. “What do we have to do?”

  “First, hide carefully—and don’t budge. You know the place; it will be easy for you to remain invisible…until you get the signal.”

  “What signal?”

  “When the lodge bell begins to ring, you’ll mount an attack with rifle-fire—without breaking cover. If the bell is no longer working, I’ll substitute a trumpet-blast.”

  Franières’ group listened fearfully.

  “You won’t be in any more danger than us,” Langre interjected, almost rudely. “On the contrary! It’s in everyone’s interest to expose you as little as possible.”

  These words from the “old sorcerer”—the more redoubtable of the two in the peasants’ eyes—were decisive; the party headed for the mushroom-farm.

  A bleak silence followed their departure; the very forest seemed more immobile. The breeze had died down; a vast nimbus covered the Moon, only letting a paltry light filter through; pale vapors floated among the branches. A few stars were visible in the gaps in the clouds; there was no other sound but that of the distant fusillade.

  Meanwhile, the animals, women and children were sheltered. Guided by Langre, Meyral and the gardener, the riflemen had chosen their spots. There was no shortage of ammunition, or of weapons. In addition to the rifles brought by the peasants, the lodge contained an entire armory of revolvers, carbines, pistols and cartridges. The weapons of inferior quality and the dubious ammunition were distributed to the poorer marksmen. Langre and Meyral distributed the petards that would reinforce the fusillade; they also made ready grenades that they had manufactured themselves, and which could be thrown by hand in case the enemy attempted an assault.

  Would the enemies come at all, though? The forest, in which so many ambushes could be hidden, and which offered such scant resources, would scarcely tempt carnivorous gangs. They would almost surely disdain it, if they had not perceived the flight of the people of Collimarre.

  An hour went by. There was no suggestion of any approaching danger, although the dogs, the birds and the livestock displayed some agitation. That agitation might well have been attributable to the anxiety of the humans, which was inevitably propagated to their inferior kin.

  The attack on the village proceeded through phases marked by the periodicity of the fusillade.

  “The defense is energetic,” Langre remarked, as he and Georges were examining an array of switches disposed at the back of the lodge.

  “That’s lucky for us.”

  “Yes, if the bands a
re intensely concentrated—but there’s undoubtedly some incoherence, and the difficulties of the siege might convince some of the besiegers to seek their fortune elsewhere.”

  Within the last few moments, the agitation of the animals had become tumultuous. The dogs were growling or barking abruptly. The horses were manifesting the overexcitement peculiar to them. The birds were flying around hectically. Two owls were uttering fantastic plaints. The cocks were crowing.

  Then the dogs all started howling together, and the horses neighed. A breath of panic passed through them.

  “They’re here!” cried a haggard adolescent, brandishing an old revolver.

  Fear suddenly spread from soul to soul—but Langre said, with an imposing gravity: “Courage will save us!”

  Within the crowd, which the mysterious force had rendered a hundred times more hypnotizable than normal crowds, an imperious confidence succeeded the terror.

  “Everyone to his post,” continued the old man. “Don’t open fire until I give the order.”

  The lights went out one by one; the lodge and its gardens no longer received any but the changing light of the sky; the men took up the positions that had been assigned to them. Armed with long-range rifles, Meyral and Langre remained inside the lodge, close to their apparatus. Distress was relegated to the depths of the unconscious; the two men understood, better than by means of intelligence—with all their instinct and all their sentiment—that emotion had to be abolished. While they waited, they checked their equipment and made the final preparations.

  They began to hear muffled voices, the growling of animals and footfalls. They were coming from the west, but the rumor gradually extended to the north and south. Meyral made out the first of the vertical silhouettes. They were advancing slowly, uncertain and careful. They increased in number. Soon, he could count 50, quickly reinforced by others that were arriving obliquely. In the rear, one could perceive—vaguely with the naked eye, distinctly through binoculars—the profiles of animals.

  Suddenly, the scouts stopped, and their halt successively determined the halt of all those following them.

  “They’ve seen the lodge,” said Meyral.

  The pause lasted several minutes. Then a slow encirclement commenced. Individuals coming from the west continually veered to the right or the left. That movement, clear to Langre and Meyral, remained rather vague for the lodge’s other guests, who were less well-positioned and reliant on the naked eye. They all deduced, however, that the enemy was getting ready to surround them.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to open fire now?” Langre muttered. “The surprise might cause a panic.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Meyral replied. “But apart from the fact that it would be regrettable to kill without definite provocation, a panic might be followed by a reaction.”

  “As you wish, my son!” the old man replied. “I share your scruples...but they’ll become culpable if they compromise the safety of our own people, and those who’ve accepted our command…”

  He broke off, and directed his binoculars southwards, where a compact assembly had formed. Suddenly, that assembly moved toward the lodge; then a column emerged from the north, supported by two groups to the west. Meyral and Langre watched them approach, very pale.

  “For Life or Death!” whispered Gérard.

  Meyral picked up his rifle, while the old man flicked the switches rapidly. The electric beams of searchlights darted forth. Surprised by the sudden glare, the enemy masses stopped or became turbulent. Gunshots crackled; they were unable to hit anyone.

  “Fire!” Meyral ordered.

  A salvo echoed in the depths of the woods. Four or five attackers fell. The others took shelter behind trees and bushes.

  “Cease fire!”

  The searchlights went out. A black silence, undisturbed even by the animals, descended upon the area. The noise of an expiring fusillade, coming from the direction of Roche, was hardly perceptible.

  The silence lasted several minutes. Then, as mysterious orders circulated, the forest lit up with flashes of gunpowder, and a storm of bullets rained upon the lodge.

  “Lie down! Lie down!” shouted Georges, taking cover himself behind a thick wall.

  The searchlights came on again. Their sharp light revealed the ambushes, and the lodge’s defenders only fired intermittently, all the more invisible because the glare of the searchlights, distant from the retrenchments, blinded and deceived the aggressors. Sometimes, a savage yelp or a resounding scream announced a wound or death-throes; sometimes, too, a unanimous clamor emphasized the fury of the besiegers.

  Thus far, none of the men from Collimarre had been hit, while the enemy horde had sustained several deaths.

  At first, Meyral had hesitated to commit homicide, but the vicissitudes of combat, the hypnosis of peril and the sentiments of solidarity dispersed his scruples. Favored by his position, by the maneuvering of the searchlights and his natural skill, he had shot down several adversaries. The old gardener had clocked up three victims; four other marksmen were demonstrating their redoubtable qualities. Deaths and injuries echoed physically through the carnivore groups, causing sharp pains and a sort of dark intoxication, which were emitted in howls.

  There was a pause. The carnivores kept still behind the trees or in the bushes; their plaints and threats continued to be heard.

  “They’re preparing something!” Meyral murmured. He switched off the searchlights. Beneath the thick clouds, darkness fell like a block of stone; the breeze drew a sound like a stream from the treetops.

  Soon, the sentiment of a new danger sent a collective thrill running through the groups, which gradually became intolerable.

  One of the searchlights lit up again and began a slow rotation. Its violet light cut through the darkness like a sheaf of swords—and they could see, to the north, an unhitched cart loaded with brushwood and foliage, which was advancing. It was rolling along ponderously, moved by an invisible force. Immediately, Langre and Meyral guessed its purpose: the carnivores were going to try to blow the lodge up.

  The maneuver should have been familiar to them, since they had set up its equivalents in the forest; it was, in any case, appropriate to solitary habitations. Gradually, the attention of the besieged forces became fixed on the enigmatic machine. It caused little anxiety at first; then, as memories surfaced, a few sharpshooters began to comprehend. A frisson spread from neighbor to neighbor, and the dogs barked frenziedly.

  “Castelin and Bouveroy, fire at the side and the wheels!” Meyral commanded.

  To the left of the lodge, a steady fusillade erupted; the besiegers replied with a hail of bullets—and the cart continued its slow progress. Hampered by the fire of Castelin, Bouveroy and Meyral, its course had deviated, into the shelter of a clump of young beech-trees. It soon reappeared to the right, where, protected by the carnivores’ violent fire, it could move more easily. The men pushing it remained invisible.

  “At the wheels!” Georges repeated.

  The wheels must have been hit, but their functioning was undisturbed. At length, the cart arrived 100 meters from the retrenchments.

  “The grenades…on command!” shouted Langre, as the vehicle emerged into an open space.

  It advanced more rapidly. Meyral darted the beams of several searchlights to the left, which guided the fusillade and caused the vehicle to swerve.

  “They’re nearly there!” the young man whispered, in Langre’s ear.

  The clamor of the carnivores became triumphant. Shocked by the approach of disaster, the defenders of the lodge held their breath. Once more, the lights went out. Meyral found a switch and flicked it with a nervous hand. Then livid flames sprang forth from the ground; an explosion shook the forest; the earth shook and split; fumaroles erupted; and the cart collapsed in the darkness.

  “Long live the sorcerers!” howled strident voices, while three crippled shadows limped away. Only one got away; Castelin and Bouveroy laid the other two low.

  The cart was burning. The
flames, creeping at first, in the bosom of a vortex of smoke, jetted forth in scarlet blades, copper lacework, and heavy waves of purple; they projected their formidable life, drawn from the mysterious depths of force, the abysms of the creative world and the unsoundable inferno of the atom, into the woods and over the lodge. Thunder split the air; beech-trees splintered; the cart was blasted into sparkling smithereens, to the tops of the trees—and the windows of the lodge imploded.

  “Those bombs were destined for us!” said Gérard.

  The event stirred the souls of the peasants to the utmost depths; faith entered into them, which filled them with bravery and made them loyal servants of the will of Langre and Meyral. By virtue of its repercussion within the groups, that faith attained a power of supernatural unanimity.

  In the firelight, the carnivores gazed at the pale lodge and the reddened gardens; obscure legends sprang to mind, and terrorized them. Then, in a fit of rage—a rage born of the physical sensation of losses suffered, they uttered a fantastic groan, in which pain and exaltation were confused: the voice of the human and the voice of the animal.

  It was like the unleashing of the sea. A hundred frenzied men rushed to assault the lodge.

  “Fire!” yelled Langre.

  Meyral fired without pause; within the mass, every one of his shots struck home. Castelin, Bouveroy and all the other able-bodied men accelerated the fusillade—but the carnivores’ thrust seemed invincible. In the glare of the searchlights they saw twisted faces, fluorescent eyes and howling mouths. An obscure fatality was guiding those men and rendering them similar to elements.

  “Grenades at the ready!” warned the old man. He flicked a switch. Thick smoke belched from the ground; 12 or 15 men were thrown up into the air with soil, roots and plants; the others bounded like wolves, wild boars or leopards. One of them roared: “Attack!”

  That was the life-or-death moment. The defenders’ fire was still increasing; the lodge bell began to ring, slowly at first, like a knell, and then with insistent strokes. The quickest of the aggressors were already within ten meters of the retrenchments.