The Sign of the Spider

by Bertram Mitford

  CHAPTER XII.

  "THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH."

  The sun is setting above the tropical forest--hot and red and smoky--hisfiery ball imparting something of a coppery molten hue to the vast seasof luxuriant verdure, rolling, with scarce a break, on all sides, far asthe eye can reach. But beneath, in the dim shade, where the air ischoked by rotting undergrowth and tangled vegetation, the now slantingrays are powerless to penetrate, powerless to dispel the steamy miasmicexhalations. Silence, too, is the rule in that semi-gloom, save for hereand there the half-frightened chirp of a bird far up among thetree-tops, or the stealthy rustle beneath as some serpent, or hugevenomous insect, moves upon its way. For among the decayed wood offallen tree trunks, and dry lichens and hoary mosses growing therefrom,do such delight to dwell.

  Beautiful as this shaded solitude is with its vistas of massivetree-trunk and sombre foliage, the latter here and there relieved byclusters of scarlet-hued blossoms, there is withal an awesomeness aboutits beauty. Even the surroundings will soon begin to take on shape, andthe boles and tossing boughs, and naked, dead, and broken fragmentsstarting from the dank soil, assume form, attitude, countenance, in ahundred divers contortions--gnome-like, grotesque, diabolical. Strange,too, if the wayfarer threading the steamy mazes of these unending gladesdoes not soon think to hear ghostly whisperings in the awed silence ofthe air, does not conjure up unseen eyes marking his every step--for thehot moist depression is such as to weigh alike upon nerve and brain.

  And now, through the sombre vistas of this phantom-evoking solitude,faint and far comes a strange sound--a low, vibrating, booming hum,above which, now and again, arises a shrill, long-drawn wail. The effectis indescribably gruesome and eerie--in fact, terror-striking--even ifhuman, for there is an indefinable something, in sight, and sound, andsurrounding, calculated to tell, if telling were needed, that this isindeed one of "the dark places of the earth."

  But if the sinking beams of the orb of light fail to penetrate thisfoliage and enshrouded gloom, they slant hot and red upon an open space,and that which this space contains. Inclosed within an irregularstockade--mud-plastered, reed-thatched--stand the huts of a nativevillage.

  The noise which penetrated in faint eerie murmur to yon distant forestshades is here terrific--the booming of drums, the cavernous bellowingof the native horns, drowning rather than supporting the shrill yellingchorus of the singers. For a great dance is proceeding.

  Immediately within the principal gate of the stockade is a large openspace, and in this the dancers are performing. In a half circle in thebackground sit a number of women and children, aiding with shrill nasalvoices the efforts of the "musicians."

  The dancers, to the number of about a hundred, seem to represent thewarrior strength of the place. They are wild-looking savages enough withtheir cicatrized and tattooed faces, and wool, red with grease and ochreand plaited into tags, standing out like horns from their heads, givingthem a frightfully demoniacal aspect as they whirl and leap, brandishingspears and axes, and going through the pantomime of slaying an enemy.They are of fair physique, though tall and gaunt rather than sturdy ofbuild. And--is it a mere accident, or in accordance with somecustom--not one there present--whether among the truculent crewexecuting the dance or among the women in the background, appears tohave attained old age.

  The whole scene is sufficiently repulsive, even terrifying, to come uponsuddenly from the silent heart of the dark, repellent forest. But thereis yet another setting to the picture, which shall render it complete inevery hideous and horrifying detail. For the principal gate itself isdecorated with a complete archway of human heads.

  Heads in every stage of horror and decay--from the white, bleachedskull, grinning dolefully, to the bloated features of that but latelysevered, scowling outward with an awful expression of terror and agonyand hate--an archway of them arranged in some grim approach toregularity or taste. This dreadful gate is indeed a fitting entrance toa devil's abode, and now, as the red, fiery rays of the sinking sun playfull upon it, the tortured features seem to move and pucker as thoughblasted with the flame of satanic fires. A crow, withdrawing his beakfrom the sightless eye-holes of one of the skulls, soars upward, blackand demon-like, uttering a weird, raucous croak.

  But as the sun touches the far-away sky line the dance suddenly ceases.In wild hubbub the fighting men stream out of the stockade, through theawful archway of heads. They are followed by women, bearingstrange-looking baskets and great knives. All are in high spirits,chattering and laughing among each other.

  The forest on this side grows almost to the gate. Just where its shadebegins the crowd halts, clustering eagerly around two trees which standa little apart from the rest. But from one to the other of these twotrees is lashed a stout beam, such as butchers might use for hoistingthe carcass of a slain bullock. And look! below are oblong slabs ofmassive wood, and upon them is blood. This is the cattle-killing place,then, and these warriors are about to slaughter the material for afeast!

  Now there is more chatter and hubbub, and all faces are turned towardsthe grim gate--are turned expectantly; for the cattle awaited. Then ashout, an exclamation, goes up. The material for the feast is drawingnear.

  The material for the feast! Heavens! No cattle this, but _human beings_!

  Human beings! Bound, trussed, helpless, five human bodies are bornealong by their head and heels, and flung down anyhow at the place ofslaughter. The eyeballs of the victims are starting from their headswith terror and despair as their glance falls upon the grislyinstruments of death. Yet no surprise is there, for they have seen itall before.

  Three of the five are old men. These are seized first, and, a thongbeing made fast to their ankles, they are hauled up to the beam, where,hanging head downwards, they are butchered like calves. And those whoare most active in at any rate preparing them for the slaughter, aretheir own children--_their own sons_.

  These go about their work without one spark of pity, one qualm of ruth.Will not their own turn come in the course of years, should they not beslain in battle or the chase in the interim? Of course. Why then heedsuch vain sentiment? It is the custom. Old and useless people are notkept among this tribe.

  The other two, who are not old, but prisoners of war, suffer in likemanner; and then all five of the bodies are flung on to the blocks andquartered and disjointed with astonishing celerity. And women bearingthe oblong baskets return within the stockade, passing through thehideous gateway, staggering beneath the weight of limbs and trunks oftheir slaughtered fellow-species. Within the open space great fires nowleap and crackle into life, roaring upward upon the still air, reddeningas with a demon-glow this hellish scene, and, gathering around, thesavages impatiently and with hungry eyes watch the cooking of thedisjointed members, and, hardly able to restrain their impatience,snatch their horrible roast from the flames and embers before it ismuch more than warmed through; and with laugh and shout the cannibalorgy goes on, prolonged far into the night, the bones and refuse beingflung to the women in the background.

  At last, surfeited with their frightful feast, these demons in humanshape drop down and sleep like brute beasts. And the full moon soaringhigh in the heavens looks down with a gibing sneer in her cold cruelface upon this scene of a shocking human shambles; and her light, so farfrom irradiating this "dark place of the earth," seems but to shed alivid sulphurous glare upon a very antechamber of hell.

  The moon floats higher and higher above the tropical forest, floodingthe seas of slumbering foliage with silver light. Hour follows uponhour, and in the stockaded village all is silent as with the stillnessof death. The ghastly remnants of that fearful feast lie around in themoonbeams--human bones, picked clean, yet expressive in their shape,spectral, as though they would fain reunite, and, vampire-like, returnto drain the life-blood of these human wolves who devour their own kind.But the sleep of the latter is calm, peaceful, secure.

  Secure? Wait! What are these stealthy forms rising noiselessly among theundergrowth on the outskirts of the
clearing? Are they ghosts? Ghosts ofthose thus barbarously slain and of many others before them? The moonlitsward is alive with flitting shapes, gliding towards the stockade,surrounding it on all sides with a celerity and fixity of purpose whichcan have but one meaning. And among them is the glint of metal, theshining of rifle barrels and spear blades.

  The inhabitants of that village are savages, and thus, for all theirflesh-gorged state of heavy slumber, are instinctively on the alert.They wake, and rush forth with wild yells of alarm, of warning. But tomany of them it is the last sound they shall utter, for numberless formsare already swarming over the stockade, and now the stillness is rent bythe roar of firearms. Dark, ferocious faces grin with exultation as thepanic-stricken inhabitants, decimated by that deadly volley, turn wildlyin headlong flight for the only side of the stockade apparently leftopen. But before these arises another mass of assailants, barring theirway, then springing upon them spear in hand; and the fiendishwar-whistle screeches its strident chorus, as the broad spears sheardown through flesh and muscle; and the earth is slippery with blood,ghastly with writhing and disemboweled corpses.

  If this nest of man-eaters was hellish before in its bloodstainedhorror, words fail to describe its aspect now. The savage shouts of theassailants, the despairing screeches of women and children, who havecome forth only to find all escape cut off, the gasping groans of thewounded and of the slain, the gaping gashes and staggering forms, andever around, grim, demon-like countenances, with teeth bared and aperfect hell of blood-fury gleaming from distended eyeballs. All is butanother inferno-picture, too common here in the dark places of theearth. It seems that in a very few minutes not a living being in thatsurprised village will be left alive.

  But now voices are raised in remonstrance, in command--loud voices,authoritative voices--ordering a cessation of the massacre, for this isno expedition of vengeance, but a slave-hunting party. In Swahili andZulu the leaders strive to curb this blood-rage once let loose amongtheir followers. But the savage Wangoni, who are the speakers of thelatter tongue and who constitute about half the attacking party, havetasted slaughter, and their ferocity is well-nigh beyond control;indeed, but for the fact of being allowed to massacre a proportion ofthe inhabitants of each place attacked, they could not be enlisted forsuch a purpose at all. Still their broad spears flash in the moonlight,and all who are in the way feel them--combatants, shrieking women,paralyzed, crouching children; and not until the leader has threatenedto turn his rifles upon them will these ferocious auxiliaries bepersuaded to desist, and then only sullenly, and growling like a pack ofdisappointed wolves.

  Fully one-half of the male inhabitants have been slain and not a fewwomen and children, and now, as the heavy, sulphurous fumes of powdersmoke roll forth on the still, solemn beauty of the night, and theWangoni, reluctantly quitting the congenial work of plunder and rapine,drive into open space every living being they can muster, the twoleaders step forward, and with critical decision inspect the extent andquality of their capture. Of the latter there are none but able-bodied,for the sufficiently hideous reason already set forth. These aredrafted into gangs according to age or sex, and yoked together likeoxen, with heavy wooden yokes.

  Upon the whole of this wild scene of carnage and massacre the principalleader of the slave-hunters has gazed unmoved. Not a shot has he fired,not deeming it necessary, so complete was the panic wherewith thecannibal village was overwhelmed. Rather have his energies been devotedto restraining the blood-thirst of his ferocious followers, for he looksupon the tragedy with a cold commercial eye. Prisoners represent so manysaleable wares. If it is essential that his hell-hounds shall taste amodicum of blood, or their appetite for that species of quarry would begone, it is his business to see that they destroy no more "property"than can be avoided.

  The force is made up of Swahili and negroid Arabs, and a strongcontingent of Wangoni--a Zulu-speaking tribe, turbulent, warlike, and towhom such a maraud as this comes as the most congenial occupation in theworld.

  The last-named savages are still looking through the reed huts in searchof food, arms, anything portable. If during their quest they happen upona terrified fugitive hoping for concealment, their delight knows nobounds, for have they not the enjoyment of privily spearing such, awayfrom their leader's eye?

  The said leader now gives the word to march, and as the moonlight palesinto the first grays of dawn the scene of the massacre becomes plain inall its appalling detail. Corpses ripped and slashed, lying around inevery contorted attitude, among broken weapons and strewn aboutarticles of clothing or furniture. Everywhere blood--the ground isslippery with it, the huts are splashed with it, the persons and weaponsof the raiders are all horrid with it; and in the midst that band of menand women yoked like cattle, and with the same hopeless, stolidexpression now upon their countenances. Yet they are not dejected. Theirlives have been spared where others have been slain. But they areslaves.

  "Bid farewell to home, O foul and evil dogs who devour each other," jeerthe savage Wangoni, as these are driven forth. "_Whau!_ Ye shall keepeach other in meat on the way. Ha, ha! For in truth ye are as fat oxento each other," pointing with their broad spears to the gruesome treesand crossbeam--the scene of the hideous cannibal slaughter. For theWangoni, by virtue of their Zulu origin, hold cannibalism in the deepesthorror and aversion.

  These barbarians now, humming a bass war-song as they march, are in highglee, for there are more villages to raid. And as the whole party movesforth from the glade once more to plunge within the forest gloom, theair is alive with the circling of carrion birds; and the newly risen sundarts his first arrowy beam upon the scene of horror, lighting up thered gore and the slain corpses, and the ghastly staring heads upon thegateway. Even as his last ray fell upon a tragedy of blood and ofcruelty so now does his first, for in truth this is one of the "darkplaces of the earth."