XXIV. The Abduction of Mabel
Darkness fell without their being able to find a location like that of the previous evening. They were obliged to camp in the heart of the forest. The leaders decided that they would sleep in shifts; that way, everyone could get even or eight hours sleep. The first watch took guard-duty under Gorden’s orders. The second would be woken up by the major, the third by Archibald. It was impossible to light big fires, the forest being too dense, the ground dry and covered in brushwood, without the risk of a conflagration. They only lit what they needed for cooking, in a carefully-cleared space. After the meal, everyone lay down as best they could. Only Mabel’s tent had been erected, not without difficulty.
For three hours, the most profound calm reigned in the forest. The attentive men on watch had no need to fight of sleep; they knew only too well what danger might fall upon them.
Sitting at the foot of an enormous mahogany, Gorden pricked up his ears, for a few moments, strange movements appeared to have been taking place the treetops. Dead dry branches were falling to the ground in an abnormal fashion, for not a breath of wind was troubling the atmosphere. Some distance away from him, a gap in the foliage permitted rays of moonlight to pierce the darkness.
Suddenly, he shivered; in that semi-darkness he saw shadows moving; they were advancing silently through the high branches. He aimed carefully and fired. It was like a signal. Instantly, the forest was animated. From all directions enormous branches and stones began to rain down on the camp. Immediately, everyone was on their feet.
Gorden’s voice rose up, imperatively: “No one leave his position or fire at hazard! Spare your shots! You, Wilson, switch on the searchlight!”
A minute later, a luminous beam swept over the trees surrounding the campsite. It was just in time. Everywhere, the blows of the orangutans’ clubs resounded, followed every time by a cry of agony. The orangs, dazzled and fascinated by the unexpected light, stood still, as if petrified as soon as they were illuminated. The hunters took advantage of that to take aim, but without Gorden and his friends being able to take account of the cause, the rifle shots became increasingly rare.
Suddenly, there was a slight noise above his head. He looked up, and understood—too late. An orang, suspended by its arms above him, stretched out one of its feet with lightning rapidity. The Englishman felt himself lifted up like a feather, spun around and thrown into the distance. Fortunately for him, he fell into the dense thorn-bush, into which he sank like a coin into a piece of rotten wood. The shock was so violent that he fainted.
Archibald continued to swing his projector, to which all those remaining in the expedition rallied. For a moment, calm seemed to have been restored. Only strident appeals for help could be heard. Then, suddenly, there was a formidable screech:
“Ouha! Ouha! Ouha!”
The name was repeated by numerous voices: “Ouha! Ouha! Ouha!”
Archibald directed the searchlight beam in the direction of the acclamations.
Horror! The electric light illuminated, in full, an enormous ebony, all of whose branches were laden with orangutans, and, on the stoutest one, Ouha was facing up to his hunters. In his arms he held a white form: an unconscious woman, Mabel Smith, whose long blonde hair spread out like a flamboyant aureole over the torso of the colossal anthropoid.
“My daughter!” Smith howled. “My daughter! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
“Fix bayonets!” cried the major. “Charge!”
Everyone surged forward. Archibald, having reached the ebony, stood there, foaming with impotent rage. The trunk was devoid of branches to a height of six or seven meters from the ground. It was impossible to reach Ouha and his companions.
Suddenly, the searchlight was overturned in the shadows behind them, demolished by an invisible hand. It went out. Everything was plunged into darkness again.
A few hours later, the day dawned. The bold hunters were then able to assess the extent of the disaster. While the father, Harry Smith, the poor billionaire, deep in despair, sobbed in Archibald’s arms—who was brutalized himself by rage and pain—To Wang gathered the survivors of the expedition and took a roll-call. The Malays were the least depleted; seven of them remained. There were only twenty-two coolies, eleven woodcutters and thirteen of Gorden’s adventurers. As for the servants from Riddle-Temple, they had all perished. Of the expedition that had comprised, on departure, four hundred and forty-four individuals, only fifty-three remained.
The orangutans could not have lost many combatants; at any rate, they had taken their dead and wounded away.
To Wang had tried several times to remind his masters of the duties that were incumbent upon them. His efforts were wasted; the surviving white chiefs were incapable of resolution.
The Malay chief could not comprehend that stupid despair. Had they gone mad? In the meantime, he ordered that the dead be collected, and had a great deal of brushwood cut.
Silven Gorden, withdrawn from his thorn-bush still unconscious, and taken for dead, was placed on a pyre by the Malays along with Bennett. As for Dr. Abraham Goldry, he had disappeared.
All the cadavers were piled up on To Wang’s pyres. He set fire to them, and then the entire troop beat a retreat, leaving behind them a barrier of flames.
XXV. Escaped from the Fire
The next day, the men retreating from the orangutans arrived in the open space where the first battle had taken place. They camped there again. The commotion of the retreat had finally brought Harry Smith and Archibald round. They wanted to go back. Between them and the orangutans, however, a barrier of fire now extended.
After a few hours rest, the caravan, decimated, depleted and almost annihilated, was about to set off again when a call for help, coming from the forest, made them turn around.
A man, or rather a human rag, bloody and smoke-blackened, emerged from the thicket and came toward them, staggering. It was Gorden, left heaped with the dead on one of the pyres. The fames had recalled him to life; with a superhuman effort, he had disengaged himself from the cadavers, and, through the fire and smoke, had succeeded in emerging from the furnace.
Fortunately, as it turned out, the wind pushed the fire in the direction of the anthropoids. He had picked up the trail of the expedition and, half-dead with fatigue and thirst, had finally caught up with it.
XXVI. Talk of Revenge
Ten days later, the remainder of the hunters got back to Riddle-Temple, where they found those wounded in the first battle.
That evening found Archibald Wilson, Silven Gorden and Harry Smith united in the ground-floor drawing-room, where Betty, still in tears, served the tea.
Gorden was the first to break the silence. “What do you intend to do, Mr. Smith?”
Harry Smith shrugged his shoulders sadly. “I don’t know. My head’s numb.”
Gorden thumped the stable with his fist. “Stand up!” he cried. “Stand up!”
The two men jumped, alarmed.
He went on, violently: “Stand up! Are we going to recoil before absurd fatality? In life, everything is against us—nature and our passions. Is that any excuse for lowering your head and giving up? Act! It’s necessary to act! To produce our accomplishments and intellect required thousands of generations, but now that we’re gentleman, ought we, like our ancestors, to bow down before the phantoms of destiny, and when we’re thwarted in our actions, good or bad, retreat? No! A hundred times no! We must fight, fight to the death!
“We’ve seen Miss Smith inert in the monster’s arms, but there’s no proof that she’s dead. It’s probable that, at this moment, she’s subject to the same torment as Dilou and Rava. Ought we to abandon Miss Smith, leave her enslaved by an ape, remain inactive and renounce any rescue attempt? We’ve been beaten. Is that any reason to remain so?
“We’ve behaved like imbeciles. To fight the apes, we need to become apes ourselves, live their life, follow them, track them, weaken them by means of hunger—and that’s feasible, even easy. I nearly perished by
fire; it burned me, but enlightened me. Let’s follow them to their lair, and every time the wind is propitious, set fire to their domain. Let’s destroy the forest, which is their shelter and their abundant granary, with torches. With the apes destroyed, nature will repair the damage. If we can’t save Miss Smith, at least we’ll avenge her by annihilating the accursed apes.”
“Gorden,” said Archibald, “you know that I love Mabel. If, thanks to you…to your initiative, at least…she’s saved, I’ll give her to you...”
“Thanks,” said the Englishman, coldly. “Miss Smith alone can decide between the two of us.”
Mr. Smith intervened. “I was almost ready to behave like a coward. When do we leave?”
“Oh! First we have to gather the necessary forces. In a week. In the meantime, let’s pay off our men; they’ll be useless to us in the strategy we’re going to adopt.
A brown head suddenly appeared at the drawing-room window. “To Wang has heard everything,” the Malay said. “He demands vengeance. The apes have taken Rava. We too want to see both of them again, Miss Smith and Rava. Do you want us?”
Gorden reflected.
“No,” he said, eventually. “But you and your men can make your own way. We’ll give you weapons, and what you need by way of provisions. If we meet up at the final objective, we’ll help one another, but I think it will be better if we’re as few as possible.”
“So be it,” said the chief. “Give us weapons and food; we’re leaving in two hours.”
“If you bring back my daughter,” Harry Smith shouted, “you’ll have a million rupees.”
The hunter’s eyes gleamed. “Hope!” he said. “Hope!”
Two hours later, in fact, the seven Malay survivors left Riddle-Temple, well equipped with arms and food-supplies—which is to say, a small bag of rice each.13
XXVII. Beauty and the Beast
Birds are, at present, chirping in the clear half-light of the mauve and violet forest. Songs and unknown calls are mingled. The branches are golden and silvery, the leaves emerald, topaz or amethyst. The hopping movements of invisible creatures crackle; all the voices of wakeful nature are singing.
During the eternity of the night, Mabel Smith has trembled, gripped by horror, terrified. For a long time, it seems to her, she has been dead; at any rate, she is bruised; her entire body is aching as if from blows received and violent embraces. She has been dreaming…no, she is remembering a real nightmare: an ape, a powerful monster, had abducted her, carried her off in his frightful hairy arms.
She is alone, completely alone in the midst of woods that are singing with all the voices of the creatures that live here. Her father? Wilson? Gorden? Where are they? Is she far away? Can she find them again? It seems to her that a circle of iron is burning her, and making her a diadem of torture; she can scarcely collect her thoughts, her memories. Bewildered, she studies her torn garments, makes sure that she still has her revolver and cartridges in the case at her waist.
Anxiously, Mabel searches her surroundings with a fearful gaze, the terror of seeing the monster, her abductor, nearby causes a shiver to run through her entire being. She has not been asleep, but she was too weak, overwhelmed by emotion, an indescribable lassitude. She felt herself placed on the ground. It seems to her…she believes that she recalls…warm hands, breath brushing her; but that was—the young woman would like to hope—the aftermath of the horrible nightmare, since she finds herself alone, lying on thick moss.
She can still hear footfalls, though, the heavy tread of a crowd around her. And words still resonating in her ears, or syllables, at least, whose meanings she does not know. She does not dare to move, to make the slightest gesture, for fear of seeing a monstrous population of orangutans surge forth, like the one that carried her through the woods over frightful precipices.
Atrocious visions populate the America virgin’s brain. What good are her father’s billions here?
Finally, with infinite precaution, for fear of the sound of a broken branch or rustling leaves, which might betray her, she looks up.
The clearing is illuminated by morning light. It is perfumed by flowers—enormous lilies similar to European lilies, whose broken stems emit milky fluid; purple flowers, between stout indented leaves, where the dew remains, in little diamantine drops; and violet, yellow and brown orchids, some reminiscent of the faces of animals, seemingly lying in wait for prey.
Mabel stands up, takes a step, and, hidden by the bole of a enormous mahogany, advances her head. But she hears sounds as if imparted by human lips; she turns round. Coming from all directions, between the trees, tumbling with atrocious grimaces, simultaneously ironic, menacing and risible, apes surround her, crouching down and staring at her with their enormous sticky eyes, luminous coals beneath the crumpled eyelids of lubricious old man.
Mabel utters a loud scream and recoils.
Other quasi-human beasts are there too, behind the beautiful blonde American: the apes extend their arms toward her, their claws hands, and grunts, like the admiration of primitive humans, greet her.
They are making gestures of desire toward her; she thinks she can even distinguish the human gesture of kisses blown to her slender loveliness. And many of the monsters are sniggering, passing enormous sanguinary tongues over their brown lips, like ferocious gourmands.
Screeches and cries of anger burst forth above Mabel’s head; she raises her eyes toward those frightful voices. And suddenly, she feels herself picked up, while the great apes, crowding around a newcomer, howl like acclamations two guttural syllables:
“Ouha! Ouha! Ouha!”
Then they all disperse.
Mabel, lifted up, loses consciousness again.
Reopening her eyes, she looks around, amazed both to find herself alone and by the gloom, only pierced by two luminous beams, as if descending through the air-vents of a cellar or through the portholes of a ship into the depths of the hold. In her buzzing ears is the memory of an animal crowd, cries and laughter, explosive and sinister.
Has she been recovered by her own people? Rescued from the apes, is she finally safe? She dares not call out, nor explore her retreat. Perhaps, weary of the nocturnal combat, her father and his friends are asleep nearby?
Mabel was afraid of being disappointed, of not finding them. For a long time, she hesitated, in great fear of causing the illusion of hope to fly away. Weary of doubt, however, in order to break the yoke of anguish that was gripping her heart, in an infantile voice, frightened by the silence and the darkness, she called out:
“Father!... Archibald!... Silven!...”
Only the stony echoes of the cave replied—and it was her own voice that the rocks sent back.
In the meantime, her eyes had become accustomed to the half-light. She was lying on a mass of dry brushwood in a grotto, whose walls she could now make out. In crude strata, blocks of quartz, in which a ray of sunlight lit up shards of mica and the somber glow of garnet were stacked, joining up with an undulating vault, as if the malleable minerals had melted and swelled out in places. From channels in the rock, colonnettes rose up from the ground to the vault, from which droplets fixed in stone fell in festoons: stalactites clad in patinas of moss. In the interstices, flowers and lianas had grown, dull and delicate, by virtue of never having drunk bright light.
Suddenly, Mabel shivered, on hearing the rustling of invisible creatures. She suspected the frightful presence of reptiles in the cave. Terrified she listened to the buzz of insects resonating in the silence, and the voices of the earth around her, in the solitude and abandonment.
The energy of her nature took over, though; by an effort of will, the young woman forced herself to make a tour of her precarious shelter—perhaps her tomb.
Mabel tried to climb the rocky walls in order to reach the luminous holes, but the rock-face was slippery and as vertical as a wall; the grotto’s eyes were too high for her to be able to reach them.
She discovered fruits of the forest beside her bed, arranged in ing
enious piles: guavas, red and violet berries, manioc pulp and bananas on large leaves.
Who would have such solicitude for her? Had she fallen into the hands of a native tribe? She had difficulty believing that beasts, the orangutans, would go to such trouble, would have the instinctive consideration of humans in her regard. She felt hunger pangs, which she appeased with a few fruits. A calabash of fresh water was placed next to the agrarian aliments.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not discover the entrance to the grotto. She listened for a long time, in all directions, perceiving murmurs like a shrill crowd, dull sounds that appeared to be muffled.
Mabel sat down, expectantly. Was she a prisoner? For sure, but whose? She knew that the savages of Borneo rarely killed female captives once the flame ignited by the heat of battle was extinct—but an idea more terrible than death imposed itself on her mind: that of living among those primitive humans, of belonging to them, of being a slave submissive to their caprices.
She would have prayed, but she scarcely believed in any but natural powers. Her conscience clear and her heart firm, she controlled herself solely by means of the force of her character.
Sadly, she recalled Riddle-Temple and familiar scenes; then she waited, with o other desire, for the moment, but to know her fate and to resist it with all her strength.
An intense light suddenly burst forth opposite the place where Mabel was sitting on a block of stone. Like a whiplash with gold, silver, opal and ruby tresses, sunlight struck the walls of the cave.
A hairy mass, a creature like a badly-molded human, robust, with a broad chest, enormous jaws and a narrow skull—an orangutan, in sum—appeared, and, waddling on two hands, came toward her, squatted down and made signs to her.
Ouha, King of the Apes Page 9