Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  The two natives dashed past at top speed, drenched with sweat, and peering in a kind of extraordinary terror from side to side as they ran; as though expecting every moment to be faced with some horrific or terrible creature. And in this fashion, they were gone a good way off in less than a minute; so that the sound of their travel died away in the distance, along with the extraordinary noise of the huge, travelling clouds of insects that accompanied them.

  “This is sure an Ud wood,” muttered Captain Jat. “Devil wood, boy, ’tis sure; or them niggers ‘d never carry torches like they’m doin’, an’ fetchin’ every insec’ from a mile around to feed on their thick hides!”

  Captain Jat left the hiding place, and Pibby Tawles followed; and so they led off once more along the track, the Captain ahead.

  “Keep an eye liftin’, boy, for aught!” said Captain Jat, presently. “Them niggers may just be superstitious-like about here, or maybe as there’s somthin’ loose in these woods as is real dangerous. You can’t never tell with them silly devils. They’d run from a pretty coloured stone, thinkin’ ’twas witchcraft, an’ the same time, they’d cut your blessed throat an’ never stop to argy. Don’t never trust ‘em…. An’ then, again, there may be somethin’ queer round about ‘ere….”

  He broke off short, and stopped in his tracks, to listen; whipping out one of his big pistols. Pibby Tawles saw the action, vaguely, and followed his Master’s lead; and so the two of them stood silent for maybe two full minutes there in the darkness among the trees.

  “Sst!” muttered Captain Jat, suddenly. “Hark to that!”

  Pibby also had heard it — a far away, deep, gigantic sound, that would have been somehow more familiar, had it been a noise of less dimensions. This is, perhaps, rather a peculiar way to put it; but it describes the particular fashion in which the origin of the sound eluded them.

  “It’s the sea, Cap’n,” suggested Pibby, after a further pause for listening; during which there was an absolute silence, save for the odd, vague whisper of leaves here and there in the darkness, as the night airs stole, hushed, through the wood-belt.

  “The sea be blowed!” said Captain Jat; swearing grimly in a mutter of vast contempt. “Keep your ears open, an’ shut your mug! That’s maybe some native devil-work, to make strangers give hereabouts a wide berth; an’, again, maybe its somethin’ you nor me don’t understan’…. Keep your eyes skinned, boy; an’ tread quiet!”

  He led off again down the scarcely perceptible track; and so, in something under an hour, they were come clear out from the wood, to the great ease of Pibby, who had disliked hugely that peculiar sound in the distant night among the trees.

  Beyond the wood, the track wound round the base of a large mound, which Captain Jat climbed and proceeded to take a bearing from, as Pibby could tell from the sparks of the flint and steel. The Captain came down off the mound, and led the way to the left, going slowly and cautiously.

  They went forward now for a short while through a patch of rocky country, clumped here and there with masses of heavy brush, out of which grew stunted trees. Twice during their walk across this part, Captain Jat took their bearings with the compass. And presently, Pibby Tawles realised that the Captain was listening keenly for some expected sound; going always more slowly, and at last stopping every score paces or so, to hark.

  Abruptly, Captain Jat started off to the right, towards a vaguely seen straggle of trees and undergrowth, with Pibby after him. Pibby heard the sound then, the noise of falling water, and realised that it was towards this that his Master was making a way. They ploughed in among the undergrowth, and burst a path in the direction of the sound. In a few minutes, during which the noise of the falling water had grown louder and louder, they came out into a great open space, with rocks going up all about, so well as they could see in the darkness; and the noise of the water very plain now from some place to their left.

  They followed up to the sound, and came to a boil of water, where a pretty big brook came tumbling down over the top of a little cliff, as they could learn, part by indefinite sight, and part by the noise of the water.

  “There’s them two sharp-ended rocks as the Portygee told on, boy,” said Captain Jat, with satisfaction in his voice, “like as he said we should see ‘em.”

  He pointed up through the darkness, to where, about twenty fathoms on their own side of the waterfall, the edge of the low cliff rose into two tall pinnacles of rock, black against the night sky.

  “I’m thinkin’ I’ve found it, boy, ‘thout foulin’ ought,” continued Captain Jat, setting down the two spades and the bag upon the earth, and hauling a small lantern out of his pocket. He busied himself clumsily with flint and steel, and presently had the small lantern alight. He put the lantern on the ground, and undid the mouth of the canvas bag; out of which he took two large balls of spunyarn.

  The balls were of unequal size, and he handed the larger to Pibby, telling him to climb the low cliff, and shin up the right-hand rock pinnacle; after which he was to put the bowline, in the end of the spunyarn, over the spike of the rock, and heave the ball down to him.

  Pibby put down his two picks, took off his shoes, and made the ball fast round his shoulders. Then he climbed the little cliff and the right pinnacle, and put the bowline over the spiked end. He climbed down to the top of the cliff again, and called softly to the Captain to stand from under; after which he cast the ball down into the shadows wher his master waited.

  “Right, boy!” muttered Captain Jat. “Catch! Do the same on t’other.” And he hove the second ball up to him. Pibby caught it, more by feel than sight, and made it fast round the top of the left pinnacle; throwing the ball likewise to his Master. Then he came down the cliff again, to give a hand.

  Captain Jat led the way Eastward, unrolling the balls of yarn as he went. Pibby followed, carrying the lantern and his two picks. Presently, Captain Jat had come to the end of the smaller ball, and so veered away to the left, until the right-handed yarn had run out. Then he tautened them up, and where the ends of the two lines met, when they were taut, he set his heel down, and reached out for the lantern. He held the light down over the ground, and Pibby saw the Captain was standing on a piece of rock, covered pretty loose with blown sand and thin earth. Wind and weather had freed the edges of the earth sand, and Pibby realised that the piece of rock was thin; but near a fathom across, every way.

  “Fetch them spades, boy.” Said the Captain, giving him a jab in the rib with his elbow. “Smart now!”

  Pibby ran for the spades and the bag. When he returned, his Master bid him hold the light down over the rock; and whilst the boy held the light, Captain Jat cleared away the sand and earth with one of the spades, and laid the rock bare.

  It was a rough, natural slab of stuff, and if Captain Jat had not been remarkably strong, they would have had trouble with it. As it was, the Captain had first to split it across, with one of the picks, the sounds of the blows echoing over-far into the night; after which he forced the edge of a spade in under one end of each piece, in turn, and hove them up, whilst Pibby shoved stones underneath. Then they bent their backs to the work, and with great heaves, they had them clear, and at last were looking down into a bit of a hole in the rock beneath.

  Captain Jat snatched the light from the boy, and held it down into the hole; but there was nothing in it, except an old copper cylinder, all green with verdigris, that lay half-bedded in the sand and earth that had sifted in.

  “Ha! Boy!” said Captain Jat, and hove his spade down. “That’s the dead spit of the one I got from the Portygee.”

  He crushed it under his heel, for it was too fouled with verdigris to be opened easily. When he had burst it in this way, he raked out a piece of dirty sheepskin, and had it spread flat open in a moment. Then he began to swear; and, for his ease, he knocked Pibby Tawles, the boy, over up on the rock, and kicked him a dozen times, before the lad got away from him.

  Afterwards, he hove the sheepskin in the boy’s face, all crumpled;
and danced then all about the rock, blaspheming. He kicked the two spades, clattering enormously, one after the other, right across the hole; then he caught hold of the bag and hove it after them; and immediately came to clout the boy again; but Pibby Tawles out with one of his pistols, and he stopped at that, and burst into a sort of low laughing, reaching into the skirts of his great coat, the while. He fetched out a big flask of rum toddy, and pulled the cork with his teeth; and after that, he just squatted down, and lighted his pipe and sat drinking and smoking, with his back to the boy… muttering away to himself, and seeming regardless of any danger that the noise of his antics might have been likely to bring down upon them.

  As for Pibby Tawles, after listening and peering round into the gloom for a little while, he took advantage of his Master’s mood, which he had seen something of before, when the wry-natured man had been much put out. He reached cautiously for the crumpled piece of parchment, and crawled over quietly to the lantern; though he need not have bothered to go easy; for Captain Jat’s sullen mood, at the moment, was such that he would hear or heed nothing; but only persist in his smoking and drinking.

  When Pibby Tawles was come near to where the lantern stood upon the rock, a little to the rearward side of his Master, he spread out the parchment gently upon the rock, staring the while at the Captain to be sure the man did not see him. Then by the light from the lantern, the boy was able to discover why the Captain had been so put out; for on the old sheepskin there were just these words, which he was able to spell out slowly: —

  The Early Bird Hath

  Catched the worm.

  Thou Fool

  And then, as Pibby stared at this, all mixed between grinning, and some disappointment because he had hoped to have some gain out of anything they might have discovered, he turned the sheepskin about, and found two bits of a clumsy scrawl on the back, that had at first no meaning for him.

  Suddenly, however, as he stared at these, he got a sharp idea, and held the skin up towards the lantern, with the plain-written side towards him. Pibby Tawles nearly shouted then, to see what he had found; for the two clumsy scrawls upon the other side of the parchment, resolved themselves into the words “Not” and “Lower”; being obviously written backwards upon the back of the parchment, so that from the front, as seen against the light, they would read in with the quaint insult upon the front, entirely changing its meaning, thus: —

  The Early Bird Hath

  Not Catched the Worm

  Lower Thou Fool

  Pibby Tawles looked quickly towards his Master’s broad, muscular back; but the Captain was still smoking… chunnering away to himself over his pipe, in a way that showed the peculiar Vinegar of his particular Personality at work in his twisted mental arteries. From time to time, he would swig heavily at the flask of rum-toddy, and immediately again to his pipe-sucking and chunnering, hunching his shoulders in grotesque fashion, and breaking out from time to time in little snarls.

  The boy stared long enough at his Master to be sure that he was not feigning unconsciousness of what was happening behind his back; for Pibby had been long enough now with Captain Jat to learn that the Captain was quite uncannily “aware” in certain of his moods; as though, at odd times, some primeval, half-faun instinct waked him to a hyper-awaredness of matters around.

  But this was plainly one of the Captain’s obtuse hours; and Pibby slid the parchment cautiously into the breast of his shirt, and began to move back quietly again to the hole they had uncovered. He reached it, and thrust one dirty, vigorous hand down into the fine sandy earth that filled it. He worked his hand, burrowing eagerly and fiercely, and all the time, he stared at his Master’s back.

  Suddenly, the boy checked a gasp of amazed, half-incredulous excitement; for his burrowing hand had reached down to a hard mass, that shifted under his working fingers, and resolved into countless disks, that he fumbled for and grabbed at feverishly; and so withdrew his hand, full of dry sand and dull yellow coins that glimmered oddly in the vague light from the lantern.

  “Gee!” he whispered. “Gee!” And stared at the Captain’s back; but Captain Jat was obviously unaware.

  Pibby whipped off his neckcloth, and put the handful of sand and gold into it; then, thrusting his hand again down the hole, burrowed fiercely. He raked out three good fistfuls of gold coins and sand, and put them into the neckcloth gently so that they would not chink; and all the time as he worked so silently, he watched each movement of the Captain’s back.

  Abruptly, Captain Jat raised his hand, listening; but still with his back turned to the boy. Pibby ceased to burrow, on the instant, and gathered the neckcloth noiselessly together, the sand among the coins preventing them from chinking. He knotted the whole swiftly into a tight ball and shoved it inside his shirt, along with the parchment. Then, with a quick movement, he smoothed over the sand within the hole. And not for one moment during these brief actions did he cease to watch his Master.

  The Captain continued his listening attitude; and Pibby Tawles began, himself, to listen; for it was plain to him that Captain Jat was not paying attention to any vague movement of his; but waiting for a repetition of some far sound that he must have fancied he heard out in the night.

  “Hark! Boy!” said the Captain, sharply; and hove himself round upon his seat, with a single quick jerk. “that’s twice this blessed minute I’ve heard it. Hark!”

  They crouched there, listening; with the lantern casting their shadows oddly across the silence of the rocks; and the noise of the fall seeming to come to them with an almost unnatural clearness through the night about. Once, as Pibby shifted his attitude slightly, he thought he heard the faint chink of the money inside his shirt; but this was, possibly, no more than what I might term a conscience-sound; for Captain Jat’s keen ears seemed to have heard nothing.

  And then, long-drawn and horrible, away in the night, Pibby heard the sound that had come to them before, in the great wood-belt.

  It came again… a curious, big, clamour of sound, floating oddly in the night; and, for the second time, the vague, yet frightening, familiarity of it stirred the boy’s memory oddly.

  He had faced round towards it, and without knowing, had drawn a pistol in each hand. The sudden indefinable terror that the sound brought to him had driven out the gold-lust; had driven out even all memory of the gold; for he had a feeling that a very real danger was roaming out there in the vagueness of the night.

  He looked swiftly over his sholder at the immoveable, listening, tense, humped shape of his Master. “What is it, Cap’n?” he asked, in a low voice; with the feeling that Captain Jat must know. And then, even as he ventured the question, the abominable, unnaturally familiar clamour broke out again, unmistakeably nearer.

  Captain Jat gave out a sudden, fierce grunt of comprehension: —

  “Iils!” he said aloud, in a curious voice. “Iils! Sacred dogs, boy! They feeds ’em on the sacrifices, till they won’t eat ought else. I heard about ’em once, further up this same coast. The priest sometimes lets ’em go loose at night. That’s why them niggers was carryin’ torch-lights, so as to frighten ’em off. They’m feared of light, same as wild beasts….”

  He broke off, and snatched up the lantern. Then ran towards the water and looked down, holding the lantern low. “I guess that’s why yon Portygee was so cocksure I’d not handle yon gold, when he gave me yon chart,” Pibby, who had followed at a run, heard him grumbling to himself. “He grinned middlin’ rum-like at me; may the devil bust him!”

  The curious, tremendous clamour of sound broke out now in the woods to their back; seeming to be very near. And at the sudden noise, Captain Jat swore, and hove the lantern into the water; so that they were instantly in darkness.

  “Curse them!” he muttered, with an almost incredible savagery. “They’m here a’ready! Into the water, boy; smart now! There’s dozens of ‘em, by the noise of ‘em! An’ they’m near big as donkeys, with the way they feeds ‘em!”

  He caught Pibby swittly
by the shoulders, and swung him down through the darkness into the rush of the brook; then, with a spring like a great lean cat, he landed beside him, driving the water in all directions.

  Above them, from the direction of the wood, the infernal noise burst out again, near and tremendous; and Captain Jat swore and dashed ahead through the dark, following the course of the shallow stream. Pibby kept close behind, stumbling, splashing and panting; for to his short figure, the water proved an immensely greater obstacle than to the unusually long, lean legs of his Master; who was seldom immersed above his great, bony knees.

  Once, Captain Jat whipped round upon the lad, fiercely: —

  “Make less your noise, boy!” he growled, stooping down almost to the level of Pibby’s face. “If them Iils gets us, I’ll sure clump you silly!”

  Then he led on again.

  Away up the stream, they heard now the clamour of the great dogs, making a threatening, broken din. By the sound of them, they had evidently come clear out from the trees, and were hunting the “scent” of the man and the boy, to and fro across the rocky plateau.

  Meanwhile, the man and the boy ran on, downstream, through the darkness; the boy fighting desperately to keep up with the tremendous stride of his master. Once, Pibby lost his footing altogether on a slippery stone, and butted headlong into the stern of Captain Jat, bringing the whole lean, vigorous length of the Captain down on top of him, with the result that Pibby Tawles was sadly bruised; and, further, half drowned ruing the time that the long man sat upon the unfortunate and submerged youth, and cursed aloud into the night. And, as soon as Pibby struggled, sobbing for breath, to his feet, the Captain promptly knocked him down again, with a swinging clout; and began then immediately to go downstream once more; his anger seemingly appeased.