by John Glasby
‘Maybe hospital treatment,’ suggested the other.
Nayland shook his head. ‘I don’t think that will be of any help to them. This isn’t something that you can treat with drugs or electric shocks. This is evil incarnate, not a disease in the strict sense of the word. They don’t believe that they’re doing wrong. To them, it seems the most natural thing to do.’
‘Nevertheless, it seems a terrible thing to do. To leave them with all — this.’
‘They got themselves into this mess of their own free will, doctor,’ snapped Blake harshly. ‘What about Simon?’
Reeves looked up from his examination. ‘He’ll be all right in the morning after a good night’s sleep,’ he said, stiffly. He shivered. ‘Let’s get out of this place,’ he murmured. ‘It gives me the creeps even though I know that the affair is finished.’
They walked out into the cold moonlight. The sky was clear overhead and there were a few stars just visible. The tall poplars bent and swayed in the wind. Behind them, the house lay silent with only a single flickering light in the window of one of the rooms.
In his right hand, Nayland carried the mask and feathered headdress, feeling a little quiver of revulsion at the touch of the cold skin against his fingers.
All that remained now, he thought, was to return these to their rightful place. He made up his mind to do that as soon as possible.
Chapter Twelve – Lycanthrope!
The boat sailed on the evening tide, moving away from the land with a slow, steady motion that made it seem as though it was standing still and it was the land that moved away from them. Standing on the deck, leaning over the rail, Nayland glanced round at Blake and gave a grin.
‘Now that we’re on the last lap of the trip, I feel a little easier in my mind,’ he said.
‘If your guesses are anywhere near the truth, we ought to break the spell on this mask and headdress once it is handed back to Chalka’s people.’
‘That’s right. But I’ve an idea that Caltro will try to lay his hands on them before that.’
‘Caltro! But we saw him destroyed at that place outside Rodminster.’
‘No, we only saw him vanish. I believe he left that place by some secret route he alone knew. The place must have been riddled with passages and it’s more than likely that he escaped along one of them. Besides, I happen to know that he’s still very much alive as are some of his closest followers.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’
Nayland looked out at the sea for a long moment, before speaking. ‘Tell me, Richard, did you have any impression that you were being followed just before we boarded the boat?’
Blake shook his head wonderingly.
‘And what about you, Simon?’
Merrivale turned away from his contemplation of the land that now stood on the very rim of the horizon. ‘I can’t say I noticed anything like that, either,’ he said.
‘But who were they?’ asked Blake.
‘Some of Caltro’s minions. I saw him once or twice and I’ve a suspicion that he’s on board this ship, although I haven’t seen him since we sailed.’
‘You think he realises the power of these things we’ve got?’
Nayland nodded. ‘I’m quite certain of it. You saw what happened when that woman touched the mask at the height of the ceremony. I doubt whether Caltro would have given them to her if he hadn’t known of the voodoo associated with them.’
*
Nayland had remained up on deck after the others had gone down to their cabins. All around him in the darkness, the quietness stretched away to the far horizons.
For a long moment, he stood there, leaning over the rail, watching the water bubbling past, flashing in the moonlight. He had the weirdest idea that there were drums beating incessantly somewhere in the distance and presently he grew aware that this was nothing more than the thumping of his own pulse in his veins.
The next instant, he turned his head slightly, feeling eyes on him, and saw the dark figure standing in the shadows a little distance away. His first thought was that it was either one of the other passengers, or one of the crew on duty.
Then he saw the huge, balding head, gleaming whitely in the pale moonlight and he knew who it was.
‘Caltro!’ He half-whispered the name. The moon vanished into the cloud and for an instant he lost sight of the other.
Then it came out again and he saw that Caltro was less than three feet away, coming closer. He almost seemed to be gliding over the deck.
‘Good evening, Mr. Nayland.’
‘Mr. Caltro,’ he said throatily. He felt afraid, but wasn’t going to admit it in front of the other.
‘I swore that night that we would meet again,’ Caltro said, maliciously.
‘I can’t say that the feeling was mutual,’ muttered Nayland. He leaned back against the rail. There was the faint booming of the water in his ears and in front of him — the leering face of Ernest Caltro, watching him closely, playing with him like a cat with a mouse. The other’s close-set eyes flared briefly in his head like polished gems, matching the glitter of the moonlight on the sea.
Nayland felt a tiny shiver race along his spine. This man could almost pass as the Devil.
A sudden intuition warned him that this man was far more dangerous now than he had ever been before. The deep-set eyes bored into him, seeming to look right down into his very soul. They were twin red pools that held a peculiar flickering of malignant fire in their hellish depths.
‘You have something I want, Nayland. I think you know what it is?’
‘Simon Merrivale?’
‘Bah! He is of no more use to me. Even his life would not appease the Great Master now. But with that mask which you have in your possession, I could have an unlimited power. Allied to the other forces I can control, there would be nothing to stand against me.’
‘And you think I’ll give it up to you as easily as that, even if I had it here?’
‘You have it,’ Caltro said. He laughed harshly. ‘You have good cause to be afraid. Here, you are unprotected by those weapons you possessed that night. This time it shall not happen again. Either you give me the mask, or I drive you insane. Perhaps, I shall even destroy you.’
‘The mask is back in England,’ said Nayland feebly.
‘Fool! I know why you are here. To take the relics back to Africa. With them in my possession, I can have all the power I need.’
‘You’ll never get them.’
‘No?’
The other’s features rippled in the moonlight, flowing like wax. Hell flared out of the slitted eyes. A shadow was beginning to move over Caltro’s flabby features. He began to shrink a little, to shrivel up as he stood there.
Nayland recoiled with a sudden scream of horror. He knew now why Caltro was so sure he would get whatever he wanted.
Lycanthrope! So that was one of the powers possessed by this High Priest of Satan!
‘No!’ he screamed. ‘Keep away from me.’ He tried vainly to turn and run, but slipped on the smooth deck. The next instant, the thing that had been Ernest Caltro was upon him. Fangs clashed against his face. Claws caught him by the arms, sending thrills of pain surging madly along his limbs.
His mind was racing madly. Werewolves couldn’t be killed. A bullet was no use against them. Only silver. The creature’s weight pinned his arms effectively to his sides. Sharply pointed teeth gleamed above his throat, slavering a thin mist of hate.
Wildly, he struggled to get to his feet but one huge paw rested on his chest, crushing into his ribs. He felt as if his bones were about to snap and the air rushed out of his bursting lungs. Everything seemed to dissolve into a swarming blackness.
Feebly, desperately, he tried to pray, but the words were all confused, jumbled up so that they only made a hideous kind of sense. Dimly, above the roaring in his ears, he heard the tearing of cloth as the creature ripped the shirt away from his throat.
Then, almost before he was aware of it, the smashing pres
sure on his body eased. The pain in his chest lifted a little. Sobbing air into his aching lungs, he opened his eyes. He caught a vague glimpse of the werewolf dissolving into smoke, into thin air.
Caltro stood against the rail looking down at him with an expression of thwarted anger on his broad features. His lips were twisted into a snarl of bestial hatred. Then almost as swiftly as he had appeared, he vanished into the shadows along the deck.
Dazed, Nayland staggered to his feet and stood swaying for a moment clutching at the rail for support. He stared down at his body at the ragged tear in his shirt and saw the tiny, golden crucifix hanging on the end of its slender chain, glowing with a strangely icy fire in the moonlight.
Reaching his own room, he locked the door carefully behind him, went over to the mirror above the washbasin and stared into it at his reflection. There was a slight scratch on one cheek, but it hadn’t bled very much, and another across his chest.
Taking off his jacket, he lay down on the bunk and closed his eyes. It was almost eleven o’clock and he was asleep almost before his head touched the pillow. His fatigue and the dull, almost hypnotic pounding of the waves beyond the porthole took precedence over everything else. He knew that he should have warned Simon and Blake, but he would do that first thing tomorrow. The horror that he had experienced on the deck had drained his energy.
That night, he had the first of the curiously haunting and disturbing dreams which were to be a regular occurrence for him during the voyage. Though he was to sleep soundly enough, he was never to be free of the dreams.
He dreamed that he was in a vast, dark place standing in the centre of a large clearing. Overhead there were the stars and a thin crescent moon. All around him were the trees of a jungle.
There was a fire in the middle of the clearing some distance away and figures crowded around it, prancing figures, carrying spears that shone in the firelight. As he listened in his dream, he could hear the weird, undulating chant rising from among them, but he could distinguish no words, for the language was not one that he knew.
Yet he had the feeling that he should know it and at times one or more of the natives would turn and stare at him almost accusingly as though he had been guilty of some breach of conduct. Then, leaping into the centre of the ring of light thrown by the fire, there came a strange, hideous creature, tall and grotesque, that shrieked and uttered strange cries.
Several seconds fled before he recognised the mask and headdress worn by the native. They were those he had in his possession. The dance continued, the natives whirling round and round the fire, stamping their feet in unison, waving their spears until there seemed to be a million flashes of light in the dark air above the fire.
Then, moving forward out of the shadows that ringed the others around, he saw the tall figure that darted forward, spear raised aloft.
The huge figure of the witchdoctor, as if forewarned, turned, but not quickly enough. The spear plunged downwards, the point driven deep into the other’s flesh.
Nayland caught a glimpse of the contorted features of the slain man and heard the shrill scream of rage and agony; then he too screamed and woke.
He lay for some time trying to ascertain the reason for the dream. That it stemmed from his knowledge of these dark things, he knew and could not doubt; but how could he account for being a spectator at this scene? He hadn’t played the part of an interloper, that much was certain.
Moreover, he had witnessed something that could only have been in his mind from what Chalka, the native had told him concerning the death of the witchdoctor Shabaka.
He lay for a long while, puzzling in vain over the problem. He had the idea that it was important but the only explanation he could credit at that moment lay in the work of a feverish and overworked imagination.
Lulled by the smooth movement of the ship, he drifted off into sleep once more and this time, his dream was sheer unadulterated nightmare, in which terrible things of blackness were pursuing him along empty streets and down narrow lanes towards an empty house that stood high upon the side of a hill with a single light showing in one of the windows.
There seemed to be lead weight attached to his feet so that he was unable to run and the creatures behind him padding forward on noiseless feet, came ever nearer until he could feel their hot breath on the back of his neck.
He threw a terrified glance over his shoulder as he ran and a cry burst from his lips as he saw the thing that was undeniably gaining on him with every minute.
A huge shape reared above his head and glared down at him with a malevolent hatred. A snake thing that had the face of a man and the features were terribly familiar. Ernest Caltro! He recognised the bloated face almost instantly. And then he saw the horns that protruded from the smooth forehead and the sharply pointed fangs that hung down from the corners of the mouth and he knew that it wasn’t a man.
Madly, he hauled himself to his feet and floundered on through the clinging slime that stuck to his shoes. Chill water splashed against his legs, impeding him and the sound of the devil sliding after him sent a shiver of animal fear coursing through his body.
‘Come back here, Stephen Nayland,’ called the sexless, flat voice in his dream. ‘You can’t escape me now. No one escapes from the Evil Ones. Come back. It’s useless to try to run away.’
The great, bloated head swooped down on the end of the long, glistening body, arching high in the air above him. Then it seemed to flash downwards like a striking snake, with an ugly vicious smile on the devilish features.
With a sudden convulsive effort, he thrust himself forward into the mud, forcing his flagging muscles into terrified life. The flicking head missed his body by inches as he stumbled forward.
A splash of mud and ooze jetted into the air, then splashed down again all around him. There was a sharp, stabbing pain in his lungs and he found that it was becoming difficult to breathe properly. A red haze seemed to dance and sway in front of his eyes. An instant later, there was the sound of the monster gathering itself for another leap.
He stumbled forward for another few floundering steps. Then, without any warning, the ground suddenly fell away beneath him. His legs began to sink deeper into the ooze. Within seconds, it was up around his legs, climbing higher until it reached his waist. He could move no further, the mud holding him down as efficiently as the steel jaws of an animal trap.
He heard himself scream as he twisted his neck muscles and tried to look round at the thing behind him. It was virtually on top of him, sliding closer, moving with a tortuous motion as though striving to pull itself forward faster than nature had intended it to move.
The fanged mouth opened hungrily. Hell glared at him out of the slitted eyes that were so like those of Ernest Caltro. Inexorably, the mud began to climb up his body, dragging him down, holding him rigid, unable to move.
As it reached down to touch him, he had a last fading glimpse of it before he woke up, trembling, the sweat boiling out of his body.
Chapter Thirteen – Death in the Jungle
When the dawn came, brightening the eastern horizon, the fire in the middle of the small clearing, was little more than a heap of glowing embers. The jungle lay all around them, capricious and deadly, a menacing thing, full of vague twitterings and the crashing of nocturnal beasts fleeing from the oncoming daylight.
Stephen Nayland rolled over in his blankets, then sat up. He leaned across and woke Blake. With a swift, instinctive motion the other sat up, instantly awake.
‘It’s nearly dawn,’ said Nayland unnecessarily. ‘We’ll start out again in an hour or so before the heat sets in. We ought to reach this village that Chalka spoke of by nightfall with a bit of luck.’
Blake nodded. He scrambled to his feet and stood looking about him. Then he kicked the fire into life and threw a handful of wood on to it until it had blazed up again. Less than ten feet away, Merrivale still lay in his blanket, his eyes closed. He was breathing quietly. Their guides were already awake, moving around in the brus
h.
Nayland shuddered at the memory of the nightmare journey to Africa. The trip on the boat had seemed never-ending. Day after day, he had expected Caltro to come back, to try to take the mask and headdress by force, but he hadn’t put in any further appearances since that night on the boat deck.
One of the men came up to him, a troubled look on his face.
‘There are men following us, bwana,’ he said quietly. ‘We see them before the sun rises. They’re to the east, still in the jungle.’
‘And they’re coming this way?’
The guide nodded. ‘They head for the village as we do,’ he said sombrely.
‘We’ll break camp in twenty minutes,’ Nayland called to the others. ‘It looks as though we’ve got company whether we like it or not.’
‘Caltro?’ asked Blake.
‘I think so. We’ll have to go on the assumption that it is. There’s no doubt why he’s following us.’
*
They moved slowly forward down into the rocky valley, skirting the upthrusting thorn bushes and the last of the jungle trees. In a way, Nayland was sorry to be leaving the jungle behind. It meant coming out into the open where Caltro could see them, although they couldn’t see him.
The guides went first, breaking the trail with Nayland following immediately behind, nursing his rifle in the crook of his arm. He kept one wary eye on the jungle behind them, although common sense told him that it would be impossible for him to pick out the other party if they kept well inside the fringe of trees.
The ground was uneven, dry and hard beneath their feet and they sank into the dust at every step. Through blurry lids, he saw Blake coming up along the column, his eyes red, but alert.
‘We’ve just spotted the others coming out of the jungle,’ he said tersely. ‘They’re gaining on us.’