“If I spare him, will you come to me freely?” he asked.
Before she could reply, Dick, with a last desperate effort succeeded in releasing the strangling hold. A sudden heave threw Burgess from him and once again the two were on their feet. After exchanging a few ineffectual blows they again clinched. Backward and forward they wrestled over the floor of the cavern.
Simultaneously with a shout of warning from Dorothy, Dick felt some drops of spray from the fall of water which closed the front of the cavern, and knew that another step or two backward would send him headlong to be dashed to death on the rocks below.
With a cry that Burgess took for fear, Dick took a quick step backward throwing Burgess momentarily off his guard. But only for a moment. He came on again with a rush, his one thought to crowd Dick over the edge. His very eagerness proved his undoing, for Dick quickly stepped to one side and before Burgess could recover rained blow after blow on his face.
Harding was fighting now with a very berserk fury and all Burgess’ efforts to come to a clinch were in vain, nor could he break away from the pitiless rain of blows which Dick showered upon him. He could not go forward, or to the side. All his attempts to do so were met with punishing jabs which he seemed powerless to avoid. Neither could he stand up longer to the fury of Dick’s attack.
He took a step backward. Dick pressed him hard. Another step and then another. Now they were fighting on the very brink of the precipice. The spray of the falling water drenched both the struggling men.
The end came very quickly. Dick suddenly shifted his attack from the face to the body and Burgess lowered his guard, leaving his jaw unprotected. Feinting with his left for the body, Dick brought his right, with all his power behind it, to the jaw. It was enough. Burgess’ head went back with a snap—he tottered for a moment, hands outstretched before him as if searching purchase on the air. Then backward he fell and down into the rushing, falling waters.
Turning slowly, Dick held out his arms to Dorothy.
“Thank God you came in time, Dick,” she murmured as she kissed him and gently fingered his bruised face.
The voice of Mamwe interrupted the lovers.
“It is time that we go from here. Much remains to be done. But, au-a, never have I seen such a fight.”
“Yes—we must go,” and, as they left the cavern, Dick swiftly outlined the situation and their plan to Dorothy.
“Now, Mamwe,” said Jan, “show us once again the trick of this thing.”
Jan pushed aside the boulder as directed by Mamwe and then, revolvers in hand, the party descended into the place of the Beast.
Very few of the servants of the Beast were in the cavern, but those who were present were the leaders of the society.
“All has gone well,” Macabe was saying. “There is nothing for us to fear. Through this night you have heard the reports of our brothers and sisters. From each kraal in the valley the wailing of women ascends. From each kraal a servant of the Beast has reported the performing of his allotted tasks and, having reported, departed to his own place. The white maiden is—”
Macabe stopped abruptly as she saw for the first time the approach of the avenging party.
“Kill them!” she shrieked. “Kill them or we are undone!”
In amazement the others turned and seeing the intruders, rushed on them with their assegais. Nor did they stop at the threat of the leveled revolvers—firearms were unknown to them.
The revolvers spat fire and three men dropped. The others wavered. The revolvers spoke again and the rush stopped abruptly—nor could the taunts of Macabe drive the men again to the attack.
“As you see, O Servants of the Beast,” cried Dick, “the Spirit of the Gun is stronger than the Spirit of the Beast. Now stand you all against the wall, facing it. Put your hands behind you; move not unless you are ready to die.”
Silently they obeyed his order.
Macabe turned on Mopa who was with her on the platform.
“You have betrayed me,” she cried. “I ordered you to kill Mamwe, but see—she is alive. And she lived to lead these dogs to this place. Now take the reward of a faithless Servant of the Beast.
A dagger flashed in the air and Mopa made no effort to avoid the keen blade which, a moment later, plunged into his heart.
With a shrill laugh Macabe ran behind the stone figure of a leopard and disappeared.
“Guard these evil ones,” shouted Jan, giving his revolver to Dorothy. “I will find the den of this she-devil.”
Directly behind the stone figure Jan found a flight of steps leading to a dark passageway. Descending them, and hearing the pattering of footsteps ahead, he followed the fleeing Macabe.
Once he caught up with her, but she eluded him in the darkness and sped on with increased speed.
Suddenly the passage turned abruptly to the left and Jan was half-blinded by a sudden burst of light. Before him, and at the end of the passage, was a cage built into the rocks. On the other side of the cage was the arena.
Macabe was in the act of entering the cage by a small door, and Jan shuddered as he saw the spotted forms of six leopards within the cage.
“Follow me, if you dare,” Macabe taunted.
She was now inside the cage and had closed the little door.
Perhaps it was, the scent of the blood of the man whom she had murdered that enraged the leopards but, whatever the cause, they were uneasy and snarled furiously.
Macabe sensed their unrest and hastened to leave the cage by the exit leading to the arena. As she stooped to undo the lashing which held the door the big cats leaped upon her.
She screamed—horribly, and then all was silent, save the snarling purrs of the beasts as they crouched down to their meal.
“By blood she lived, by blood she died,” Jan muttered and, much shaken, retraced his way to the cavern.
There he found that the white men had tied the hands of their prisoners and were at that moment examining Something with such interest that they did not notice his return for a moment.
“Look, Jan!” Dick, exclaimed, “See what we have found.”
He held in his hands a piece of metal shaped like a leopard’s paw. It was so made that it could be worn on the foot of a man who, thus wearing it, would make a spoor like a leopard’s.”
“There are many of them here,” said Dick.
“That explains much, Baas. But what of the wounds? How were they made?”
“By these?” Crompton showed Jan some talon-like sheafs, also of metal, which fitted the fingers.
“It is well,” said Jan. “It would seem that we have done a good deed this day. No more shall the people of the valley fear the vengeance of the Beast. I think that I was not called the Deliverer in vain. Yet I could have accomplished nothing without your help. Now let us go and give an account of things and mete out justice to the Servants of the Beast.”
* * * *
Three days later, the little party came to the ford in the river and there Jan, having first carried Dorothy over to the other side, made ready to leave them.
“Then you will not come with us, Jan?”
“No, Baas Crompton, unless you order me to do so.”
“But are you sure, Jan,” asked Dick, “that you are wise when you choose to remain in the valley?”
“I am sure, Baas Dick. You have found the diamonds for which we came to this place. Wealth is yours and—Missy is yours. As for me, I have found a people who call me ‘king.’ Also”—Jan’s voice softened—”a maiden, who is very desirable.”
“Jan,” said Dorothy as she raised her hand in a gesture of farewell, “I could find it in my heart, perhaps, to forgive you if you deserted your kingdom, but—” she looked up at Dick with a happy smile—“I’d scorn you forever if you deserted Mamwe.”
THE DEAD BOOK, by Howard Hersey
It was a strange series of events that brought us together in that Godforsaken hole. Men drift around through the tropics like lost souls in hell. It isn’t conside
red good ethics to question them closely, either. A lot of them went out there to escape justice; some joined the army, and when their enlistments were out decided to remain; others had been disappointed in love and professed to be woman-haters. But, as a general rule, they were good fellows. Now and then we would run across a scoundrel. It did not take us long to find it out. A few nights at the club, a stretch of work, some tense moment; then, if the poor dog failed, it ended the affair. A few days later a tramp schooner would melt into the distance carrying a dejected being to another port. It was not always so easy to rid the place of their presences. There was Braxton, for instance; but that’s another story.
Kennedy has always possessed a flair for the mysterious, the unseen. In addition, he was a good talker. When you dwell on the fact that we had been marooned in Mindanao over six months, with no possible hope of returning, and had been hard put to find something which might amuse us, you will realize what Kennedy stood for. Not that he was such a jovial fellow; no one was less so. The charm of his personality lay rather in his comfortableness, his manner of repose. We watched each other closely, we four, and I am sure if one of us had proven a coward it would have been instantly discovered.
It wasn’t an easy matter to try and sleep when a thousand Moros or so beat their fiendish drums in religious ecstasy through the long, hot hours of darkness. Nor was it a simple matter to greet a column from the interior bearing the remains of some American slashed and shot to pieces. When these and a few other trifling matters are taken into consideration it will be seen how comparatively easy it might have been for us to drift into a laxity of spirit and will.
Kennedy kept us interested from the very first day. As it happened, he was the head of an engineering party that had built some sort of a plant the year before. He was waiting for orders from Manila. He expected to have another proposition on his hands by the end of that summer. We didn’t know much about his past life. From his conversation I gathered that he had been educated decently, no more, and was a reader of wide range, with a tremendous store of experiences. He had delved into Eastern thought and European philosophy, holding to his original opinions in spite of argument and despising dogmatic conceptions of any kind. It is a bit dangerous to be an original thinker when you are banished to a distant part of the world. I have seen them crumple like burned paper in the silence, those thinkers. But Kennedy had a level head.
“You’ve got to watch yourself,” he would say. “Out here it’s blamed easy to concentrate on what you’ve lost. I tried it for a while. The chief looked me over, and said that if I didn’t let the booze alone and stop getting off into a corner by myself he’d send me home as a failure. That set my thoughts in motion. I didn’t repeat. A man’s philosophy out here has got to be objective, not subjective. What he needs is plenty to do and little to think about. Don’t you remember Carson? He came here when I did. There wasn’t a finer fellow in the world. He once told me that he expected to make a fortune and return to the States. He didn’t say anything more, but we learned later that he was engaged. I found her picture in his room afterward. Then we had to wait for some machinery. That came all okay, but it proved the usual dead stuff. We had to order again. By that time Carson began to worry. We didn’t like to say anything. We kept a close watch. Months passed. We realized that unless something happened the game was up. It did. Fred Birney found him sitting in front of his mirror with a kind of silly smile on his face, dead! The poor fellow had shot himself. We buried him quietly, but it made us all do too much thinking.
“There are three things you have to do in the Islands: forget that women ever lived, leave drink alone, and never worry.”
Kennedy lit a comfortable cigar and tipped his chair back against the railing, putting one leg over the arm and the other on a chair. He loved to sprawl. It was a particularly hot night. We could hear the continuous racket of the drums far off along the bay and now and then the odd yell of a native engaged in some peculiar work. There wasn’t another white man in the district. We were too busy listening to Kennedy to think much of this, however.
“I often wonder,” he continued, “why fear doesn’t get the best of us in the end. I haven’t met many fellows out here who experienced the emotion and got away alive. That was what was the matter with Carson. He was afraid. You couldn’t have put your hand on the exact cause of it all, yet he killed himself because of fear. The fact is, a white man never was intended for such a beastly life. It isn’t human. The slightest thing will set your nerves on edge if you are not careful. Now take the case of Carson, for instance. I’ll bet that none of you ever imagined that he shot himself because of something that happened in Manila months before he came here. You remember how we used to wonder at his dread of the tarantula. I poked fun at him until I learned the reason; then I kept still. But in a civilized community I am sure he would never have allowed the thing to prey upon him. It was in the night that he suffered most. He had his bed surrounded by three thicknesses of netting, and when he retired he would tuck the whole business carefully under a mattress so that there wasn’t a chance for a mosquito, as he claimed, to enter. I knew better. He lived in terror of the tarantula. He had heard of how they crawled into houses sometimes and walked over one in the darkness. I’ll admit it is enough to make one’s flesh creep. Well, it made him tremble. Near the end he hardly dared to sleep at all. I could have killed Birney when he put that dead one in his bed as a practical joke. Birney was sorry enough later on, but it didn’t do Carson any good.
“It was funny how I happened to be the one who learned the truth from Carson’s own lips before he died. One night—it must have been around twelve or one—I heard someone rap on my door. I was reading, and when I answered it there stood Carson, in the yellow light streaming over my shoulders, looking for all the world like a ghost. He was wearing a peculiar sort of kimono that he affected, and I was struck by the fact that he had only one slipper on. I begged him to come in. He took a cigarette, but it was some time before he spoke. ‘I suppose you think I’m a fool,’ he remarked after a while. I hastened to disagree with him. ‘Oh, don’t do that; my nerves are on edge and I can’t sleep.’ And before he left me I had listened to one of the strangest stories I have ever heard. I didn’t say anything to you fellows. He didn’t ask to have the thing kept secret, but I thought it best. Fellows like Birney never understand.
“It seems that when he first came to the Islands he was stationed for a time in Manila. He had taken rather a fancy to the old city and loved to ramble around the Luneta and through the Tondo. The sight of the natives in their ridiculous costumes amused him. It wasn’t long, however, before he began to grow a little tired of the life. It was this that led him into strange portions of the city and on long walks through the country when he ought to have been at work. He was a curiously imaginative chap, building dreams out of a mere desire. I guess that was why he thought he could get rich by coming down here. He did manage to keep away from the women, and he didn’t carouse much. Finally he got keenly interested in an old monastery that faced on the Calle Palacio in the Intramuros. You know where it is. The place is about three hundred years old and the walls look as though they were built to withstand a ten-month siege. Carson said that he heard of a book they kept there, an old hand-painted Bible which had been brought over by Magellan. It was kept chained to a table. It was already centuries old when it first came over, so the story went. The room where they kept the thing was locked all the time. Carson said that a strange tale had grown up around it. Anyone who dared to spend a night studying it never came out alive. Many students had died in this way, and it was deemed best by the prior to lock the doors and make it impossible for anyone else to run the risk.
“Carson, once his interest was fully aroused, refused to listen to any objections. In the end he convinced the authorities that they could let him examine the book without danger. The prior decided not to let him go alone, and when Carson called as per agreement he gave the keys to a trusty monk and ordered hi
m to stay in the room during the time Carson was there. On the way down through the musty corridors they ran over the history of the book. The peculiar part about it all was that when someone read the faded print for a few hours alone they were found dead, their eyes popped out as though in abject fear, the mouth open and the hands gripping the table like vises. About fifty years previous to Carson’s visit some stranger had obtained permission to spend a night in the room, and had astounded the monks by walking out of the place the next morning as quiet and contained as when he entered it. He showed them the book lying wide open on the stand with a soft, furred thing that he had crushed. He said that while he was reading, a thin thread, alive, had curled around over the cover clasps, followed by two eyes that peeped over the great back of the book. At first he could not stir, but watched it, fascinated. His very heart seemed to stop beating. When the blurred eyes neared his own he had sprung to his feet from a sudden overflowing of courage and had closed the heavy volume with a slam. A colorless liquid had forced its way out through the leaves, and for a few moments his excited senses realized that a single tendon waved tremulously forward and backward and then stopped. An odor as of almonds hung upon the suffocating atmosphere, and he rushed for the little door in order to let in some fresh air. When the morning dawned he smilingly told the monks that there was no more danger. After eating a hearty breakfast he left them. He had not been seen again.
“The monk who accompanied Carson told the story for perhaps the thousandth time as they opened doors and tramped through seemingly endless corridors on their way to the cell where the book was kept. Carson distinctly remembered the monk telling him that he didn’t believe there was the least bit of danger. In fact, he confessed that he based his conclusions on the death of the animal or specter that had haunted those ominous pages. He smiled in a superior sort of way when Carson warned him not to place any faith in that ancient tale. ‘If people died then,’ he said, as they neared the top of a narrow staircase that led into the very bowels of the earth, ‘they can die now.’ Carson laughed as he drove this warning home. Somehow the echo of his laugh seemed to collect more echoes as it sung back of him down an empty, dark corridor. He turned his head over his shoulder after hesitating, then cursed himself for giving in to his vivid imagination. It was at this moment that the monk pulled a large key from his pocket and inserted it within a small doorway that faced directly upon the base of the spiral staircase down which they had come. After some trouble it yielded to his efforts, and he entered, followed by Carson. One match spluttered and went out in the darkness. It had been years since the place was opened, and for some time it was difficult to coax a candle into lighting. The shadows formed weird arabesques on the wall, and, as the monk moved across the floor, his shape loomed high above them and seemed to bend strangely at the juncture of the wall and ceiling. Huge cobwebs dangled in their eyes. Carson felt a thin piece of gossamer float before him, and jumped as a tiny spider ran hurriedly over his lips. He brushed it off.
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