by Richard Klaw
Njo stepped back and vanished. With tight-pressed lips I turned back to Betts.
“There is danger here,” I said grimly. “You have no right to expose your wife to it.”
“No? You’re gettin’ pretty damned interested in her, ain’t you?”
“I am doing what you are too drunk to do!” I snapped, choking back my temper. It was an effort, just then, to keep from taking his thick throat between my fingers and twisting some sense into him.
“If it’s so almighty dangerous,” he leered, “what are you stayin’ here for then?”
“Because the danger does not concern me. I don’t kick witch-doctors, Betts. I don’t shoot at white apes. I make a point of minding my own business.”
“Well?”
“My predecessor was a man of your type, Betts. He did about as he pleased. He died very slowly and unpleasantly—and mysteriously.”
My words had no effect. Betts lumbered to his feet, swaying unsteadily, and grinned down at me.
“You’re worse than the niggers with your damned superstitions,” he scoffed. “Me—I’m hard-headed and sensible. I’m goin’ to finish what I started.”
“You refuse to send Lucilia—”
“She stays right here with me. I got to have some one to pour drinks for me, Varicks. She ain’t much good for anythin’ else, but she’ll learn.”
“Have you—” I began, then caught myself. My question was too delicate.
“Wot?”
“Have you been married long?”
“About a month,” he grumbled, turning away. “That’s all—about a month. I’m thinkin’ it was a mistake. But I reckon she’ll learn. I’ll teach her.”
Then he groped down the steps and staggered away into the darkness.
I saw him many times after that. He was continually under the effect of liquor, and he came to me bragging and boasting about the progress he was making. Already he had repaired his huts to withstand the hammering rain.
Already he had made preparations for planting his latex-producing shrubs and vines.
His wife seldom accompanied him when he came to visit me. At first I could not understand this; but then, one night when she did come with him, I knew the reason. She was ashamed.
Her lovely throat bore indelible marks of finger-prints. Her left cheek, pallid and colourless, was scratched with a livid red welt, where he had either struck her or raked her with his fingernails. Yet, even though we met by chance occasionally when he was not about, she refrained from mentioning these things to me.
Then one night Betts said to me quizzically:
“I been lookin’ at a big clearin’ about a quarter of a mile back in the jungle, Varicks. What in hell is the tower affair in the middle of it?”
I knew what he meant. He had stumbled upon a wide amphitheatre far from the village proper, where members of the secret cult of the Bakanzenzi, according to whispered rumours, were supposed to meet. As for the tower, it was a solid pillar of gleaming white stone, somewhat squat and encircled by a platform at the top, which rose, like a thing of another world, from the reeds of the clearing.
During my four months’ stay in Kodagi’s village, I had examined this tower many times. It was not hollow, but solid and thick; and the stones had evidently been brought from a great distance, since I could find no others like them in the surrounding district. It is my belief—and I am sure that the belief is no idle supposition—that this tower was built many hundreds of years ago by the Phoenicians. There are many such towers scattered throughout Africa’s gloomy interior. They were originally erected to the Phoenician goddess, Astarte—but now, naturally enough, they are sacred to native gods and exponents of black magic and mafui.
I explained this, as best I could, to the man who sat before me. He shrugged at the mention of Astarte; he sneered when I spoke of mafui.
“What is this Bakanzenzi of yours?” he grinned.
“What is it?” I said quietly. “I am not sure, Betts. For that matter, no white man is ever sure of the secret cults. The Bakanzenzi are cannibals, who are said to be able to transform themselves into animals at certain times. Kodagi has told me that the tower-glade is sacred to the Bakanzenzi. They hold their rites by the old white tower. The walls of the glade are made up of twisted, writhing-limbed oki-trees, said to be magic. According to Kodagi, the penalty for disturbing the sacred amphitheatre is death—horrible and certain.”
“Rot,” Betts grunted. “You’re an old woman, Varicks.”
“I have lived in these jungles long enough to be careful,” I said simply.
“Yeah? Well, I’ve been here long enough to know that the glade is good planting-ground. Tomorrow I’m diggin’ up the ground around the white tower and plantin’ it with rubber vines. Tell that to your blasted Bakanzenzi!”
I argued with him. He told me curtly that the ground came within his jurisdiction and he intended to do as he pleased. Moreover, he did it. The following day he put his entire gang of blacks to work, planting the glade of Astarte with indigenous rubber plants and vines. He drove the natives brutally; and while they did his work for him, he sprawled in the shadow of the tower and swilled rotten whisky into his stomach.
That night his wife came to my shack alone. We sat inside, out of the chill, moisture-ridden air; and I saw, as she leaned close to me in the glow of the lamp, that fresh marks of brutality were livid on her face and neck.
“I—I am afraid,” she whispered tensely. “He is drinking more than ever. He has whipped some of our black boys until they can hardly walk!”
“He has also—beaten you?” I suggested softly.
She turned her face away. A dull line of crimson crept about her throat and rose higher. Reaching out, I took her hand and held it.
“There is bound to be trouble,” I said bitterly. “You say he has beaten the natives—and yet no natives have come to me with complaints. That is ominous. They would ordinarily bring their troubles to me, since I am in charge. This silence means that they intend to settle the score on their own account.”
“You—you can do nothing?”
“I will do my best. Kodagi is coming here tomorrow, to have his wounds re-dressed. He was kicked brutally, severely. I am afraid there are internal injuries.”
Lucilia’s hand slipped unconsciously to her own side. She winced and stifled an exclamation of pain as her fingers touched some hidden bruise. I knew then that Betts had used his heavy boots on more than Kodagi; and a sullen rage found its way into my heart. God—if I ever caught him kicking her!
“Does he know you are here?” I said suddenly.
“No,” she said, shaking her head heavily. “He—he has taken to going into the bush at night—alone. I do not know where he goes. He is always drunk—savage. I dare not question him.”
My fists clenched. I saw that she was crying softly, and drew her close to me so that her head rested on my shoulder.
“Why does he hate you, Lucilia?” I pleaded.
“Because—because he is drunk. And because he is jealous of you. You are all that he would like to be. Clean—strong—”
“If I were strong in courage,” I said bitterly, “I would take you away from him.”
She raised her face slowly, almost entreatingly.
“I—wish you would—Lyle,” she whispered.
Then I caught myself. She was his wife; I was a civilised white man, in spite of our surroundings. I could kill him—and would kill him—if I found him mistreating her. But I could not make love to her, in spite of my emotions. There was a difference between protection and theft.
I walked back with her, through the rain. The hut where she lived was empty. Betts had not returned. I whispered farewell to her and returned, with slow steps and heavy heart, to my own dreary shanty on the other side of the village.
Kodagi came the next afternoon, limping painfully and supporting himself on the shoulders of two of the Zapo Zaps. I dressed his wounds with infinite care. Then, thinking to insure his frien
dship, I led him and his two henchmen into the rear room of the shanty. There I gave them presents of cigarettes and other valueless odds and ends which might catch their fancy. In addition, I allowed them to peer through the high-powered microscope which stood on the table—a thing which had always excited their curiosity in the past.
Kodagi bent over the instrument for many minutes, finally stepping aside to make room for one of his companions. He grinned at me gratefully. I attempted, then, to explain the secret of it to him.
“You see,” I said, “the high-powered lenses make things seem larger than they really are and—”
The door slammed open behind me, drowning my words. I swung about, ready for any kind of emergency in view of what had already occurred. I found myself face to face with Betts, who stood swaying in the doorway.
He was savagely drunk—more drunk than I had ever before seen him. He lunged toward me with both hands outflung, snarling like an animal.
“So you’re here, are you!” he rasped. “You—”
The curse was not pleasant. It was a livid torrent of abuse and epithet.
“What do you want?” I said crisply. Kodagi and his men had stepped away from the table and were watching me intently.
“You know damned well what I want!” he bellowed. “My wife comes here when I’m away in the jungle, does she? You and her—”
There was but one answer possible. I seized his arms and flung him away from me.
“You’re drunk!” I said curtly. “If you say another word—by God, Betts, you’re not fit to live with a woman. If you don’t stop your infernal drinking and quit beating the natives, I’ll have you sent back to the coast. You—you scum!”
He caromed across the floor like a top-heavy bullock. For thirty seconds he stared at me; and the utter hate and jealousy in his face must have been visible even to Kodagi and the Zapo Zaps. Then, with a burning oath, he clawed at the revolver in his belt.
He was drunk enough to have killed me. Luckily his fingers were clumsy, slippery with sweat. Before he could get the thing free and level it, I was upon him. My fist ground into his mouth. He jerked erect under the impetus of the blow; then, groping for support with lifeless fingers, he slumped to the floor unconscious.
Kodagi and the two natives faded silently through the open doorway. They said nothing; they departed like ghosts. I was left alone with the limp thing on the floor.
For a moment I stood stiff by the table, undecided whether to leave him there or to make some attempt to revive him. Then I considered that after all he had been drunk; he had not known what he was doing. I dropped to my knees beside him and wiped the blood from his face.
Someone else entered the shack then. I heard the veranda door open and close, and hesitant steps crossed the outer room. I glanced up to find Lucilia standing above me, on the threshold.
“You—you have killed him?” she whispered tensely.
“No. He would have killed me.”
A soft, choking exclamation came from her pale lips. She stared into Betts’ face; and as she did so, the renegade’s eyes twitched open.
We were silent, all three of us, for a long moment. Presently Betts groped to his feet and stood confronting us. A sneer curled his mouth.
“I suppose you’re damned glad,” he said gutturally, turning to his wife, “that Varicks did for me.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “I am.”
“Yeah?” he snarled. “Well, by God, I’ll change that before I’m done!”
He turned heavily, without a word to me, and lurched over the sill. I heard him stagger through the outer room. The veranda door thudded. Lucilia and I were alone.
“Why did you come here?” I shrugged. “You know it brings his madness to the surface.”
“I had to come, Lyle. When he left me, he was insane. He—he might have killed you.”
She seized my arm passionately. Her face was ghastly white.
“I’m afraid of him, Lyle!” she said fervently. “He—he is becoming an animal. At the slightest sound, he turns with horrible quickness to stare behind him, like a thing of the jungle. He walks on tiptoe and talks in a whisper when we are alone. When he thinks I am not looking, he mutters to himself and claws at the empty air, as if bats were fighting him.”
“Vampire bats,” I said aloud, without meaning to utter the words.
“What?” she said suddenly.
“Nothing,” I mumbled. “You had better go back. It is not safe for you to excite his temper. If anything happens, come to me at once.”
“I wish—oh, I wish I could stay here with you!”
“So do I,” I said sincerely. “But it’s impossible.”
She walked out with dragging steps. I could read the anguish in her stooped shoulders and hanging head. But I could do nothing, then. I could only stare, and let her go.
When she had gone, I made an attempt to be rational. For an hour I worked over my case of entomological specimens, labelling them and separating them into their proper groups. But my mind was not on the work. My thoughts persisted in returning to her description of Betts’ mysterious behaviour.
I have studied medicine to some extent; and I knew that a medical diagnosis of Betts’ malady was simple enough and completely devoid of mystery. The man had delirium tremens. He was on the verge of madness, brought on by an excess of native rum and bad whisky. And yet when I considered old Kodagi’s sudden disappearance in that first hour of torment—when I considered the tower of Astarte and the horrible cult of the Bakanzenzi—I knew that the medical explanation was not complete. Other things—unknown, unnamed things of darkness and the jungle—had taken possession.
An hour dragged on. It was nearly midnight when I heard the door of my shanty clatter open. I turned from the specimen table with both of my arms uplifted to defend myself—and then my arms dropped helplessly as Lucilia stumbled into the room.
“He is gone!” she said sibilantly.
“Gone?” I repeated. “Where?”
“He was in the house when I returned. I heard him pacing back and forth in his own room, mumbling and talking to himself. I sat on the stoop and waited—waited for him to come out and—and beat me. I must have fallen asleep—from exhaustion. When I awoke, the shack was abandoned. He has gone into the jungle again, Lyle!”
I stood rigid, undecided what to do. She came closer and stared pitifully into my face.
“Lyle,” she whispered, “his—his clothes are thrown on the bunk where he sleeps. He—he must be naked!”
“In the jungle—naked?” I said roughly. “Good God, no!”
“It is true, Lyle. He is an animal. He—”
But I thrust her aside. This ghastly affair had reached its climax, and I was determined to settle it once and for all.
“Stay here,” I ordered crisply. “I intend to find him.”
She slumped into a chair. I threw a coat about my shoulders and strode into the outer room, where Njo was asleep upon his bunk in the corner. I prodded him to consciousness and swore at him because he sat like a monkey on the edge of the bunk, blinking at me in bewilderment. Then, with the little Jopaluo trailing at my heels, I stepped into the night.
The clearing lay in nearly complete darkness. For once, the rain had ceased its monotonous drizzle; and the jungle was buried under a steaming mist. The sky was greyish black, void of stars. The moon, hanging in the middle of it like a blurred lantern, was blood-red.
We went straight to Betts’ hut. There, with the aid of the search-lamp in my clenched fist, we found the man’s spoor leading from the rear door—and the prints were those of naked feet! It was not difficult to trail that curious line of tracks into the jungle.
For twenty minutes we continued, following a well-beaten path through the jungle. In this manner we came to that significant grove in the midst of the great trees, where the gleaming tower of Astarte stuck up from the reeds like a white tooth.
And there, at the base of the tower, we found a continuation of Bet
ts’ naked footprints. Round and round the tower they went—a circular, deep-beaten path of fresh imprints made by naked feet. And there they ended.
Confused, bewildered, not at all sure of my own sanity, I led the way back to my own shanty. For a long time I talked to Lucilia of what I had seen; and finally, mastering the fear of her heart, she returned to her hut. Far into the night I sat on the veranda of my place, smoking and waiting and wondering. It was the night before the full moon.
In the morning, Betts came to me cursing. He made no mention of the previous night. He was blind with rage because many of the euphorbias, which he had brought all the way from Madagascar and planted in the grove, had been uprooted. He demanded that I find the culprit.
I could do nothing, and I told him so. Still cursing, he slunk into the jungle. I heard no more from him during the hours of daylight. Nor did I hear from Lucilia, who, for the sake of her own safety, refrained from coming near me. But when night came, and the moon swung into a sky of pitch, the village chief made a visit to my shanty and stood before me on the veranda.
“I come, Bwana,” he said bitterly, “for justice. The red-eyed white man has done murder. He has killed two of the men who worked for him.”
I did not bother to ask useless questions. My position of chef de poste demanded that I do one thing—and one thing only. Strapping a revolver holster about my belt, I went directly to Betts’ abode.
His wife opened the door to me and stared at me in consternation. She must have read the anger in my face, for I confess that I made no attempt to conceal it. Betts himself sat slumped in a chair close to the table.
I accused him outright of murdering two of the blacks. He lurched to his feet and snarled into my mouth.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he rasped. “They were pullin’ up my rubber plants in the grove. I caught ’em at it! By God, I’ll murder the whole bloody tribe if they don’t leave my plants alone!”
“You’re under arrest!” I snapped. “This is my village. I won’t stand for—” He moved with such uncanny quickness that I could not prevent it. His fist hammered into my eyes, hurling me into the wall. I heard Lucilia scream as I went down. I saw Betts, running with tremendous speed and agility, swirl across the threshold and race into the jungle. Staggering up, I wiped the blood from my face and plunged after him. The jungle closed over me.