The Return of the Nyctalope

by Jean de La Hire

  The march along the channel went on for a quarter of an hour without the aspect of he place changing at all—but suddenly, he channel and the quay separated; which is to say that within the range of Saint-Clair’s vision, a hundred paces ahead of him and Gno, the subterranean river disappeared into a tunnel to the right, without a quay of any sort, while the subterranean pathway curved to the left into a new tunnel, relatively straight and low.

  “Halt!” whispered Saint-Clair, pausing.

  For, at the same time that he had seen the bifurcation, he had hard noises that were not those of the attenuated murmur of the now-distant waterfall, nor the footsteps of Gno and himself on the rocky ground.

  “Listen! Can you hear that?”

  “Yes, I can hear it,” replied the Japanese.

  There was a brief silence.

  “One might think that it were a hymn,” said Saint-Clair.

  “Yes… without musical accompaniment… like the one we heard in the Diurnals’ city.”

  “Oh! Gno, my friend—might it be to enjoy the Diurnal’s admirable singing that the Nocturnals make war on them? A war in which the Nocturnals never kill a Diurnal, even though many of them are killed? A war that has no objective but to lure the Diurnals from their city, seize them, carry them off and imprison them underground, in darkness, forever… in order to hear them sing?”

  “It’s quite possible,” said Gno Mitang. “That would prove that the Nocturnals aren’t completely savage brutes.”

  There was another pause, during which the two friends listened, meditatively.

  Suddenly, Saint-Clair said, in a harsh voice: “That’s curious. It seems to me that that ought to reassure me somewhat on the subject of Véronique—but on the contrary, it makes me afraid. Véronique has a moving contralto voice, which has been sufficiently trained to serve her well. Fageat knows that. He might utilize Véronique’s voice and talent to increase his own prestige in the eyes of the Nocturnals. If the Diurnal captives sing, Véronique risks being forced to sing too...”

  Gno squeezed his friend’s hand. “Oh, my friend, how you love her! And how much you must be suffering from knowing where she is, and, above all who she’s with! I understand—but your hypothesis is as hazardous as it’s specious. Shall we go on?”

  “You’re right, Gno—but pay attention to the pressure of my hand. We’re no longer far from the habitation of the Nocturnals. If I squeeze your fingers, stop and keep still. If I pull downwards, lie down flat on your stomach.”

  “Agreed!”

  “Good.”

  And the two men resumed their march, after the Nyctalope had described the new dispositions of the location to the Japanese.

  Relatively low and narrow by comparison with the tunnels they had followed thus far, this one as extremely sinuous. By virtue of a strange acoustic phenomenon, the chant could sometimes be heard more amply and clearly, and sometimes faded away, becoming vague and almost imperceptible, although there was no doubt that they were drawing closer to its source.

  Suddenly, however, the song burst forth with such sonority, in several choirs of distinct voices, that the Nyctalope, although he could see nothing ahead of him but yet another bend in the tunnel, squeezed his companion’s hand.

  For several minutes they listened, still and silent, gripped by admiration. Then Saint-Clair leaned toward Mitang’s ear and whispered:

  “Twenty paces ahead of us, Gno, there’s another sharp bend in the tunnel. I think that immediately thereafter we’ll emerge into a subterranean hall, where the male and female Diurnal singers are gathered. For you’re still thinking what I’m thinking—that theses magnificent and sweet songs have exactly the same quality as those the Diurnals sang for us in their city.”

  “I’m certain of it,” Gno replied.

  “Then let’s go forward prudently. Once we’re past the bend, perhaps I’ll be able to see Véronique. Perhaps these songs are in her honor. The Diurnals know so little—and were only able to tell us very little—about the Nocturnals!”

  “Let’s go,” said Gno Mitang. “Everything is possible, in spite of Ariste Fageat!”

  That abhorrent name struck Saint-Clair like a whiplash.

  “Let’s go!”

  And once again, the two friends resumed their march.

  The Japanese counted the paces: 23. And there, under the impulsion of the Nyctalope, there was a 90-degree turn to the right. Another eighteen paces, following a semi-circle.

  Suddenly, Gno felt the pressure and the downward thrust of Saint-Clair’s hand. Instantly, the two friends were lying prone, side by side—and the more astonished of the two was Gno Mitang, for he could now see!

  Ahead of him there was no longer the absolute darkness, as in the long journey through the subterranean tunnels. Nor was it daylight, though, or even light analogous to terrestrial artificial light.

  In the depths of a troglodytic hall, whose immensity was lost in darkness on all sides, there was a nucleus of phosphorescence, as if placed on the ground, as well as an enormous pedestal—or, rather, a long, broad and tall semicircular stage. And on hat stage, with several tiers, were grouped, in unequal ranks, several hundred Diurnals, not phosphorescent themselves but softly and magically illuminated by the phosphorescent radiation of the stage.

  And they were singing, in a prodigious assembly of various choirs.

  Gno Mitang could not see, although the Nyctalope could, that in the darkness of the vast grotto, around the stage and extending all the way to the most distant walls, a multitude of Nocturnals was assembled, sitting, lying or kneeling, in all the attitudes of wakeful rest, in a comfortable and attentive immobility. Al those Nocturnals were listening, as if in ecstasy...

  The Nyctalope looked everywhere, searching for Véronique—but he could not see her, nor Ariste Fageat.

  He was putting his head close to Gno’s, in order to whisper in his ear, when the greatest, the most unexpected and most ominous surprise struck him like a thunderbolt.

  Ariste Fageat was an imperfect criminal, like the majority of criminals, but unlike the great majority of them, he was intelligent in the logical anticipation of events. The first hours that he spent in the world of the Nocturnals were judiciously employed.

  Firstly, he allowed Rrou sand Ggo to explain themselves and him, as fully as possible, to the numerous and soon innumerable Nocturnals they encountered, who assembled and came running, clustering around them, and finally immobilizing them. To half a dozen “chiefs” one of whom was indubitably the “supreme chief,” the Woo of that population, Rrou and Ggo spoke for a long time, not because they were making long speeches—the Nocturnal vocabulary being very restricted—but because they each repeated their extraordinary story and their difficult explanations several times over.

  Then Ariste Fageat thought it useful to make, by the light of his camouflaged lamp, held twenty paces away from Rrou, a few demonstrations of the mortal power of his rifle and pistol. For that purpose, Ggo had brought two quadrumanes from a reserve stock of those living animals, which the Nocturnal carefully maintained in their grottoes.

  After that, Fageat thought it equally useful to acquaint the Nocturnals with the binding, unbearable light of his uncamouflaged electric torch—and he saw immediately that all the Nocturnals present, headed by the chiefs, recognized him as a great all-powerful Woo, come from the extrarhean world represented in the minds of Noturnal Rheans by what Terrans called the moon, the Earth and the stars.

  “Good!” he said, with satisfaction. “Here I am, tranquil in my power. And now, let’s insure against the probable—the certain—arrival of the Nyctalope and his companions. Time’s pressing. Better to make my troops wait for hours than be a single minute late!”

  And to the chief of the Nocturnals, whose name was Tugg, he explained via Rrou and Ggo that although he, the “great Woo Fagg”—that was the Nocturnally-pronounceable name he had given himself—was animated by the best sentiments toward the world of the Nocturnals, his companions, five in
number, wanted, by contrast, to fight the Nocturnals on behalf of the Diurnals. So he, Fagg, had to make arrangements so that the five enemies, when they arrived, would be put beyond the possibility of doing any harm in the blink of an eye.

  The chief, Tugg, approved vehemently—and Fageat gave his orders to Ggo and Rrou.

  Meanwhile, Véronique was still asleep, lying down now but on a very strange bed! When Fageat had deemed that walking was no longer possible in the midst of the Nocturnals surging from all directions in the immense grotto, primarily remarkable for the astonishing phosphorescent stage, and that a long pause and negotiations had become necessary, he had headed straight for the enormous stage, with twenty steps arranged as an amphitheater.

  At the foot of the stage he had stopped Rrou and Ggo, and at the same time, the entire increasing multitude, bewildered, uncomprehending and admiring, had been immobilized, amid a great rumor of exclamation and brief phrases spring from every mouth.

  Then Fageat had touched the surface of the fist phosphorescent step with his right hand. It was about a meter above the rocky soil of the grotto, which was uniformly flat and smooth.

  Saint-Clair was mistaken, he thought, in believing that the phosphorescence of the city walls was a Diurnal defense against the Nocturnals, since the Nocturnals have set up a kind of amphitheater here. It’s rather that the Diurnals, blind by night, have coated their buildings with the phosphorescent substance in order to illuminate their own offensive and defensive actions against the Nocturnals. But what’s the reason for this phosphorescent installation here?

  He turned to Rrou and Ggo and made them understand, by means of gestures, that he wanted Véronique to be laid down there, but that the bed was too hard. Rrou, who was carrying the young woman, did not move, but Ggo spoke to a group of Nocturnals pressing behind him. The few brief words were repeated and transmitted far to the rear, and soon, above the heads, hundreds of hands passed from one to another a quantity of furry pelts, which Fageat immediately recognized as the skins of the little quadrumane monkeys. A thick layer of furs was arranged on the first step, and Rrou gently laid his sleeping burden down upon it.

  It was only after that had been done that Fageat gave his orders to Rrou and Ggo—precise and simple instructions, which he repeated several times in order to be better understood. Wanting to keep his two habituated and comprehending companions with him, however, he had his instructions transmitted to the chief Tugg. The latter had to be eminent within the tribe as much for his intelligence as his stature—which, as well as being admirably proportionate to his body’s girth, surpassed by a head that of the dozens of Nocturnals that Fageat could see around him.

  Tugg understood immediately. He replied by a mime and words that signified, in sum: “I’ll organize that myself.”

  And he went to do so. He disappeared into the crowd, which opened up before him and closed again behind him.

  Secondary woos—doubtless clan chiefs of the Nocturnal people of the region—then formed a semicircle around an empty space, in the middle of which only Fageat, Rrou and Ggo remained: an attentive, respectful, curious and admiring semicircle, behind which the innumerable host of Nocturnals was now silent. Undoubtedly, the most distant had learned from their neighbors about the unprecedented phenomenon come from another world, which, in its omnipotence, was the master of light and death. By word of mouth the fantastic news was transmitted.

  “Perfect!” Fageat pronounced, in a low voice. “Now it’s just a matter of waiting for Véronique to wake up. In the meantime, though, the time won’t be wasted if, via Rrou and Ggo, I obtain as much information as possible about the state of things.”

  It was easy for him to jump up and sit down on the step among the animal skins beside Véronique. Then, in a dominating fashion, he turned to Ggo and Rrou, who remained standing, to the semicircle of woos and, finally, to the several rows of Nocturnals vaguely lit by the amphitheater’s phosphorescence. He was clearly in view, not only to them but to the whole multitude hidden in the darkness of the immense grotto, whose vault and walls he could not see, so distant were they.

  Deliberately, using gestures and his voice, he set about interrogating Rrou and Ggo.

  That bizarre conversation had been going on for exactly sixty-seven minutes—Fageat had consulted his wristwatch—when the chief Tugg reappeared. Immediately, he spoke to Ggo and Rrou, and they informed Woo Fagg that everything was arranged as he had prescribed at the entrance to the grotto.

  “Very good!” said Fageat, loudly and with satisfaction. “Now, put on a concert for me, since the Nocturnals capture Diurnals to make them sing and not to eat them, as we Terrans first assumed, as Diurnal society has always believed, and as Saint-Clair and the others probably still believe too.”

  Through the intermediary of Ggo and Rrou, he made Tugg understand what he wanted.

  The first consequence of Fageat’s desire was that, less than an hour later, Saint-Clair and Gno Mitang, arriving at the threshold of the immense grotto, heard a sweet and magnificent song, and saw hundreds of Diurnals, by reflected phosphorescence, arranged in standing positions on all the steps of the phosphorescent amphitheater far away from them in the depths of the grotto.

  Another immediate consequence of the instructions and orders given by Fageat and carried out by Tugg, however, was this:

  Lying at the entrance to the subterranean tunnel, whose floor overlooked a gentle slope leading down to the floor of the grotto, the Nyctalope and the Japanese were all eyes and ears when a heavy weight fell upon their backs. The weight did not crush them, but it kept them lying face down. At the same time, their arms were seized and drawn backwards brutally. Their wrists were brought together and tied, and the cord used for that was passed underneath them, around the waist, and knotted once again to the wrists.

  A moment later there was no more weight or constraint.

  The Nyctalope had contrived to turn his head, to see how Gno Mitang was being treated, in order to understand how he was being treated himself.

  He breathed in, shifted, and got into a kneeling position. He leaned toward his friend, who was still lying motionless on the ground, and who was blind in the surrounding darkness—for the phosphorescent light of the amphitheater did not reach that far. In the calm, firm and warm voice he employed in grave circumstances, he said:

  “Gno, my friend, from a hiding place that, unfortunately, I didn’t see, gripped as I was by the spectacle, two Nocturnals leapt upon us. Four others helped them, adroitly. Three are standing to your left, three to my right. They’ve secured our wrists and arms tightly, but our legs are free and I can see for both of us. Stand up. I’m standing up.”

  Gno Mitang obeyed without saying a word, while Saint-Clair got to his feet and went on:

  “I’m beside you, shoulder to shoulder. You’re not hurt? They haven’t broken anything or pulled any muscles?”

  “No, I’m not hurt. The cord doesn’t seem as tight around my waist as when I was lying down. All right—what do we do, Leo?”

  In making this reply the Japanese spoke normally, in a voice that was soft and yet firm, almost incisive.

  “Good,” said Saint-Clair. “I’m content. After all, these Nocturnals could have killed us, strangers as we are, on Fageat’s orders. The traitor’s letting us live, at least temporarily. He’ll doubtless want to enjoy his victory and show me Véronique held captive. Criminals have these imprudences. Let’s maintain hope, Gno!”

  “While you can see, Leo, I never doubt a triumphant outcome.”

  That was said with the most perfect simplicity. Saint-Clair adopted the same attitude; he too did not doubt that he would win the formidable contest, if Fageat let him live long enough to turn the situation around.

  There was a brief silence. The two Terrans and the six Nocturnals did not move. Then Saint-Clair said:

  “Gno, you just said that the cord isn’t as tight around your waist. Now, it’s the same one that binds your wrists. We’re going to walk straight ahead. My
shoulder will maintain contact with yours. By imperceptible movements of the arms and wrists, try to ascertain whether the cord can be loosened. I’ll do the same. I say ‘imperceptible’ because we mustn’t forget that the Nocturnals are nyctalopes, and are even better ones than me, for certain. They’re probably watching us closely. For the moment, they only have eyes for our faces and our equipment; they’re not looking at our arms or wrists. I’ll warn you if that changes. Are you ready? Can we walk?”

  “Yes.”

  Already, by the attitude of the tightly-packed crowd of Nocturnals that opened in front of him and Gno, the Nyctalope had realized that these beings with the appearance of large terrestrial gorillas had a very keen intelligence. While they walked, he said to Gno:

  “It’s probably only a short time ago that the Nocturnals pullulating here were informed of our existence, extremely exorbitant from their viewpoint. Fageat must have made it clear that one of his companions can see in the dark, for our assailants, who are presently framing us as guards, don’t seem astonished that we’re advancing without hesitation, although the short-range radiation of the distant phosphorescence, though visible to our eyes, isn’t reaching us yet. As for the crowd of Nocturnals, each of them is looking at us with an avid curiosity, but without overmuch amazement or any hostility. It’s true that we don’t represent any threat or peril to them, since we can’t make use of our hands...”

  The Nyctalope fell silent.

  Gno Mitang continued the expression of his thought, as often happened between them:

  “Their intelligence is keen and prompt, for Fageat can only have talked to a few of them, and not for long, but what he has made them understand has expanded rapidly through the entire host.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Saint-Clair.

  “There are hundreds of them in this grotto?” the Japanese queried.

  “Oh, thousands,” the Nyctalope replied.