Читать книгу The Last Lemurian: A Westralian Romance - G. Firth Scott - Страница 7

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"Thank heaven, that's over?" I exclaimed.

"But it isn't yet, my lad," the Hatter said. "The blacks are right; there is a bunyip, and I reckon we're going to finish him."

I was going to say something sceptical, when the Hatter interrupted me. "Look at the pool," he said.

Its calmness had gone, and the surface was eddying and bubbling, as if a fire had been lit beneath it and the water was just coming to the boil.

"Keep your nerves steady, and be ready to shoot," the Hatter said quickly.

As he spoke there was a splash and a swirl in the pool, and a monster rose to the surface, almost more horrible than the Yellow Woman. The head was that of a man, with huge shining teeth showing through its mouth, and the eyes green and phosphorescent, like those of our recent visitor. The arms were long, and the hands were shaped like the fore feet of a kangaroo, with long claws at the end of each finger. Below the waist the limbs were formed like those of a crocodile, and there was an immense tail, frilled along the top with a double row of jagged plates, shaped and standing up like the teeth of a huge cross-cut saw. From the neck downwards the creature was covered with scales that glittered in the moonlight.

It swam to the edge of the pool, and dragged itself out upon the grassy patch where the Yellow Woman had stood, and, opening its mouth, it gave vent to a laugh which seemed to contain all the blood-curdling elements of a thousand maniacal fiends.

"Aim at its eyes, and fire," the Hatter said, his voice expressing the horror that he felt.

Our rifles spoke together, and the huge beast rolled over and over on the grass, uttering cries and sounds that were even more horrible than its laugh.

"Fire till he stops!" the Hatter cried, and we went at it as hard as our rifles would work, till the form lay still where the moonlight streamed over it.

"Awful! Horrible!" I heard the Hatter say.

"Another night like this and I'm a lunatic, or dead," I answered.

"Bear up, my lad, we're as good as millionaires now; but that beast is hideous. Just what the blacks always described it."

"We are safe from interruptions till the morning, so I think we might have a camp," he answered.

"Sleep! What, with that thing down there?" I exclaimed. "I might as well try to fly."

The Hatter laughed.

"All right, my lad," he said. "Then we'll try the bushman's solace, and have a pipe. We can discuss the situation."

So we sat and smoked and yarned till the dawn, arranging our course of action in the meantime.

The Hatter interpreted to me all that had passed between him and the Yellow Woman, during the interview to which I had been a silent and impressed witness.

"Everything seems to corroborate the tale told by that old blackfellow, and I really am inclined to believe that there are boulders of gold somewhere about this range," he said.

"But how are we to get at them? The rock is harder than chilled steel and, so far as I could see, the range is as inaccessible as the wall of a house."

"I noticed that, too," he answered. "But you forget that grating noise we heard before our lady friend appeared and after she had gone."

"I certainly do not see what it has to do with our getting over the range."

"That's it. You see, you were rather taken aback by the development of events; and I do not wonder at it, for I'm not particularly nervous myself, but I felt the strain all the same. Still, perhaps, it is just as well, for that shot of yours brought matters to a head and I think gave us the advantage. But that's neither here nor there. What I was going to say is this: I imagine that there is some secret entrance to a pass which leads into the range. That pass is probably hidden by a mechanical contrivance, and the grating sound we heard is caused by the working of it."

I laughed aloud.

"You don't seriously mean to say that you regard those pigmy creatures as capable of constructing anything mechanical, do you? Why even the best of the blacks—"

"Understand the principles of the boomerang, an instrument that puzzled our great scientists till they were told how it was done," he interrupted.

"Yes; but they are not mechanics," I said.

"My lad, we don't know what they are, let alone what they have been," he said seriously. "The aboriginals in their present state are mysterious enough, but the race we are now dealing with surpasses anything that I ever heard of."

"Well, supposing there is a secret door or entrance through the rock, how are we going to find it out, and what are we going to do when we have found it?" I asked. The Hatter had a solemn way of talking when he started on the aboriginal topic, and could bring out so many strange and forcible arguments on his side of the question that I knew it was no use my continuing the discussion. What I wanted to see was the gold, and what I wanted to do was to get back to civilisation with it as soon as possible. I had had more than enough of uncanny experiences.

The Hatter smoked for some minutes before he answered my queries.

"That is just the problem I'm trying to solve," he said at length. "I'll tell you my idea and then we can discuss it in detail."

He unfolded his plan, and as I listened I was amazed at the extraordinary fertility of his mental resources. What would have taken me years to evolve he reeled off as fast as he could speak, and sometimes faster than I could understand.

"What a genius you are!" I exclaimed when he had finished.

"Nonsense!" he answered. "What has already occurred is the basis of my idea, and I merely elaborate the possibilities arising therefrom. Do you agree with my scheme?"

"Indeed I do," I answered, and, as it worked out without a hitch, I will not anticipate, but content myself with describing it in the order of its unfolding.

With the dawn we descended from our nest and cautiously approached the horrible creature we had killed during the night. Our caution was unnecessary, for it was stone dead, with bullet-holes all over it. Closer inspection showed it to be even more repulsive than it had appeared to be when first it rose to the surface of the pool, and it was a relief when, in accordance with the Hatter's scheme, we covered it over with a blanket and hid its gruesome proportions from our sight. Upon the blanket we scattered grass and leaves until that too was hidden.

We next turned our attention to our camels, They were still huddled into a group away out on the desert, where we had seen them the previous night, and, failing in our endeavours to lead them back to the grass, we had to cut and carry some of it out to where they were. Having attended to their wants, we satisfied our own, and then proceeded to follow along the track our visitors had made through the scrub. As the Hatter had foreseen, it ended at what to all appearances was a solid wall of rock.

"Now for our preparations," the Hatter exclaimed, when we had satisfied ourselves that we could never hope to find out by ourselves how that rock moved. We returned to the pool and worked steadily till the sun was well overhead, and with everything arranged to our satisfaction for the evening's performance of what the Hatter termed our one-act comedy, we climbed up to our nest and took advantage of the opportunity to make up for the loss of the previous night's sleep.

The sun was sinking in the west when the Hatter awakened me, and together we sat and waited for the moon to rise and the Yellow Woman to come. To me the time seemed to drag, until minutes grew to hours, and my nerves were strained to their utmost long before we heard the grating noise which indicated the approach of the unearthly-looking creature we awaited. The Hatter leaned over to me and whispered:—

"You must be perfectly cool and collected."

"I'll try," I answered uneasily.

"You must," he hissed in my ear, and I felt my heart grow steady. It was well that he had strength of will enough for both.

"Aim over her heart, but keep your finger off the trigger until I cry out; then fire," he said, just as the gleam of phosphorescent light glimmered through the trees.

A moment later the weird, majestic form appeared, and walked almost on to the blanket that covered the other horror.

"Stand and wait," the Hatter cried out in the—to me—meaningless jargon.

Immediately she stopped, and I, resting my rifle along the boughs, took a careful and steady aim.

"Who am I?" the Hatter asked.

"The King of Night," she answered, turning her ghastly eyes up towards our hiding place.

"Why come you?"

"O mighty one, was I not promised that to-night I should learn my destiny? I have come, as you commanded, to learn. O mighty one, speak on."

Her eyes were almost pathetic as she spoke and, extending her arms towards us, she sank down upon her knees.

"First, must you see him whom you named to me," the Hatter cried, and, pulling a line we had fastened to the blanket, he scattered the leaves and the grass, and exposed the dead horror to the woman's gaze.

The agony of the cry with which she greeted it made my heart bleed for her. Her unearthly surroundings and appearance were for the moment forgotten in the perfectly human anguish she displayed.

She had fallen forward upon the body, and was moaning piteously.

"Seek you to know your destiny," he cried.

She raised her face towards us, and the misery written upon it was too real for us to doubt the profundity of her grief.

"Oh! what is my destiny to the loss of the companion of centuries and the solace of my solitude?" she answered, and buried her face in her hands.

"Listen and know. Weep while you may, for in a vision shall even now appear before you the image of your lord. Strive not to touch him or you die. Before you he shall rise. His eyes shall see you and his ears shall hear you, but his mouth shall be closed. From afar he comes to seek you. Tell him then your history. Unfold to him the secret of the rock, and, as a token and a guide, when the vision is before you, go to your myrmidons and bid them build above the dead one a pile of the shining yellow stones that lie within the wall."

She listened as he spoke, her eyes gleaming and flickering, and when he ceased she looked around.

"O mighty one, where comes the vision? I see it not."

"Weep while you may," the Hatter answered; and she, looking down upon the lifeless creature again, renewed her lamentations, spreading her hair about her and hiding her face from sight.

Silently the Hatter lowered the ladder, and climbing down, crept along to the opposite side of the pool. With my heart thumping against my ribs I waited until he stood full in the moonlight, his magnificent form drawn up to its full height, his face raised towards the light, and his arms folded across his chest. Then, with my right hand on my rifle, ready to fire if necessary, and my gaze fixed upon the woman, I reached out with my other hand to where my revolver was strapped to the branch and pulled the trigger.

With a scream of mingled fear and rage the woman sprang to her feet, her eyes glaring up towards me. Then, as if controlled by some subtle power, she looked across the pool to where the Hatter stood. For a moment she stood as if carved in stone.

Throwing wide open her arms, she took one step forward, her face transformed by the look of ineffable love that swept over it.

"My love, my life! Ah! come to me," she cried, and I, fearing she might forget the Hatter's warning and rush towards him, brought my rifle to bear upon her heaving breast, at the same time giving vent to the best imitation I could produce of what I thought a god-like growl of disapprobation ought to be.

Without removing her gaze from the Hatter, she said (so he told me afterwards),

"O mighty one, fear not. I will not seek to touch the vision."

But she looked at it—looked until I thought she was never going to speak or move again—and all the time the Hatter stood like a statue.

"Loved one, who seek for me, knowing not my resting place, keep wide your ears that I may teach you where to find me, how to know me—even though you come from whence the anger came that doomed our race to woe."

With many movements and a wealth of dramatic action, but always with her gaze fixed upon him, she told, without a pause, the following extraordinary story to the Hatter:—

"Loved one, I am Tor Ymmothe, the Queen of Lemuria.

"Once, where those deserts lie, waved fair gardens. Mighty palaces rose from amidst the scented forests, and we, a mighty people, knew of nothing mightier. Only the sun scorned our bidding and the moon ignored our mandates, and the king, my father, hurled at them his wrath.

"From afar there came a stranger, a man whose skin was not as ours, but yet who spoke with our tongue. He came before the king, my father, and rebuked him. He, the unknown stranger, rebuked the king, my father, who was the king of kings.

"Thus he spake: 'King, only a man thou art; different from the beasts; distinct from the trees; unlike the creatures of the pool. Yet only a man, sharing with them the government of time and the monarchy of death.'

"And the king, my father, laughed, and those around him laughed, as he said, 'If I am but a man, I will create that which shall be more than man, for he shall rule both on the earth and in the pool, and when he comes your blood shall bathe his baby face.'

"That which lies before me is the image that the king, my father, made. But when they poured the heart blood of that stranger on his baby face a voice came from the clouds that swept throughout the land, and gave forth a doom and a curse to last while the image lived, and until that stranger came again to liberate our souls.

"At the sound of that voice, the king, my father, died in agony. The palaces fell down, and the gardens and the scented forests faded away to dust. Fire swept the earth; water roared around us. Mountains sank into sand, and when the rage was over only this one pool remained, only these few trees escaped of all the gardens of the king's palace; only the ruined wall which lies beyond the trees is left of that mighty home.

"I and the image lived, our doom revealed—he to haunt both pool and earth, a horror and a fear to all men; I to wait, fed by the vital force of every creature born around me, until there should come again the stranger, thou, my loved one, who would slay the image and release me from my deathless bond.

"Hasten to me; hasten over the sands and wastes that lie between us; hasten with your love that will alone beat back the fury of the past.

"Here, above the image, I will raise a pile of yellow stones to guide you over the desert. When you see them you will know that you are near me.

"Wait but a moment, and see the pile I'll build."

She turned and hastened away through the darkness, and the Hatter ran to the ladder and climbed up beside me, pulling it after him. His face gleamed white in the dim light, and his hand as it touched mine was deathly cold.

He was scarcely up when she returned, followed by a swarm of pigmies. She looked about quickly, and then turned her eyes towards us.

Speaking with a tremor in his voice, the Hatter said:

"He whom you seek has vanished from your sight. He stands afar off searching for the yellow stones."

She spoke to the pigmies around her, and it was as if a vast ant-hill had emptied out its myriads. Thousands of the little creatures poured in an endless stream across the patch of moonlight until the grass was hidden and the gigantic figure of the woman towered above a seething sea of black, moving life. Each one as he came from the shadow carried what looked to me like yellow bricks, which he threw down upon the prostrate form of the bunyip until, as we watched, the pile grew higher and higher, and the last of the hideous creature was hidden. Still the swarming thousands worked, and the yellow heap came to a point. Then they laid their burdens on the ground, retiring, as the yellow pathway grew, farther into the shade. At length there were none in view, and the Yellow Woman stood alone.

"Tell him, O mighty one, that it is done, and I await his coming," she said, looking up again.

"He comes on the wings of the wind. Await him within the secret gate, nor let it open till he calls," the Hatter answered.

She smiled towards us, and stretching out her arms, bowed to the ground seven times before she turned and walked along the shining yellow path into the shadows.