Читать книгу Little God Ben - J. Farjeon Jefferson - Страница 10

‘Well, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Lord Cooling, after a few moments of silence broken only by the distant beating of the drum. The fact that it was still distant was the sole bright spot in the situation. ‘Do we adopt Mr Oakley’s advice, and wait?’

‘I don’t see any alternative,’ answered Haines.

‘Nor do I,’ added Ruth.

‘No, not now that the fool’s gone off to tell ’em,’ muttered Smith, nervily. ‘Who let him go? We ought to have kept him, the blasted idiot!’

‘Well, I do see an alternative,’ exclaimed Ardentino. ‘At least we can put the ladies into safety!’

‘Where’s that?’ inquired Ben.

Lord Cooling smiled acidly.

‘Yes, where is your safe spot?’ he asked. ‘Find it, Mr Ardentino, and I have an idea the ladies will not be the only occupants. Yourself, for example?’

‘Are you insinuating anything?’ demanded Ardentino angrily.

‘No—suggesting,’ replied Lord Cooling. ‘I am suggesting that the only reason we don’t all climb trees is because we don’t see any with convenient branches low enough. Personally, I think this is just as well. Eight representatives of King George found by a band of naked savages at the tops of eight trees would not be the best advertisement for the Union Jack.’

Ruth gave a little shriek of laughter. Smith looked scared, and Ardentino frowned.

‘You may think this the moment for humour!’ he snapped.

‘It is certainly not the moment for panic,’ responded Cooling.

‘Who mentioned panic? Or trees, for that matter? Well, I’m going to have a look round, anyway—’

‘And I’ll join you,’ interposed Miss Noyes, with sudden efficiency. ‘You’re quite right. What we need is to organise a base. And then someone can come out from it to—to parley with them. Don’t you agree, Mr Smith?’

‘Eh? Yes! I must say that sounds sensible,’ answered Smith. ‘Now, then. Base. Let’s find one.’

He ran towards a mass of rocks, like a lost dog. The film star and the girl guide captain followed him with only a fraction less dignity. The drum was growing considerably nearer.

‘Let them go, let them go!’ grunted Medworth. ‘They’ll be caught with the rest of us, and meanwhile we’ve got something more important to talk about!’

‘And the whole day, of course, to talk about it,’ commented Lord Cooling.

‘Well, we’ve got a minute, haven’t we?… Hallo! What’s that?’

The drum had abruptly ceased. The cessation was even more unnerving than the sound.

‘I expect Oakley’s met the Lord Mayor’s Show,’ said Haines, ‘and is telling them the good news.’

‘So now is our last chance to hear yours,’ suggested Cooling, to Medworth. ‘What is this important thing we have to talk about?’

Medworth glanced towards the forest, then drew close to the others.

‘That Temple of Gold,’ he answered, in a low voice. ‘Rather—interesting, eh?’

Lord Cooling readjusted his eye-glass and stared through it fixedly.

‘This is a time for statements, not hints, Medworth,’ he said.

‘Then here’s my statement,’ replied Medworth. ‘If there’s gold on this confounded island, let’s see that we leave with a little!’

‘Why a little?’ inquired Lord Cooling. ‘Why not a lot?’

‘Your idea’s even better than mine,’ grinned Medworth.

Ruth and Haines frowned at each other. It was Ben, however, who put their thought into words.

‘Wouldn’t that be stealin’?’ he blinked.

‘Oh, shut your mouth!’ exclaimed Medworth. ‘No one’s asked your opinion!’

‘No, but yer gettin’ it, see?’ retorted Ben. ‘I bin in quod once, but it wasn’t fer stealin’, it was fer ’ittin’ a copper wot ’it me fust!’

‘Would you mind not wasting valuable time—?’ began Lord Cooling.

‘I ain’t wastin’ vallerble time, you are,’ interrupted Ben, with desperate boldness, ‘torkin’ abart carryin’ away gold pillars when they’ll be ’ere any minit! Wot’s the good o’ that? I gotter nidea better’n your’n. Put this ’ere Oomoo back, see? Tha’s where the trouble’s goin’ ter be. Yer could tell that by wot that bloke sed. Pick up the blinkin’ bits, and when they comes and finds ’e’s ’ere agine it’ll put ’em in a good ’umer. ’Ow’s that fer sense?’

He did not wait for an answer, but dashed to the vacant pedestal. As he began groping in the undergrowth, the drum sounded once more.

The minute that followed was one of the most confused—and also, as matters transpired, one of the most vital—in Ben’s bewildering experience. He was never able to sort out the details afterwards. The closeness of the drum filled him with a terror that would have sent him leaping towards the sea if he had not been on his hands and knees among the tall, coarse grasses. He did make one jump, but was unnerved by the discovery that he had the god’s head in his hands, and when he dropped the head he lost his own, and fell down flat on top of it. There he lay for a few horrible seconds, while the drumming from the forest grew nearer and nearer. He was doing the ostrich trick again, praying that trouble would pass over him. The grasses were high enough to conceal him temporarily. But as he lay, communicating his palpitations to the foliage, a new thought struck him. Struck him with such force that it brought him to his feet. There was no concealment for him here. The procession would stop at this very spot, and if he were found among the broken pieces of the god he might be held responsible for the catastrophe, and reduced to broken pieces himself. He tried to run. The panic he had striven valiantly to avoid had got him by the throat. It had also got him by the feet. They felt weighted with nightmare lead.

Vaguely he saw the figures of his companions. Four were stationary. Three were running. Whether towards him or away from him he could not say, and he certainly did not care. The drum was now shouting in his ear, and other sounds came out of the forest. Murmurs. Chanting. Tramping. He felt like a caught mouse, and waited for huge heads to peer and leer at him.

Then suddenly out of the chaos came to him his mad, insane idea. He acted upon it before he knew that he had got it. He leapt on to the vacant pedestal and, staring heavenwards, struck a godlike attitude.

The murmurs increased. The chanting rose. The tramping thudded. The drum beat with the force of a sledge-hammer. Then, all at once, every sound ceased. The world seemed to have stopped rotating.

‘Wot’s ’appenin’?’ wondered Ben, his eyes still fixed glassily on the tree-tops.

The next instant a great voice rose, a voice charged with stupendous emotion.

‘Oomoo! Oomoo! Oomoo!’

There was a sound as of an army crashing. A hundred natives fell flat on their faces before the human representation of their Little God.