Читать книгу Beau Ideal - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 5

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Suddenly a man leapt to his feet and, screaming insanely, beat the wall with his manacled hands.

“Come! Come! Smolensky” soothed the huge grey-haired Russian who had been Prince Berchinsky. “We mustn’t lose our heads, comrade.... I nearly lost mine once.... Sit down.... I’ll tell you about it.... Hush now!... Hush! And listen.... Yes ... I nearly lost my head once. It was offered as a prize! Think of that! There’s an honour for you!

“It was like this.... I was with Dodds’ lot at Dahomey, you know. He was almost a nigger himself, but he was a soldier all-right, believe me. Faraux was our Battalion-Commander and General Dodds thought a lot of him—and of us. It quite upset Dodds when Faraux was killed at the battle of G’bede, but he kept the Legion in front all the same.... So much in front that he lost me, le Légionnaire Badineff....

“I was with a small advance-guard and we were literally pushing our way through that awful jungle when the Amazons ambushed us.... Wonderful women those Amazons—far better fighters than the men—braver, stronger, cleverer, more soldierly.... Armed with short American carbines and coupe-coupes, they’re no joke!

“I don’t want to fight any better troops.... Not what you’d call good shots, but as they never make the range more than about twenty yards, they don’t miss much!...

“Well, it wasn’t many minutes before I was the only man of the advance-guard who was on his feet, and I wasn’t on those long.... For these she-devils were absolutely all round us, and as three or four rushed me with their machetes, one of them smashed me on the head, from behind, with the butt of her carbine.... Quite a useful bump too, mes amis ... for it put me to sleep for quite a while....”

“Lost your head, in fact,” put in Jacob the Jew.

“No, no,” continued the old Russian, “not yet ... but I nearly lost my wits when I recovered my senses ... if you understand me.... For the ladies had divided my property among them to the last rag of my shirt, and were now evidently turning to pleasure after business.

“Dahomeyan is not one of the languages which I speak.... I only know fourteen really well ... so I could not follow the discussion closely.... But it was quite clear that some were for fire and some for steel.... I think a small minority-party were for cord.... And I was under the impression that one merry lass capped the others’ laughing suggestions with the proposal for all three!...

“Do you know, it was for all the world like a lot of nice little girls sitting on the lawn under the trees with their kitten, joyously discussing how they should dress him up, and which ribbons they should put round his neck....

“You know how they laugh and chatter and pull the kitten about, and each one shouts a fresh idea about the dressing-up and the ribbons, and the fun generally.... Well, those nice little girls discussed dressing me—for the table—though it wasn’t a ribbon they proposed putting round my neck.... And undeniably they pulled me about!...

“I could not but admire the way they had tied me up.... I was more like a chrysalis in a cocoon than a bound man.... They were playful.... Good actresses too—as I realized afterwards.... When they saw that I had come round, one of them, eyeing me archly, drew her finger across her throat, and the others all nodded their approval.

“The young thing got up, took a bright sharp knife from her waist-belt, and came over to where I lay against the bole of a tree.

“Grabbing my throat with her left hand, she pulled up the loose skin and began to cut, just as the Leading Lady called out some fresh stage-directions—whereupon she grabbed my beard, pulled my head over to one side, and put the point of the knife in, just below my ear.... I closed my eyes and tried to think of a prayer....

“When it comes to it, having your throat cut is the nastiest death there is....

“And just as I was either going to pray or yell, there was a loud burst of laughter, and the girl went back to her place in the jolly group.... The Leading Lady then, as far as I could make out, said:

“‘Now we must really get to business or the shops will be shut’ ... and told another lassie, who possessed a good useful iron-hafted spear, to put the butt-end of it in the fire, explaining why, with appropriate gesture....

“It was evidently quite a good idea, for the girls all laughed and clapped their hands, and said what a nice party it was....

“While the spear was getting hot, they propounded all sorts of other lovely ideas, and, over the specially choice ones, they simply rocked with merriment.... It did seem a pity that one couldn’t follow all the jokes.... When the pointed haft of the spear was glowing nicely, its owner picked it up, and stepping daintily across to me, held the point a few inches from my eyes....

“Not unnaturally, I turned my head away, but, saying that that wasn’t fair, the Leading Lady and the Soubrette made one jump for me and grabbed my head....

“Fine strong hands and arms those ladies had.... I couldn’t move my face a fraction of an inch....

“And slowly ... slowly ... slowly ... that red-hot point came nearer and nearer to my right eye.... It seemed to approach for hours, and it seemed to be in the centre of my brain in a second....

“When it comes to it, mes amis, having your eyes burnt out with a red-hot spear-haft is the nastiest death there is....

“But when my right eye seemed to sizzle and boil behind its closed lid, and to be about to burst, my young friend changed her mind, and began upon the left ... and when the iron was just about to touch it she remarked, in choice Dahomeyan, I believe:

“‘Dammit! The blooming iron’s cold!’ and, with a joyous whoop, bounded back to the fire, and thrust it in again....

“Shrieks of laughter followed, and loud applause from the cheap seats.

“Meanwhile the ladies hanged me....”

“Hanged you?” inquired Jacob the Jew. “Don’t you mean they cut your head off?... You said you lost your head, you remember.”

“No, my friend,” replied Badineff, “I said I nearly lost it.... Not completely—as you have lost your manners.... What I am telling you is true.... And if you don’t like it, pray go elsewhere....”

“There’s nowhere to go but Heaven, I’m afraid,” was the reply ... “being in Hell—and Earth being denied to us.... But pray finish your story, as it is unlikely we shall meet in Heaven....”

“Yes.... They hanged me as neatly and as expeditiously as if they had had the advantage of an education in Christian customs.... They simply jerked me to my feet, made a noose in a palm-fibre cord, threw the end over the limb of a vast tree, hauled upon it and danced around me as I hung and twisted....

“They say a coward dies many times.... That was undoubtedly one of the occasions upon which I have died....

“When it comes to it, mes amis, being hanged by strangulation—and not by mere neck-break—is one of the nastiest deaths there is....

“But evidently they let me down in time and loosened the rope from about my neck, for bye-and-bye I was staring up at the stars and in full enjoyment of all my faculties.... Particularly the sense of smell....

“The intimate smell of Negro, in bulk, is like no other smell in the world.... There is nothing else like it, and there is nothing to which one can compare it—and here is a curious fact which should interest the psycho-physiologist.... Whenever I wake, as we of the Zephyrs do, dumbly sweating or wildly shrieking, from a ghastly nightmare, I can always smell Negro, most distinctly.... Very disgusting....

“Curiously enough, these fearless savage fiends, who will charge a machine-gun with the utmost bravery and with a spear, are arrant cowards at night ... in mortal fear and trembling horror of ten thousand different devils, ghosts, djinns, ghouls, goblins and evil spirits.... And when I came to, they were huddled around me for protection. I was almost crushed and buried beneath the mass of them as they lay pressed round and across me....

“As I was still most painfully bound, I can only suppose that I was, in myself, a talisman, a juju, a mascot, or shall I say, an ikon.

“And they had gathered around me in the spirit in which simple peasants might gather round a Calvary, and were using me as some might use a Cross, a holy relic or a charm....

“Yes, to this day I smell that dreadful odour—dreadful because of its associations, rather than of itself—in my worst nightmares and delirium of fever or of wounds....

“I can smell it at this moment....

“I have passed some bad nights—one, impaled on bamboo stakes at Nha-Nam in Tonkin—but this was the worst night of my life ... almost....

“And in the morning the ladies awoke, made no toilette, and gave me no food....

“But they had given me a faint hope, for I could not but realize that, so far, they had only tortured me by not torturing me at all—and it seemed that they might be keeping me, not only alive and whole, but without spot or blemish, for some excellent purpose....

“They were!...

“And when I discovered it, I was inclined to wish that they had killed me with fire or steel or cord—as they did all of our men whom they took prisoner....

“For some reason, possibly on account of my unusual size—I was a fine specimen in those days, six foot six, and with golden hair and beard—they were taking me to good King Behanzin at Kana, as an acceptable gift for a burnt-offering and a bloody sacrifice unto his gods and idols....

“There was a story afterwards, that Behanzin had been told by his sooth-sayers and medicine-men, that he would undoubtedly beat the French if a strong juju were made with the blood of a white cock that had a golden comb.... One of our officers, Captain Battreau, said I probably owed my life to my golden comb.... I have a very white skin where I am not sunburnt....

“Anyhow, the ladies took me along—by the inducement of machete-points and rhinoceros-hide whips chiefly—to Kana....

“I don’t know whether we marched for a day or for a week.... Yes.... I was strong in those days ... for I believe I ate nothing but raw carrion, and my arms were bound to my body the whole time, as though with wire....

“Kana stands on a hill and is built of earth, clay, and sun-baked bricks, inside a great high wall, yards in thickness....

“We entered through a gate like a tunnel, and, by way of filthy narrow red-earth streets, came to a second, inner wall, which surrounded the royal palaces, hareems, temples, and the House of Sacrifice....

“The yelling mob that had accompanied us from the outer gate, crowding and jeering and throwing muck at me—though they kept well out of reach of the weapons of the Amazons—evidently feared to enter this inner city, for that is what it amounted to....

“And I was handed over to a guard of long-speared ruffians and filthy priests who slung me into a big building and slammed the huge double gates.... As I staggered forward in the darkness, I slipped on the slimy, rounded cobble-stones, sprawled full-length and collapsed....

“There was a loud roaring in my ears—not the conventional roaring in the ears of a fainting man, but the buzzing of millions of billions of trillions of huge flies, that soon so completely covered me that you could not have stuck a pin into my body without killing one. Their blue-grey metallic bodies made me look as though I were clad in a complete suit of chain-mail.... And I could not move a finger even to clear my eyes.... I could only blink them.

“And as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I saw that the whitish gleaming cobble-stones were the skulls of men, sunk in the red earth.... And I realized why I was being nauseated by a terrible slaughter-house stench....

“It was a slaughter-house.... The House of Sacrifice, of Kana, the Sacred City of King Behanzin of Dahomey....

“That was another unpleasant night, mes amis.... Oh, quite unpleasant.... We are in clover here—pigs in clover.... But, mercifully, I was at the end of my tether, and I had now so little capacity for suffering, that I was not clear in my mind as to whether certain things that happened that night were real or imaginary, fact or nightmare....

“They were real enough.... And in the morning I found I was, even as I had either dreamed or realized—actually inside a great wicker bottle or basket, from the top of which my head protruded....

“I could not move a single muscle of my body save those of my face....

“The priests and executioners had been busy during the night, and I was now like a mummy in its bandages, neatly encased in the Sacrificial Basket, all ready to play my helpless part in the bloody ritual of their unspeakable religion....

“Half-dead as I already was, my one hope was that the Service would be short and early—the sacrifice soon and quick.... It is most uncomfortable to lie in a bottle with nothing to support your head....

“I could see nothing, and hear little, by reason of the huge flies ... but I was aware of tom-toming and shouting without, and hoped that it concerned me.... It did.... The gates of the House of Sacrifice were thrown open and a number of guards, priests, and executioners heaved me up from that terrible floor and carried me outside.

“Oh, the sweetness of that morning air—even in an African town.... It almost made me want to live.... And oh, the relief to have one’s head freed from an inch-thick covering of flies....

“The great Square of the inner town—a Square of which the sides were formed by, shall we say, the Palaces, Cathedrals, Convents, Monasteries and Municipal Buildings of King Behanzin—was thronged by hundreds and hundreds of warriors, both men and women. As my guards carried me across to the biggest of the buildings, all these people fell back to the sides of the Square, leaving the centre empty, save for me and my guards.

“In front of the palace, an ugly clumsy building of red earth and baked clay bricks, sat Behanzin, King of Dahomey, on the Royal Stool. Around him were grouped his courtiers.... I think that His Majesty and they formed one of the least pleasing groups of human beings I have ever encountered—and I have known quite a lot of kings and their ministers....

“As I have already observed, I do not speak Dahomeyan, and at that moment I deeply regretted the fact, and equally so, that none of them understood Russian or even French.... However, French I spoke, in the vain hope that a word or two, here and there, might be understood.

“A few were, as I will tell you....

“My speech was brief and blunt.... I told Behanzin that he was the nastiest king I knew ... the ugliest ... the foulest ... the filthiest ... the most abandoned and degraded.... And I should be much obliged if someone would remove me from a world which he contaminated....

“I had not finished even these few and well-chosen words before I was again seized by my porters and carried to the very centre of the Square, and there abandoned.

“Immediately the Public, obviously well accustomed to these out-door sports and pastimes, fell into perfectly straight lines on each of the sides of the Square, and assumed the position of sprinters at the starting-point of a race—but each with a coupe-coupe, knife, axe or spear in his right hand—and looked to His Majesty for the signal.

“The King rose from his royal stool, raised his spear aloft and gazed around....

“I also gazed around, having just grasped the underlying idea of the National Sport, a game in which I had never hitherto taken part, nor even seen....

“Of course—how stupid of me—it was a race-game, a go-as-you-please, run-walk-hop-or-jump.... And my head was the prize!

“I wondered whether His Majesty had gathered that my brief address was not couched in diplomatic language.... He certainly now prolonged what was, to me, a painful moment.... He stood like an ebon statue, his white ostrich feathers nodding in the breeze, his handsome cloak hanging gracefully from his great shoulders, his spear uplifted, motionless....

“When that spear fell, I knew that every competitor of those hundreds surrounding me, would bound forward like a greyhound unleashed. For a few seconds I should see them race toward me, their bloodthirsty faces alight with the lust of slaughter, their gleaming weapons raised aloft.... And I should go down, the centre of a maelstrom of clutching hands and hacking blades....

“I wondered what would be the reward of the proud winner of the King’s Trophy—the head of the white cock with a golden comb ... the essential ingredient for the making of the strong juju that was to defeat the French....

“That black devil, Behanzin, stood steady as a rock, and there was absolute silence in that great Square, as all awaited the fall of the flag, or rather the shining spear-head....

“A woman, standing in a doorway, giggled nervously, and a crouching sprinter, presumably her lord, looked back over his shoulder—only to receive her sharp rebuke for taking his eye off the ball....

“Another woman dashed forward and handed her husband a machete, taking his spear back into the hut.... I imagined his saying to her, just before he left the house, ‘Tatiana, my dear, run upstairs and find that new machete I ordered last week.... I think it’s on the top of the wardrobe in my dressing-room, unless that wretched girl has put it somewhere.’...

“And then I glanced again at the King.... Even as I did so, the raised spear-head, which probably had only been uplifted for five seconds after all, began to travel slowly backward.... And there was an audible intaking of breath.... Evidently the giving of the signal had begun, and in the fraction of a second, the broad, bright spear-head would come flashing downward....

“I closed my eyes....

“Boom ... BANG!

“I nearly jumped out of my bottle....

“Boom ... BANG!

“Two shells had burst in Kana, one just above the inner wall, the other in the corner of the Square itself....

“Our guns!... Our guns!...

“The runners were running indeed—for their own heads.... King Behanzin ‘also ran’ ... if indeed he did not get a win or a place....

“I was forgotten ... before ever the third and fourth shells arrived.... Oh, God! I was not forgotten!... There was one competitor left!... I supposed he felt attracted by the walk-over.... As he dashed toward me, straight as an arrow, yelling madly, a great spear in his hand, I saw that he was one of the group of courtiers ... the man indeed who had stood nearest to the King....

“I admit, mes amis, that it seemed to me a little hard, more than a little hard, that with the flight of all those hundreds and hundreds of murderous slayers, this solitary one should prefer my life to his own ... should not realize that the match was abandoned ... the race scratched ... the proceedings postponed....

“A fellow of one idea.... A case of the idée fixe.... No sportsman, anyhow.... The sort of man that steals the Gold Cup....

“I had been through so much, mes amis, from the time that that Amazon had hit me on the head, that I really rebelled a little at this last cruelty of a mocking Fate.

“Saved by the bursting of the shells at the fifty-ninth second of the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, and then this one solitary, implacable madman to fail to realize that I had been saved!...

“Nearer ... nearer ... he came—and by the time that he was a few yards from me, he and I were alone in that great Square....

“Would he drive that huge spear through my body, and then clumsily hack my head off with the edge of its broad blade?

“How I hoped that the next shell would blow his limbs from his body, though it killed me too.... Another bound and he would be on me.... I closed my eyes—and the Nightmare Slayer flung his arm round me, and, in execrable French, panted:

“‘You tell Frenchies I be verra good man, massa.... I belong Coast ... belong French shippy.... I good friend loving Frenchies.... I interpreter.... I show Frenchies where old Behanzin bury gin, rum, brandy, ivory....’

“Another shell burst.... And the Nightmare Slayer tipped my basket over, and, flat upon the ground, the lion and the lamb lay down together....

“That, mes amis, was how I nearly lost my head....

“We must not lose ours here, for, as you perceive, there are far worse places than this one.... I rather like it....”