The Dark Man and Others, page 23
From this point Tussmann’s narrative became so vague that I had some difficulty in following him and wondered if the tropic sun had affected his mind. He had opened a hidden door in the altar somehow with the jewel—just how, he did not plainly say, and it struck me that he did not clearly understand himself the action of the jewel-key. But the opening of the secret door had had a bad effect on the hardy rogues in his employ. They had refused point-blank to follow him through that gaping black opening which had appeared so mysteriously when the gem was touched to the altar.
Tussmann entered alone with his pistol and electric torch, finding a narrow stone stair that wound down into the bowels of the earth, apparently. He followed this and presence came into a broad corridor, in the blackness of which his tiny beam of light was almost engulfed. As he told this he spoke with strange annoyance of a toad which hopped ahead of him, just beyond the circle of light, all the time he was below ground.
Making his way along dank tunnels and stairways that were wells of solid blackness, he at last came to a heavy door fantastically carved, which he felt must be the crypt wherein was secreted the gold of the ancient worshippers. He pressed the toad-jewel against it at several places and finally the door gaped wide.
“And the treasure?” I broke in eagerly.
He laughed in savage self-mockery.
“There was no gold there, no precious gems—nothing”—he hesitated—“nothing that I could bring away.”
Again his tale lapsed into vagueness. I gathered that he had left the temple rather hurriedly without searching any further for the supposed treasure. He had intended bringing the mummy away with him, he said, to present to some museum, but when he came up out of the pits, it could not be found and he believed that his men, in superstitious aversion to having such a companion on their road to the coast, had thrown it into some well or cavern.
“And so,” he concluded, “I am in England again no richer than when I left.”
“You have the jewel,” I reminded him. “Surely it is valuable.” *
He eyed it without favor, but with a sort of fierce avidness almost obsessional.
“Would you say that it is a ruby?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I am unable to classify it.”
“And I. But let me see the book.”
He slowly turned the heavy pages, his lips moving as he - read. Sometimes he shook his head as if puzzled, and I noticed him dwell long over a certain line.
“This man dipped so deeply into forbidden things,” said he, “I can not wonder that his fate was so strange and mysterious. He must have had some foreboding of his end—here he warns men not to disturb sleeping things.”
Tussmann seemed lost in thought for some moments.
“Aye, sleeping things,” he muttered, “that seem dead, but only lie waiting for some blind fool to awake them—I should have read further in the Black Book—and I should have shut the door when I left the crypt—but I have the key and 111 keep it in spite of hell.”
He roused himself from his reveries and was about to speak when he stopped short. From somewhere upstairs had come a peculiar sound.
“What was that?” He glared at me. I shook my head and he ran to the door and shouted for a servant. The man entered a few moments later and he was rather pale.
“You were upstairs?” growled Tussmann.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you hear anything?” asked Tussmann harshly and in a manner almost threatening and accusing.
“I did, sir,” the man answered with a puzzled look on his face.
“What did you hear?” The question was fairly snarled.
“Well, sir/’ the man laughed apologetically, “you’ll say I’m a bit off, I fear, but to tell you the truth, sir, it sounded like a horse stamping around on the roof!”
A blaze of absolute madness leaped into Tussmarm’s eyes.
“You fool!” he screamed. “Get out of here!” The man shrank back in amazement and Tussmann snatched up the gleaming toad-carved jewel.
“I’ve been a fool!” he raved. “I didn’t read far enough—and I should have shut the door—but by heaven, the key is mine and I’ll keep it in spite of man or devil.”
And with these strange words he turned and fled upstairs. A moment later his door slammed heavily and a servant, knocking timidly, brought forth only a blasphemous order to retire and a luridly worded threat to shoot any one who tried to obtain entrance into the room.
Had it not been so late I would have left the house, for I was certain that Tussmann was stark mad. As it was, I retired to the room a frightened servant showed me, but I did not go to bed. I opened the pages of the Black Book at the place where Tussmann had been reading.
This much was evident, unless the man was utterly insane: he had stumbled upon something unexpected in the Temple of the Toad. Something unnatural about the opening of the altar door had frightened his men, and in the subterraneous crypt Tussmann had found something that he had not thought to find. And I believed that he had been followed from Central America, and that the reason for his persecution was the jewel he called the Key.
Seeking some clue in Von Junzt’s volume, I read again of the Temple of the Toad, of the strange pre-Indian people who worshipped there, and of the huge, tittering, tentacled, hoofed monstrosity that they worshipped.
Tussmann had said that he had not read far enough when he had first seen the book. Puzzling over this cryptic phrase I came upon the line he had pored over—marked by his thumb nail. It seemed to me to be another of Von Junzt’s many ambiguities, for it merely stated that a temple’s god was the temples treasure. Then the dark implication of the hint struck me and cold sweat beaded my forehead.
The Key to the Treasure! And the temple’s treasure was the temple’s god! And sleeping Things might awaken on the opening of their prison door! I sprang up, unnerved by the intolerable suggestion, and at that moment something crashed in the stillness and the death-scream of a human being burst -upon my ears.
In an instant I was out of the room, and as I dashed up the stairs I heard sounds that have made me doubt my sanity ever since. At Tussmann’s door I halted, essaying with shaking hand to turn the knob. The door was locked, and as I hesitated I heard from within a hideous high-pitched tittering and then the disgusting squashy sound as if a great, jellylike bulk was being forced through the window. The sound ceased and I could have sworn I heard a faint swish of gigantic wings. Then silence.
Gathering my shattered nerves, I broke down the door. A foul and overpowering stench billowed out like a yellow mist. Gasping in nausea I entered. The room was in ruins, but nothing was missing except that crimson toad-carved jewel Tussmann called the Key, and that was never found. A foul, unspeakable slime smeared the windowsill, and in the center of the room lay Tussmann, his head crushed and flattened; and on the red ruin of skull and face, the plain print of an enormous hoof.
The Hyena
From the time when I first saw Senecoza, the fetish-man, I distrusted him, and from vague distrust the idea eventually grew into hatred.
I was but newly come to the East Coast, new to African ways, somewhat inclined to follow my impulses, and possessed of a large amount of curiosity.
Because I came from Virginia, race instinct and prejudice were strong in me, and doubtless the feeling of inferiority which Senecoza constantly inspired in me had a great deal to do with my antipathy for him.
He was surprisingly tall, and lankly built. Six inches above six feet he stood, and so muscular was his spare frame that he weighed a good two hundred pounds. His weight seemed incredible when one looked at his lanky build, but he was all muscle—a lean, black giant. His features were not pure negro. They more resembled Berber than Bantu, with the high, bulging forehead, thin nose and thin, straight lips. But his hair was as kinky as a Bushman’s and his color was blacker even than the Masai. In fact, his glossy hide had a different hue from those of the native tribesmen, and I believe that he was of a different tribe.
It was seldom that we of the ranch saw him. Then without warning he would be among us, or we would see him striding through the shoulder-high grass of the veldt, sometimes alone, sometimes followed at a respectful distance by several of the wilder Masai, who bunched up at a distance from the buildings, grasping their spears nervously and eyeing everyone suspiciously.
He would make his greetings with a courtly grace; his man* ner was deferentially courteous, but somehow it “rubbed me the wrong way,” so to speak. I always had a vague feeling that the black was mocking us. He would stand before us, a naked bronze giant; make trade for a few simple articles, such as a copper kettle, beads or a trade musket; repeat words of some chief, and take his departure.
I did not like him. And being young and impetuous, I spoke my opinion to Ludtvik Strolvaus, a very distant relative, tenth cousin or suchlike, on whose trading-post ranch I was staying.
But Ludtvik chuckled in his blond beard and said that the fetish-man was all right
“A power he is among the natives, true. They all fear him. But a friend he is to the whites. Ja.”
Ludtvik was long a resident on the East Coast; he knew natives and he knew the fat Australian cattle he raised, but he had little imagination.
The ranch buildings were in the midst of a stockade, on a kind of slope, overlooking countless miles on miles of the finest grazing land in Africa. The stockade was large, well suited for defense. Most of the thousand cattle could be driven inside in case of an uprising of the Masai. Ludtvik was inordinately proud of his cattle.
“One thousand now,” he would tell me, his round face beaming, “one thousand now. But later, ah! ten thousand and another ten thousand. This is a good beginning, but only a beginning, Ja.”
I must confess that I got little thrill out of the cattle. Natives herded and corralled them; all Ludtvik and I had to do was to ride about and give orders. That was the work he liked best, and I left it mostly to him.
My chief sport was in riding away across the veldt, alone or attended by a gun-bearer, with a rifle. Not that I ever bagged much game. In the first place I was an execrable marksman; I could hardly have hit an elephant at close range. In the second place, it seemed to me a shame to shoot-so many things. A bush-antelope would bound up in front of me and race away, and I would sit watching him, admiring
208 the slim, lithe figure, thrilled with the graceful beauty of the creature, my rifle lying idle across my saddle-horn.
The native boy who served as my gun-bearer began to suspect that I was deliberately refraining from shooting, and he began in a covert way to throw sneering hints about my womanishness. I was young and valued even the opinion of a native; which is very foolish. His remarks stung my pride, and one day I hauled him off his horse and pounded him until he yelled for mercy. Thereafter my doings were not questioned.
But still I felt inferior when in the presence of the fetish-man. I could not get the other natives to talk about him. All I could get out of them was a scared rolling of eyeballs, gesticulation indicative of fear, and vague information that the fetish-man dwelt among the tribes some distance in the interior. General opinion seemed to be that Senecoza was a good man to let alone.
One incident made the mystery about the fetish-man take on, it seemed, a rather sinister form.
In the mysterious way that news travels in Africa, and which white men so seldom hear of, we learned that Senecoza and a minor chief had had a falling out of some kind. It was vague and seemed to have no special basis of fact But shortly afterward that chief was found half-devoured by hyenas. That, in itself, was not unusual, but the fright with which the natives heard the news was. The chief was nothing to them; in fact he was something of a villain, but his killing seemed to inspire them with a fright that was little short of homicidal. When the black reaches a certain stage of fear, he is as dangerous as a cornered panther. The next time Senecoza called, they rose and fled en masse and did not return until he had taken his departure.
Between the fear of the blacks, the tearing to pieces of the chief by the hyenas, and the fetish-man, I seemed to sense vaguely a connection of some kind. But I could not grasp the intangible thought.
Not long thereafter, that thought was intensified by another incident. I had ridden far out on the veldt, accompanied by my servant As we paused to rest our horses close to a kopje, I saw, upon the top, a hyena eyeing* us. Rather surprised, for the beasts are not in the habit of thus boldly approaching man in the daytime, I raised my rifle and was taking a steady aim, for I always hated the things, when my servant caught my arm.
“No shoot, bwana! No shoot!” he exclaimed hastily, jabbering a great deal in his own language, with which I was not familiar.
“What’s up?” I asked impatiently.
He kept on jabbering and pulling my arm, until I gathered that the hyena was a fetish-beast of some kind.
“Oh, all right,” I conceded, lowering my rifle just as the hyena turned and sauntered out of sight
Something about the lank, repulsive beast and his shambling yet gracefully lithe walk struck my sense of humor with a ludicrous comparison.
Laughing, I pointed toward the beast and said, “That fellow looks like a hyena-imitation of Senecoza, the fetish-man.” My simple statement seemed to throw the native into a more abject fear than ever.
He turned his pony and dashed off in the general direction of the ranch, looking back at me with a scared face.
I followed, annoyed. And as I rode I pondered. Hyenas, a fetish-man, a chief tom to pieces, a countryside of natives in fear; what was the connection? I puzzled and puzzled, but I was new to Africa; I was young and impatient, and presently with a shrug of annoyance I discarded the whole problem.
The next time Senecoza came to the ranch, he managed to stop directly in front of me. For a fleeting instant his glittering eyes looked into mine. And in spite of myself, I shuddered and stepped back, involuntarily, feeling much as a man feels who looks unaware into the eyes of a serpent There was nothing tangible, nothing on which I could base a quarrel, but there was a distinct threat Before my Nordic pugnacity could reassert itself, he was gone. I said nothing. But I knew that Senecoza hated me for some reason and that he plotted my killing. Why, I did not know.
As for me, my distrust grew into bewildered rage, which in ’ turn became hate.
And then Ellen Farel came to the ranch. Why she should choose a trading-ranch in East Africa for a place to rest from the society life of New York, I do not know. Africa is no place for a woman. That is what Ludtvik, also a cousin of hers, told her, but he was overjoyed to see her. As for me, girls never interested me much; usually I felt like a fool in their presence and was glad to be out. But there were few whites in the vicinity and I tired of the company of Ludtvik.
Ellen was standing on the wide veranda when I first saw her, a slim, pretty young thing, with rosy cheeks and hair like gold and large gray eyes. She was surprisingly winsome in her costume of riding-breeches, puttees, jacket and light helmet.
I felt extremely awkward, dusty and stupid as I sat on my wiry African pony and stared at her.
She saw a stocky youth of medium height, with sandy hair, eyes in which a kind of gray predominated; an ordinary, unhandsome youth, clad in dusty riding-clothes and a cartridge belt on one side of which was slung an ancient Colt of big caliber, and on the other a long, wicked hunting-knife,
I dismounted, and she came forward, hand outstretched.
“I’m Ellen,” she said, “and I know you’re Steve. Cousin Ludtvik has been telling me about you.”
I shook hands, surprised at the thrill the mere touch of her hand gave me.
She was enthusiastic about the ranch. She was enthusiastic about everything. Seldom have I seen anyone who had more vigor and vim, more enjoyment of everything done. She fairly scintillated with mirth and gayety.
Ludtvik gave her the best horse on the place, and we rode much about the ranch and over the veldt.
The blacks interested her much. They were afraid of her, not being used to white women. She would have been off her horse and playing with the pickaninnies if I had let her. She couldn’t understand why she should treat the black people as dust beneath her feet We had long arguments about it. I could not convince her, so I told her bluntly that she didn’t know anything about it and she must do as I told her.
She pouted her pretty lips and called me a tyrant, and then was off over the veldt like an antelope, laughing at me over her shoulder, her hair blowing free in the breeze.
Tyrant! I was her slave from the first. Somehow the idea of becoming a lover never entered my mind. It was not the fact that she was several years older than I, or that she had a sweetheart (several of them, I think) back in New York. Simply, I worshipped her; her presence intoxicated me, and I could think of no more enjoyable existence than serving her as a devoted slave.
I was mending a saddle one day when she came running in.
“Oh, Steve!” she called; “there’s the most romantic-looking savage! Come quick and tell me what his name is.”
She led me out of the veranda.
“There he is,” she said, naively pointing. Arms folded, haughty head thrown back, stood Senecoza.
