Red Shadows - Robert E. Howard (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📗
- Author: Robert E. Howard
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attention.
He waved Gulka aside with a grand gesture, and the gorilla-man
slunk back, apparently to get out of N’Longa’s gaze—then with
incredible swiftness he turned and struck the ju-ju man a terrific
blow upon the side of the head with his open hand. N’Longa went down
like a felled ox, and in an instant he had been seized and bound to a
post close to Kane. An uncertain murmuring rose from the Negroes,
which died out as King Songa stared angrily toward them.
Le Loup leaned back upon his throne and laughed uproariously.
“The trail ends here, Monsieur Galahad. That ancient fool
thought I did not know of his plotting! I was hiding outside the hut
and heard the interesting conversation you two had. Ha! ha! ha! ha!
The Black God must drink, Monsieur, but I have persuaded Songa to
have you two burnt; that will be much more enjoyable, though we shall
have to forego the usual feast, I fear. For after the fires are lit
about your feet the devil himself could not keep your carcasses from
becoming charred frames of bone.”
Songa shouted something imperiously, and blacks came bearing wood,
which they piled about the feet of N’Longa and Kane. The ju-ju man had
recovered consciousness, and he now shouted something in his native
language. Again the murmuring arose among the shadowy throng. Songa
snarled something in reply.
Kane gazed at the scene almost impersonally. Again, somewhere in
his soul, dim primal deeps were stirring, age-old thought memories,
veiled in the fogs of lost eons. He had been here before, thought
Kane; he knew all this of old—the lurid flames beating back the
sullen night, the bestial faces leering expectantly, and the god, the
Black God, there in the shadows! Always the Black God, brooding back
in the shadows. He had known the shouts, the frenzied chant of the
worshipers, back there in the gray dawn of the world, the speech of
the bellowing drums, the singing priests, the repellent, inflaming,
all-pervading scent of freshly spilt blood. All this have I known,
somewhere, sometime, thought Kane; now I am the main actor—
He became aware that someone was speaking to him through the roar
of the drums; he had not realized that the drums had begun to boom
again. The speaker was N’Longa:
“Me pow’rful ju-ju man! Watch now: I work mighty magic. Songa!”
His voice rose in a screech that drowned out the wildly clamoring
drums.
Songa grinned at the words N’Longa screamed at him. The chant of
the drums now had dropped to a low, sinister monotone and Kane plainly
heard Le Loup when he spoke:
“N’Longa says that he will now work that magic which it is death
to speak, even. Never before has it been worked in the sight of living
men; it is the nameless ju-ju magic. Watch closely, Monsieur;
possibly we shall be further amused.” The Wolf laughed lightly and
sardonically.
A black man stooped, applying a torch to the wood about Kane’s
feet. Tiny jets of flame began to leap up and catch. Another bent to
do the same with N’Longa, then hesitated. The ju-ju man sagged in his
bonds; his head drooped upon his chest. He seemed dying.
Le Loup leaned forward, cursing, “Feet of the Devil! Is the
scoundrel about to cheat us of our pleasure of seeing him writhe in
the flames?”
The warrior gingerly touched the wizard and said something in his
own language.
Le Loup laughed: “He died of fright. A great wizard, by the—”
His voice trailed off suddenly. The drums stopped as if the
drummers had fallen dead simultaneously. Silence dropped like a fog
upon the village and in the stillness Kane heard only the sharp
crackle of the flames whose heat he was beginning to feel.
All eyes were turned upon the dead man upon the altar, _for the
corpse had begun to move!_
First a twitching of a hand, then an aimless motion of an arm, a
motion which gradually spread over the body and limbs. Slowly, with
blind, uncertain gestures, the dead man turned upon his side, the
trailing limbs found the earth. Then, horribly like something being
born, like some frightful reptilian thing bursting the shell of non-existence, the corpse tottered and reared upright, standing on legs
wide apart and stiffly braced, arms still making useless, infantile
motions. Utter silence, save somewhere a man’s quick breath sounded
loud in the stillness.
Kane stared, for the first time in his life smitten speechless and
thoughtless. To his Puritan mind this was Satan’s hand manifested.
Le Loup sat on his throne, eyes wide and staring, hand still half-raised in the careless gesture he was making when frozen into silence
by the unbelievable sight. Songa sat beside him, mouth and eyes wide
open, fingers making curious jerky motions upon the carved arms of the
throne.
Now the corpse was upright, swaying on stiltlike legs, body
tilting far back until the sightless eyes seemed to stare straight
into the red moon that was just rising over the black jungle. The
thing tottered uncertainly in a wide, erratic half-circle, arms flung
out grotesquely as if in balance, then swayed about to face the two
thrones—and the Black God. A burning twig at Kane’s feet cracked like
the crash of a cannon in the tense silence. The horror thrust forth a
black foot—it took a wavering step—another. Then with stiff, jerky
and automatonlike steps, legs straddled far apart, the dead man came
toward the two who sat in speechless horror to each side of the Black
God.
“Ah-h-h!” from somewhere came the explosive sigh, from that
shadowy semicircle where crouched the terror-fascinated worshipers.
Straight on stalked the grim specter. Now it was within three strides
of the thrones, and Le Loup, faced by fear for the first time in his
bloody life, cringed back in his chair; while Songa, with a superhuman
effort breaking the chains of horror that held him helpless, shattered
the night with a wild scream and, springing to his feet, lifted a
spear, shrieking and gibbering in wild menace. Then as the ghastly
thing halted not its frightful advance, he hurled the spear with all
the power of his great, black muscles, and the spear tore through the
dead man’s breast with a rending of flesh and bone. Not an instant
halted the thing—for the dead die not—and Songa the king stood
frozen, arms outstretched as if to fend off the terror.
An instant they stood so, leaping firelight and eery moonlight
etching the scene forever in the minds of the beholders. The
changeless staring eyes of the corpse looked full into the bulging
eyes of Songa, where were reflected all the hells of horror. Then with
a jerky motion the arms of the thing went out and up. The dead hands
fell on Songa’s shoulders. At the first touch, the king seemed to
shrink and shrivel, and with a scream that was to haunt the dreams of
every watcher through all the rest of time, Songa crumpled and fell,
and the dead man reeled stiffly and fell with him. Motionless lay the
two at the feet of the Black God, and to Kane’s dazed mind it seemed
that the idol’s great, inhuman eyes were fixed upon them with
terrible, still laughter.
At the instant of the king’s fall, a great shout went up from the
blacks, and Kane, with a clarity lent his subconscious mind by the
depths of his hate, looked for Le Loup and saw him spring from his
throne and vanish in the darkness. Then vision was blurred by a rush
of black figures who swept into the space before the god. Feet knocked
aside the blazing brands whose heat Kane had forgotten, and dusky
hands freed him; others loosed the wizard’s body and laid it upon the
earth. Kane dimly understood that the blacks believed this thing to be
the work of N’Longa, and that they connected the vengeance of the
wizard with himself. He bent, laid a hand on the ju-ju man’s shoulder.
No doubt of it: he was dead, the flesh was already cold. He glanced at
the other corpses. Songa was dead, too, and the thing that had slain
him lay now without movement.
Kane started to rise, then halted. Was he dreaming, or did he
really feel a sudden warmth in the dead flesh he touched? Mind
reeling, he again bent over the wizard’s body, and slowly he felt
warmness steal over the limbs and the blood begin to flow sluggishly
through the veins again.
Then N’Longa opened his eyes and stared up into Kane’s, with the
blank expression of a new-born babe. Kane watched, flesh crawling, and
saw the knowing, reptilian glitter come back, saw the wizard’s thick
lips part in a wide grin. N’Longa sat up, and a strange chant arose
from the Negroes.
Kane looked about. The blacks were all kneeling, swaying their
bodies to and fro, and in their shouts Kane caught the word,
“N’Longa!” repeated over and over in a kind of fearsomely ecstatic
refrain of terror and worship. As the wizard rose, they all fell
prostrate.
N’Longa nodded, as if in satisfaction.
“Great ju-ju—great fetish, me!” he announced to Kane. “You see?
My ghost go out—kill Songa—come back to me! Great magic! Great
fetish, me!”
Kane glanced at the Black God looming back in the shadows, at
N’Longa, who now flung out his arms toward the idol as if in
invocation.
I am everlasting (Kane thought the Black God said); I drink, no
matter who rules; chiefs, slayers, wizards, they pass like the ghosts
of dead men through the gray jungle; I stand, I rule; I am the soul of
the jungle (said the Black God).
Suddenly Kane came back from the illusory mists in which he had
been wandering. “The white man! Which way did he flee?”
N’Longa shouted something. A score of dusky hands pointed; from
somewhere Kane’s rapier was thrust out to him. The fogs faded and
vanished; again he was the avenger, the scourge of the unrighteous;
with the sudden volcanic speed of a tiger he snatched the sword and
was gone.
Chapter 5. The End of the Red Trail
Limbs and vines slapped against Kane’s face. The oppressive steam
of the tropic night rose like mist about him. The moon, now floating
high above the jungle, limned the black shadows in its white glow and
patterned the jungle floor in grotesque designs. Kane knew not if the
man he sought was ahead of him, but broken limbs and trampled
underbrush showed that some man had gone that way, some man who fled
in haste, nor halted to pick his way. Kane followed these signs
unswervingly. Believing in the justice of his vengeance, he did not
doubt that the dim beings who rule men’s destinies would finally bring
him face to face with Le Loup.
Behind him the drums boomed and muttered. What a tale they had to
tell this night of the triumph of N’Longa, the death of the black
king, the overthrow of the white-man-with-eyes-like-a-leopard, and a
more darksome tale, a tale to be whispered in low, muttering
vibrations: the nameless ju-ju.
Was he dreaming? Kane wondered as he hurried on. Was all this part
of some foul magic? He had seen a dead man rise and slay and die
again; he had seen a man die and come to life again. Did N’Longa in
truth send his ghost, his soul, his life essence forth into the void,
dominating a corpse to do his will? Aye, N’Longa died a real death
there, bound to the torture stake, and he who lay dead on the altar
rose and
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