Juju by Murray Leinster (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📗

toys, everything else lay as it had last been used by its owners. Only a few native dogs skulked around the silent huts. There was not a single sign that gave a hint of the reason for the mysterious exodus of the natives.

"I've not been out here long," said Arthur crisply, "but I've learned that when natives do inexplicable things, juju is at the bottom of it. What do you say?"

"I agree with you. I wish I could see some signs, though. I can read some juju palaver. But there isn't a sign. No charms, no spoor whatever. We'll go back to the house and talk it over with Evan."

We started slowly back toward the house. I was walking on ahead, puzzling over the oddities of the situation and trying to piece together a meaning in it all when Arthur stopped short. His voice reached me, little more than a whisper.

"Murray," he said sharply, "that pongo is trailing us."

I listened, but could hear nothing. One would hardly expect a white man's ears to detect a gorilla taking special pains to be quiet. Arthur seemed to hear something, however. He quietly raised his rifle. I followed the direction in which he was pointing, but could see nothing. He fired. A branch swayed slightly where his bullet had grazed it, but aside from that there was no sign.

"I didn't see a thing," I remarked.

Arthur shook his head. "It may be nerves," he said quietly. "That damned beast has haunted me, but I think I saw it."

We went on up to the house slowly. Just before we reached the porch Arthur looked at me pitifully.

"I heard it following us all the way," he told me. The perspiration was standing out on his forehead. "It is there, and it is waiting for a chance to revenge itself on me. And the beast has learned cunning! We must look out for Alicia."

I nodded. Evan was waiting for us.

"Find anything?" he called down. "What did you shoot at?"

"The gorilla," said Arthur in a low tone. "It's there and it's determined. We'd better warn Alicia and Mrs. Braymore."

Evan looked dubious. "Did Murray see it?"

I shook my head.

Evan frowned thoughtfully. "Arthur, old chap, it may be just nerves. The women have enough to worry them with the way the natives are acting, anyway. We'll keep a sharp lookout, of course. I'm going to hunt up those natives, though."

"They're your natives," I said, "but I question whether that's a wise move. If it's just native foolishness, they'll come back. If not, they're liable to be pretty—well, reckless."

"They're my natives," said Evan angrily. "I don't intend to humor them. I'll throw a scare into them that will last them ten years. If I know anything of juju——"

"What?" I asked.

"They'll never dare breathe without permission hereafter," Evan said grimly.

He seemed to be in a cold fury. Remembering the abject fear in which his slaves seemed to be all the time, I wondered what he might have in store for them. I opened my mouth to protest against his trying to look for his natives, but stopped. That juju house at which my boys had hinted, concealed in some hidden clearing near the village, might hold a secret by which he controlled them. In any event, he knew his own natives best.

We went into the house and sat down to breakfast. We must have made a queer sight, sitting there before that spotless table, our clothing disheveled and hastily donned, our rifles leaning against our chairs. Neither Arthur nor myself could eat more than a little, but Evan's appetite seemed undiminished. The native girl waited on us, the lurking panic in her eyes never very far from the surface. It seemed nearest when she looked at Evan.

I was most worried about my own boys. It was decidedly queer that they had deserted me, especially Mboka. He had been with me for all of a year, and I had really grown to trust him. He had gone with the others, though, and the very mystery of his disappearance seemed to add somewhat to the menace of the silence that surrounded us.

When I thought of it, however, it was no less odd that Evan's overseers had vanished. From the nature of their position, they would be hated by the other and full-blooded natives, and it was singular in the extreme that they had gone with them.

Then I remembered a tale I had once heard, of a mystic voodoo worship that was spreading secretly over the whole of West Africa. The story ran that an attempt was being made to band all the natives possible together in this voodoo worship, and then at a given signal they were all to rise. The Indian Mutiny would be repeated. Every white man on the West Coast would be rushed by the nearest blacks, and the dominance of the white race made a thing of the past, in Africa any rate.

I felt cold at the thought that the attempt—which I had thought dead these many years—might have been secretly and insidiously winning converts all this time, and that all the blacks between us and the coast might be risen and only waiting for courage to attack us. We were the only whites in a hundred and fifty miles anyway, and if the strange behavior of the natives meant mischief, we were probably doomed as it was. It gave me a sickish feeling to think that the other might be true, though, that a second mutiny was in progress.

As if to confirm my belief, at just that moment, drums began to beat, far off in the bush. To the south of us they began their monotonous, rhythmic rumble. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Never a pause, never skipping a beat, never altering in the slightest the hypnotic muttering. We stopped eating and stared at each other. The drums throbbed on, sullenly, far, far away. Evan grew angry at the insolence of his slaves. I looked at Alicia and made a mental vow that my last cartridge should be saved for her. Arthur listened with an air of detachment, and then went on with his breakfast.

The first drums had been beating for perhaps fifteen minutes when, to the northeast, more drums took up the rhythmic pounding. Evan's eyes narrowed. He went to a window and looked out. As he moved, he passed close to the native girl, and she shrank back fearfully. While he stared out across the clearing, a third set of drums began to beat—to the northwest, this time. We were ringed in.

Evan came to the table with a grim expression on his face. "The black fools!" he said furiously. "They dared not come to me! I'll go to them and put a stop to this!"

"Evan!" exclaimed Alicia, frightened. "You'll stay here with us!"

"This is no time for caution," said Evan grimly. "If we leave them alone, they'll hold a juju palaver until they've gathered nerve to rush us. I'll walk in on their council, and we'll see what happens."

"I'll go," said Arthur, quickly sensing the psychology of the move Evan proposed to make. "I'd better go."

"It would be suicide!" Alicia exclaimed again. "One white man among all those blacks. They could kill you in an instant."

"That is precisely why they would be afraid to," I interposed. "The mere fact that a white man dared walk into their palaver and order them about, would frighten them. No negro would dare do it, and they would not understand how a white man could. It's quite possible that a sheer bluff may win out. Of course we've got to do something. I think I'd better go, though. My boys are in that crowd and they're rather fond of me, I believe. I'll have some of them halfway with me at the start."

Evan shook his head. "Your boys are in that crowd," he said curtly, "but the very fact that they're fond of you will make them kill you that much quicker. You know natives. Now my natives hate me like poison, and there's not one of them but would kill me like a shot if he dared. They'll be afraid when I drop in on them. I'm the one to go and I'm going. Besides, I know the local dialect. You don't. You'll hear one set of drums stop in half an hour."

He picked up his rifle and went out of the door. Alicia watched him leave, her face utterly pale.

"He's going to his death!" she said in a whisper. "Stop him, oh, please stop him!"

"We're all in just as much danger as he is, dear," said Arthur tenderly. "He's taking the one chance that may bring us out of this without fighting. He'll go into the middle of that bunch of natives and by sheer nerve frighten them into doing as he says. If all three of us went, we'd be rushed on sight."

Alicia's lips trembled, and Arthur tried to comfort her. I went to the door and stood looking after Evan. It was illogical, but with all of us very probably facing death, and certainly a siege, I was struck with a pang of jealousy when I saw Arthur put his arms about Alicia's shoulder to comfort her. Mrs. Braymore was white to the lips, but gamely tried to be casual and cheerful. She came and stood by me as I looked out of the door.

"Quite frankly," she asked me quietly, "what are our chances?"

"I don't know," I told her gloomily. "We don't even know what the natives are up to yet. Those drums do not sound well. They may mean anything and they may mean nothing."

Mrs. Braymore looked at me searchingly. Any one could see that she was frightened, but she was doing her best not to show it.

"And if they mean—anything?"

"There is a Portuguese fort a hundred and fifty miles away," I answered grimly. "They might send soldiers to lift the siege on us if they hear about it. I'm assuming we'll be besieged. Things look that way. Evan must have treated his slaves worse than usual. Usually they simply run away. It's not often they try anything of this kind. I don't like the sound of those drums. That means organization and purpose. All I can say is that I hope Evan succeeds with the natives."

Mrs. Braymore blanched a little more, but smiled as bravely as she could.

"Well," she said quietly, "I know Alicia well enough to promise you that we'll be as little of a drawback as possible. If you decide to try anything drastic, such as attempting to escape through the bush, we'll do our best to keep up. And I think both of us are fairly good shots."

"I'm hoping there'll be no need for anything on that order," I said with more respect than before in my tone. "We'll try to stick it out here. My boys are loyal, I think, at least they've been loyal up to now, and even if we are besieged, one of them will probably take a message to the fort."

I had little enough hope of that, Heaven knows, but I did not want Mrs. Braymore to worry more than was necessary. She seemed to realize that I was speaking more from my hopes than my beliefs, because she shrugged her shoulders.

"There's really no need to soften things for me," she said, "Alicia and I won't——"

She stopped and caught her breath. A shot had sounded, off in the bush from the direction in which Evan had vanished. A second's interval, and another shot. Then there was a horrid outcry, and a maniacal shrieking.

"The gorilla," I snapped, and started down the steps with my rifle at full cock.

We heard a second outburst of the same beastlike sounds and a crashing in the bushes. I raised my rifle. A figure showed dimly through the bush. I fired vindictively. Evan stumbled and fell in the clearing, just out of the jungle!