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

whatever was outside, was bringing his rifle to his shoulder. I slipped into the room and came to his side, my own rifle ready. Our eyes were fixed upon the window. Then the slanting rays of the sun flung a shadow upon the curtain. The thing was not yet before the window, but its shadow moved on before it because of the position of the rising sun. We saw, cast in perfect clearness upon the flimsy cloth, the silhouette of the head of the gorilla! Its small ears lay back, its jaw protruded in that fearful ferocity of the anthropoid tribe, and we saw it peering from right to left in suspicious cunning. I held my breath, waiting for the moment when we could fire.

The head turned sharply, and I thought I saw the nostrils quivering. Then, abruptly, it vanished, and a dog burst into frantic barking and hysterical yelping on the veranda. Another instant and the dog screamed in terror. There was a crash against the wall of the house, and the yelping became a moan.

Arthur and I had dashed for the door and now rushed down the veranda with hearts thumping madly. One of the dogs was writhing in agony on the floor. It had been flung against the house with terrific force and now lay with broken ribs and backbone, dying. The gorilla had vanished.

Evan appeared with his rifle ready, out of breath. "What's up?" he demanded. "The beast again?"

Arthur swore hysterically. "The damned beast is here!" he cried. "It's here! It's hiding somewhere about!"

We were all thoroughly reckless by now. We went after the huge ape with the temerity that would have made the blood of any of us run cold in a sober moment. We penetrated every corner of the house. We went over every bit of the grounds. We clambered upon the roof and searched there in foolhardy indifference to the danger we might be in if we only located the animal.

"I think it was hiding in the servants' quarters," said Evan grimly. "I saw signs of its having been there. It must have grown shy when I explored the place and it probably slipped off toward the house to escape me. I don't see why it didn't make for the woods, though."

None of us understood, but we went about our search as before. We found absolutely nothing. At last we stopped and stared at one another.

"We would have killed it in another moment," said Arthur despairingly, "but the dog saw it and yelped. Then it ran."

"Could it have made the woods before we got outside?"

"Heaven only knows," said Arthur wearily. "I begin to believe the natives have bewitched the thing to kill us all."

"How many dogs have we left?" asked Evan suddenly.

There were four or five of Evan's animals, and one or two of the village dogs had begun to lurk about the house in hopes of food. There was none left for them in the deserted village.

"We'll tie up the dogs," said Evan. "We'll fasten one on the veranda at the front, and another in the rear of the house. We'll put two on the ground below, tethered to the piles, and spread the others in the rooms here. Then the beast will have to kill them before it can get at as, and we'll have some warning."

We began to improvise collars for the native dogs and scattered the others about as Evan had suggested. When we had finished, as far as we could see there was absolutely no way for the gorilla to emerge from his hiding place—if he were hiding in the house—without being instantly detected by a dog. Certainly, he could not reach the house from the bush without discovery and an alarm being given.

With a dog in every room, dogs on the veranda, and others underneath the building, we should have felt safe, but did not. There was something uncanny in the appearances and disappearances of the monstrous ape that left us apprehensive even when we had taken every possible precaution to provide for its instant discovery if it made another attempt to reach us.

The pertinacity of the beast was appalling. To think of a colossal anthropoid with the cunning of the devil himself, the strength of seven men, and all the malignant hatred that possessed this one, to think of such an animal lurking about seeking an opportunity to wreak vengeance on one of our number was horrible. And it would not stop with one of us if more than one were within its reach. Once in a killing rage, a gorilla goes mad with blood lust. It would tear and rend, would crush and utterly destroy.

We were white and nervous from the strain long before. Now we went about with something akin to hysteria just beneath the surface. There was nothing we could do! We had to wait for the beast to reappear, knowing that when it did, its coming would be cautious and cunning, its patience infinite, its strength colossal and its hatred fiendish. Any or all of us might expect at any instant to be gripped by a hairy arm of incredible power, to see the bestial face of that demoniacal animal grimacing at us in utter malignance. And we had before us the picture of the vision that would confront us in such a case. The picture taken from the native girl's retina was warning. Little, evil eyes glittering fiercely, flat, horrible nose above a terrible mouth parted in insane rage, and discolored fangs showing above the blackened lips.

Action of any sort would have been a relief. We went through the morning, making desperate efforts to stave off hysteria, and aware that at any moment one of us might crack beneath the strain.

Noon came. We ate mechanically. Evan was standing up better than any of the rest of us. Alicia was quiet and still. Her eyes alone showed the tension she felt. We were all keyed up to an almost unbearable pitch. Queerly enough, in our absorption in the threat of the gorilla, we had almost forgotten the drums that resounded on every side of us from the bush. It was Mrs. Braymore who called our attention to them.

"I wonder what's the matter with the drums?" she said wearily. "I've been noticing them for the last ten minutes."

We listened. The monotonous rhythm was still going on, rolling through the hot midday air in muffled waves of sound. The drums seemed louder than they had been.

"They're beating more rapidly," Evan remarked in a puzzled tone. "They were going along slowly. Now they're quite fast."

Only one of the drums had quickened its beat, however. The others thumped on monotonously. About four o'clock in the afternoon—allowing the length of time necessary for a runner to get from the first village to another—a second began to beat more furiously, and shortly after dark, the third joined in the trilogy. Our dogs were moving restlessly about, chafing because of being tied. We all were increasingly anxious, but this new danger had, strangely enough, the effect of steadying us.

We waited a long time, and at last the two women lay down to try to rest. Through the moonlight night the drums rolled and rumbled. Standing out on the veranda with my rifle in my hands, I listened intently. I saw with some disquiet that the night threatened to become cloudy, but hoped that the dogs would give warning of any danger that might impend. For an hour I stood there, looking and listening. There was no mistaking the new note of the drums. They meant resolution, renewed activity. Faintly, beneath their muttering, I caught a high, sustained ululation. The yelling of the natives had not been audible before. Evidently they were in perfect frenzy. That meant that an attack was imminent.

Arthur came out on the veranda beside me. He listened as I was listening.

"They'll attempt to rush us in the morning, I suppose," he remarked grimly. "They'll hardly try it before dawn, though. Blacks don't like the nighttime."

One of the dogs tied to a pile below the house growled softly. The dog on the veranda echoed the growl. I glanced at him quickly. He had risen and was standing tense, looking toward the edge of the bush. He growled again.

At just this moment, one of the little wisps of cloud overshadowed the moon and left the courtyard in darkness. I moved quietly over beside the dog and felt the hairs on his neck bristling. Finding him staring steadfastly in one direction, I strained my eyes trying to pierce the darkness. The cloud thinned a trifle and objects were dimly visible. I saw a shape coming slowly and cautiously toward the house, a shape that moved hesitatingly and furtively.

Arthur exclaimed softly. "Murray, it's the gorilla!"

The figure was hunched up and apelike. It moved awkwardly toward us. The cloud thinned still more and we could distinguish its location clearly, though it was still impossible for us to see distinctly.

"For the body," Arthur whispered.

We raised our rifles together and aimed carefully. Arthur's rifle flashed, and mine an instant later. We heard a choking, beastlike cry, and the figure toppled and fell.