Red Shadows, Robert E. Howard [best ebook reader for chromebook TXT] 📗

in timing the audience’s

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