The Greatest Short Stories of H. G. Wells: 70+ Titles in One Edition. Герберт Уэллс

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СКАЧАТЬ two days nothing happened out of the ordinary; for the most part Pollock and Perera played Nap—the only game they had in common—and Pollock got into debt. Then, on the second evening, Pollock had a disagreeable intimation of the arrival of the Porroh man in Sulyma by getting a flesh-wound in the shoulder from a lump of filed iron. It was a long shot, and the missile had nearly spent its force when it hit him. Still it conveyed its message plainly enough. Pollock sat up in his hammock, revolver in hand, all that night, and next morning confided, to some extent, in the Anglo-Portuguese.

      Perera took the matter seriously. He knew the local customs pretty thoroughly. “It is a personal question, you must know. It is revenge. And of course he is hurried by your leaving de country. None of de natives or half-breeds will interfere wid him very much—unless you make it wort deir while. If you come upon him suddenly, you might shoot him. But den he might shoot you.”

      “Den dere’s dis—infernal magic,” said Perera. “Of course, I don’t believe in it—superstition—but still it’s not nice to tink dat wherever you are, dere is a black man, who spends a moonlight night now and den a-dancing about a fire to send you bad dreams… Had any bad dreams?”

      “Rather,” said Pollock. “I keep on seeing the beggar’s head upside down grinning at me and showing all his teeth as he did in the hut, and coming close up to me, and then going ever so far off, and coming back. It’s nothing to be afraid of, but somehow it simply paralyses me with terror in my sleep. Queer things—dreams. I know it’s a dream all the time, and I can’t wake up from it.”

      “It’s probably only fancy,” said Perera. “Den my niggers say Porroh men can send snakes. Seen any snakes lately?”

      “Only one. I killed him this morning, on the floor near my hammock. Almost trod on him as I got up.”

      “Ah!” said Perera, and then, reassuringly, “Of course it is a—coincidence. Still I would keep my eyes open. Den dere’s pains in de bones.”

      “I thought they were due to miasma,” said Pollock.

      “Probably dey are. When did dey begin?”

      Then Pollock remembered that he first noticed them the night after the fight in the hut. “It’s my opinion he don’t want to kill you,” said Perera —“at least not yet. I’ve heard deir idea is to scare and worry a man wid deir spells, and narrow misses, and rheumatic pains, and bad dreams, and all dat, until he’s sick of life. Of course, it’s all talk, you know. You mustn’t worry about it… But I wonder what he’ll be up to next.”

      “I shall have to be up to something first,” said Pollock, staring gloomily at the greasy cards that Perera was putting on the table. “It don’t suit my dignity to be followed about, and shot at, and blighted in this way. I wonder if Porroh hokey-pokey upsets your luck at cards.”

      He looked at Perera suspiciously.

      “Very likely it does,” said Perera warmly, shuffling. “Dey are wonderful people.”

      That afternoon Pollock killed two snakes in his hammock, and there was also an extraordinary increase in the number of red ants that swarmed over the place; and these annoyances put him in a fit temper to talk over business with a certain Mendi rough he had interviewed before. The Mendi rough showed Pollock a little iron dagger, and demonstrated where one struck in the neck, in a way that made Pollock shiver, and in return for certain considerations Pollock promised him a double-barrelled gun with an ornamental lock.

      In the evening, as Pollock and Perera were playing cards, the Mendi rough came in through the doorway, carrying something in a blood-soaked piece of native cloth.

      “Not here!” said Pollock very hurriedly. “Not here!”

      But he was not quick enough to prevent the man, who was anxious to get to Pollock’s side of the bargain, from opening the cloth and throwing the head of the Porroh man upon the table. It bounded from there on to the floor, leaving a red trail on the cards, and rolled into the corner, where it came to rest upside down, but glaring hard at Pollock.

      Perera jumped up as the thing fell among the cards, and began in his excitement to gabble in Portuguese. The Mendi was bowing, with the red cloth in his hand. “De gun!” he cried. Pollock stared back at the head in the corner. It bore exactly the expression it had in his dreams. Something seemed to snap in his own brain as he looked at it.

      Then Perera found his English again.

      “You got him killed?” he said. “You did not kill him yourself?”

      “Why should I?” said Pollock.

      “But he will not be able to take it off now!”

      “Take what off?” said Pollock.

      “And all dese cards are spoiled!”

      “What do you mean by taking off?” said Pollock.

      “You must send me a new pack from Freetown. You can buy dem dere.

      “But—‘take it off’?”

      “It is only superstition. I forgot. De niggers say dat if de witches —he was a witch—But it is rubbish… You must make de Porroh man take it off, or kill him yourself… It is very silly.”

      Pollock swore under his breath, still staring hard at the head in the corner.

      “I can’t stand that glare,” he said. Then suddenly he rushed at the thing and kicked it. It rolled some yards or so, and came to rest in the same position as before, upside down, and looking at him.

      “He is ugly,” said the Anglo-Portuguese. “Very ugly. Dey do it on deir faces with little knives.”

      Pollock would have kicked the head again, but the Mendi man touched him on the arm. “De gun?” he said, looking nervously at the head.

      “Two—if you will take that beastly thing away,” said Pollock.

      The Mendi shook his head, and intimated that he only wanted one gun now due to him, and for which he would be obliged. Pollock found neither cajolery nor bullying any good with him. Perera had a gun to sell (at a profit of three hundred per cent), and with that the man presently departed. Then Pollock’s eyes, against his will, were recalled to the thing on the floor.

      “It is funny dat his head keeps upside down,” said Perera, with an uneasy laugh. “His brains must be heavy, like de weight in de little images one sees dat keep always upright wid lead in dem. You will take him wiv you when you go presently. You might take him now. De cards are all spoilt. Dere is a man sell dem in Freetown. De room is in a filthy mess as it is. You should have killed him yourself.”

      Pollock pulled himself together, and went and picked up the head. He would hang it up by the lamp-hook in the middle of the ceiling of his room, and dig a grave for it at once. He was under the impression that he hung it up by the hair, but that must have been wrong, for when he returned for it, it was hanging by the neck upside down.

      He buried it before sunset on the north side of the shed he occupied, so that he should not have to pass the grave after dark when he was returning from Perera’s. He killed two snakes before he went to sleep. In the darkest part of the night he awoke with a start, and heard a pattering sound and something scraping on the floor. He sat up noiselessly, and felt under his pillow СКАЧАТЬ