The Moon Pool & Dwellers in the Mirage. Abraham Merritt

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ dark sweetheart. A bird flies where it wills. It was hunting — or it had lost its way in the mists.”

      She shook her head.

      “But, Leif, I— dreamed of a white falcon . . .”

      I held her tight, and after a while she pushed me away and smiled at me. But there was little of gaiety the remainder of that day. And that night her dreams were troubled, and she held me close to her, and cried and murmured in her sleep.

      The next day Jim came back. I had been feeling a bit uncomfortable about his return. What would he think of me? I needn’t have worried. He showed no surprise at all when I laid the cards before him. And then I realized that of course the pygmies must have been talking to one another by their drums, and that they would have gone over matters with him.

      “Good enough,” said Jim, when I had finished. “If you don’t get out, it’s the best thing for both of you. If you do get out, you’ll take Evalie with you — or won’t you?”

      That stung me.

      “Listen, Indian — I don’t like the way you’re talking! I love her.”

      “All right. I’ll put it another way. Does Dwayanu love her?”

      That question was like a slap on my mouth. While I struggled for an answer, Evalie ran out. She went over to Jim and kissed him. He patted her shoulder and hugged her like a big brother. She glanced at me, and came to me, and drew my head down to her and kissed me too, but not exactly the way she had kissed him.

      I glanced over her head at Jim. Suddenly I noticed that he looked tired and haggard.

      “You’re, feeling all right, Jim?”

      “Sure. Only a bit weary. I’ve — seen things.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Well,” he hesitated, “well — the tlanusi — the big leeches — for one thing. I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen them, and if I had seen them before we dived into the river, I’d have picked the wolves as cooing doves in comparison.”

      He told me they had camped at the far end of the plain that night.

      “This place is bigger than we thought, Leif. It must be, because I’ve gone more miles than would be possible if it were only as large as it looked before we went through the mirage. Probably the mirage foreshortened it — confused us.”

      The next day they had gone through forest and jungle and cane-brake and marsh. They had come at last to a steaming swamp. A raised path ran across it. They had taken that path, and eventually came to another transecting it. Where the two causeways met, there was a wide, circular and gently rounded mound rising from the swamp. Here the pygmies had halted. They had made fires of fagots and leaves. The fires sent up a dense and scented smoke which spread slowly out from the mound over the swamp. When the fires were going well, the pygmies began drumming — a queerly syncopated beat. In a few moments he had seen a movement in the swamp, close by the mound.

      “There was a ring of pygmies between me and the edge,” he said, “and when I saw the thing that crawled out I was glad of it. First there was an upheaval of the mud, and then up came the back of what I thought was an enormous red slug. The slug raised itself, and crept out on land. It was a leech all right, and that was all it was — but it made me more than a bit sick. It was its size that did that. It must have been seven feet long, and it lay there, blind and palpitating, its mouth gaping, listening to the drums and luxuriating in that scented smoke. Then another and another came out. After a awhile there were a hundred of the things grouped around in a semicircle, eyeless heads all turned to us — sucking in the smoke, palpitating to the drums.

      “Some of the pygmies got up, took burning sticks from the fire and started off on the intersecting causeway, drumming as they went. The others quenched the fires. The leeches writhed along after the torch-bearers. The other pygmies fell in behind, herding them. I stuck in the rear. We went along until we came to the bank of the river. Those in the lead stopped drumming. They threw their smoking, blazing sticks into the water, and they cast into it handfuls of crushed berries — not the ones Sri and Sra rubbed on us. Red berries. The big leeches went writhing over the bank and into the river, following, I suppose, the smoke and the scent of the berries. Anyway, they went in-each and all of them.

      “We went back, and out of the marsh. We camped on its edge. All that night they talked with the drums.

      “They had talked the night before, and were uneasy; but I took it that it was the same worry they had when we started. They must have known what was going on, but they didn’t tell me then. Yesterday morning, though, they were happy and care-free. I knew something must have happened — that they must have got good news in the night. They were so good-natured that they told me why they were. Not just as you have — but the sense was the same —”

      He chuckled.

      “That morning we herded up a couple of hundred more of the tianusi and put them where the Little People think they’ll do the post good. Then we started back — and here I am.”

      “Yes,” I asked suspiciously. “And is that all?”

      “All for to-night, anyway,” he said. “I’m sleepy. I’m going to turn in. You go with Evalie and leave me strictly alone till tomorrow.”

      I left him to sleep, determined to find out in the morning what he was holding back; I didn’t think it was entirely the journey and the leeches that accounted for his haggardness.

      But in the morning I forgot all about it.

      In the first place, when I awoke, Evalie was missing. I went over to the tent, looking for Jim. He was not there. The Little People had long since poured out of the cliffs, and were at work; they always worked in the morning — afternoons and nights they played and drummed and danced. They said Evalie and Tsantawu had gone into council with the elders. I went back to the tent.

      In a little while Evalie and Jim came up. Evalie’s face was white and her eyes were haunted. Also they were ntisty with tears. Also, she was madder than hell. Jim was doing his best to be cheerful.

      “What’s the matter?” I asked.

      “You’re due for a little trip,” said Jim. “You’ve been wanting to see Nansur Bridge, haven’t you?”

      “Yes.” I said.

      “Well,” said Jim. “That’s where we’re going. Better put on your travelling clothes and your boots. If the trail is anything like what I’ve just gone over, you’ll need them. The Little People can slip through things — but we’re built different.”

      I studied them, puzzled. Of course I’d wanted to see Nansur Bridge — but why should the fact we were to go there make them behave so oddly? I went to Evalie, and turned her face up to mine.

      “You’ve been crying, Evalie. What’s wrong?”

      She shook her head, slipped out of my arms and into the lair. I followed her. She was bending over a coffer, taking yards and yards of veils out of it. I swung her away from it and lifted her until her eyes were level with mine.

      “What’s wrong, Evalie?”

      A СКАЧАТЬ