King Kong (1932) (6 page)

"There's luck," he murmured. "I can understand his lingo. He's telling the old witch doctor to stop, to 'ware strangers."

All the natives had turned and were staring; and as though an order had come to them out of the silence the women and children began to slip away.

"Look!" Jimmy said. "Their women are clearing out. We'd better beat it or we'll be up to our necks in trouble."

He whirled around, to start for the beach, but Driscoll seized his arm.

"Good catch, Jack!" Denham called from his forward position as spearpoint of the party. "No use trying to hide now. Everybody stand fast. Put up a bold front."

The gigantic king, after a full stare, made up his mind. His great arm beckoned two warriors only a little smaller than himself, and so guarded he moved slowly forward. The last of the women and children vanished.

"Mr. Denham!" Jimmy cried. "What's the big bozo up to?"

"Shut up!" Denham answered, without taking his eyes off the king. "I don't know."

The chief took another slow, majestic stride.

"Jack!" whispered Ann. "Does it mean trouble when the women and children go away?"

"Trouble for those fellows if they start anything," Jack assured her and laughed briskly.

The chief continued to advance. Some of the sailors shifted their rifles, and their fingers sought the triggers. Denham, as though he had eyes in the back of his head, called a warning.

"Steady, boys! There's nothing to get nervous about!"

"And that's the truth," Jack told Ann cheerfully. "It's all bluff so far. The chief's waiting to see if we'll scare. It's all a game of bluff, and I'm betting on us."

The chief stopped a half dozen paces in front of Denham and waited.

"Come on, Skipper," the producer called. "If you can talk his lingo, make a friendly speech."

Englehorn started to move closer, but the chief flung up an arresting hand.

"Watu! Tama di? Tama di?"

"Greetings!" Englehorn replied slowly. "We are your friends. Bala! Bala! Friends! Friends!"

"Bali, reri!" the king shouted scornfully. "Tasko! Tasko!"

"What's he say, Skipper?" Denham asked out of a corner of his mouth.

"Says he wants no friends. Tells us to beat it!"

"Talk him out of it," Denham ordered. "Ask him what the ceremony is."

Englehorn spoke in placid, conciliating tones and pointed to the flower-dressed girl.

"Ani saba Kong!" said the king doubtfully; and from all the natives came a sighing, worshipful murmur. "Saba Kong!"

"He says the girl is the bride of Kong."

"Kong!" Denham cried exultantly. "Didn't I tell you?"

Before either king or interpreter could speak again, the witch doctor suddenly leaped forward, his headdress shaking, his eyes darting fury at both king and strangers.

"Dama si vego!" he screamed. His old, frail voice ran on like a discordant violin note. "Dama si vego. Punya. Punya bas!"

"What's up now?" Denham demanded.

"He says the ceremony's spoiled because we've seen it."

"Let me get at him," Denham said confidently. "What's the word for 'friend'?"

"Bala."

Denham squared his shoulders and spread out his hands, taking a smiling, conciliatory step.

"Bala!" he said. "Bala! Bala!" He pointed to himself and then to the king and the witch doctor. "Bala! Bala! Bala!"

The king hesitated but the old sorcerer had not the faintest doubt of his proper course. His frown was as deep as Denham's smile was wide. His hand beckoned the warriors up from the rear.

"Tasko!" he screamed. The king, taking his cue, roared, "Tasko!" The two guards beside him swung their spears up to a position of ready. The massed warriors behind began to surge forward.

Excitement overcoming fright, Ann balanced herself against Driscoll and rose high on her tiptoes to see. Her foaming, honey-colored hair caught the sun and the king's eye in the same instant. He ceased his shout as though his mouth had been clamped shut and stared, first at Ann and then at the witch doctor, as though for confirmation.

"Malem ma pakeno!" he stammered. "Sita!" He jerked his arm at the witch doctor. "Malem! Malem ma pakeno!"

The witch doctor, his cries also ceasing, stared too. The warriors stopped stock still and their weapon points fell.

"Now what?" Denham asked with a little gesture of relief.

"He said," Englehorn explained, "Look! The woman of gold!"

"Blondes are scarce around here," Denham chuckled.

The king's voice rose ecstatically, "Kong! Malem ma pakeno! Kong wa bisa! Kow bisa para Kong," and he turned to the witch doctor seeking agreement.

The old sorcerer nodded thoughtfully as Englehorn translated swiftly.

"The woman of gold. Kong's gift. A gift for Kong."

"Good Lord!" Denham protested.

The king and the witch doctor advanced upon Denham and the former thrust out his arm in regal command.

"Dama!" he said. "Tebo malem na hi!"

"Stranger! Sell the woman to us." Englehorn's translation followed like pistol cracks, and his eyes asked what Denham proposed to do.

"Dia malem!" the king hurried on.

"Six women!" Englehorn said swiftly. "He will give six for yours of gold."

Ann gasped and tried to smile.

"You got Ann into this, Denham!" Driscoll cried. "What's our cue?"

Denham smiled briefly, and with an unhurried gesture called up his two carriers.

"Tell him, as politely as you can," he said to Englehorn, "that we'd rather not swap." Out of a corner of his mouth he added, to Ann, "This isn't my trading day, sister."

"Tida!" Englehorn murmured to the king in sorrow-stricken tones. "No! Malem ati rota na ni! Our woman is our luck and we dare not part with her."

Against that refusal, bland though it had been, the witch doctor cried in fury. "Watu!" he screamed. "Tam bisa para Kong di wana ta!"

"They can't lose Kong's gift."

"That's enough for me," Driscoll growled, as Englehorn tossed back the swift interpretation, "I'm taking Ann back to the ship."

"We'd all better slide out," Englehorn warned Denham casually, "before that smart old witch doctor thinks to send out a war party to get between us and our boats."

"I suppose so!" Denham spoke reluctantly, with all the white explorer's confidence in his racial superiority. "But don't let's leave the old coot so mad, Skipper. Tell him we'll be back tomorrow to make friends and talk things over."

"Dulu!" Englehorn promised the chief and the witch doctor gently. And the promise made cover for the quick retreat of the men who bore the camera and the tripod. "Tomorrow! Hi tego nah! We return then."

"En Malem?" the chief insisted. "Malem ma pakeno?"

"The woman of gold?"

"Get going!" Denham ordered briskly to the crew. "And keep smiling, Ann. Don't you realize the chief's just paid you a whopping compliment? Six for one! Smile at Jack. And keep your chin up."

"Dula, bala!" Englehorn told the chief reassuringly. "Tomorrow, friend."

The retreat gathered speed; but not too much speed. There was no lagging, but on the other hand there was no undue haste. Only an expeditious, smiling withdrawal. A half dozen sailors led by Driscoll went first, with Ann in their center. Next the main body moved, rifles alert Englehorn followed these and Denham went last.

As a parting sign of friendship his hand tossed the witch doctor a debonair salute. The same hand cocked his hat over one eye, and as the hand dropped, to a holstered pistol, his lips puckered up to whistle a marching tune. While the natives' eyes widened in surprise he slid briskly around the corner of the house and out of the tribe's sight.

Following the narrow paths, among houses as silent and seemingly as uninhabited as had been encountered on the inward trek, the
Wanderer
's party came at length to the edge of the Village. Forward extended the almost treeless stretch of land running down to the beach and the boats.

"Don't tell me there wasn't nobody in them houses," Jimmy snorted, shifting his box of bombs to the other shoulder. "I heard a kid squall once. And boy! What a smack his mama handed him. I heard that, too."

Driscoll, with a half laugh of relief, let go the small hand he had held protectingly all along the march.

"Believe it or not," he said with a last backward glance, "nobody is following us. And if that isn't a surprise as unexpected as it was pleasant, I want to know."

Denham and Englehorn came trotting up.

"I hope," Ann laughed, half at them, and half at Driscoll, "that you all know me well enough to understand I'm no warlike, bragging Brunhilde. But just the same, I want to say I wouldn't have missed it for the mint."

She nodded emphatically, and with a broad pretense of pride began to fluff out the hair which had been so much admired.

Driscoll eyed her provoking mouth with an exasperation which did not conceal his admiration for her courage.

"You can be my next leading lady, too," Denham promised.

Englehorn cut himself a fresh chew and waved them all to the boats.

"Tomorrow," he said, "we'll break out the trade goods. I think, Mr. Denham, a few presents to that witch doctor ought to get us somewhere."

When they were gathered in the skipper's cabin back on the
Wanderer
, Denham put the question which had grown steadily in all minds during the long row out from the beach. He spoke somberly, to a somber audience. In the moment of arrival at the boats, their mood had been one of exhilaration over the lucky outcome of their encounter. Now, however, they had had time to ponder the danger they had run ... and even more than that, the ominous mystery which prompted Denham to speak.

"I want to know," he said, "who this Kong is, that the king and the witch doctor jabbered about."

"Mightn't he be the king himself?" asked Ann.

"No," Englehorn declared. "You saw how frightened that young girl was. She wouldn't have been frightened, not much anyway, if they'd fixed her up for the boss. She'd have been happy, more likely. Going to him would have been big luck. But she was scared half out of her senses."

"I think those fellows dressed up as gorillas are the key," Driscoll said.

"Why?" Denham wanted to know, and eyed his assistant speculatively.

"Just a hunch. I figure they were acting as the real bridegroom's representatives. On top of that big gate, there hung a huge metal drum. And beside it I saw a native ready to sound off. And I'm ready to swear that when the king saw us and stopped the show, he was about to direct the opening of the gate."

"I think I follow you," Denham said.

"Well, I don't!" Ann exclaimed. "I'm completely in the dark."

"The king," Driscoll explained slowly, "was about to send the girl out to whatever is beyond the gate. Now what could that be? The whole village is on this side, safely behind the wall. Beyond, there could be nothing but wild jungle - and that danger against which the tribe maintains the wall.

"The king was going to open the gate in order to offer the girl to whatever feared thing lives in the jungle. He was sending out a bride to Kong. And the fellow up at the drum was going to call Kong to come and get her."

Denham nodded.

"My guess," Englehorn murmured, "is that today's pretty little girl wasn't by any means the first of Kong's brides."

"You mean ..." Ann felt suddenly sick.

"He means," Driscoll broke in roughly, "that the girl was a sacrifice. And that there is a fresh sacrifice at regular intervals ... every time the moon is full, or something like that."

"But even agreeing to all this," Englehorn puzzled, "I haven't yet any clear idea of what Kong is."

"I have," Denham said with abrupt conviction. "That wall wasn't built against any pint-sized danger. There were a dozen proxy bridegrooms because only with so many could the natives approximate the size of the creature which was getting the sacrifice. And those gorilla skins that the dancers wore didn't mean that Kong is a gorilla by a long shot. If he's really there, he's a brute big enough to use a gorilla for a medicine ball."

"But there never was such a beast!" Ann laughed uncertainly. "At least not since prehistoric times."

Denham shifted in his seat to stare.

"Holy Mackerel!" he whispered. "I wonder if you've hit it, Ann?"

"Rot!" Driscoll exploded.

Englehorn shook an unbelieving head.

"Don't be so sure," Denham argued, and excitement mounted in him again, as it had at the first sight of land. "Remember? Both of you said we wouldn't find any Skull Mountain Island. But here it is.

"Why shouldn't such an out-of-the-way spot be just the place to find a solitary, surviving prehistoric freak?" His eyes flashed. "Holy Mackerel! If we did find the brute, what a picture!"

The shock of that expressed hope sent Driscoll to his feet.

"Where will Ann figure in a picture like that?" he demanded.

Denham rose, too, in angry response to the challenging question. But, after an instant, he laughed.

"Jack," he said plaintively, "can't you let me run my own show? I suppose you had to go soft. And I guess Ann is plenty excuse. But don't expect me to pass up the picture there'll be if we really
get
the break I'm imagining."

He pulled thoughtfully at one ear.

"I'll admit," he conceded, "that right now I can't think just where any of us will figure. That'll need a lot of doping out."

"Um-m-m-m!" Englehorn agreed.

"Here's what!" Denham went on. "We'll sign off everything until after supper. By then I'll have at least the next step planned."

"In the meantime," Englehorn said, "you see to posting a few guards with rifles, Mr. Driscoll. That old witch doctor is up to something. The drums have started up again."

While the four talked the drums had indeed gradually renewed their rolling. Their cadence was different now: a low drone, as of men thinking aloud, or better yet of the sound primitive hands might beat out in order to make easier for primitive minds the hard business of thinking.

With the guards posted, Driscoll came back to Englehorn, and looked toward the sky.