The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes (27 page)

             
"It was only the voices that saved us from missing the path. The trees had increased in height, and shadowed the road a good deal, so that we should have overshot the left fork if we hadn't been watching for it. Even then, Maxton was the only one to spot it, and he suddenly signaled us to turn into what looked like a dense bush. Following him, we broke through a screen of vegetation, which gave way so easily that we realized that it must have been dragged there after cutting. And there was a road again, narrower but still plain and well-trodden. Some old habit of caution must have led them so to mask their path. We now moved at an increased speed.

             
"Ahead of us, the voices swelled in another chant, but we could not as yet distinguish words. The single voice was silent. As the noise increased, so did our caution, and we slowed our pace, since we had no wish to burst unexpectedly into the middle of some gathering of goodness knows what.

             
"All at once, we could see light ahead through the trees, a flickering, reddish glow which lit
the path far better than the dim starlight. We eased down to a slow walk and advanced cautiously-

             
"The light grew continually stronger as we went on, reflected back from our faces and the boles and leaves of the thorn bushes and palmettoes. The sound of voices was almost deafening now, but we were searching so hard for a sight of a guard or sentry, we paid no attention to the words, which were blurred in any case.

             
"The trees suddenly thinned before us, and stooping low, the three of us crawled abreast of their edge and peered into the open, keeping well behind the screening branches, and off the road, which suddenly appeared to vanish. When we reached the last line of bushes, it was easy to see why. We were gazing down into an immense pit.

             
"We were on one edge of an enormous hole in the ground, quite round and perhaps seventy feet deep. It was rimmed with greyish limestone rock, level at the edges, to which point the bushes grew, all around.

             
"At our feet, the path, now very narrow, wound down a steep slope to the smooth floor of white sand below. One side of the natural
amphitheatre
, for such it was, was banked up into lines of crude seats, sloping to the open floor of packed sand. The width of the whole place must have been at least two hundred yards in diameter, if not more.

             
"The entire population of Soldier Key, now silent, was sitting on the banked seats of this private arena, gazing at the scene before them with rapt attention. We had an excellent view of them, which made up in completeness for what we had missed earlier. Every man, woman and child, perhaps two hundred or more, was stark naked, clothed only in garlands of flowers and flower necklaces. Every single living soul on the island must have been there, and not a sound came from even the smallest baby at its mother's breast, or the oldest crone. I could see no colored people, but only whites. Apparently the creed of the New Revelation was not valid for any but Caucasians.

             
"Inching forward to get a better look, we were able to see what held their attention. Two great bonfires burned on the floor of the pit, and between them Brother Poole, the Shepherd of his people, was moving about. As naked as his flock, his scrawny white body gleaming as if oiled, he was capering in a strange way around three objects on the sand, between the fires.

             
"In the center, golden in the firelight, lay the immense shell we had seen earlier in the
workshed
in town. No holes now marred its perfection, and it lay gleaming and wonderful on one of its sides, the opening facing us as we watched.

             
"On either side of the shell, dwarfed by its bulk, were two bound human bodies! One was Oswald. He was not only bound but gagged. As far away as we were, we could see his eyes roll and the muscles under his dark skin strain as he tried to break his bonds. The other figure was that of a white girl, perhaps fifteen or so from her build. She lay silent and unmoving, but I could see that her eyes were open. Around the three, the shell and the bodies, Brother Poole danced and waved his hands, as if in some maniac's parody of a benediction. Although he was otherwise quite nude, he wore a strange necklace, of some hard, purplish objects, which bounced and shook as he moved.
So silent were the people that even as high as we were lying, I could hear the click and rattle of them. The sound jogged my memory, until I suddenly realized why it was familiar. He was wearing a necklace of hermit crab claws and the noise was just as if some of them were scuttling about.

             
"I stated that the pit was circular. The floor was level, sloping up on one side to the packed earth seats of the people, and on the other side to the limestone walls. Nothing grew on these smooth walls, excepting only in one place, directly opposite the seats, where dense canopies of some creeper hung down, half obscuring a great triangular opening or cleft in the rock, about twenty feet in height and at least that wide near the base. Pressed against the cliff to one side of this hole was a massive, now open door or gate, made of bulky timers in a heavy frame. It was hung on great iron hinges driven into the rock. Could this be the Gate of which Poole claimed to be the Opener, I wondered? In front of the hole, and a little to one side, there was a still pool of water, probably a spring. Directly across from us, a path similar to that below us wound up the cliff face and vanished into the dark fringe of foliage at the top.

             
"Brother Poole suddenly ceased his capering and raised both hands. He was now facing the dark opening across the arena, and to this he addressed his invocation. I cannot at this date give it word for word, but roughly it went rather like this:

-

'Oh, Lord of Majesty, Incarnation of Survival, Manifestation of Nature and its struggle, Devourer of Sin and the Flesh, have mercy upon us.'

-

             
"Behind him a roar arose as the crowd repeated the last line, 'have mercy upon us.' He continued:

-

'Have mercy, Oh Thou, Shelled in Adamant. Of Thy mercy, accept our offerings, a new home for Thy greatness, new life for Thy limbs, new viands for Thy table. Enter now upon Thy new home and partake of
Thine
offerings.'

-

             
"This rather unpleasant parody of a communion service seemed extraordinarily unreal, it was so fantastic.

             
"In the red light, Poole's gaunt face, now drooling slightly, assumed an air of repellent majesty. Much as he disgusted me, the creature did have a certain hypnotic power at that moment. He believed in what he was doing. Behind his back, his audience sat rapt and expectant, all of them, old and young, leaning forward in the same tense pause of anticipation. As he ceased to speak, time almost seemed to stop, and he held his hands out, facing the opening in the rock wall.

             
"Joe broke the spell, pushing the rifle at me and snatching the Colt from my limp hand.

             
" 'Stay here and cover us,' he hissed. 'Maxton and I are going down.'

             
"The two of them moved like cats, breaking from the scrub and racing down the path below me with driving steps. My brain cleared and I aimed the loaded rifle at Poole. If anybody went, he certainly would be the first.

             
"Maxton and Joe were on the sandy floor of the pit before anyone even noticed them. Joe had a clasp knife in one hand and the pistol in the other, and he flashed behind Poole's back and stopped to cut the girl's bonds. Behind him, Maxton was doing the same for Oswald with the edge of his machete.

             
"A chorus of screams from the crowd announced that not all of them were in a trance, but none of them moved. I
refocussed
on Poole, but he still faced the cave, apparently lost to the actual world, entranced in an ecstasy of religion.

             
"Then, I caught a flicker of movement from the corner of my right eye and risked a glance in that direction. What I saw made my rifle fall with a thud to the earth.

             
"Framed in the entrance to the cleft was Horror incarnate. Poised on giant, stalked legs, monstrous, incredible gleaming in the firelight, stood the Soldier of Soldier Key, the Living God of Brother Poole and his awful church.

             
"The giant purple and orange claws, the larger of the two at least six feet long, were held in front of the mass of clicking, grinding mouth parts. From the stalked eyes held out ten feet above the ground, to the great, red-pointed legs, jointed and barbed with three-inch spines, there stood complete and perfect a hermit crab that must have weighed not less than a thousand pounds.

             
"As it moved slowly forward from the mouth of its private cave, the dragging shell which covered its soft body and rear end became visible, and I saw the true reason for the labor of the whole island. It, the shell, was made of tortoise shell, still recognizable though dirty and scarred, and although enormous, it was obviously too small. The soft body bulging from the opening must have desperately needed more room. The purpose of the new and larger shell, which still lay sparkling on the sand, was now clear. The god was to have a new house.

             
"As all this flashed through my mind, I recovered my wits and snatched up the rifle again. It was as well I did, because now things were starting to break down on the pit floor.

             
"Emerging from his trance, Poole had turned around and had seen before his dumbfounded eyes his sacrifices no longer neatly tied up but actually escaping. Joe had the limp body of the girl over one shoulder, and Maxton was aiding Oswald to follow in the direction of the foot of the nearer path, just beneath my own position.

             
"With a shriek, Poole summoned his nude worshippers to the assault. 'Blasphemy! Slay the
desecrators of the shrine! Kill them, in the sight of the Living God!'

             
"With a roar, the whole mob poured off its earth benches and rushed for the three figures which ran slowly across the sand. Poole stood where he was, his hand raised in a curse, his face now wholly evil, working with madness in the firelight. Behind him some few yards, that unbelievable crustacean had paused, immobile, like a bizarre statue, motionless save for the moving, twitching mouth parts.

             
"I think to this day we would have been dead men, but for two factors. Joe, heavily burdened, Maxton and Oswald were still thirty feet from the path's entrance. Behind them, the horde of frantic, raving islanders were no more than a hundred paces. I had begun to shoot, forgetting Poole, firing at the foremost men instead, and hitting at once, but it did no real good. Those behind simply leapt the prostrate bodies and came on. One rifle simply could not stop this gibbering, animal horde. But something else could.

             
"Above the howling of the pack and the bark of my rifle rang out a scream so awful and agonized that I can still hear it in my sleep. No one could have ignored that dreadful cry. With three exceptions, everyone halted to see the cause.

             
"Brother Poole had momentarily forgotten his god, but his god had not forgotten him. As he stood there launching curses and hellfire, the monster, irritated no doubt by all the noise and movement, had come from behind and now clutched him in its titanic, larger claw, as firmly as its little brothers would hold a grasshopper. Suddenly, with no apparent effort, it simply closed the claw, and before our eyes, the two halves of the screaming Shepherd of the Island fell to the sand in a fountain of blood.

             
"The three below, however, had not halted nor seen this sight, but were now steadily coming up the path. I resumed my ineffective rifle practice, for with fresh screams of rage, the mob of worshippers surged forward again, and began to gain. But Joe changed that.

             
"He halted and allowed Oswald and Maxton to run past. Dumping the girl, who had never moved at all, to the ground, he reached for his belt and pulled out a bulky metallic object which I now saw for the first time in the firelight. It was the schooner's flare pistol.