Red One

Jack London

Description

Though most of Jack London's novels and short stories fall firmly into the action-adventure category, the prolific author occasionally ventured into other genres, as well. Although "The Red One," like many of London's tales, is set among an indigenous tribe, the story -- which details the discovery of a strange object of worship which seems to have originated in another world -- contains some fascinating themes that will please fans of science fiction and supernatural writing, as well.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775452157
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE RED ONE
AND OTHER STORIES
* * *
JACK LONDON
 
*

The Red One And Other Stories First published in 1918 ISBN 978-1-775452-15-7 © 2011 The Floating Press While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
The Red One The Hussy Like Argus of the Ancient Times The Princess
The Red One
*
There it was! The abrupt liberation of sound! As he timed it withhis watch, Bassett likened it to the trump of an archangel. Wallsof cities, he meditated, might well fall down before so vast andcompelling a summons. For the thousandth time vainly he tried toanalyse the tone-quality of that enormous peal that dominated theland far into the strong-holds of the surrounding tribes. Themountain gorge which was its source rang to the rising tide of ituntil it brimmed over and flooded earth and sky and air. With thewantonness of a sick man's fancy, he likened it to the mighty cryof some Titan of the Elder World vexed with misery or wrath.Higher and higher it arose, challenging and demanding in suchprofounds of volume that it seemed intended for ears beyond thenarrow confines of the solar system. There was in it, too, theclamour of protest in that there were no ears to hear andcomprehend its utterance.
- Such the sick man's fancy. Still he strove to analyse the sound.Sonorous as thunder was it, mellow as a golden bell, thin and sweetas a thrummed taut cord of silver—no; it was none of these, nor ablend of these. There were no words nor semblances in hisvocabulary and experience with which to describe the totality ofthat sound.
Time passed. Minutes merged into quarters of hours, and quartersof hours into half-hours, and still the sound persisted, everchanging from its initial vocal impulse yet never receiving freshimpulse—fading, dimming, dying as enormously as it had sprung intobeing. It became a confusion of troubled mutterings and babblingsand colossal whisperings. Slowly it withdrew, sob by sob, intowhatever great bosom had birthed it, until it whimpered deadlywhispers of wrath and as equally seductive whispers of delight,striving still to be heard, to convey some cosmic secret, someunderstanding of infinite import and value. It dwindled to a ghostof sound that had lost its menace and promise, and became a thingthat pulsed on in the sick man's consciousness for minutes after ithad ceased. When he could hear it no longer, Bassett glanced athis watch. An hour had elapsed ere that archangel's trump hadsubsided into tonal nothingness.
Was this, then, HIS dark tower?—Bassett pondered, remembering hisBrowning and gazing at his skeleton-like and fever-wasted hands.And the fancy made him smile—of Childe Roland bearing a slug-hornto his lips with an arm as feeble as his was. Was it months, oryears, he asked himself, since he first heard that mysterious callon the beach at Ringmanu? To save himself he could not tell. Thelong sickness had been most long. In conscious count of time heknew of months, many of them; but he had no way of estimating thelong intervals of delirium and stupor. And how fared CaptainBateman of the blackbirder Nari? he wondered; and had CaptainBateman's drunken mate died of delirium tremens yet?
From which vain speculations, Bassett turned idly to review allthat had occurred since that day on the beach of Ringmanu when hefirst heard the sound and plunged into the jungle after it. Sagawahad protested. He could see him yet, his queer little monkeyishface eloquent with fear, his back burdened with specimen cases, inhis hands Bassett's butterfly net and naturalist's shot-gun, as hequavered, in Beche-de-mer English: "Me fella too much fright alongbush. Bad fella boy, too much stop'm along bush."
Bassett smiled sadly at the recollection. The little New Hanoverboy had been frightened, but had proved faithful, following himwithout hesitancy into the bush in the quest after the source ofthe wonderful sound. No fire-hollowed tree-trunk, that, throbbingwar through the jungle depths, had been Bassett's conclusion.Erroneous had been his next conclusion, namely, that the source orcause could not be more distant than an hour's walk, and that hewould easily be back by mid-afternoon to be picked up by the Nari'swhale-boat.
"That big fella noise no good, all the same devil-devil," Sagawahad adjudged. And Sagawa had been right. Had he not had his headhacked off within the day? Bassett shuddered. Without doubtSagawa had been eaten as well by the "bad fella boys too much" thatstopped along the bush. He could see him, as he had last seen him,stripped of the shot-gun and all the naturalist's gear of hismaster, lying on the narrow trail where he had been decapitatedbarely the moment before. Yes, within a minute the thing hadhappened. Within a minute, looking back, Bassett had seen himtrudging patiently along under his burdens. Then Bassett's owntrouble had come upon him. He looked at the cruelly healed stumpsof the first and second fingers of his left hand, then rubbed themsoftly into the indentation in the back of his skull. Quick as hadbeen the flash of the long handled tomahawk, he had been quickenough to duck away his head and partially to deflect the strokewith his up-flung hand. Two fingers and a hasty scalp-wound hadbeen the price he paid for his life. With one barrel of his ten-gauge shot-gun he had blown the life out of the bushman who had sonearly got him; with the other barrel he had peppered the bushmenbending over Sagawa, and had the pleasure of knowing that the majorportion of the charge had gone into the one who leaped away withSagawa's head. Everything had occurred in a flash. Only himself,the slain bushman, and what remained of Sagawa, were in the narrow,wild-pig run of a path. From the dark jungle on either side cameno rustle of movement or sound of life. And he had suffereddistinct and dreadful shock. For the first time in his life he hadkilled a human being, and he knew nausea as he contemplated themess of his handiwork.
Then had begun the chase. He retreated up the pig-run before hishunters, who were between him and the beach. How many there were,he could not guess. There might have been one, or a hundred, foraught he saw of them. That some of them took to the trees andtravelled along through the jungle roof he was certain; but at themost he never glimpsed more than an occasional flitting of shadows.No bow-strings twanged that he could hear; but every little while,whence discharged he knew not, tiny arrows whispered past him orstruck tree-boles and fluttered to the ground beside him. Theywere bone-tipped and feather shafted, and the feathers, torn fromthe breasts of humming-birds, iridesced like jewels.
Once—and now, after the long lapse of time, he chuckled gleefullyat the recollection—he had detected a shadow above him that cameto instant rest as he turned his gaze upward. He could make outnothing, but, deciding to chance it, had fired at it a heavy chargeof number five shot. Squalling like an infuriated cat, the shadowcrashed down through tree-ferns and orchids and thudded upon theearth at his feet, and, still squalling its rage and pain, had sunkits human teeth into the ankle of his stout tramping boot. He, onthe other hand, was not idle, and with his free foot had done whatreduced the squalling to silence. So inured to savagery hasBassett since become, that he chuckled again with the glee of therecollection.
What a night had followed! Small wonder that he had accumulatedsuch a virulence and variety of fevers, he thought, as he recalledthat sleepless night of torment, when the throb of his wounds wasas nothing compared with the myriad stings of the mosquitoes.There had been no escaping them, and he had not dared to light afire. They had literally pumped his body full of poison, so that,with the coming of day, eyes swollen almost shut, he had stumbledblindly on, not caring much when his head should be hacked off andhis carcass started on the way of Sagawa's to the cooking fire.Twenty-four hours had made a wreck of him—of mind as well as body.He had scarcely retained his wits at all, so maddened was he by thetremendous inoculation of poison he had received. Several times hefired his shot-gun with effect into the shadows that dogged him.Stinging day insects and gnats added to his torment, while hisbloody wounds attracted hosts of loathsome flies that clungsluggishly to his flesh and had to be brushed off and crushed off.
Once, in that day, he heard again the wonderful sound, seeminglymore distant, but rising imperiously above the nearer war-drums inthe bush. Right there was where he had made his mistake. Thinkingthat he had passed beyond it and that, therefore, it was betweenhim and the beach of Ringmanu, he had worked back toward it when inreality he was penetrating deeper and deeper into the mysteriousheart of the unexplored island. That night, crawling in among thetwisted roots of a banyan tree, he had slept from exhaustion whilethe mosquitoes had had their will of him.
Followed days and nights that were vague as nightmares in hismemory. One clear vision he remembered was of suddenly findinghimself in the midst of a bush village and watching the old men andchildren fleeing into the jungle. All had fled but one. Fromclose at hand and above him, a whimpering as of some animal in painand terror had startled him. And looking up he had seen her—agirl, or young woman rather, suspended by one arm in the cookingsun. Perhaps for days she had so hung. Her swollen, protrudingtongue spoke as much. Stil