art by Carmine Infantino and Alex Toth - Creepy #125 - Warren Publishing Co., February 1981.
Monday 31 October 2016
Saturday 29 October 2016
"Eu Cheguei Lá" by Dorival Caymmi (in Portuguese)
Eu cheguei lá mas me esqueci
Do que ia dizer, do que ia falar
Eu cheguei lá, eu cheguei lá
Maria Amélia, eu passei toda a noite
Sonhando
Maria Amélia, eu passei toda a noite
Pensando
Lindas palavras
Que eu preparei pra lhe dizer
Mas me esqueci, mas me esqueci.
"Eu Cheguei Lá" sung by Dorival Caymmi.
Friday 28 October 2016
“A Baffled Ambuscade” by Ambrose Bierce (in English)
Connecting
Readyville and Woodbury was a good, hard turnpike nine or ten miles long.
Readyville was an outpost of the Federal army at Murfreesboro; Woodbury had the
same relation to the Confederate army at Tullahoma. For months after the big
battle at Stone River these outposts were in constant quarrel, most of the
trouble occurring, naturally, on the turnpike mentioned, between detachments of
cavalry. Sometimes the infantry and artillery took a hand in the game by way of
showing their goodwill.
One
night a squadron of Federal horse commanded by Major Seidel, a gallant and
skillful officer, moved out from Readyville on an uncommonly hazardous
enterprise requiring secrecy, caution and silence.
Passing
the infantry pickets, the detachment soon afterward approached two cavalry
videttes staring hard into the darkness ahead. There should have been three.
"Where
is your other man?" said the major. "I ordered Dunning to be here
tonight."
"He
rode forward, sir," the man replied. "There was a little firing
afterward, but it was a long way to the front."
"It
was against orders and against sense for Dunning to do that," said the
officer, obviously vexed. "Why did he ride forward?"
"Don't
know, sir; he seemed mighty restless. Guess he was skeered."
When
this remarkable reasoner and his companion had been absorbed into the
expeditionary force, it resumed its advance. Conversation was forbidden; arms
and accountrements were denied the right to rattle. The horses tramping was all
that could be heard and the movement was slow in order to have as little as possible
of that. It was after midnight and pretty dark, although there was a bit of
moon somewhere behind the masses of cloud.
Two
or three miles along, the head of the column approached a dense forest of
cedars bordering the road on both sides. The major commanded a halt by merely
halting, and, evidently himself a bit "skeered," rode on alone to
reconnoiter. He was followed, however, by his adjutant and three troopers, who
remained a little distance behind and, unseen by him, saw all that occurred.
After
riding about a hundred yards toward the forest, the major suddenly and sharply
reined in his horse and sat motionless in the saddle. Near the side of the
road, in a little open space and hardly ten paces away, stood the figure of a
man, dimly visible and as motionless as he. The major's first feeling was that
of satisfaction in having left his cavalcade behind; if this were an enemy and
should escape he would have little to report. The expedition was as yet
undetected.
Some
dark object was dimly discernible at the man's feet; the officer could not make
it out. With the instinct of the true cavalryman and a particular indisposition
to the discharge of firearms, he drew his saber. The man on foot made no
movement in answer to the challenge. The situation was tense and a bit
dramatic. Suddenly the moon burst through a rift in the clouds and, himself in
the shadow of a group of great oaks, the horseman saw the footman clearly, in a
patch of white light. It was Trooper Dunning, unarmed and bareheaded. The
object at his feet resolved itself into a dead horse, and at a right angle
across the animal's neck lay a dead man, face upward in the moonlight.
"Dunning
has had the fight of his life," thought the major, and was about to ride
forward. Dunning raised his hand, motioning him back with a gesture of warning;
then, lowering the arm, he pointed to the place where the road lost itself in
the blackness of the cedar forest.
The
major understood, and turning his horse rode back to the little group that had
followed him and was already moving to the rear in fear of his displeasure, and
so returned to the head of his command.
"Dunning
is just ahead there," he said to the captain of his leading company.
"He has killed his man and will have something to report."
Right
patiently they waited, sabers drawn, but Dunning did not come. In an hour the
day broke and the whole force moved cautiously forward, its commander not
altogether satisfied with his faith in Private Dunning. The expedition had
failed, but something remained to be done.
In
the little open space off the road they found the fallen horse. At a right
angle across the animal's neck face upward, a bullet in the brain, lay the body
of Trooper Dunning, stiff as a statue, hours dead.
Examination
disclosed abundant evidence that within a half hour the cedar forest had been
occupied by a strong force of Confederate infantry - an ambuscade.
Thursday 27 October 2016
"Jungle Tales of Tarzan, chapter 8" by Edgar Rice Burroughs (in English)
VIII. — THE LION
Numa, the
lion, crouched behind a thorn bush close beside the drinking pool where the
river eddied just below the bend. There was a ford there and on either bank a
well-worn trail, broadened far out at the river's brim, where, for countless
centuries, the wild things of the jungle and of the plains beyond had come down
to drink, the carnivora with bold and fearless majesty, the herbivora timorous,
hesitating, fearful.
Numa,
the lion, was hungry, he was very hungry, and so he was quite silent now. On
his way to the drinking place he had moaned often and roared not a little; but
as he neared the spot where he would lie in wait for Bara, the deer, or Horta,
the boar, or some other of the many luscious-fleshed creatures who came hither
to drink, he was silent. It was a grim, a terrible silence, shot through with
yellow-green light of ferocious eyes, punctuated with undulating tremors of
sinuous tail.
It
was Pacco, the zebra, who came first, and Numa, the lion, could scarce restrain
a roar of anger, for of all the plains people, none are more wary than Pacco,
the zebra. Behind the black-striped stallion came a herd of thirty or forty of
the plump and vicious little horselike beasts. As he neared the river, the
leader paused often, cocking his ears and raising his muzzle to sniff the
gentle breeze for the tell-tale scent spoor of the dread flesh-eaters.
Numa
shifted uneasily, drawing his hind quarters far beneath his tawny body,
gathering himself for the sudden charge and the savage assault. His eyes shot
hungry fire. His great muscles quivered to the excitement of the moment.
Pacco
came a little nearer, halted, snorted, and wheeled. There was a pattering of
scurrying hoofs and the herd was gone; but Numa, the lion, moved not. He was
familiar with the ways of Pacco, the zebra. He knew that he would return,
though many times he might wheel and fly before he summoned the courage to lead
his harem and his offspring to the water. There was the chance that Pacco might
be frightened off entirely. Numa had seen this happen before, and so he became
almost rigid lest he be the one to send them galloping, waterless, back to the
plain.
Again
and again came Pacco and his family, and again and again did they turn and
flee; but each time they came closer to the river, until at last the plump
stallion dipped his velvet muzzle daintily into the water. The others, stepping
warily, approached their leader. Numa selected a sleek, fat filly and his
flaming eyes burned greedily as they feasted upon her, for Numa, the lion,
loves scarce anything better than the meat of Pacco, perhaps because Pacco is,
of all the grass-eaters, the most difficult to catch.
Slowly
the lion rose, and as he rose, a twig snapped beneath one of his great, padded
paws. Like a shot from a rifle he charged upon the filly; but the snapped twig
had been enough to startle the timorous quarry, so that they were in instant
flight simultaneously with Numa's charge.
The
stallion was last, and with a prodigious leap, the lion catapulted through the
air to seize him; but the snapping twig had robbed Numa of his dinner, though
his mighty talons raked the zebra's glossy rump, leaving four crimson bars
across the beautiful coat.
It
was an angry Numa that quitted the river and prowled, fierce, dangerous, and
hungry, into the jungle. Far from particular now was his appetite. Even Dango,
the hyena, would have seemed a tidbit to that ravenous maw. And in this temper
it was that the lion came upon the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape.
One
does not look for Numa, the lion, this late in the morning. He should be lying
up asleep beside his last night's kill by now; but Numa had made no kill last
night. He was still hunting, hungrier than ever.
The
anthropoids were idling about the clearing, the first keen desire of the
morning's hunger having been satisfied. Numa scented them long before he saw
them. Ordinarily he would have turned away in search of other game, for even
Numa respected the mighty muscles and the sharp fangs of the great bulls of the
tribe of Kerchak, but today he kept on steadily toward them, his bristled snout
wrinkled into a savage snarl.
Without
an instant's hesitation, Numa charged the moment he reached a point from where
the apes were visible to him. There were a dozen or more of the hairy, manlike
creatures upon the ground in a little glade. In a tree at one side sat a
brown-skinned youth. He saw Numa's swift charge; he saw the apes turn and flee,
huge bulls trampling upon little balus; only a single she held her ground to
meet the charge, a young she inspired by new motherhood to the great sacrifice
that her balu might escape.
Tarzan
leaped from his perch, screaming at the flying bulls beneath and at those who
squatted in the safety of surrounding trees. Had the bulls stood their ground,
Numa would not have carried through that charge unless goaded by great rage or
the gnawing pangs of starvation. Even then he would not have come off
unscathed.
If
the bulls heard, they were too slow in responding, for Numa had seized the
mother ape and dragged her into the jungle before the males had sufficiently
collected their wits and their courage to rally in defense of their fellow.
Tarzan's angry voice aroused similar anger in the breasts of the apes. Snarling
and barking they followed Numa into the dense labyrinth of foliage wherein he
sought to hide himself from them. The ape-man was in the lead, moving rapidly
and yet with caution, depending even more upon his ears and nose than upon his
eyes for information of the lion's whereabouts.
The
spoor was easy to follow, for the dragged body of the victim left a plain
trail, blood-spattered and scentful. Even such dull creatures as you or I might
easily have followed it. To Tarzan and the apes of Kerchak it was as obvious as
a cement sidewalk.
Tarzan
knew that they were nearing the great cat even before he heard an angry growl
of warning just ahead. Calling to the apes to follow his example, he swung into
a tree and a moment later Numa was surrounded by a ring of growling beasts,
well out of reach of his fangs and talons but within plain sight of him. The
carnivore crouched with his fore-quarters upon the she-ape. Tarzan could see
that the latter was already dead; but something within him made it seem quite
necessary to rescue the useless body from the clutches of the enemy and to
punish him.
He
shrieked taunts and insults at Numa, and tearing dead branches from the tree in
which he danced, hurled them at the lion. The apes followed his example. Numa
roared out in rage and vexation. He was hungry, but under such conditions he
could not feed.
The
apes, if they had been left to themselves, would doubtless soon have left the
lion to peaceful enjoyment of his feast, for was not the she dead? They could
not restore her to life by throwing sticks at Numa, and they might even now be
feeding in quiet themselves; but Tarzan was of a different mind. Numa must be
punished and driven away. He must be taught that even though he killed a Mangani,
he would not be permitted to feed upon his kill. The man-mind looked into the
future, while the apes perceived only the immediate present. They would be
content to escape today the menace of Numa, while Tarzan saw the necessity, and
the means as well, of safeguarding the days to come.
So
he urged the great anthropoids on until Numa was showered with missiles that
kept his head dodging and his voice pealing forth its savage protest; but still
he clung desperately to his kill.
The
twigs and branches hurled at Numa, Tarzan soon realized, did not hurt him
greatly even when they struck him, and did not injure him at all, so the
ape-man looked about for more effective missiles, nor did he have to look long.
An out-cropping of decomposed granite not far from Numa suggested ammunition of
a much more painful nature. Calling to the apes to watch him, Tarzan slipped to
the ground and gathered a handful of small fragments. He knew that when once
they had seen him carry out his idea they would be much quicker to follow his
lead than to obey his instructions, were he to command them to procure pieces
of rock and hurl them at Numa, for Tarzan was not then king of the apes of the
tribe of Kerchak. That came in later years. Now he was but a youth, though one
who already had wrested for himself a place in the councils of the savage
beasts among whom a strange fate had cast him. The sullen bulls of the older
generation still hated him as beasts hate those of whom they are suspicious,
whose scent characteristic is the scent characteristic of an alien order and,
therefore, of an enemy order. The younger bulls, those who had grown up through
childhood as his playmates, were as accustomed to Tarzan's scent as to that of
any other member of the tribe. They felt no greater suspicion of him than of
any other bull of their acquaintance; yet they did not love him, for they loved
none outside the mating season, and the animosities aroused by other bulls
during that season lasted well over until the next. They were a morose and
peevish band at best, though here and there were those among them in whom
germinated the primal seeds of humanity—reversions to type, these, doubtless;
reversions to the ancient progenitor who took the first step out of ape-hood
toward humanness, when he walked more often upon his hind feet and discovered
other things for idle hands to do.
So
now Tarzan led where he could not yet command. He had long since discovered the
apish propensity for mimicry and learned to make use of it. Having filled his
arms with fragments of rotted granite, he clambered again into a tree, and it
pleased him to see that the apes had followed his example.
During
the brief respite while they were gathering their ammunition, Numa had settled
himself to feed; but scarce had he arranged himself and his kill when a sharp
piece of rock hurled by the practiced hand of the ape-man struck him upon the
cheek. His sudden roar of pain and rage was smothered by a volley from the
apes, who had seen Tarzan's act. Numa shook his massive head and glared upward
at his tormentors. For a half hour they pursued him with rocks and broken
branches, and though he dragged his kill into densest thickets, yet they always
found a way to reach him with their missiles, giving him no opportunity to
feed, and driving him on and on.
The
hairless ape-thing with the man scent was worst of all, for he had even the
temerity to advance upon the ground to within a few yards of the Lord of the
Jungle, that he might with greater accuracy and force hurl the sharp bits of
granite and the heavy sticks at him. Time and again did Numa charge—sudden,
vicious charges—but the lithe, active tormentor always managed to elude him and
with such insolent ease that the lion forgot even his great hunger in the
consuming passion of his rage, leaving his meat for considerable spaces of time
in vain efforts to catch his enemy.
The
apes and Tarzan pursued the great beast to a natural clearing, where Numa
evidently determined to make a last stand, taking up his position in the center
of the open space, which was far enough from any tree to render him practically
immune from the rather erratic throwing of the apes, though Tarzan still found
him with most persistent and aggravating frequency.
This,
however, did not suit the ape-man, since Numa now suffered an occasional
missile with no more than a snarl, while he settled himself to partake of his
delayed feast. Tarzan scratched his head, pondering some more effective method
of offense, for he had determined to prevent Numa from profiting in any way
through his attack upon the tribe. The man-mind reasoned against the future,
while the shaggy apes thought only of their present hatred of this ancestral
enemy. Tarzan guessed that should Numa find it an easy thing to snatch a meal
from the tribe of Kerchak, it would be but a short time before their existence
would be one living nightmare of hideous watchfulness and dread. Numa must be
taught that the killing of an ape brought immediate punishment and no rewards.
It would take but a few lessons to insure the former safety of the tribe. This
must be some old lion whose failing strength and agility had forced him to any
prey that he could catch; but even a single lion, undisputed, could exterminate
the tribe, or at least make its existence so precarious and so terrifying that life
would no longer be a pleasant condition.
"Let
him hunt among the Gomangani," thought Tarzan. "He will find them
easier prey. I will teach ferocious Numa that he may not hunt the
Mangani."
But
how to wrest the body of his victim from the feeding lion was the first
question to be solved. At last Tarzan hit upon a plan. To anyone but Tarzan of
the Apes it might have seemed rather a risky plan, and perhaps it did even to
him; but Tarzan rather liked things that contained a considerable element of
danger. At any rate, I rather doubt that you or I would have chosen a similar
plan for foiling an angry and a hungry lion.
Tarzan
required assistance in the scheme he had hit upon and his assistant must be
equally as brave and almost as active as he. The ape-man's eyes fell upon Taug,
the playmate of his childhood, the rival in his first love and now, of all the
bulls of the tribe, the only one that might be thought to hold in his savage
brain any such feeling toward Tarzan as we describe among ourselves as friendship.
At least, Tarzan knew, Taug was courageous, and he was young and agile and
wonderfully muscled.
"Taug!"
cried the ape-man. The great ape looked up from a dead limb he was attempting
to tear from a lightning-blasted tree. "Go close to Numa and worry
him," said Tarzan. "Worry him until he charges. Lead him away from
the body of Mamka. Keep him away as long as you can."
Taug
nodded. He was across the clearing from Tarzan. Wresting the limb at last from
the tree he dropped to the ground and advanced toward Numa, growling and
barking out his insults. The worried lion looked up and rose to his feet. His
tail went stiffly erect and Taug turned in flight, for he knew that warning
signal of the charge.
From
behind the lion, Tarzan ran quickly toward the center of the clearing and the
body of Mamka. Numa, all his eyes for Taug, did not see the ape-man. Instead he
shot forward after the fleeing bull, who had turned in flight not an instant
too soon, since he reached the nearest tree but a yard or two ahead of the
pursuing demon. Like a cat the heavy anthropoid scampered up the bole of his
sanctuary. Numa's talons missed him by little more than inches.
For
a moment the lion paused beneath the tree, glaring up at the ape and roaring
until the earth trembled, then he turned back again toward his kill, and as he
did so, his tail shot once more to rigid erectness and he charged back even
more ferociously than he had come, for what he saw was the naked man-thing
running toward the farther trees with the bloody carcass of his prey across a
giant shoulder.
The
apes, watching the grim race from the safety of the trees, screamed taunts at
Numa and warnings to Tarzan. The high sun, hot and brilliant, fell like a
spotlight upon the actors in the little clearing, portraying them in glaring
relief to the audience in the leafy shadows of the surrounding trees. The
light-brown body of the naked youth, all but hidden by the shaggy carcass of
the killed ape, the red blood streaking his smooth hide, his muscles rolling,
velvety, beneath. Behind him the black-maned lion, head flattened, tail
extended, racing, a jungle thoroughbred, across the sunlit clearing.
Ah,
but this was life! With death at his heels, Tarzan thrilled with the joy of
such living as this; but would he reach the trees ahead of the rampant death so
close behind?
Gunto
swung from a limb in a tree before him. Gunto was screaming warnings and
advice.
"Catch
me!" cried Tarzan, and with his heavy burden leaped straight for the big
bull hanging there by his hind feet and one forepaw. And Gunto caught them—the
big ape-man and the dead weight of the slain she-ape— caught them with one
great, hairy paw and whirled them upward until Tarzan's fingers closed upon a
near-by branch.
Beneath,
Numa leaped; but Gunto, heavy and awkward as he may have appeared, was as quick
as Manu, the monkey, so that the lion's talons but barely grazed him,
scratching a bloody streak beneath one hairy arm.
Tarzan
carried Mamka's corpse to a high crotch, where even Sheeta, the panther, could
not get it. Numa paced angrily back and forth beneath the tree, roaring
frightfully. He had been robbed of his kill and his revenge also. He was very
savage indeed; but his despoilers were well out of his reach, and after hurling
a few taunts and missiles at him they swung away through the trees, fiercely
reviling him.
Tarzan
thought much upon the little adventure of that day. He foresaw what might
happen should the great carnivora of the jungle turn their serious attention
upon the tribe of Kerchak, the great ape, but equally he thought upon the wild
scramble of the apes for safety when Numa first charged among them. There is
little humor in the jungle that is not grim and awful. The beasts have little
or no conception of humor; but the young Englishman saw humor in many things
which presented no humorous angle to his associates.
Since
earliest childhood he had been a searcher after fun, much to the sorrow of his
fellow-apes, and now he saw the humor of the frightened panic of the apes and
the baffled rage of Numa even in this grim jungle adventure which had robbed
Mamka of life, and jeopardized that of many members of the tribe.
It
was but a few weeks later that Sheeta, the panther, made a sudden rush among
the tribe and snatched a little balu from a tree where it had been hidden while
its mother sought food. Sheeta got away with his small prize unmolested. Tarzan
was very wroth. He spoke to the bulls of the ease with which Numa and Sheeta,
in a single moon, had slain two members of the tribe.
"They
will take us all for food," he cried. "We hunt as we will through the
jungle, paying no heed to approaching enemies. Even Manu, the monkey, does not
so. He keeps two or three always watching for enemies. Pacco, the zebra, and
Wappi, the antelope, have those about the herd who keep watch while the others
feed, while we, the great Mangani, let Numa, and Sabor, and Sheeta come when
they will and carry us off to feed their balus."
"Gr-r-rmph,"
said Numgo.
"What
are we to do?" asked Taug.
"We,
too, should have two or three always watching for the approach of Numa, and
Sabor, and Sheeta," replied Tarzan. "No others need we fear, except
Histah, the snake, and if we watch for the others we will see Histah if he
comes, though gliding ever so silently."
And
so it was that the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak posted sentries
thereafter, who watched upon three sides while the tribe hunted, scattered less
than had been their wont.
But
Tarzan went abroad alone, for Tarzan was a man-thing and sought amusement and
adventure and such humor as the grim and terrible jungle offers to those who
know it and do not fear it—a weird humor shot with blazing eyes and dappled
with the crimson of lifeblood. While others sought only food and love, Tarzan
of the Apes sought food and joy.
One
day he hovered above the palisaded village of Mbonga, the chief, the jet
cannibal of the jungle primeval. He saw, as he had seen many times before, the
witch-doctor, Rabba Kega, decked out in the head and hide of Gorgo, the
buffalo. It amused Tarzan to see a Gomangani parading as Gorgo; but it
suggested nothing in particular to him until he chanced to see stretched
against the side of Mbonga's hut the skin of a lion with the head still on.
Then a broad grin widened the handsome face of the savage beast-youth.
Back
into the jungle he went until chance, agility, strength, and cunning backed by
his marvelous powers of perception, gave him an easy meal. If Tarzan felt that
the world owed him a living he also realized that it was for him to collect it,
nor was there ever a better collector than this son of an English lord, who
knew even less of the ways of his forbears than he did of the forbears
themselves, which was nothing.
It
was quite dark when Tarzan returned to the village of Mbonga and took his now
polished perch in the tree which overhangs the palisade upon one side of the
walled enclosure. As there was nothing in particular to feast upon in the
village there was little life in the single street, for only an orgy of flesh
and native beer could draw out the people of Mbonga. Tonight they sat gossiping
about their cooking fires, the older members of the tribe; or, if they were
young, paired off in the shadows cast by the palm-thatched huts.
Tarzan
dropped lightly into the village, and sneaking stealthily in the concealment of
the denser shadows, approached the hut of the chief, Mbonga. Here he found that
which he sought. There were warriors all about him; but they did not know that
the feared devil-god slunk noiselessly so near them, nor did they see him
possess himself of that which he coveted and depart from their village as
noiselessly as he had come.
Later
that night, as Tarzan curled himself for sleep, he lay for a long time looking
up at the burning planets and the twinkling stars and at Goro the moon, and he
smiled. He recalled how ludicrous the great bulls had appeared in their mad
scramble for safety that day when Numa had charged among them and seized Mamka,
and yet he knew them to be fierce and courageous. It was the sudden shock of
surprise that always sent them into a panic; but of this Tarzan was not as yet
fully aware. That was something he was to learn in the near future.
He
fell asleep with a broad grin upon his face.
Manu,
the monkey, awoke him in the morning by dropping discarded bean pods upon his
upturned face from a branch a short distance above him. Tarzan looked up and
smiled. He had been awakened thus before many times. He and Manu were fairly
good friends, their friendship operating upon a reciprocal basis. Sometimes
Manu would come running early in the morning to awaken Tarzan and tell him that
Bara, the deer, was feeding close at hand, or that Horta, the boar, was asleep
in a mudhole hard by, and in return Tarzan broke open the shells of the harder
nuts and fruits for Manu, or frightened away Histah, the snake, and Sheeta, the
panther.
The
sun had been up for some time, and the tribe had already wandered off in search
of food. Manu indicated the direction they had taken with a wave of his hand
and a few piping notes of his squeaky little voice.
"Come,
Manu," said Tarzan, "and you will see that which shall make you dance
for joy and squeal your wrinkled little head off. Come, follow Tarzan of the
Apes."
With
that he set off in the direction Manu had indicated and above him, chattering,
scolding and squealing, skipped Manu, the monkey. Across Tarzan's shoulders was
the thing he had stolen from the village of Mbonga, the chief, the evening
before.
The
tribe was feeding in the forest beside the clearing where Gunto, and Taug, and
Tarzan had so harassed Numa and finally taken away from him the fruit of his
kill. Some of them were in the clearing itself. In peace and content they fed,
for were there not three sentries, each watching upon a different side of the
herd? Tarzan had taught them this, and though he had been away for several days
hunting alone, as he often did, or visiting at the cabin by the sea, they had
not as yet forgotten his admonitions, and if they continued for a short time
longer to post sentries, it would become a habit of their tribal life and thus
be perpetuated indefinitely.
But
Tarzan, who knew them better than they knew themselves, was confident that they
had ceased to place the watchers about them the moment that he had left them,
and now he planned not only to have a little fun at their expense but to teach
them a lesson in preparedness, which, by the way, is even a more vital issue in
the jungle than in civilized places. That you and I exist today must be due to
the preparedness of some shaggy anthropoid of the Oligocene. Of course the apes
of Kerchak were always prepared, after their own way—Tarzan had merely suggested
a new and additional safeguard.
Gunto
was posted today to the north of the clearing. He squatted in the fork of a
tree from where he might view the jungle for quite a distance about him. It was
he who first discovered the enemy. A rustling in the undergrowth attracted his
attention, and a moment later he had a partial view of a shaggy mane and tawny
yellow back. Just a glimpse it was through the matted foliage beneath him; but
it brought from Gunto's leathern lungs a shrill "Kreeg-ah!" which is
the ape for beware, or danger.
Instantly
the tribe took up the cry until "Kreeg-ahs!" rang through the jungle
about the clearing as apes swung quickly to places of safety among the lower
branches of the trees and the great bulls hastened in the direction of Gunto.
And
then into the clearing strode Numa, the lion—majestic and mighty, and from a
deep chest issued the moan and the cough and the rumbling roar that set stiff
hairs to bristling from shaggy craniums down the length of mighty spines.
Inside
the clearing, Numa paused and on the instant there fell upon him from the trees
near by a shower of broken rock and dead limbs torn from age-old trees. A dozen
times he was hit, and then the apes ran down and gathered other rocks, pelting
him unmercifully.
Numa
turned to flee, but his way was barred by a fusillade of sharp-cornered
missiles, and then, upon the edge of the clearing, great Taug met him with a
huge fragment of rock as large as a man's head, and down went the Lord of the
Jungle beneath the stunning blow.
With
shrieks and roars and loud barkings the great apes of the tribe of Kerchak
rushed upon the fallen lion. Sticks and stones and yellow fangs menaced the
still form. In another moment, before he could regain consciousness, Numa would
be battered and torn until only a bloody mass of broken bones and matted hair
remained of what had once been the most dreaded of jungle creatures.
But
even as the sticks and stones were raised above him and the great fangs bared
to tear him, there descended like a plummet from the trees above a diminutive
figure with long, white whiskers and a wrinkled face. Square upon the body of
Numa it alighted and there it danced and screamed and shrieked out its
challenge against the bulls of Kerchak.
For
an instant they paused, paralyzed by the wonder of the thing. It was Manu, the
monkey, Manu, the little coward, and here he was daring the ferocity of the great
Mangani, hopping about upon the carcass of Numa, the lion, and crying out that
they must not strike it again.
And
when the bulls paused, Manu reached down and seized a tawny ear. With all his
little might he tugged upon the heavy head until slowly it turned back,
revealing the tousled, black head and clean-cut profile of Tarzan of the Apes.
Some
of the older apes were for finishing what they had commenced; but Taug, sullen,
mighty Taug, sprang quickly to the ape-man's side and straddling the unconscious
form warned back those who would have struck his childhood playmate. And Teeka,
his mate, came too, taking her place with bared fangs at Taug's side. others
followed their example, until at last Tarzan was surrounded by a ring of hairy
champions who would permit no enemy to approach him.
It
was a surprised and chastened Tarzan who opened his eyes to consciousness a few
minutes later. He looked about him at the surrounding apes and slowly there
returned to him a realization of what had occurred.
Gradually
a broad grin illuminated his features. His bruises were many and they hurt; but
the good that had come from his adventure was worth all that it had cost. He
had learned, for instance, that the apes of Kerchak had heeded his teaching,
and he had learned that he had good friends among the sullen beasts whom he had
thought without sentiment. He had discovered that Manu, the monkey—even little,
cowardly Manu—had risked his life in his defense.
It
made Tarzan very glad to know these things; but at the other lesson he had been
taught he reddened. He had always been a joker, the only joker in the grim and
terrible company; but now as he lay there half dead from his hurts, he almost
swore a solemn oath forever to forego practical joking—almost; but not quite.
Wednesday 26 October 2016
“The Black Cat” by Edgar A. Poe (in English)
For the most
wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor
solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very
senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not
dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate
purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment,
a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have
terrified— have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound
them. To me, they have presented little but Horror—to many they will seem less
terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which
will reduce my phantasm to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more
logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the
circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of
very natural causes and effects.
From
my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My
tenderness of heart was even so conspicious as to make me the jest of my
companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents
with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was
so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew
with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal
sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful
and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or
the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the
unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the
heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and
gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I
married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial
with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity
of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine
dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat.
This
latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and
sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of her intelligence, my wife,
who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent
allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as
witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point—and I
mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now,
to be remembered.
Pluto—this
was the cat's name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he
attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I
could prevent him from following me through the streets.
Our
friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general
temperament and character—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance
had—(I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I
grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings
of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length,
I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the
change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto,
however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating
him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the
dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my
disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even
Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish — even Pluto
began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One
night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I
fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at
my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury
of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul
seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish
malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my
waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat,
and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I
shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When
reason returned with the morning— when I had slept off the fumes of the night's
debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the
crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal
feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon
drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In
the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it
is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain.
He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme
terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be, at first,
grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so
loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if
to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of Perverseness. Of this
spirit philosophy takes no account. Phrenology finds no place for it among its
organs. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness
is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible
primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly
action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a
perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which
is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of
perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable
longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature—to do
wrong for the wrong's sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to
consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning,
in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a
tree;—hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest
remorse at my heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I
felt it had given me no reason of offence;—hung it because I knew that in so
doing I was committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so jeopardise my immortal
soul as to place it—if such a thing were possible—even beyond the reach of the
infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
On
the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from
sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole
house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and
myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete.
My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward
to despair.
I
am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect,
between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts—and
wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the
fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This
exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about
the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The
plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire—a fact
which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense
crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular
portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words
"strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions,
excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the
white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an
accuracy truly marvellous. There had been a rope about the animal's neck.
When
I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely regard it as less—my wonder
and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I
remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of
fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd—by some one of whom
the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window,
into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from
sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into
the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the
flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture
as I saw it.
Although
I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for
the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep
impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of
the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a
half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret
the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now
habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat
similar appearance, with which to supply its place.
One
night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was
suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the
immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of
the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some
minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner
perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand.
It was a black cat—a very large one — fully as large as Pluto, and closely
resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any
portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of
white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.
Upon
my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand,
and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of
which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but
this person made no claim to it—knew nothing of it—had never seen it before.
I
continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a
disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and
patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at
once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.
For
my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the
reverse of what I had anticipated; but—I know not how or why it was—its evident
fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these
feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided
the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed
of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some
weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually—very
gradually—I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee
silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.
What
added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning
after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of
its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I
have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which
had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest
and purest pleasures.
With
my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase.
It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make
the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or
spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to
walk, it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening
its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At
such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld
from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me
confess it at once— by absolute dread of the beast.
This
dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil— and yet I should be at a loss
how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own—yes, even in this
felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which
the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimæras it
would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once,
to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which
constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I
had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had
been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees—degrees nearly
imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as
fanciful—it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was
now the representation of an object that I shudder to name—and for this, above
all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I
dared—it was now, I say, the image of a hideous — of a ghastly thing—of the
Gallows!—oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and
of Death!
And
now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute
beast —whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out
for me—for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God— so much of
insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest
any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the
latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot
breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare
that I had no power to shake off— incumbent eternally upon my heart!
Beneath
the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within
me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates—the darkest and most evil
of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things
and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable
outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining
wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One
day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old
building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down
the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness.
Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had
hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would
have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was
arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more
than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her
brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
This
hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire
deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not
remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being
observed by the neighbours. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I
thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by
fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar.
Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard—about packing it
in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a
porter to take it from the house. Finally, I hit upon what I considered a far
better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the
cellar—as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their
victims.
For
a purpose such as this the cellar was admirably adapted. Its walls were loosely
constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster,
which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in
one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fire-place,
that had been filled, or walled up, and made to resemble the rest of the
cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point,
insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect
any thing suspicious.
And
in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily
dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the
inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I
re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar,
sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which
could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went
over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was
right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed.
The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around
triumphantly, and said to myself— "Here at least, then, my labor has not
been in vain."
My
next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much
wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I
been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its
fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence
of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is
impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief
which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not
make its appearance during the night—and thus for one night at least, since its
introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even
with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The
second and the third day passed and still my tormentor came not. Once again I
breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I
should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed
disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been
readily answered. Even a search had been instituted—but of course nothing was
to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon
the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very
unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous
investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my
place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me
accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At
length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I
quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in
innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom
and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared
to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to
say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their
assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen,"
I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have
allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By
the bye, gentlemen, this—this is a very well constructed house." [In the
rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at
all.]—"I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls—are
you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;" and here,
through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held
in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the
ghastly corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But
may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the
reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice
from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing
of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous
scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror
and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly
from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in
the damnation!
Of
my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite
wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through
extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at
the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with
gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red
extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had
seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the
hangman. I had walled the monster up
within the tomb!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)