Brood Of The Dark Moon Part 17

Chet tore his fascinated eyes from the revolting features of that purple face; he forced himself to look beyond at what else might be on this sacrificial stone. And, as he saw the a.s.sortment of fruit that was there on a green mat of leaves, the surprise was even greater than would have followed a repet.i.tion of the first discovery.

A naked, murdered man!--and ripe fruit! What was the meaning of this?

Chet asked himself a score of questions and found the answer to none.

But one thing he knew now beyond a doubt: Herr Professor Kreiss had been wrong. This was truly an altar for the performance of unknown and savage rites, and the altar itself and the whole encircling arena had been created by some intelligence. People--things--embodied intelligences of some sort had carved these stones. Chet was oppressed by a feeling of impending danger.

His thoughts came back sharply to the things on the stone: the absurdly contrasting exhibits: a naked body and fruit! But were they so different? he asked himself, and knew in the same instant that they were not. They were one and the same; they differed only in kind. They were both food!

From the darkness beyond came a shuffling of feet. From the black pa.s.sage someone was coming--drawing near to the portal--and coming slowly, steadily through the dark. The pad of animal feet would have been unnerving--or the stealthy footfalls of an approaching savage--but this was neither; it was a scuffing, shuffling sound. The sweat stood out in beads on Chet's forehead and a trickle of it reached his eyes. He dashed it away with the back of his hand while he drew silently into the shadow of the overhanging stone. He held his breath as he watched in the darkness.

His pistol came noiselessly from his belt. Yet, how could he fire it? he asked himself in a moment of frantic planning. Only seven cartridges left!--they would need them all; and to fire now would bring more enemies upon them. He returned the gun to his belt and stooped to weigh a fragment of stone in his hand: this must serve him as a weapon.

The dragging footsteps were near, where the pa.s.sage mouth loomed black.

The light of a distant Earth, struck slantingly across to leave this face of the pyramid in half-darkness. From that far and peaceful world the light poured floodingly down; it shone in under the projecting capstone; it struck upon the raised altar and revealed in ghastliest detail the gruesome offering there. And surely the strangest sight of all that that Earth-light disclosed was when it shone golden upon a black and hairy body of a beast that was half man, half ape. The creature moved slowly forward, walking erect, with its furry arms stretched gropingly ahead. In the full light it went shuffling on like one who is blind or who walks in the dark, until it stopped before the altar stone and stood rigidly waiting.

Waiting for what? Chet was making demands upon his reason that was already taxed beyond its capacity. He heard nothing, and he knew with entire certainty that there was no audible call, yet he sensed the message at the instant the ape-man moved.

"Flesh!" said the message. "Bring flesh! Bring it now!"

And, with glazed, wide-open eyes which plainly saw, but could not comprehend, the ape-thing stared at the altar-stone. It bent forward, took the fresh-killed body by the throat, and slung it across one shoulder as easily as a child might handle a doll; then it turned and vanished once more into the waiting dark.

"G.o.d!" breathed Chet when the vision had pa.s.sed. "G.o.d help us! What does it mean?"

He took one backward step, then another, and made his way in silence along the path he had come. He must get back to the others to tell them of what he had seen; to help them to flee from this place of horror that was more terrible for its qualities of the unknown.

He gave his companions the story in staccato sentences. "And the ape-man was unconscious," he concluded; "he was an automaton only, directed by another brain. I know it. I got that message, I tell you; it was radioed by someone or by something--sent direct to that big ape's brain.

"Now let's get out of here. Diane had it right when she said that the place was evil. But she didn't make it strong enough. It's foul with evil! It's d.a.m.ned! Come on, I'm leaving now!"

Chet's whispered words were uttered with all the emphasis that horror could instill. He knew that he spoke truth. But he could not know how mistaken was his last positive a.s.sertion.

"I'm leaving now!" Chet had said, and how desperately he wanted to put this place behind him only he himself could know. He took one step toward the place where they could descend; then Harkness' hand pulled him roughly to his knees.

"Down!" Harkness was commanding; "get down, Chet! They're coming--a swarm of them--through the gate!"

The pilot heard them before he saw them. They began a chant as they poured through the entrance, a weird, wailing note like the cry of a stricken animal that cries on and on. Then he saw the swarm.

They came in a cataract of black bodies that spilled through that stone portal and down the long slope. They formed a ragged column on the ground and came on toward the pyramid, where, unseen, three men and a girl from another world were crouching.

"Back!" Chet ordered in a whisper. "Keep low--in the shadow! Get around in back of the pyramid. We can make a run for it!"

They crept swiftly along the rocky step where the deep angle was in shadow. They reached the rear slope where Chet had climbed. And each one knew without the speaking of a word that retreat was not to be considered. The open arena!--the high bank of great steps in their bold markings of black and white! They could never hope to scale them; they would never even reach them alive, for the savage horde would overwhelm them before they had crossed the Earth-lit ground.

"All right," said Chet in acceptance of their unspoken thoughts, "up it is! Here's a hand, Diane--up you go! Now watch your step, and climb as if a thousand devils were after you, for there's all of that!"

The wave of bodies was washing against the pyramid's base when Chet drew Kreiss, the last of the four, into the shadow of the huge capstone. The noise of their climbing had been covered by the wailing cry that came piercing shrilly from the throng far below. And they had been unseen, Chet was sure; unless the one furtive shadow that he had seen draw away from the crowd and slip around toward the rear of the pyramid meant that some one of the tribe had found their trail.

From the front of the shadowed top came the shuffling of heavy, dragging feet on the stone. It was the same as before. Chet had held some vague idea of fighting off the horde from the top of the steps, for here was the only place where they could ascend. He had forgotten this other one for the moment, and he realized in a single flashing instant that here was a worse menace than the pack.

Only one, it was true, one ape-man who would be no match for them! But Chet remembered those blind, staring eyes and the message that had come to him. Those eyes had seen the horrible food upon the altar; some other brain had seen it too. The ape-man was an instrument only; there was some hidden horror in back of him, something that saw with his eyes, something that must never see them, cowering and huddled in the shadow of that great stone.

The shuffling was coming from the right; Chet clutched silently at the others to draw them away and toward the left. They retreated to the corner, turned it, and went on toward the front; then stopped in silent waiting where the shadow ended. The front, where the altar stood, was in the full glare of Earth.

For the moment they were safe, but what of the time when the ape-man returned? He had descended to the ground; when he climbed back again would he retrace his steps? Or would he come this side and trap them here where the light of their own Earth made any forward step impossible?

Below them the wailing ceased. Chet leaned forward to see the black horde, silent and motionless. Approaching them was the "big ape" he had seen at the altar. His hands were reaching blindly before him and he moved as would a human when entranced.

He reached the huddled blacks; his groping hands hovered hesitantly above a cowering, hairy form. Presently the ape-man pa.s.sed on to the next, and his hands rested on the creature's face. From the ma.s.sed figures there rose a moan, and Chet felt poignantly the animal misery of it. Suddenly all emotion was transformed to startled attention. From the slope at the rear had come the rattle of loose stones!

Far below, in plain view, was the one who had descended--Chet knew that his eyes could never mistake that blind, groping figure--but from the slope they could not see, from around the far edge of the pyramid, a clicking stone sent a repeated warning.

Chet laid a hand on Harkness' arm. "Get set, Walt!" he warned. "Get ready for trouble. There's something coming: it may come this way!"

CHAPTER XII

_In the Shadow of the Pyramid_

They waited, unbreathing, listening to the occasional stealthy sounds.

The pistol was still in Chet's belt; the three men were crouched before Diane, in their hands the crude weapons that they had made.

And then the sounds ceased. The menace seemed to have pa.s.sed, or to be withheld; the men had been tensely prepared for some minutes when Diane spoke softly.

"Look below," she whispered; "the savages! That big one seems to be choosing them--selecting some from among them."

Chet forced himself to look away from that corner of the rocky step where he had been expecting an unknown enemy to appear, and he stared below them where the Earth-light from the fully risen globe swept across the arena.

He was amazed at the numbers of the savages that the full light disclosed. There were hundreds--yes, thousands--of them, he estimated.

And they were standing in black, clotted ma.s.ses, standing awed and silent in a world that was all black and white in a dazzling contrast, while there pa.s.sed among them one with outstretched arms.

The black, hairy hands would hover over a cowering head; the eyes, Chet knew, were staring widely, blindly, at the shivering creature before him. And if Chet's surmise was correct, there was another--a hidden, mysterious something--who was taking the message of those eyes as the ape-man's brain transmitted it; taking it and sending back instructions as to which victims should be selected.

Often the hands pa.s.sed on; but soon they would descend to touch the savage face of another in the a.s.semblage. At the touch the selected one jerked sharply erect, then walked stiffly from the ranks to join a group that was waiting.

At last there were nearly a hundred savage figures in that group, all grown men, young and in the full flood of their savage strength. No women were chosen, nor children, though there were countless little black bodies huddled with the others.