The Research Magnificent Part 32

He shrugged his shoulders and came to stare at the torrent under the bridge.

"You're getting ripe for London, Cheetah," said Amanda softly.

"I want somehow to get to work, to get my hands on definite things."

"How can we get back?"

She had to repeat her question presently.

"We can go on. Over the hills is Ochrida and then over another pa.s.s is Presba, and from there we go down into Monastir and reach a railway and get back to the world of our own times again."

8

But before they reached the world of their own times Macedonia was to show them something grimmer than Albania.

They were riding through a sunlit walnut wood beyond Ochrida when they came upon the thing.

The first they saw of it looked like a man lying asleep on a gra.s.sy bank. But he lay very still indeed, he did not look up, he did not stir as they pa.s.sed, the pose of his hand was stiff, and when Benham glanced back at him, he stifled a little cry of horror. For this man had no face and the flies had been busy upon him....

Benham caught Amanda's bridle so that she had to give her attention to her steed.

"Ahead!" he said, "Ahead! Look, a village!"

(Why the devil didn't they bury the man? Why? And that fool Giorgio and the others were pulling up and beginning to chatter. After all she might look back.)

Through the trees now they could see houses. He quickened his pace and jerked Amanda's horse forward....

But the village was a still one. Not a dog barked.

Here was an incredible village without even a dog!

And then, then they saw some more people lying about. A woman lay in a doorway. Near her was something muddy that might have been a child, beyond were six men all spread out very neatly in a row with their faces to the sky.

"Cheetah!" cried Amanda, with her voice going up. "They've been killed.

Some one has killed them."

Benham halted beside her and stared stupidly. "It's a band," he said.

"It's--propaganda. Greeks or Turks or Bulgarians."

"But their feet and hands are fastened! And--... WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING TO THEM?..."

"I want to kill," cried Benham. "Oh! I want to kill people. Come on, Amanda! It blisters one's eyes. Come away. Come away! Come!"

Her face was white and her eyes terror-stricken. She obeyed him mechanically. She gave one last look at those bodies....

Down the deep-rutted soil of the village street they clattered. They came to houses that had been set on fire....

"What is that hanging from a tree?" cried Amanda. "Oh, oh!"

"Come on...."

Behind them rode the others scared and hurrying.

The sunlight had become the light of h.e.l.l. There was no air but horror.

Across Benham's skies these fly-blown trophies of devilry dangled mockingly in the place of G.o.d. He had no thought but to get away.

Presently they encountered a detachment of Turkish soldiers, very greasy and ragged, with worn-out boots and yellow faces, toiling up the stony road belatedly to the village. Amanda and Benham riding one behind the other in a stricken silence pa.s.sed this labouring column without a gesture, but presently they heard the commander stopping and questioning Giorgio....

Then Giorgio and the others came clattering to overtake them.

Giorgio was too full to wait for questions. He talked eagerly to Benham's silence.

It must have happened yesterday, he explained. They were Bulgarians--traitors. They had been converted to the Patriarchists by the Greeks--by a Greek band, that is to say. They had betrayed one of their own people. Now a Bulgarian band had descended upon them. Bulgarian bands it seemed were always particularly rough on Bulgarian-speaking Patriarchists....

9

That night they slept in a dirty little room in a peasant's house in Resnia, and in the middle of the night Amanda woke up with a start and heard Benham talking. He seemed to be sitting up as he talked. But he was not talking to her and his voice sounded strange.

"Flies," he said, "in the sunlight!"

He was silent for a time and then he repeated the same words.

Then suddenly he began to declaim. "Oh! Brutes together. Apes. Apes with knives. Have they no lord, no master, to save them from such things?

This is the life of men when no man rules.... When no man rules.... Not even himself.... It is because we are idle, because we keep our wits slack and our wills weak that these poor devils live in h.e.l.l. These things happen here and everywhere when the hand that rules grows weak. Away in China now they are happening. Persia. Africa.... Russia staggers. And I who should serve the law, I who should keep order, wander and make love.... My G.o.d! may I never forget! May I never forget!

Flies in the sunlight! That man's face. And those six men!

"Grip the savage by the throat.

"The weak savage in the foreign office, the weak savage at the party headquarters, feud and indolence and folly. It is all one world. This and that are all one thing. The spites of London and the mutilations of Macedonia. The maggots that eat men's faces and the maggots that rot their minds. Rot their minds. Rot their minds. Rot their minds...."

To Amanda it sounded like delirium.

"CHEETAH!" she said suddenly between remonstrance and a cry of terror.

The darkness suddenly became quite still. He did not move.

She was afraid. "Cheetah!" she said again.

"What is it, Amanda?"

"I thought--. Are you all right?"