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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79053 ***
+
+
+
+
+                             THE RED GODS
+
+                         (_LES DIEUX ROUGES_)
+
+                            By JEAN D'ESME
+
+                               A ROMANCE
+
+                    _Translated from the French by_
+                             MOREBY ACKLOM
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                        E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+                           681 FIFTH AVENUE
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1924
+                       BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+                         _All Rights Reserved_
+
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                           TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+
+This extraordinary story undoubtedly had its inception in a peculiar
+passage in the Report of a French official mission in Indo-China in
+1912, entitled _Les Jungles Moïs_ (The Moï Jungles). The translation of
+the passage runs as follows:
+
+    "This is not the first time that I have met this strange story of
+    savage men, dwellers in the forests of the mountains. They have
+    been reported from the wild region of the Annamite range. According
+    to the local descriptions these 'savages' must be covered with a
+    thick mat of red hair. They have been very seldom met with and are
+    now never seen; but everywhere one still comes upon the traces
+    which they left behind them."
+
+Romances of the discovery of prehistoric or vanished races are not
+uncommon; but I cannot recall any in which the discovery was made the
+subject of as splendid a piece of descriptive work, and at the same
+time of as poignantly tragic a drama as in this instance. I think even
+the most hardened reader of adventure-stories will admit that in _The
+Red Gods_ he has got something distinctly out of the common.
+
+
+M. A.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+                      PROLOGUE: IN TSEN-TAC'S OPIUM DEN
+
+                   I. SAIGON
+
+                  II. UP THE RIVER
+
+                 III. A FELLOW TRAVELER
+
+                  IV. POST 32
+
+                   V. AT THE MISSION
+
+                  VI. AN ENTHUSIAST DISCOURSES ON PRE-HISTORIC REMAINS
+
+                 VII. THE SILENT VILLAGE
+
+                VIII. LOVE IN THE FOREST
+
+                  IX. AN INTERVIEW WITH A SORCERESS
+
+                   X. THE FUGITIVE
+
+                  XI. A DESPERATE ADVENTURE
+
+                 XII. THOSE LEFT BEHIND
+
+                XIII. THE FUGITIVE'S STORY
+
+                 XIV. INTO THE UNKNOWN
+
+                  XV. DEEPENING MYSTERY
+
+                 XVI. NEAR THE END OF THE JOURNEY
+
+                XVII. A FREAK OF NATURE
+
+               XVIII. BACK IN THE STONE AGE
+
+                 XIX. OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE
+
+                  XX. INSIDE THE TEMPLE
+
+                 XXI. THE LAW OF GONDWANA
+
+                XXII. WANDA TELLS HER STORY
+
+               XXIII. A TERRIBLE BARGAIN
+
+                XXIV. THE RESCUE
+
+                 XXV. ESCAPE
+
+                XXVI. A MESSAGE FROM JIENG
+
+
+
+
+                             THE RED GODS
+
+
+
+
+                     LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
+
+
+                              _Europeans_
+
+    PIERRE DE LURSAC     A young administrative official of French Indo-China.
+    FATHER RAVENNES      Priest of the Apostolic Mission to the Banhars.
+    MICHAEL REDESKI      Of the French army: Lieutenant in service in Indo-China.
+    WANDA                His sister.
+    RABAUD               Captain of an up-country river steamer.
+    JULES BRESSOND       The narrator of the story: a boyhood friend of de Lursac's.
+
+
+
+                               _Natives_
+
+    JIENG         Chief sorceress and high priestess of the Moï tribes.
+    MAA-WANG      "The-Man-who-goes-in-Front."
+    NGUR          }
+    PÂA           } Native guides.
+    HMON          A woman of the Stieng tribe.
+
+
+    _Scene_: The city of Saigon (capital of French Indo-China) and
+    the unexplored, inaccessible forests surrounding the Pou-Kas, the
+    principal peak of the Annamite range.
+
+
+
+
+
+                             THE RED GODS
+
+
+
+
+                               PROLOGUE
+
+                        IN TSEN-TAC'S OPIUM DEN
+
+
+This is the door, here, in front of me! A heavy door of teak, black and
+shiny. However, with my hand on the iron latch, I hesitate, fighting
+the subtle uneasiness and irritation which I feel rising in me. At the
+back of my mind a question forms: why do I come here, to the bottom
+of this hidden alley at night, I, who seldom or never touch the opium
+pipe? Hardly at all: perhaps five or six pipes now and again on Sundays
+at the hour of siesta! Six little pipes, that's nothing! Any regular
+opium-smoker will tell you so. Then, why have I come here tonight? Why?
+As a matter of fact I feel that my presence here, behind this back-shop
+in the heart of the Chinese town of Cho-lon is silly and without
+excuse.... So silly and aimless that already I have withdrawn my hand,
+with my mind made up to retrace my steps along the sombre corridor
+and back through the sumptuous mart of the worthy Tsen-Tac, who sells
+to knowing connoisseurs precious silks and out-of-the-way curiosities
+brought by the big-bellied junks from China ... and who in addition
+dispenses, with discretion, to a few genuine and carefully chosen
+smokers, the priceless calm of opium.
+
+Yes, I shall not stay.... It will be better. The darkling spirit of the
+Drug shall not glide through my blood tonight. I am off.... But fate at
+this very moment decides otherwise. At my back, in the thick shadows a
+raucous voice cries:
+
+"In the name of Confucius, get on there!"
+
+And instinctively, pushing the swing-door, I enter. A puff of acrid
+odor, the smell of the wonderful perfume of Shandoo, at once rough and
+voluptuous, assails my senses and makes my heart leap!
+
+Behind me the closed door swings open roughly, and the man who
+addressed me stumbles into the room. Pushing by me, he advances to
+the "boy" who has run up to meet him. For a second I follow him with
+my eyes. His form is broken and bent, very tall, and so thin that it
+accentuates the fullness of the white linen clothes which flap about
+his limbs and at moments soften the jagged outline of his bones. A
+curious figure, like that of an old man, skeletonized and moribund; and
+the more surprising, in that certain signs reveal the strange contrast
+of an undeniable youthfulness in him. Sure signs: his step, rapid and
+full of strength; his movements, quick and jerky, peculiar to those who
+are under the domination of the Drug, when the brown hour of the smoke
+has arrived. But what do I care about this unknown man? He hurries on
+toward the bottom of the room and disappears. Without knowing why, I
+sigh with relief, and in my turn step forward. The "boy," as I come,
+smiles, showing his black enamelled teeth, and points out to me the
+bed which lies along the wall, the great plank platform on which the
+smokers lie and dream their strange dreams, while about them watches
+and drifts the spirit of the opium.
+
+With a nod, I assent and give my order.
+
+"Bamboo: small pipe."
+
+And, heavily, my body weary, I fling myself down on the bare wood
+polished with use, the coolness of which, through the cloth of my coat,
+penetrates deliciously to my flesh....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The time drifts away.... How many hours? I do not know, I do not care
+to know. Stretched out on my side, with my eyes fixed on the little
+crystal lamp topped with its conical globe in which the flame, like a
+living tongue, points upward, steady and reddish, I watch the movements
+of the "boy" plunging the steel needle into the sticky Shandoo, turning
+it over the lamp and rolling it on the brown bowl of the pipe.
+
+With my lips glued to the bamboo tube, blackened by opium and soaked
+with its deadly taste, I breathe in slowly, taking the long inhalations
+of the practiced smoker. Then, with my head thrown back on the pillow
+of smooth hollowed-out wood, I fix my eyes on the acrid smoke which
+trickles from my expanded nostrils, and of which the clouds, circling
+in spirals, rise slowly to the beams of the ceiling. All is silence.
+The only sound besides the bubbling of the cooked pills of opium is the
+scratching of the needles on the pipe bowls. Across the room a divine
+happiness floats, filling with dreams the warm dusk which the light of
+the great silken Chinese lanterns does not disturb,--just as it should
+be!
+
+Indescribable smell of opium smoke! I no longer think of anything else!
+It is the whole universe for me now; and my whole life flows in the
+great sweetness which drifts through my veins, lulling my senses and
+making the very marrow of my bones and the fibres of my muscles weak
+with pleasure!...
+
+Eighth or tenth pipe? What does it matter! The curtains are drawn, the
+air is still and pleasant, the light is faint, as it ought to be, too
+faint for any eyes but those of the smokers. Here and there along the
+platform the little lamps burn, like will-o-the-wisps dancing on the
+dark and sleeping surface of the wood, and the stretched-out bodies lie
+along the wall, the bamboo tubes in their mouths, while the "boy" bends
+over and puts fresh opium in the empty pipes.
+
+Slowly, very slowly,--for what is the good of hurrying--are not dreams
+everlasting?--I raise my hand. My lips, stiff, clumsy, manage to form
+the single word:
+
+"Tea."
+
+Silently the Annamese goes off, and I smile with satisfaction that he
+has been able to understand me without having made me go through the
+effort of explaining myself. Decidedly Tsen-Tac is a worthy proprietor,
+whose servants have been trained by practiced opium-smokers. I let my
+eyes close. Under my neck I feel the wood of the pillow like a cool and
+comforting hand, and in my brain, which has become clear and subtle,
+all sorts of strange things appear and move about,--apparitions which
+may be souvenirs of another life or visions of another world,--things
+reserved for the initiates of opium,--at any rate things which are
+strangely alive in the recesses of my brain and which one day without
+doubt will come into my human thoughts ... unless, when the effects of
+the opium have passed away I forget them--which is quite possible. For
+everything is possible! Everything! Except the one thing: that anyone
+should touch or interfere with a smoker who is dreaming over his pipe.
+
+I lift my lids and turn my head slightly towards the hand which has
+just dropped on my shoulder and committed this most inexcusable
+offence. My glance steals upwards, full of disgust, along the wrist and
+the arm, up to the face of the man who does not even know that one must
+pay absolute respect to the intoxication of the opium-smoker. At first
+with disgust, then in astonishment. It seems to me, indeed, that I know
+the face bent towards me. Where have I seen that expression before ...
+and when? It was a long time ago, certainly, a very long time. The eyes
+are deep and black and despairing, eyes which one does not quickly
+forget.
+
+Now the man speaks in a hoarse, muffled voice. Calling me by my name,
+he says:
+
+"Good evening, Jacques. I see that you are always sensible, as usual.
+You have had only ten pipes and here you are waiting for the green tea
+of Yun-nan which the boy is making for you. Only ten pipes, and already
+you are disgusted at me!"
+
+He has sat himself down in the attitude of one of those Lao-ese idols,
+with his legs crossed, his hands flat on his thighs, and he smiles upon
+me with a faint baffling smile.
+
+"Yes, I see this surprises you. But I understood your look at once when
+you raised your head towards me. Yes, I saw your scorn at the bottom
+of your eyes; exactly as I recognized you at once, when you came to
+stretch yourself out beside me, without noticing, and I said to myself:
+Here is he with whom I spent my childhood, and who does not know
+me,--_because I have aged so much_,--I have aged too soon, much too
+soon for other men to know me, even when they have been my childhood
+friends."
+
+He bends over me and looks at me strangely. He has something ironical
+and yet almost tender in his expression that I observe with curiosity.
+Then he lifts his head and speaks out loud the very thought which has
+just crossed my mind.
+
+"No. I am neither drunk nor mad! Scarcely twenty-five pipes. At this
+moment I have had my exact dose. Just enough to make me extraordinarily
+subtle and clairvoyant; and it is because of that I am speaking to
+you. I admit I hesitated a long time ... or a short one, I do not know
+which. What do you think of it? Is it worth the trouble?
+
+"Who am I? Bah!... I already told you: your best friend, he with whom
+you lived for years side by side, who shared your games, your pleasures
+and your sorrows of childhood. Don't you remember? Well, I am not
+surprised. I always thought that you had a mediocre brain. Unlucky that
+the Drug itself has not succeeded in improving it."
+
+He interrupts himself for a second to shrug his shoulders with a yawn
+of pity. His silence seems to expect an answer, yet nothing in me
+protests against the impertinence, at once brutal and kindly, of this
+unknown. The opium has permeated my soul with wisdom, kindliness and
+peace. Indifferent to his questions, I let my eyes wander over the
+panels inlaid with mother-of-pearl; the red hangings, embroidered with
+yellow characters, which cover the walls of the smoke-room; the faint
+white-clad forms, which move fitfully from time to time on the long
+vista of the platform, sighing heavily. But already the harsh voice of
+the stranger is beginning again:
+
+"Really, don't you remember Dinard? The beach at Port Blanc, blazing
+in the sunshine; the green water of the little bay in which we bathed
+every day in July? Don't you remember the house where we spent our
+vacations, covered all over with wild vine, its two little doorways
+of green wood, the spindle trees in line along the railings, and the
+clumps of hydrangeas on which the sun, striking through the trees,
+flung splashes of gold in which the blackbirds used to come and
+scold?...
+
+"And then later, don't you remember our school, the dear old Colonial
+School of the Avenue d'Observation, and the Luxembourg,--the old Luco
+where we used to leave our 'box' on autumn evenings and go to gaze at
+the falling dusk and the first yellow leaves which the breeze drove
+fluttering down from the trees and rolled gaily round the white statues
+on their gray pedestals?...
+
+"What! You don't? You remember nothing?... Doesn't that recall anything
+to you? Poor brute!..."
+
+Again he has bent over me, and he smiles with his face close to mine.
+But in vain I seek in my past and dig among the recollections of dead
+days in the corners of my memory. I cannot manage to recognize this man
+who pretends to have been the play-fellow of my youth. However, Yes!...
+I feel that everything that he has just reminded me of is right, and
+that these scenes that he has revived were formerly the background of
+my life! But what about him? I fling down my eyes with weariness and
+even with irritation.
+
+Nevertheless, his voice goes on, sadder and more confidential than ever.
+
+"No! I won't insist on it, but nevertheless open your eyes and look.
+Yes, that's right. Look at me long and carefully. Well? Is my poor face
+ugly enough, with its white hair, its wan gray skin withered by fever,
+washed by the rain, torn by the thorns? Is it terrible enough, with its
+bones that stick out all over it, with all these wrinkles which make it
+look like an old tragic mask from some Chinese theatre?
+
+"Disgusting face, isn't it? Well! I have just come out of hospital
+after four months in bed--four months in bed--and before that, four
+months more of suffering, weariness, and ghastly terror, of daily fear
+and deadly companionship! That changes a man, I tell you; and I forgive
+you for not knowing me, since even I myself at times have recoiled with
+fright before the unknown image that the looking-glass shows me!"
+
+He lifts his head. A twitch, a sort of intermittent cramp of his lip
+drags his mouth to one side violently, changing and deforming the
+face, which becomes livid, while in his staring eyes a sudden terrible
+light shines for an instant and passes away. He lifts his arms in a
+gesture of despair and weariness; then in a low voice, as if it were to
+himself, with a little dry laugh which comes and goes in jerks:
+
+"Just a rag! This is what one year in this country has made of me. Yes,
+this healthy and vigorous body and this willing brain which I brought
+here a few months ago are nothing now but rags and tatters, used up and
+withered, in which my soul and youth, though still alive, flutter and
+are slowly dying. And soon I shall be nothing but a vague memory which
+will gradually fade out day by day in the hearts of those who love me.
+Then soon,--so quickly--yes, so quickly--I shall have gone altogether.
+Then, who in this vile life will think of Pierre de Lursac?"
+
+"--_Pierre!_"
+
+I must have spoken too loud. Upon the sleeping-platform two or three
+smokers, like white spectres, begin to move and grumble at the intruder
+who is disturbing the serenity of the place.... What does that matter
+to me! With my arms stretched out, I repeat, my voice trembling:--
+
+"--_Pierre! Pierre!_"
+
+He bends towards me and with his two hands gripping my shoulders he
+holds me down.
+
+"Quiet ... yes ... it is I.... But quiet. I am satisfied.... Don't
+move. There is nothing important enough to allow of your disturbing
+your opium trance, and nothing is worse than getting excited when you
+have just finished smoking your dose.... Don't trouble to talk."
+
+He falls silent, his expression grave and thoughtful. On my part, while
+anxiously watching him, I dream of my childhood days and my youth.
+_Lursac!_... Is it really he whom I have before me? Once more I see him
+in my mind coming ashore at Saigon some few months after his graduation
+from college, scarcely a year ago.... I recall his enthusiasm, his
+ardor, his thirst for adventure, and the air of strength and manliness,
+of youth and good looks, which glowed in him. And now I look at him
+feverishly again. He is right ... a rag ... a miserable rag....
+
+"But why? Why?... What can have happened?"
+
+With a sombre eye he stares at me in silence. Slowly he changes his
+attitude of a Buddhist statue and stretches himself on his side, his
+hollowed face turned towards my lamp. Without words and without a
+wasted movement, he takes up the pipe that I have laid down. His long
+hands, fleshless and transparent, busy themselves in the prescribed
+motions, always the same. With eyes closed he smokes.
+
+Pipe follows pipe. A great silence weighs upon the human beings who
+stagnate in this hall filled with the oppressive perfume of the Drug. A
+silence only broken now and again for a moment by the distant striking
+of a gong, which marks the swallowing up of one hour after another
+in eternity ... and, from time to time, unreal and without echo in
+this house of nothingness, a woman's nervous laugh sends a spasm of
+discomfort through the calm.
+
+Then, in my turn I take up the pipe again....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then, suddenly, Lursac is talking. I watch him with vague curiosity. He
+is stretched out on his back. The pupils of his wide-open eyes, dilated
+and black, stare out, immobile and sightless, like two dead beasts.
+He speaks. My brain, soaked in the bitter smoke, picks its way among
+the aimless swarming of thoughts which rise up, melt away, and vanish
+without leaving any trace....
+
+One after the other, the smokers get up and go. They have the
+staggering and hesitating gait of drunkards. Their linen clothes make
+patches of ghostly white against the red hangings of the hall.... The
+dull slam of the door signals the departure of each in turn....
+
+Lursac is still talking....
+
+Each one of his words falls into my brain and is engraved there so
+indelibly that I am sure that the next time I smoke opium and become
+entranced as I am now, I shall be able to reproduce them all, from
+the first to the last, without omitting a single one.... Yes.... I am
+absolutely certain of that.
+
+However, tonight I do not feel able to distinguish whether all this is
+not a silly dream--the recollection of some life I have lived before in
+some other world....
+
+Yes, I'm drunk with opium, drunk ... drunk ... drunk, to such a point
+that I am unable to recognize this long pale thing,--this hand that he
+is playing with and caressing ... this thing which looks like a
+hand ... a woman's.... Idiot! What is it?... Pshaw!... Let's go to
+sleep....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Time flows on.... Seconds and minutes, parted one by one from the
+present, plunge themselves inevitably into the shadowy ocean of the
+always growing past.... On the walls the red hangings begin to get
+paler. They become pink, then mauve, under the gentle fingers of the
+dawn which steals bluely through the window panes and between the
+shutters into the smoke-clouded opium hall. The last words of Lursac
+penetrate to my ears in a vague murmur.
+
+"There you are, I'm finished.... Now, you know ... and nobody but you
+will know.... Nobody!... But I am glad to have told all this to you
+whom chance has placed at the last mile-stone of my journey. It would
+have worried me that you might have thought me mad, judging me by the
+gossip of some commonplace incident, or have supposed me crazed by the
+Drug and fever; as there will be those who will not fail to cry it
+aloud in their miserable papers!!! One lunatic the less! ... a quick
+and easy epitaph, but one which fits me well...."
+
+There is a long untroubled silence. Then a violent explosion seems to
+tear my brain apart. What is the fool playing at--?... Warm, heavy
+drops are falling on my hand ... and as I half open my eyes I spring
+up, staring and haggard. Pierre is lying beside me ... bent double,
+like a useless, broken toy. From his face, disfigured by a gaping hole,
+blood rolls, covering my cheek, my forehead, my clothes. And I sit
+there stupefied, without understanding. Only after the first minutes of
+disturbance and agitation, and while they are carrying away his great
+bony body, do I see at the end of the arm, hanging down and swaying
+as the carriers stagger along with their terrible burden, the shining
+steel of a revolver, round which his fingers are still clenched.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eight days ... that was eight days ago!...
+
+And every evening since--because my nerves were torn to pieces and
+because the Shandoo, as I had foreseen, allowed all the details of my
+friend's story to rise from the bottom of my memory,--every evening
+since then, I have written, bit by bit, faithfully, the strange story
+that he told me before killing himself. I have not written it for
+myself, _who know_, but for others--for the people here, for the people
+in France; in a word, for all those unbelievers who in the darkness of
+their blindness think they know everything, although they are beset
+with ignorance, and believe that they have dislodged the Unknown from
+the last shadowy haunt in which it is hiding. Although they have no
+suspicion, even, of the mystery which is here, there, everywhere, close
+to them, and which I am the only one to hold under my hands.... The
+only one!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+... There, I have finished.... I have left out nothing:--not a single
+particular, not a word. Everything has been reproduced exactly.
+In any case I could not forget anything, because of this woman's
+hand,--this long pale hand so perfectly embalmed that one would swear
+it was alive and ready to move any minute. There it is: the signet on
+its ring-finger bears the following charge: _Dexter, argent, a lion
+sable--Sinister, azure, a chevron or_ ... and now, out through the
+window, open to the sweet and placid night of Annam, I am going to
+fling it, so that I may be no longer haunted by it, may no longer have
+to see it there....
+
+There it goes, _splash_!
+
+It must have fallen in the canal. And there the black mud will soon
+cover it for ever....
+
+... And I shall never smoke opium again, never!... But that has nothing
+to do with this....
+
+And here is the story that he told me[1]....
+
+[Footnote 1: Captain Jacques Bressond fell on the French front, July
+28, 1917, in the attack on the Chemin des Dames. At the bottom of
+his dispatch case among the personal souvenirs which he had asked me
+to send to his family if he was killed, there lay a large yellow,
+commercial-looking envelope with the inscription "For Jean." In the
+envelope there were the pages that follow, accompanied by a roll of
+parchment covered with unknown characters, probably in the Banhar
+language. My sole care has been to see to the publication of Bressond's
+text with a mixed feeling of respect and tenderness for his heroic
+death and friendship for the man himself. Although the names given by
+Bressond are real ones I have not changed a single word of his story,
+for the correctness of which I take full responsibility.
+
+J. D'E.]
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+                                SAIGON
+
+
+On the threshold of the office Pierre de Lursac stopped.
+
+Behind him the beaded hanging rustled as it fell into place. Carefully
+he folded up the paper of instructions that had been handed to him a
+few minutes earlier by the Director of Personnel, and as he thought
+over the orders which he had just received he crossed the veranda.
+
+Below the balustrade of the porch lay stretched the tropical vegetation
+of the gardens of Government House. Walks, shining and carefully
+tended, wound about the clumps of rhododendrons and the green lawns
+over which the flame-trees and tamarinds flung round patches of shade.
+
+When he came to the foot of the main staircase of gray stone which led
+to the park, Pierre ordered the _linh_ who was on guard a few steps
+away:
+
+"My rickshaw."
+
+The rifleman immediately barked a short order, and a light vehicle
+appeared from one of the side avenues. Following the lively and
+cadenced jog-trot of its coolie, it described a semicircle and drew up,
+shafts on the ground, in front of the young man.
+
+Jumping nimbly into it, Pierre lay back on the cushions cased in white
+coverings, and then, as the runner, ready to start, looked up at him
+with a questioning face expecting directions, Lursac signed to the
+_linh_ to come closer.
+
+"I don't speak Annamese well enough to make myself understood. Tell him
+I want to go back to the hotel."
+
+The rifleman gave an elaborate salute, and this military gesture,
+usually sharp and formal, seemed astonishing when performed by this
+little puny soldier who looked like a mixture of a toy and a warrior
+out of a comic operetta.
+
+He acknowledged the order:
+
+"_Gia bam qua lon._"[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Very well, sir.]
+
+And he immediately launched forth into verbose explanations to the
+coolie, the nasal syllables echoing strangely in the sonorous silences
+of the park. The coolie nodded and started off with a supple and
+rhythmic gait; while Pierre, lying spread out against the back of the
+little car, watched the naked back of the runner, down which great
+drops of sweat were already beginning to roll. As soon as they left the
+shady alleys of the park, and while they were crossing the square which
+stretches in front of the Government offices, a wave of heat enveloped
+them. It was nearly four o'clock. From the burning ground the hot air
+rose in waves, while above the trees, flooded with dazzling light,
+the lifeless and quivering atmosphere vibrated in the heat. Although
+he wore a cork helmet and was clothed in the lightest of white linen,
+Pierre experienced a feeling of prostration at the touch of this fiery
+breath. When the rickshaw at last entered the shade of the avenue of
+lofty tamarinds, he sighed with relief. A little coolness caused by
+the rapidity of their progress caressed his face, relaxed the feeling
+of depression in his temples, spread along his body and refreshed him
+with a sensation of well-being. He flung himself back, stretched out
+his legs, and shut his eyes, giving himself up to the swaying of the
+light vehicle whose rubber-tired wheels rode softly on the dust of the
+roadway.
+
+As the running coolie slowed down a little in consequence of a block in
+the traffic, Lursac heard a voice calling to him.
+
+"Hullo! Pierre!"
+
+Surprised, he turned his head and shot a quick glance along the edge
+of the street. On the sidewalk, smiling and waving to attract his
+attention, a lieutenant of colonial infantry was standing and calling
+to him:
+
+"Come here!"
+
+Lursac recognized him immediately.
+
+"Jacques!"
+
+Touching the shoulder of the coolie with his walking stick, he cried:
+
+"Toi.... Toi...."
+
+It was the one word which he had so far succeeded in remembering of the
+Annamese language since his arrival in Saigon.
+
+Prodded from behind, the runner had immediately stopped, and Pierre,
+jumping out of the rickshaw, hurried toward the officer who came to
+meet him. They greeted each other with the light of pleasure in their
+eyes: then Jacques Bressond, drawing back a couple of steps, looked his
+friend up and down. Lursac, upright in the middle of the sidewalk, drew
+himself up to his full height so that his white tunic clung tightly to
+his figure and threw into relief his splendid chest, the free swing of
+his shoulders and the harmonious strength which showed itself in his
+erect carriage and the spring of his legs. In fact, a fine figure of a
+man, whose strong, talented face was set off by two brilliant dark eyes
+deeply set. Jacques took him by the arm.
+
+"I found your message when I got back from my trip this morning; I
+immediately ran off to your hotel, where I shouted till the whole place
+rang!... The service boy, after bowing and scraping, gibbered at me:
+'M. Lursac been gone, two o'clock.' It was enough for me to understand
+what he meant.... What luck to meet you like this!... What are you
+doing?"
+
+"Nothing," said Pierre, "I am just going back to the hotel."
+
+"All right, then I will take charge of you. We will go and take an
+aperitif together and then we will make the 'Tour of Inspection' in a
+carriage."
+
+"Tour of Inspection?"
+
+"Yes, the swagger thing to do, the Avenue des Acacias of Saigon
+high-life, the fashionable six-to-eight-o'clock affair.... It is
+curious and instructive, as you will see! You'll come, won't you?"
+
+Lursac agreed.
+
+"With pleasure. I have been here for three days now, and already I am
+beginning to feel my loneliness weighing on me. They told me that you
+were going to be absent for another fortnight."
+
+He threw some change to the rickshaw coolie, who made himself scarce.
+
+"Yes, but I had to turn in here to get new instructions before
+continuing my journey of official inspection."
+
+They had resumed their walk side by side down the Rue Catinat. Under
+the sun which beat down from a sky of hard, cloudless blue that glowed
+like a metal dome, the life of the town stagnated, prostrated by the
+heat.
+
+In the shops, which the lowered shades protected with a zone of shadow,
+the customers seated at their ease bargained casually over the precious
+knick-knacks in lacquer, ivory, and mother-of-pearl which every now
+and then gave off a vivid sparkle of light. On their haunches at their
+benches behind the glass of the shop front the native jewelers, clad
+only in the soft _cai-ao_ of fine linen, hammered out complicated and
+original designs on the gold or silver of an umbrella handle which
+would eventually be the prized possession of some coarse western
+barbarian!
+
+The interior of the shops, guessed at rather than seen through the
+opening of the drawn curtains, seemed like oases of shade and coolness,
+and attracted with some subtle charm.
+
+As they went along Jacques explained:
+
+"Since I found on my table this morning all your letters from France
+announcing your arrival here I have been thinking of nothing but Paris.
+I have been living in the midst of the recollections which you have
+brought to life again.... Do you remember when we used to start off for
+the Valley de Chevreuse on Saturdays?"
+
+They crossed the square, at the bottom of which the municipal theatre
+reared its ornate façade in imitation of a Greek temple, opposite the
+wide semicircle from which the Boulevard Charner could be seen blazing
+with light and baking in the sun.
+
+When they had arrived on the pavement opposite, Jacques Bressond,
+pointing out the café which occupied the angle between the Square and
+the Rue Catinat, said:
+
+"Let us stop here. We will take a seat on the terrace. For you who
+are new to Saigon the sight will be worth while. This is exactly the
+right moment, the exquisite moment, for now, at the slight pretence of
+coolness that the evening breeze brings with it, the fashionable people
+of the town gather to suck iced drinks through straws--milky absinthe
+shot with iridescent colors, emerald crème de menthe and the entire
+gamut of cocktails, dark and light and rainbow-hued."
+
+Pierre smiled, and seating himself he asked:
+
+"Do you like the country?"
+
+"Well, like every other place, it has its good side and its bad side.
+However, it seems to me that the pleasures are more numerous than the
+troubles. And then, why shouldn't I like Saigon? Of the last six months
+I have spent four or five exploring the bush, in climbing sandy hills,
+wandering through the impenetrable confusion of the forests of Annam
+and upper Tonkin, and in floundering about in the green mud of the
+canals and the creeks of Laos...."
+
+"Do you know Laos, then?"
+
+"Pretty well. I have made two trips there on geodetic surveys."
+
+"Splendid. You can give me some information then. Here, see where the
+chief is sending me."
+
+He pulled out of his pocket the paper of instructions that he had been
+given earlier in the day and extended it to Bressond.
+
+The boy, clothed in a long tunic of white linen and with his head
+wound in a turban of linen set down before them on the bamboo table a
+tray heaped with bottles of many colors. While he measured and mixed
+with the precision of habit the liquids and ingredients of an oyster
+cocktail in the glasses filled with cracked ice, Jacques Bressond ran
+over the paper which Lursac had handed him.
+
+The boy, having completed the mixture, placed the glasses before the
+young men and disappeared.
+
+Bressond passed back the paper of instructions to Lursac.
+
+"Post 32? Don't know it. Haven't they given you any other details?"
+
+"No.... Oh, yes, wait a minute, ... yes. The Chief of Personnel told me
+that the post was at the foot of the Pou-Kas."
+
+Jacques Bressond raised his head.
+
+"Ah, wait.... Pou-Kas? Isn't the post on the bank of the canal?"
+
+"Yes, I have to go there part of the way in an ox-cart and part in a
+boat.... Do you know it?"
+
+The officer sucked a few drops of his cocktail from the end of his
+straw and reflected.
+
+Beside him with stretched out legs Pierre watched with curiosity the
+Rue Catinat, along which people were beginning to appear. Five o'clock
+struck in the distance with clear metallic strokes. The terrace of the
+café at once began to fill with patrons in white waistcoats and light
+dresses. Like a swollen river, the fashionable artery of Saigonese
+life brimmed with a noisy wave of carriages, of street hawkers and
+promenaders. From café to café the newsboys ran, slipping from one
+table to another, yelping the name of a local newspaper; while,
+opposite, two Chinese with crumpled features got out of a malabar and
+disappeared into a tailor shop.
+
+The café orchestra suddenly dashed into a waltz. Sharp bursts of
+music dominated the confused noise which mounted from the pavement,
+and a languorous tune just imported from Europe was borne aloft on
+two squeaky violins accompanied by a husky-voiced piano and a shaky
+mandoline.
+
+Vaguely soothed, Pierre abandoned himself to the pleasure of being
+there, peacefully situated under the punkahs, with an iced drink in
+front of him, in the midst of this tumult and heat which surrounded him.
+
+Bressond's voice stirred his placidity:
+
+"The Pou-Kas.... I seem to remember that.... I must have passed it
+on my last trip but one. I have trekked about the country more than
+a little. That was certainly one of my roughest trips. Yes ... wait,
+now I remember.... It is the region which stretches at the foot of the
+great Annamite mountain-chain, in the middle of the forest, almost on
+the Burmese frontier ... a ghastly country, my poor old chap! You will
+never find anything to amuse yourself with there."
+
+Pierre smiled absent-mindedly. His eyes ran along the side of the wall
+and followed the jerky progress of a _congai_ whose black silk tunic
+and large white _cai-quan_ appeared and disappeared amongst the throng.
+
+"Bah!" said he, "I didn't come here for amusement. In any case they
+didn't pretend at the office that the post possessed anything to
+recommend it."
+
+Bressond sipped his cocktail and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Nothing to recommend it? I should say not! To begin with, you will
+arrive there in the middle of the rainy season. Secondly, you will have
+to live in the middle of this clump of mountains hardly explored as
+yet, alone with a dozen native soldiers of the military station, and
+... it's a very advanced point, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, Post 32. Moï territory, it appears."
+
+Bressond started.
+
+"In Moï territory.... Number 32.... By Buddha!... Now I know. It's even
+worse than I thought. Well, well! You are certainly going strong for
+a beginner.... But ... what on earth do they want to send a military
+administrator out there for?"
+
+Pierre, nettled by the tone in which he made this exclamation, looked
+at him fixedly.
+
+"They are sending me to join a lieutenant who has just been nominated
+to the post. It is a special appointment. My business will be to
+inaugurate the civil organization. But what is there unusual about this
+Post 32?"
+
+Bressond shook his head.
+
+"What is there unusual? I do not know exactly ... and nobody here
+knows anything more than I do. At any rate it is the worst hole in the
+whole of Upper Laos! But, of course you know how they speak of it ...
+'recently established' ... all humbug, my boy!"
+
+And as Pierre shot a look of interrogation at him he continued:
+
+"Yes, all humbug! As a matter of fact, the post was instituted for the
+first time at least six or seven years ago. It was Longères who had it.
+At the end of six months, no Longères, no Post 32. A flood had swept
+away the settlement and its inhabitants. At least that is the version
+that the surviving members of the garrison gave of the accident....
+One had to be satisfied with that.... However, for three years no one
+mentioned Post 32. Then one fine day some official or other digging
+through his papers discovered that for the security of our dominion in
+Indo-China it was indispensable that the post should be re-established."
+
+A driver, curled up on the seat of his victoria, passed on his way up
+the street. Bressond broke off to make him a sign. At the same time
+he threw a coin on the table and as the boy ran up he pushed Pierre
+de Lursac before him into the carriage, giving a brief order to the
+coachman.
+
+"The tour of inspection through the Botanical Gardens. You understand?"
+
+"I understand, O Mandarin of two stripes."
+
+At a lively trot the two native ponies, tossing their ruffled manes as
+they went, drew the carriage down the Rue Catinat, turned to the left
+and followed the line of the quays, along which in a brown and black
+medley the sampans showed their masts and the lines of their decks.
+
+Something resembling coolness floated down the bed of the river; the
+light began to soften, melting its violent golds into shades of mauve.
+The dying day threw over the white town some of its purple splendor.
+And under the hoofs of the horses a slight dust rose like a delicate
+honey-colored cloud.
+
+Pierre had put his hand on his friend's arm.
+
+"And then?" he asked.
+
+Bressond turned to look at him.
+
+"Then what?... Ah! yes.... Post 32! Well! they re-established it, as
+I told you. And this time it was Dorcel who took charge. For a year
+everything went all right. And then suddenly the news burst like a bomb
+in the newspapers: all over with Post 32 again! But, as it had been
+rebuilt on a spur of the mountain, this time it wasn't a flood, but a
+fire, that had destroyed it. As for Dorcel, he just managed to arrive
+at the hospital and died without being able to throw the slightest
+light on this second accident to the celebrated Post 32...."
+
+The victoria, now having caught up with the procession of carriages
+which was defiling along the promenade, slackened speed and took its
+turn.... In the opposite direction another line of vehicles was passing
+at a foot pace--buggies with thin wheels, high-seated tilburys, gigs
+drawn by horses driven tandem, shining victorias whose cushions were
+rich with bright dresses and brilliant umbrellas.
+
+Bressond's hand was ever at his military cap in the salute, while here
+and there he shot a smile or a nod to acquaintances or ladies whom he
+knew.
+
+Leaning against the backboard of the carriage, Pierre de Lursac amused
+himself by contemplating this long row of colonial fashion. Before his
+unaccustomed eyes, Saigon society lay spread, offering its celebrities
+and its peculiarities for his inspection.
+
+Bressond meanwhile, a guide as willing as thoroughly informed,
+explained and made comments. In a few quick picturesque words, he drew
+a portrait, sketched a caricature, made an imputation and gave the
+whole story of the person at the bar.
+
+When they had arrived at the end of the promenade, they turned and
+went back by the way they had come, still followed and preceded by
+the other carriages. The daylight faded softly. From each side of the
+long dusty reddish road the flooded rice-fields stretched away like
+swampy checker-boards, on which the docile black buffaloes driven by
+ragged youngsters slowly plodded along with their enormous curved horns
+silhouetted against the pale sky in the shape of widely rounded lyres.
+With shrill cries a flock of herons floated down over a clump of palms,
+in the shade of which was a huddle of huts.
+
+The countryside, which was gradually dropping to rest in the peace of
+the dying day, was archaic, oriental and primitive beyond belief.
+
+Pierre remarked upon it, and Bressond, with a shrug, assented:
+
+"It is a beautiful country--beautiful but strange, and not the least
+like the conventional Far East that is so popular in France!"
+
+He thought a minute and went on:
+
+"After all, that is not so astonishing, for very few people, even here,
+know Indo-China ... very few...."
+
+"But...."
+
+"No, believe me, it is a country that no one among us really knows, nor
+will know for a long time yet. It isn't enough, in order to understand
+it, to have traveled through it, not even to have spent two years,
+three years or more in it.... No; neither you nor I, who come here
+with our European souls and with the mentality of conquerors, neither
+you nor I, nor the others of our kind, will ever be able to understand
+this race!... For instance, look at the stupidity, the ignorance, of
+this official who for the third time has re-established a military
+post in an unknown region in the middle of a country not yet
+conquered, and which no one has been able to explore and not even
+to penetrate ... no one! and on the top of that they send out
+an administrator!... To administrate what? ... and above all to
+administrate whom? Well, anyway, you will have the chance of meeting
+Redeski there.... And that's that."
+
+Pierre turned to him.
+
+"Redeski?"
+
+"Yes, he is the man who commands the fort there....
+Jacques-Boleslas-Michael Redeski, of an old Polish family; a real
+count, but as poor as Job of biblical memory. A naturalized Frenchman,
+educated in Paris, graduated from St. Cyr: Morocco, the Soudan,
+Indo-China, everywhere, in fact, where war and adventure can still
+be had. A balanced mind but an emotional nature, at once sympathetic
+and sceptical. To sum up, most amusing and original, and the best of
+friends. For nearly two years we patrolled the forests together on the
+frontier of China.
+
+"There now, you know him. And anyway you couldn't have started out with
+a better comrade, especially in a hole like that...."
+
+He interrupted himself to look at his watch.
+
+"Oh, damn! Half past seven!... We have just time to get back."
+
+They had reached the alleys of the Botanical Garden. Getting up, he
+touched the back of the driver.
+
+"_Mao ... Mao!_[3]... Stop at the Continental." Turning back to Lursac,
+he explained:
+
+"You will excuse me: I am on duty tonight. I have to dine at the club
+with the chief engineer of Hong-Hai. An official dinner...."
+
+[Footnote 3: Quick, quick!]
+
+The victoria, extricating itself from the long row of carriages, turned
+off into an avenue and the ponies were put to a trot.
+
+Night had fallen. The alleys, over which the branches of the trees met,
+looked like long tunnels. Under the arches a warm scent wandered. To
+the perfume of opening hibiscus and the purple flame-trees was added
+the heavy scent of the sap-filled flowers and the thick rich soil of
+Indo-China.
+
+Through the evening peace which had so suddenly fallen about them the
+shrill voices of the crickets mingled their chirping with the echoes of
+the ponies' hoofs. Then, suddenly breaking from the shadow and silence,
+the carriage swung into the full tide of Saigon's restless noise.
+
+Above the streets the electric globes poured down their violent
+illumination. A tossing crowd surged through the avenues and jammed the
+windows of the brilliantly lighted shops. Autos, with blasts of their
+horns, forced themselves a passage through the crowds of rickshaws and
+malabars descending the Boulevard Charner. In the cafés the orchestras
+played feverishly. The carriage, following the Boulevard, turned to
+the right and after having traversed part of the Rue Catinat stopped
+opposite the Continental. Pierre jumped out on the sidewalk. Leaning
+from the carriage, Bressond took leave of him.
+
+"Good bye, Pierre, and good luck, old man! I would like to have done
+more for you, but tomorrow I start out on a mission to Upper Tonkin and
+it is very unlikely that I shall be able to see you again here."
+
+Lursac gave him a strong friendly hand clasp.
+
+"Good bye, Jacques! and good luck to you also. I will write you from
+Post 32."
+
+"So do, and remember me to Redeski. Now, quick to the club!"
+
+Drawing the whip sharply over the team, the driver started off.
+
+When the victoria had disappeared, lost in the crowd of other vehicles,
+Pierre crossed the street towards his hotel, but, just as he got to the
+sidewalk he started violently: a guttural voice close to him had flung
+out the words:
+
+"_The Pou-Kas is not for white people._"
+
+He turned round suddenly and with a quick glance searched the
+surroundings. In front of him the passers-by were hurrying on their
+way. Three _congais_ walked arm in arm, chattering and laughing. Two
+rickshaws, side by side, were having a race and were already far
+past him. A soup-peddler, his two jars suspended at the ends of a
+bar balanced on his shoulders, advertised his wares with a clapper
+and cried their merits aloud, while, interfering with his trade, a
+street-boy with a basket of earth-n
+uts on his arm, called out in a
+sing-song voice for customers....
+
+Was it he? ... or perhaps this Chinaman, wrapped in a tunic of lavender
+silk, who uttered the strange warning?... Or was it not rather this
+blind beggar who passed, slow and doubtful, tapping the road with his
+staff?
+
+How was he to know?
+
+Already the cry of the nut-vendor was losing itself in the general
+hubbub; the variegated crowd continued to roll by, carrying away with
+it the three _congais_, the Chinaman, the beggar and the soup-vendor,
+whose little stove left a red glow in the darkness. More coolies, more
+natives came and passed, all nameless, all alike, with their faces
+equally yellow and their expressions equally grinning and ape-like.
+
+In doubt, Pierre stood motionless on the edge of the pavement. Before
+him, Saigon, the cosmopolitan meeting place of all races of Europe
+and Asia, where the Annamese, the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Malay, the
+French, the English, the Japanese, the Russian elbowed each other and
+mixed with the confusion--Saigon the Magnificent, the whirlpool of all
+religions and all civilizations, the most modern side-by-side with
+the most ancient--and lastly, Saigon the French city, in the midst of
+tzigane orchestras imported from Europe, awoke and stretched herself
+languorously under the warm voluptuous caresses of the Annamese night.
+
+Regardless of this whirlpool of life which flung itself violently at
+him, Pierre, overcome by a strange presentiment of ill fortune and a
+wave of loneliness, crossed the threshold of his hotel.
+
+Inside the door, two "boys," clad in the conventional white tunic,
+received him with the customary three salaams, ... three deep salaams,
+of which the outward respectfulness could not hide altogether the
+servile insolence.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+                             UP THE RIVER
+
+
+The captain pulled the cord of the ship's whistle. The shrill sudden
+call tore its way through the air, floated along the yellow surface
+of the water, lingered along the banks of the river and finally lost
+itself in the depths of the forest.
+
+The _Vien-Thian_ turned through a quarter of a circle, nosing out her
+way slowly between the banks of mud which showed almost level with
+the current, like brown backs of great sleeping saurians. There was
+a second call from the whistle, longer this time and more lingering,
+which died away softly in the moist, still air.
+
+Suddenly awakened, Lursac drew himself up and looked about him. Through
+the round porthole, beneath which the water slid and gurgled, the
+yellow light trickled, showing the gray walls of the cabin. The narrow
+little den stowed away in the 'tween decks of the boat vibrated heavily
+with every throb from the engine-room next door. Jumping out of his
+bunk, Pierre hastily flung on his clothes and went out. In two strides
+he reached the ladder screwed to the wall of the passage and climbed
+it. The spectacle which the waist of the ship offered him made him stop
+for a moment. On the wooden deck, littered with all kinds of parcels,
+the natives still lay sleeping,--a picturesque mixture of Annamese,
+Chinese, Cambodians and Lao-ese. Amidst the scattered medley of chests,
+mats and baskets of all shapes and sizes, their bodies entwined and
+pressed close against each other gave the effect of a many-colored
+carpet. From the all too narrow deck they had spread into the gunwales
+and were even stretched upon the bulwarks in a dangerous sleep,
+balanced above the slimy waters of the river.
+
+Hesitatingly the day broke, dimly showing the left bank of the Me-Kong,
+which stretched away into the distance straight and low. Thin and
+persistent, the rain fell like gray ashes, streaking the countryside,
+while over the earth, still drowned in fog, the light seemed powerless
+to spread.
+
+Pierre had now got as far as the bridge. Upright before the binnacle,
+his eyes fixed on the course of the ship, the captain snapped his
+orders through the engine-room speaking tube. He was an old man, tall
+and thin, but erect, and clothed in khaki-colored linen. His lined
+face, baked by the sun and tanned by the weather, had a reddish tinge
+which gave him the peculiar appearance of having been kneaded from a
+block of the Cambodian earth which showed brick-colored along the sides
+of the river. A sailor of the old school, he sported whiskers, whose
+whiteness framed and emphasised the softness of his deep blue eyes.
+
+Approaching him, Pierre gave him a friendly greeting and asked:
+
+"Are we getting there?"
+
+Without letting his glance stray from the current against which the
+screws were pushing the vessel, the old man replied briefly:
+
+"Not yet; we are just entering the 'drowned forest.' Look!"
+
+As a matter of fact, the boat, turning about, was pointed directly
+towards the bank.
+
+Leaning on the bulwarks, Pierre watched the land as it loomed nearer
+and larger. The bank, slowly becoming plainer, stretched to the
+horizon, cutting the yellow waters with its narrow flat marshy outline.
+Gradually the eye could discern the details of the scene: hanging over
+the muddy earth and bathing their innumerable roots in the current
+the mangroves, with their twisted branches, and the palms with their
+slender stems, stood in ranks upon the fen which stretched far to the
+west, leprous with moss and spotted with clumps of cane and brush. Far
+away, their tops girdled with fog, the rounded masses of the hills
+sloped gradually upward. Little by little everything came nearer and
+grew larger. In the middle of the current floating masses of leafage
+torn from the palms by the rising waters turned slowly round and round
+as they drifted by. In spots the trees which the flood had overtaken
+stretched their dark tops above the flat water; for the river, breaking
+loose, had conquered the giant wood and submerged it. Against the bow
+of the boat from time to time branches crashed and were pushed aside
+with a dull scraping sound.
+
+And then, suddenly, clear and mysterious like an avenue in some
+nightmare park, the channel appeared. Slowly the _Vien-Thian_ forced
+itself into the deep and mysterious heart of the great Cambodian
+forest, through which in the dry season the native hunters were wont
+to go with their ears pricked and their eyes on the watch questing for
+their daily prey. Hidden under the great masses of tamarinds, teak
+trees and sandalwoods, of which only the tops were still visible above
+the water, the banks of the river had suddenly vanished. Against the
+enormous trunks the current frothed and grumbled. Above the submerged
+forest-land the fog was gradually lifting: it wound itself between the
+rounded summits of the trees and floated gradually towards the sky.
+Half seen now through the mist, islets showed, fringed by branches
+mixed with giant grasses which draggled in the muddy waters.
+
+On the deck the crowd of native passengers began to move confusedly. A
+deep silence still brooded over them: crushed one against another, the
+men smoked without speaking, while crouched on their mats, the women,
+silent and shivering, watched the gloomy scene slide by the bow of the
+vessel.
+
+Leaning on the rail, Pierre de Lursac felt all the magic of this
+strange voyage in the heart of the "drowned forest," on an invisible
+river peopled by ghosts of trees and shadows of islands. Denser and
+denser the fog again closed round the boat: and the mob of natives
+could only be seen as a vague dark mass.
+
+On the bridge, hidden in fog, even the captain was no longer visible.
+All that remained of him was the sound of his sharp orders shot from
+time to time into the mouthpiece of the engine-room speaking tube, with
+which amidst the brooding silence he ruled the rhythmic throb of the
+engine.
+
+Suddenly a clear and vigorous feminine voice sounded:
+
+"What a mad-looking country!"
+
+In his isolation and amid the monotonous sadness of this voyage, which
+had now lasted for a week, the sound of this voice seemed to Pierre the
+most unexpected and the most extraordinary of adventures.
+
+He turned round swiftly and tried to penetrate with his eyes the cold
+wall of fog which hung over everything; but he could see nothing. Then,
+however, a conversation began between the mysterious unknown and the
+captain.
+
+"Good morning, Père Rabaud. Aren't you surprised, after my hiding
+myself for eight days, to meet me on the bridge? Yes, I decided to
+clamber up here, you see.... I should have been sorry to miss all this.
+What a peculiar sight!"
+
+"Good morning, Mademoiselle. I don't wonder you think so! But this part
+of the world has got a lot of strange things to show! As you said just
+now, it's a queer country! You'll see lots of other strange things, no
+fear of that."
+
+The woman's voice with its peculiar metallic timbre sounded again.
+
+"So much the better."
+
+The captain groaned.
+
+"Phew! You say that ... but if you lived as I have for twenty years in
+this cursed country ... it isn't quite the same thing as Paris, I can
+tell you!..."
+
+A long ripple of laughter broke the silence.
+
+"Yes ... but as for me, I have lived in Europe; and there existence is
+so monotonous and so exactly the same day after day that I am tired of
+it."
+
+Then there was a short silence and the captain said in a lowered voice:
+
+"Then you are still determined to go on with your plan?"
+
+"More than ever, as I feel that he needs me.... Oh! he does not
+complain, but in between the lines of the letters that he has written
+me I have felt that his loneliness has weighed on him terribly.... Yes,
+I know, ... you are going to tell me that my place is not here and that
+I shall be a nuisance to him. But he is alone, you understand, and for
+him as for me, there can be nothing worse than this isolation which we
+have never been able to get used to and against which we have never
+ceased to struggle with all our love for each other."
+
+The tone of her voice had become grave with an undertone of deep
+earnestness. Then suddenly it changed and rose again.
+
+"Are we far from Khône-Sud?"
+
+"No, ... even now we are getting out of the great 'drowned forest,' and
+see, ... the fog is lifting."
+
+Pierre had to imagine a gesture which he could not see but which a
+short silence emphasised; then the captain went on in a low voice and
+in a bantering, confidential tone:
+
+"I have a fellow-traveler for you...."
+
+Vibrant and authoritative her response leapt out:
+
+"I don't want one.... I prefer to be independent...."
+
+The captain gave a jovial laugh.
+
+"Yes, yes ... of course ... but I have my responsibility to consider;
+I have promised to do what I can for you to help you to get there,
+and...."
+
+He called out sharply:
+
+"Monsieur de Lursac!"
+
+Pierre jumped. He took two steps forward quickly and then stopped dead.
+A sentence which the unknown had spoken had arrested him in mid career.
+
+"No!" she cried, with irritation, "No ... I shall not thank you for
+that!"
+
+"But heavens and earth!" swore the captain, "how can I leave a woman
+to play the adventurer here all alone, without escort in a country
+in which the men themselves daren't go about without all kinds of
+precautions! That would be foolishness!..."
+
+"Foolishness or not, I have made up my mind. Do not let us speak of it
+again."
+
+Pierre had turned away. The fog was now thinning; the sun, yellow and
+rayless, appeared between two clouds. The river had broadened into a
+great loop and the last scattered trees of the "drowned forest" could
+be seen dotted about the immense waste of waters. Picking its way
+between islands of mud, the _Vien-Thian_, coming out into the open,
+pointed straight towards the bank of the Me-Kong, which appeared in
+the distance as a vague brown line marked in the middle with a white
+splash, the memorial erected to Commandant Diacre, who had been drowned
+there some years before. With hoarse cries a flock of herons rose and
+wheeled; while, in the rigid attitude of sleepers, three cormorants,
+perched on a tree trunk, each with one claw drawn up under his gray
+breast, snapped their beaks with loud clacking noises and watched the
+boat suspiciously as it passed them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forcing himself to seem unaware of the conversation he had overheard,
+Pierre pretended to be absorbed once more in the contemplation of the
+bank which was rapidly growing plainer. Behind him, however, he was
+conscious of the Unknown whose unexpected presence on board excited
+his curiosity. With this feeling was mingled one of hurt pride. Who
+was she? Who was this man of whom she had spoken in terms which were
+certainly open to misconstruction? And what was he to her? Pierre would
+have given anything to know. But the roughness of the young woman's
+response when Captain Rabaud had offered her a traveling-companion had
+hurt his feelings.
+
+He lit a cigarette and pulled his sketch-book out of his pocket.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now over the bow of the boat appeared the river bank, every detail
+clear and distinct. A long rank of palm trees stood on the edge of
+the stream, revealing under their thin straight shadows a shed with a
+thatched roof. A kind of primitive landing stage made of planks roughly
+thrown together on some cross beams projected into the water of the
+river. Beyond, over the tops of the palms, stretched toward the horizon
+a brown land dotted with scanty bushes, while in the distance the
+rapids of Hou-Sadan frothed and snarled.
+
+Pointing out the yellow thatched roof with his finger, the captain
+announced:
+
+"Khône-Sud!"
+
+A confused noise rose from the waist of the ship filled with native
+passengers. They had all risen to their feet, and pressed tight
+against the bulwarks they disputed among themselves, exchanged remarks
+and busied themselves over their meagre baggage. Tanned, brown and
+powerful, the Cambodians folded up their square flat mattresses and
+hoisted their bundles to their shoulders to be ready for landing.
+Small and noisy, the Annamese pushed here and there, cursing aloud,
+shoving their women, boxing the ears of the children who screamed with
+ear-splitting yells. In a corner, collected together in a separate
+group, the Chinese methodically and without hurry counted over their
+bags of merchandise, lined up their boxes and got their papers ready.
+Nonchalant and frail, the Lao-ese, with their pale faces, smiled and
+hummed the chants of their native country, remaining stretched out on
+the gunwales.
+
+Thinning into long slanting wisps, the fog cleared away. Almost as
+suddenly as it had fallen, it was gone, and the sun shone in the sky,
+warm, sparkling and golden.
+
+The _Vien-Thian_ came about, slackened her speed and cautiously laid
+herself alongside the landing stage, which gave to her weight with
+creakings and groanings. Across the gangway, which was immediately
+lowered, the natives rushed, fighting among themselves for room to pass.
+
+Pierre made hurriedly for his cabin. Forcing a way through the crowd
+on the lower deck, he reached his little stateroom and strapped up his
+valise. Then two Cambodians took charge of his baggage, and having
+carried it up to the deck piled it up at the head of the gangway.
+Beside his own things, heavy and massive, each one of which carried
+in large black letters his name and destination, Pierre observed some
+copper-covered trunks and leather suitcases carefully shrouded in blue
+cloth coverings. He guessed that they must belong to her whom he, with
+some irritation, had named "The Unknown." Mechanically, he drew near to
+the baggage. Bending over the aristocratic-looking things, he attempted
+uselessly to discover the name of their proprietor. On the trunks and
+the leather of the bags the same initials were repeated in slender
+strokes: a W and an R, intertwined, in a lozenge-shaped monogram.
+
+He expressed his disappointment by an impatient gesture. Once again his
+curiosity remained ungratified. He put out his hand and stopped the
+porters who were beginning to take his trunks down, and told them to
+wait for him.
+
+The crowd of yellow passengers was now thinning out: beyond the wall
+and the primitive shed which, with three or four straw-thatched huts,
+constituted the entire town of Khône-Sud, they could be seen trailing
+off in groups, becoming smaller and disappearing. Only a few Lao-ese
+still waited in the shade of the palms, where their variegated attire
+broke the shade with little moving spots of color. Before the landing
+stage some ox-carts were standing, while on the bank, up to their knees
+in the river, six elephants, undisturbed, were squirting jets of water
+over their backs. Upon their brown wrinkled flanks the water splashed
+and ran down, while the mahouts, crouched on the enormous necks of the
+brutes, mingled their guttural cries with the noise of the pouring
+water.
+
+Pierre guessed that this extraordinary outfit, elephants and ox-carts,
+was the caravan that had been got together for his journey to Post 32.
+He smiled with amusement. At the same time a feeling of depression shot
+through him. The monotony of this voyage up the unending river, through
+scenery everlastingly the same, with only the continued tramping
+backward and forward on the narrow deck for amusement or the reading
+of a few volumes picked out of Captain Rabaud's library, had left him
+with a feeling of lassitude and nervousness. He wanted to get on shore
+to continue his journey, to get to the end of this pilgrimage where the
+mysterious Post 32 and the strange land of which Bressond had spoken
+were awaiting him.
+
+With a few bounds he reached the top of the ladder leading to the
+bridge. Still standing in the corner which he used as a look-out,
+Captain Rabaud was saying good bye to the unknown woman. Just as she
+parted from him, after a final _au revoir_, Pierre came forward. Their
+paths crossed. The young man raised his hat. She acknowledged the
+salute with a slight nod and passed him quickly.
+
+Struck by the unusual and peculiar beauty of the face and eyes,
+half-seen under the shadow of her large white felt hat, Pierre stopped.
+Behind him the light decided footsteps of the young woman were growing
+fainter. Already she must be descending the ladder to the lower deck.
+Almost carried away by his sudden desire to look at her again and fix
+her features in his memory, Pierre had hard work not to run back and
+follow her. But there came to him the remembrance of that haughty and
+reserved look which she had just flashed upon him as she passed, and he
+stood motionless, not even daring to turn his head.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                           A FELLOW TRAVELER
+
+
+Somewhere in the night, a gong sounded the hour of the second watch.
+
+In the silence the ringing notes swelled out and vibrated. From other
+spots nearby, fading away into the distance, the sound of three other
+gongs rose into the still air, taking up the signal and prolonging it.
+
+The night was vast, motionless and cold. Leaning on the rail in front
+of the hut which served him as a hotel, Pierre watched a wan moon rise
+slowly above the river. In front of his hut, built on piles in the Moï
+fashion, the footpath which represented the main street of Khône-Sud
+stretched away to the north, cutting through the neighboring forest
+whose solid mass stretched like a vast gulf of blackness under the
+moonlit sky dappled with moving clouds.
+
+Towards the south, the handful of five or six huts which composed the
+village lay silent and dark. On board the _Vien-Thian_, made fast to
+the landing stage opposite, a single light kept watch.
+
+Pierre, unable to sleep, thought of his departure. He called to mind
+the visit that he had made late in the afternoon to the civil service
+clerk who occupied the position of Chief of the Post at Khône. His
+caravan prepared in advance for him was waiting: it was that which he
+had seen from the deck of the boat on his arrival some hours before:
+four ox-carts with their bamboo-thatched tops and enormous wooden
+wheels, and six elephants whose pack saddles were ready to receive
+their loads: as escort a dozen Lao-ese riflemen and a guide.
+
+His baggage had been parcelled out as soon as it came off the boat.
+The large packages--two great chests of clothes and three cases of
+books and instruments solidly packed--were destined for the elephants.
+One of the ox-carts was to serve him by turns as carriage by day and
+sleeping apartment at night, and on its rough planking protected by
+the rounded top they had stretched a Cambodian mattress. The smaller
+parcels--suitcases, arms, munitions and provisions for the journey--had
+been distributed between two more of the ox-carts. The fourth remained
+empty, and Pierre had remarked concerning it to the clerk who
+accompanied him:
+
+"No good taking this one, too. I'll leave you that ... it might...."
+
+But the other, laughing, had interrupted him.
+
+"No nonsense, old man!... They ordered me to provide you with four
+vehicles. The requisitions have been made and the accounts passed; your
+escort have been paid in advance. If you leave one of your carts on
+my hands I shall have official letters and all sorts of troubles for
+the next three months. They told me 'four carts.' You will then start
+with four carts! As for the empty one, do what you like with it: make
+a smoking room of it, a dining-room, library--but for the love of the
+government, take it away from here."
+
+Remembrance of the incident made Lursac smile.
+
+Now, the moon was fully risen. It could be seen, reddish and dull,
+floating between two strips of cloud.
+
+Across the sky a flight of birds passed in a triangular line, and the
+breeze, blowing from nowhere, scattered the cloudlets banked in the
+northern sky. Over the river a sheet of fog began to rise, climbing
+the bank, overtopped it and then suddenly pouring down flooded the
+countryside. Pierre shuddered, and re-entering his cabin pulled-to the
+shutter which served as a door.
+
+Stretched out on his camp bed he still remained for a few minutes
+unable to sleep. On the chest which served as a table the flame of the
+lamp was on the point of dying. Out in the night a buffalo bellowed.
+The hoarse cry, carried by the wind, floated through the cabin; and as
+his lamp with a final flicker of light died out, Pierre fell asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The vague impression that there was a light in the room woke him.
+He opened his eyes and turned his head instinctively to the door.
+Immediately he was on his feet. In the doorway, now wide open, outlined
+against the milky sky illuminated by the moonlight, a shadow was
+standing.
+
+Without giving him time to speak it made some steps towards him. The
+shutter which it no longer held back slammed heavily and the room was
+again in black darkness. At the same time a feminine voice spoke:
+
+"Do please light your lamp, Monsieur de Lursac."
+
+Pierre trembled: he recognized the sound of this voice, its precision,
+its metallic timbre and even its slight foreign accent. He immediately
+knew it was his "Unknown," she of the _Vien-Thian_.
+
+The lamp relighted, he saw her actually standing there, motionless,
+in the middle of the cabin. She had put off the large felt hat that
+she had been wearing on the boat. Now a fur toque imprisoned her pale
+blonde hair, allowing only a few stray wisps of it to show on the
+forehead and temples, and at the sides two little curls that shone
+like gold. She was dressed in a gray tailored suit of which the coat
+was clasped to her figure by a wide belt of red leather. Heavy brown
+boots, very high cut, protected her legs: in her slim gray-gloved hands
+she nervously twisted a riding-whip. Her cold glance, and even her
+attitude, showed a curious desire to provoke him, a sort of cavalier
+haughtiness at once brusque and determined.
+
+Pierre, saying nothing, watched her. With easy grace she flung the whip
+on the bed, seated herself and said:
+
+"I imagine, sir, that you know who I am."
+
+The ambiguity of the phrase made Lursac hesitate. Was he to see in it
+a deliberate rudeness or simply an allusion to their meeting on board
+the boat? Although it struck him as lacking in tact, Pierre chose the
+second hypothesis. Forcing himself to remain passive, he replied:
+
+"I think, as a matter of fact, I saw you on board the _Vien-Thian_."
+
+He bowed politely: "And what can I do for you?"
+
+He had set the lamp on the bench by her and, standing in front of the
+young woman, he awaited her answer.
+
+With methodical quick movements she undid her gloves, took them off and
+rolled them up. Her hands were visible, long and pale, without a jewel.
+There was silence for a minute, then she said:
+
+"M. de Lursac, would you kindly allow me a few minutes' talk with you?"
+
+In spite of himself, Pierre smiled ironically.
+
+"The question seems to me...."
+
+She interrupted him brusquely.
+
+"I know, sir. My sudden intrusion into your room has hardly left you
+any choice."
+
+And with her eyes suddenly grown hard, she added:
+
+"I beg you to believe that I have not acted with this lack of courtesy
+without having the most important reasons."
+
+Pierre, in all sincerity, agreed:
+
+"I have no doubt of it."
+
+She let her cold glance fall on him. Her voice softened.
+
+"The exceptional situation in which I find myself must excuse anything
+in my behavior which seems extraordinary. For the rest you must think
+of me as you will: that doesn't matter."
+
+The young man bit his lips. Once more her words seemed to him to
+possess a tinge of combined haughtiness and aggressiveness which
+irritated him. But immediately she continued:
+
+"M. de Lursac, you start tomorrow morning at dawn, do you not?"
+
+Pierre assented:
+
+"Four o'clock in the morning exactly, for Post 32."
+
+"I know," said she, "I found out about it."
+
+Pierre's annoyance increased: sarcastically, he thanked her.
+
+"I am indeed overcome with the interest which you show in my movements."
+
+She seemed not to hear him, but an involuntary tightening of her lips
+showed that his answer had not escaped her. And this slight motion had
+in it something so sad that Pierre could not help regretting his having
+given way to irony.
+
+"It is on the very subject of this journey that I have a request to
+make to you," she continued.
+
+Then looking him full in the face she said slowly:
+
+"I wish to join Lieutenant Redeski at Post 32; you would lay me under a
+great obligation if you would take me there with you."
+
+As he made a sudden gesture of refusal, she hastened to explain:
+
+"You are going to tell me that I ought to have addressed myself to the
+chief of the government service at Khône. I have not failed to do so.
+But he, not content with refusing me the aid on which I had counted,
+told me that he would, on the contrary, put as many difficulties in my
+way as possible. He had received formal instructions on this point: no
+women are to go into the region which you are about to enter, or at
+least no women with the consent of the government. You see, sir, that
+I am putting the case before you with as much clearness and frankness
+as possible; and nevertheless, having told you all that, I renew my
+request: will you take me with you?"
+
+Pierre looked at her reflectively. With her figure leaning lightly
+forward, her pale hands lying listless on the bench, and her glance
+focussed in the far distance, she sat waiting for an answer. He made a
+few steps back and forth, thinking, then he sat himself down next to
+her.
+
+"No," he declared coldly. "No, I will not take you."
+
+She remained motionless, her glance still lost in the distance. Only a
+slight wrinkling of her forehead betrayed her disappointment. A long
+silence fell, filled only by the low rumble of the rapids of Hou-Sadan.
+
+Getting up, she said quietly:
+
+"I shall have to arrange in some way to go by myself."
+
+He too had risen: he looked at her. All her pride seemed gone; she
+lowered her head. Instead of the expression she had worn up to that
+moment, a different face--the true one, perhaps--appeared: a young and
+tender face; and it seemed suddenly to Pierre that it was another woman
+that stood before him. She looked up, and he could see tears in the
+depths of her brown eyes.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders wearily.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "that would have made things so much easier. I should
+have seen him again sooner.... This journey has been so long ... so
+long and so horrible! And I have no one else in the world but him, no
+one at all since we lost our mother."
+
+Astonished, Lursac ejaculated:
+
+"Your mother?"
+
+She gave a little half-smile.
+
+"Yea, I have only forgotten one thing; to introduce myself! I am Wanda
+Redeski, and it is my brother who commands Post 32."
+
+"Ah!" said he.
+
+And without being able to explain why, he felt a strange happiness
+spread throughout his being.
+
+In a low voice she continued:
+
+"Yes, he is my brother, and I have come all this way from the furthest
+part of Poland to rejoin him and to say to him: Our mother is dead, and
+I have no one left but you; let me live beside you!..."
+
+Suddenly raising her suppliant face to him, she renewed her request:
+
+"Take me! ... take me!..."
+
+Two tears glittered down her cheeks and she caught him by the arm.
+Pierre for a moment looked down at the slim, beautiful hand whose long
+thin pale fingers trembled on his wrist, and suddenly walking towards
+the door, he said:
+
+"Come, then, since you wish it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dawn was breaking. Along the horizon across the flooded river an
+amber light began to spread, rising almost imperceptibly towards the
+heavens where the stars were still twinkling. The rain had stopped.
+On the threshold of the forest, among the trees whose branches were
+still dripping with the damp of the night, the great black forms of
+six elephants, laden with cases and trunks, showed. Half seen in the
+growing light, heavy and formidable, they moved their trunks aloft,
+plucking young twigs from the trees on either side of them. Behind them
+the four ox-carts, each furnished with its span of draft oxen, showed
+the brown of their thatched tops in line.
+
+Pierre threw a final look over his caravan. Crouched on the poles of
+their wagons the drivers, whip in hand, awaited his orders, while in
+their places on the necks of the elephants, the mahouts, waiting, spoke
+endearments to their beasts. In front, the guide, his machete in hand,
+was listening attentively to the sounds of the forest.
+
+Coming up to the last but one of the ox-carts, Lursac drew aside the
+canvas that closed the rounded ends of the top and asked:
+
+"Are you absolutely decided?"
+
+The voice of Wanda Redeski came to him concise and clear, with a
+strange sweetness in it, as she said:
+
+"Absolutely, M. de Lursac."
+
+Pierre, turning to the escort, raised his hand.
+
+"_Paï, vaï, vaï!_"[4] he cried.
+
+[Footnote 4: Start forward, quickly.]
+
+And going to the head of the procession, he swiftly entered the bluish
+penumbra of the heavy Lao-ese forest, while gradually the shadows of
+the night faded from the sky.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                                POST 32
+
+
+The man gave a couple of heavy strokes with his paddle. His canoe
+turned, met the current at an angle and slid towards the bank of the
+canal, head-on. Mud squirted up and the canes on the bank crashed
+backwards; and the light skiff lay motionless in its bed. Jumping up on
+to the limb of a mangrove, the savage tied his canoe; then, picking up
+his bow and quiver, he slid from branch to branch on to dry land.
+
+Standing at the edge of the level ground, he looked about him. To his
+right the double palisade of the military post could be seen, topped by
+the roofs of its newly finished buildings. He turned in that direction.
+At the postern gate he knocked loudly, and then, sitting down with his
+back to the heavy door, he waited patiently, his chin on his knees.
+
+The Moï who ran up at the noise opened the door cautiously, then asked
+angrily:
+
+"Was it you who knocked? What do you want?"
+
+"It was I," said the man calmly. "I want to speak to the chief."
+
+The other looked at him carefully, up and down.
+
+"The lieutenant is away ... it is the priest who, while awaiting his
+return...."
+
+"Go then: it is Father Ravennes that I will see...."
+
+The convert grumbled:
+
+"Come in. I will go and tell him."
+
+And already he was hurrying off when the other called to him:
+
+"Tell him what? You fool!"
+
+And as the Moï, abashed, stared at him, he ordered:
+
+"You will say to him that I have arrived from the west and that I bring
+news...."
+
+And disdainfully shrugging his shoulders, he began to roll a cigarette.
+
+"Hurry, now!" he added.
+
+Suppressing his anger, the convert went off. He found the missionary in
+front of the look-out post. Standing in the gateway, Father Ravennes
+was directing the final efforts of those who were putting the finishing
+touches to the building. Around the various erections, of which the
+freshly plastered walls shone white in the sunshine, a few _linhs_ and
+some twenty women were busied.
+
+The arrival of the convert drew his attention.
+
+"What is it? A courier from Khône-Sud?" said he. "Bring him here."
+
+The man appeared at the entrance of the court, and while he was
+salaaming before him the missionary looked him over. It was one of
+the wild Stiengs, small-built but strong. His body was bare except
+for a brown cloth about his loins; his face, of pronounced features,
+emphasized by the square, projecting chin, was almost brutal, but
+lighted by gray metallic-looking eyes. He spoke in a loud voice,
+slightly hoarse and rather guttural, in sonorous syllables which now
+and then fell into a rhythmic chant. He made no gestures; merely from
+time to time lifting his heavy crossbow of shining redwood from one
+broad shoulder to the other.
+
+"Lieutenant Darty of Post 30 sends you greeting. He wishes to inform
+you that the Sedangs of his region have deserted the village. Things
+are happening around him which he does not understand and which make
+him feel anxious. If you go towards the west, do not fail to go and see
+him. He would like to speak to you about these things. Meanwhile he
+warns you to be on your guard."
+
+The missionary smiled carelessly.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "for the three years that I have been here I have done
+nothing else! Never mind, the advice is always good. On your way back
+to Khône-Sud you will give my thanks to Lieutenant Darty. You will also
+tell him that I will come to see him and as soon as I can. Is that all?"
+
+"No. There is a new chief at Post 28. The former one has gone back to
+Saigon on a vacation. In the low country through which I have come the
+flood has carried away two villages...."
+
+"And the mail carrier? The letters, the papers?"
+
+"Nothing left! The sampan that carried the mail was wrecked near Post
+28, the mail sacks were lost."
+
+"Very good," said Father Ravennes, "you can go and rest yourself."
+
+The man remained motionless.
+
+"I have still this to tell you," said he, "Inspector Keratel, of
+Khône-Sud, greets you. He has ordered me to tell you that the
+administrator who was to join the lieutenant here has started on his
+way and will be here soon."
+
+Father Ravennes lit his pipe.
+
+"How soon? They announced his arrival for the end of the month, and
+this is the 6th.... When will he be here, according to you?"
+
+The man considered for a minute and looked at the sky.
+
+"Before the sun has set," said he. "We left Khône-Sud together one
+moon[5] and four nights ago, but after three days of the journey I
+left him to take a short cut, and came up the canal in my canoe.
+Unfortunately, the flood had made the rapids impassable. I nearly got
+drowned in making an attempt to cross at Ong-Sep and I had to wait
+until the water went down. That kept me back for at least two days. The
+others cannot be far behind me."
+
+[Footnote 5: "Moon" is used by the Indo-Chinese natives to signify a
+single phase of the moon, not a month, which would be four "moons."]
+
+He fell silent, yawned and stretched himself. Down his slender chest
+and along his thighs the muscles rippled and stood out.
+
+Father Ravennes dropped a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"When do you go back?" he asked.
+
+"In about two hours or so. I shall only stay long enough to repair the
+hole in my canoe."
+
+"Good! I will give you some letters to take back before you go. Is
+there anything you need?"
+
+Shaking his head proudly, the man pointed to the bow which he held in
+his hand and the quiver full of arrows hanging at his side.
+
+"No," said he, "with that I have everything I need."
+
+He saluted and made ready to go, but the missionary still held him back.
+
+"Do you know the name of the administrator who is coming here?"
+
+"The _cai_ who was in command of the escort told me his name; it is the
+Sahib Lursac."
+
+The missionary considered.
+
+"Lursac? I do not know that name."
+
+He turned towards the courier.
+
+"Very good," said he, "you can go now."
+
+But the man had already started. He crossed the court. The blazing sun
+made his naked body shine, and caught with a sparkle of light the steel
+point of the crossbow laid across his shoulder.
+
+Father Ravennes watched him pass through the postern and disappear. He
+repeated thoughtfully to himself:
+
+"Lursac? Lursac? A new arrival probably. A strange idea to pick him out
+to send here!"...
+
+He remained thoughtful a minute, and then murmured:
+
+"But that's what they always do at Saigon!..."
+
+Shrugging his shoulders, he strode off towards the office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There is the Post," said Pierre.
+
+And he stood motionless while the convoy, debouching from the forest,
+reached the edge of the valley. Standing beside the young man, Wanda
+looked around the scene with curiosity.
+
+On her right the river flowed between its low banks edged with canes
+and mangroves. On the brink of the water the station stood, defended
+by its double horseshoe-shaped palisade only broken by a heavy gateway
+with a double door. Wrapping it round on all sides and separated from
+the fortifications only by a narrow clearing, the great Lao-ese forest
+stood about it in a dark and rustling circle which extended even to the
+very banks of the canal. Facing the fort towards the north rose hilly
+slopes, and behind them, blocking out the sky, the chaotic mass of the
+great Moï range stretched its sombre crests and its threatening bulk,
+striped with alternate zones of shadow and sunlight. On the other side,
+all the back country across the river was nothing but a great plain of
+monotonous red soil which stretched towards the south as far as one
+could see.
+
+"Look," said Pierre, "they must have seen us!"
+
+Up the mast standing by the entry gate a flag was crawling, and as the
+great double doors opened a trumpet call resounded.
+
+Pierre turned to the girl.
+
+"Come," said he.
+
+They walked forward. Behind them the elephants and then the ox-carts
+lumbered in their turn, escorted by the native riflemen.
+
+The trumpet ceased. The shadow of night crept upward into the day. A
+flight of wild geese crossed the gathering dusk and their cries floated
+over the plain.
+
+Standing before the doorway, Father Ravennes awaited them. When Pierre
+de Lursac had come within a few paces of him he came quickly to meet
+them. His look fell on Wanda and his forehead wrinkled. Suppressing his
+surprise, he introduced himself:
+
+"Father Ravennes, of the Apostolic Mission to the Banhars."
+
+"Administrator Pierre de Lursac."
+
+The missionary looked the young man over with a swift glance. His face
+relaxed and he stretched out his hand.
+
+"I am glad to welcome you to Post 32, in the absence of Lieutenant
+Redeski," said he.
+
+"Ah!" said Wanda, "Michael is not here?... Nothing has happened to him,
+has it?"
+
+The priest turned towards her. Pierre caught the questioning glance
+which he threw first on the young girl and then on him. He blushed.
+
+"Mademoiselle Redeski," said he, "sister of the lieutenant."
+
+And at the same time he in his turn looked the priest over.
+
+He saw a man of some 45 years of age, clothed, Annamese style, in a
+black tunic and white trousers. Above his long bony body and planted
+on broad shoulders his small head with its thin face and pronounced
+features gave a singular impression of sweetness and energy combined.
+The forehead, high and smooth, and the chin prominent, with a short
+grayish beard, gave to his face an expression of strength of will,
+almost of severity; but his eyes, large and pale, lit with dreams
+and such as the apostles of the early ages of the Faith must have
+had, illuminated the ascetic face, at once virile and tender, with
+intelligence and kindness. The missionary bowed.
+
+"Do not be disturbed, Mademoiselle, your brother started three days ago
+on a tour of inspection round the district. We did not expect M. de
+Lursac for another three weeks, and Redeski expected to be back here
+before that. I believe further that he did not know ... at least he
+never told me...."
+
+The young girl laughed aloud.
+
+"No, he doesn't even know of my arrival in Indo-China. That will be a
+surprise for him."
+
+They had meanwhile been walking on and had entered the courtyard of
+the fort. Behind them the convoy had crossed the fortifications and
+the gate had been closed. The priest climbed the wooden outside stair
+leading to the officers' quarters. Crossing the veranda which ran round
+the whole façade of the building, he conducted the young people through
+the rooms.
+
+"A domiciliary visit," said he, laughingly. "It will not be a very long
+one. Five rooms: an office, a dining room, three bedrooms. Because of
+the damp ground, everything is built upon piles."
+
+"Oh!" said Wanda, "how strange!"
+
+She had lifted a large screen of plaited bamboo, and the river and the
+plain lay before her. The yellow waters of the canal flowed at the very
+base of the building and gurgled against the pillars that supported it.
+Above the land floated a fine dust which the setting sun gilded and
+turned to clouds of rosy jade. A sky of shining mauve stretched away to
+the vague horizon, which was cut in two by a dark patch.
+
+The missionary pointed out this last to the young people. "That is the
+clump of trees which surrounds my Mission," said he. "I am your nearest
+neighbor, ten miles away. The other posts, 30 and 28, are, the one, ten
+days' journey to the east, and the other, eight days to the west...."
+
+He had let the screen fall into its place again and continued his
+explanations.
+
+"The arrangement of the rooms is very simple. They are all in a row and
+have communicating doors. To the south they look over the plain; on the
+north, that is to say the side of the veranda, they open towards the
+mountains. As for the furnishing, it is very primitive--as you see:
+beds, a few tables, a dozen chairs, and chests everywhere. On the other
+hand you have four oil lamps and two candle lamps; a luxury which you
+will soon come to appreciate at its right value."
+
+They went out on the veranda again.
+
+In the middle of the court the riflemen were finishing the unloading of
+the ox-carts. The elephants, already free of their burdens, were tied
+in their sheds beside the oxen.
+
+The missionary pointed out the subsidiary buildings, one by one.
+
+"On the right, against the palisade, the barracks for the men, the
+store-rooms, the cook-houses, the cabins for the servants and the
+drivers; on the left, facing them, the sheds for the draft animals and
+the stables; this little thatched hut raised above the ground by the
+entry-gate houses the guard who keeps watch every night from the first
+night-watch to the first morning-watch. And that's all."
+
+He drew himself up; his expression became grave, and while with a wave
+of his arm he included the whole countryside, he said:
+
+"Your whole life from now on will be passed within this double
+stockade. Redeski, when he gets back, will explain to you all the
+details of the service. But for the present, I shall be bold enough to
+give you some advice: Do not go too far from the fort in the course of
+your walks or rides, at least at first...."
+
+Wanda, turning towards him, demanded:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are here in the middle of an unsubdued region and on the
+very threshold of the Moï country into which no European has yet been
+able to penetrate."
+
+The young girl looked at him. Her voice took on a troubled note.
+
+"But what about Michael?..."
+
+The priest realized her anxiety and the question which she hardly dared
+to ask.
+
+"Oh," said he, "Redeski has taken his precautions. He is accompanied by
+eight armed native soldiers, and, besides, he is not travelling in the
+direction of the Pou-Kas...."
+
+The sky darkened rapidly, the distant flank of the mountains behind
+which the sun had disappeared had deepened to a blackish blue. The
+shadows stretching down from their crests reached almost to the Post,
+and already the plain lay blotted out. Above the river the hoarse
+night-cry of a water fowl grated through the silence. The last packages
+of the convoy had been carried into the store sheds, and around the
+empty court a few fowls were straying and pecking in the dust.
+
+"It is time for me to go," said Father Ravennes, "I will come back in
+two or three days to see if I can be of any service to you. In any case
+if you need me you know where the Mission is. You only have to cross
+the canal and go straight forward towards that clump of trees in the
+middle of which it is hidden. It is only a matter of three-quarters of
+an hour or so on horseback, and everything there is yours as much as
+mine.... _Au revoir!_"
+
+"Thank you," said Pierre, "we will come very soon."
+
+The priest descended the narrow stairway. His form grew vague and
+smaller and then mingled with the shadows with which the court was
+flooded.
+
+Leaning over the rail of the balcony, Wanda called after him in her
+turn:
+
+"We will come as soon as we have got our things put straight. _Au
+revoir!_"
+
+His voice, already distant, floated up to them.
+
+"_Au revoir!_"
+
+Leaning on their elbows side by side, Wanda and Pierre listened a
+minute longer to the footsteps of the priest as they became fainter and
+fainter and at last died away in the night. Then, turning and looking
+at each other, they smiled softly....
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                            AT THE MISSION
+
+
+Father Ravennes crossed the courtyard of his Mission with great
+strides. In front of the chapel he stopped. It was a rectangular
+building with a mud roof surmounted by a simple black cross; from each
+side of the building, like windows, three bays stood out covered with
+great screens of woven rattan. A single door gave access to it, massive
+and reënforced by crossbeams roughly squared, closed by two staples
+through which passed the hasp of a heavy padlock.
+
+Before the chapel, suspended to a wooden bracket, a gong hung with its
+wooden striker. Seizing the hammer the priest with swift violent blows
+made the bronze resound. The sonorous vibrations swelled out through
+the air and filled the whole court, penetrating to the interior of the
+narrow huts perched on their bases of piles against the stockade of
+pointed bamboo.
+
+Disturbed in their morning hour of quiet a dozen or so of blackbirds
+flew out and scattered with sharp cries. The fowls that were pecking
+about ran off in fright, flapping their wings. From the house of the
+priest next the chapel a native dog, lean and surly, charged out and
+began running round and round in front of the gong, barking madly.
+
+"Quiet, Jang!" cried the priest.
+
+He had restored the striker to the bracket, and was watching his flock
+who, hurriedly emerging from their huts, had come to group themselves
+in front of him.
+
+There were some thirty, all told; a miserable crowd composed
+principally of women and children. And according to the order of their
+arrival, after a respectful salaam, they sat back on their heels
+holding their children by the hand. Behind them, standing up, a few men
+showed their hollowed faces turned towards the priest, and their naked
+bodies in which the bones seemed almost ready to come through the brown
+and dirty skin.
+
+Father Ravennes looked at them steadily. But they turned away their
+eyes, submitting to his inspection with an appearance of annoyance and
+constraint which he noted.
+
+When he saw them all ranged before him, he stretched his hand toward
+the mountain of which the blue slopes showed faintly far away towards
+the north.
+
+"What did you go to do over there last night?" he demanded.
+
+There was a deep silence. Motionless, their faces as expressionless as
+masks, the men hung their heads.
+
+Father Ravennes leaned forward.
+
+"Why did you go there?" he questioned again.
+
+He seemed this time to address himself to the women and his voice
+became imperious. But they remained silent, simply clasping their
+children tighter to them.
+
+The missionary, drawing back, made a few steps to the rear.
+
+"Very well," he said roughly, "since you have nothing to say...."
+
+A voice interrupted him:
+
+"We went for a walk in the forest, Father, it was a hot night...."
+
+The priest advanced towards the one who had just spoken and stared him
+out of countenance.
+
+"It was a hot night ..." he repeated.
+
+The other, small and puny, with an air of insincerity, turned his eyes
+away.
+
+"Yes, very hot and we couldn't sleep, and...."
+
+Father Ravennes drew himself up to his full height. He loomed large,
+bony and strong, dominating them all with his powerful carriage. He
+caught the man by the arm and forced him to turn his face to him.
+
+"Why are you lying?" he demanded.
+
+The other stammered:
+
+"But I am not lying, Father, I...."
+
+The missionary passionately cut him short:
+
+"Be silent. I tell you that you are lying. You are all lying."
+
+Two of his flock at his side made a gesture of protest which he saw.
+
+"Yes, true," said he, "I am unjust: you were not in it, you two, and I
+am very glad.... But these others?..."
+
+He flung away violently the man he had been holding.
+
+"Away with you!" said he.
+
+Then turning towards the still silent group of his converts he flung at
+them:
+
+"What you refuse to tell me I am going to tell you. You went to the
+_Bo-Jaou_.[6] How many times have I told you and told you, that a
+Christian cannot believe in sorcery. When I think that you have been
+here for more than a year, and that in spite of all, all that I have
+told you, you continue to take part in the mummeries of this ... it's
+enough to drive me mad! A saint himself would lose patience with you,
+and I am not a saint."
+
+[Footnote 6: Sorceress; _Bia-bo-Jaou_: Queen of the sorceresses, the
+high priestess.]
+
+A clear voice interrupted him:
+
+"Oh! Father Ravennes, I am afraid that we have arrived at the wrong
+time. We have come to ask you for lunch. Can we come in?"
+
+The missionary swiftly turned his head. On the other side of the
+palisade behind the entrance gate he saw Wanda and Pierre.
+
+"Certainly," said he, "come in, and welcome! It is true that I am
+sinning terribly at this moment, but God will not call me to account
+for it; it is for the good of the Faith! Just look at them!"
+
+With a circular gesture he pointed out the group of converts. The
+sleeve of his tunic swept the air around him. On his great chest the
+silver cross suspended by its rosary jumped. He repeated passionately:
+
+"Look at them! They came to me pitiful, wretched and suffering: I took
+them in. For more than a year every day I have preached the Gospel to
+them, and all of them--men and women--have begged me to teach them the
+truths of our holy religion. One by one, I have cared for them, cured
+them, and little by little came to love them as my children, and then I
+baptized them. Look at that one, Ngui...."
+
+With his forefinger he pointed at one of the men.
+
+"Scarcely a fortnight ago, when the time came for him to receive
+baptism, and I put to him the questions set down in the ritual: '_Do
+you believe in God? Do you renounce Satan?_' instead of answering me
+as I had taught him: '_I renounce him_,' this fellow, forgetting his
+instructions in an enthusiasm which filled my priest's heart with
+joy, cried out, '_Yes, yes, I renounce him with all my heart and for
+ever!_' And yet in spite of that, last night it was he who was at their
+head and guided them when they were on their way to take part in the
+ceremonies of Bo-Jaou!"
+
+He walked towards the frightened group, and catching at random a woman
+with a child hanging on to the edge of her tunic, he shook her roughly:
+
+"For I followed you, do you hear? And when you ran away, seeing a
+shadow which you did not wait to recognise, I saw you, and I know
+enough of it all to be able to describe to you all your underhand
+doings. Indeed I will describe them to you."
+
+Letting go of the woman he thumped the shoulder of a man who stood near
+him.
+
+"It was you," he said, "who opened the gate for them. It was eleven
+o'clock, and while they slid out you stayed on watch to see if I
+noticed anything. You were quite satisfied, weren't you? At that time
+I am always asleep. But the good God arranged it so that on that very
+afternoon I overheard one of you saying, 'The sign is cut upon the
+sacred banyan tree. It will be tonight!' I became suspicious. Aroused
+to full watchfulness I watched you from behind my blinds, and when you
+had gone out, with Ngui at the head and you at the end of the line, I
+set out on your track.
+
+"You ran across the plain. The night was dark, only lighted up a little
+here and there by a ray of moonlight from between the clouds. You went
+towards the mountain. I saw you take the canoes on the bank of the
+river and cross it, go round the fort and disappear in the forest.
+As you had taken away all the canoes, I followed you by swimming.
+That took time. When I reached the other side of the river you had
+disappeared. Before me rose the first outpost of the Pou-Kas. I was
+unarmed! But nevertheless, after a short prayer, I set out towards a
+vague light which appeared and disappeared in the distance between the
+trees. After a walk of half an hour, on reaching a clearing I saw you,
+you, Nmur, you, Dok, all of you ... all of you, ranged around the jar
+of the libations and watching Jieng who was dancing before a brazier
+and howling while she gashed her face, her arms and her breast with
+sword-cuts!"
+
+Pierre de Lursac came forward excitedly.
+
+"Jieng, the famous sorceress of whom you spoke to us. Have you seen
+her?..."
+
+Father Ravennes, turning round to him, broke into his speech.
+
+"Chut!" said he. "Let me finish with these people."
+
+And with a sudden turn he faced the converts and continued:
+
+"Yes, you were all there and when you saw a shadow--mine--in front of
+you, you all ran away, Jieng at your head, scattering among the shadows
+of the forest. But by the abandoned fire I found this, which I brought
+back with me."
+
+As he spoke, going to one of the windows of the chapel, he raised the
+screen and picked up a Moï sword. The thick blade, short and tapering
+to a point, shone spotted here and there with reddish stains. He held
+it a moment above his head high in the air, then flinging it with all
+his force into the middle of the court he cried:
+
+"There is the sword which was used in the ceremonies. Now, will you
+still deny it?"
+
+And he stood silent, trembling with emotion, drawn to his full height
+and facing the group of his converts who turned towards him faces full
+of woe and distress.
+
+Standing at his side even Wanda and Pierre shuddered. The same emotion
+moved them both. They looked wonderingly at this man who lived there,
+lost in the depths of the Lao-ese forest, sustained only by his ideal
+of a priest's duty, and they gave him the tribute of their admiration,
+thinking of all that he had abandoned, of all that he had not hesitated
+to leave behind him--fatherland, parents, friends--to try and gain for
+his faith a few strays of this primitive and uncivilized race.
+
+But already gaining control of himself the priest turned again to his
+converts.
+
+"And now," said he in a deep voice, "listen to me: I came here from
+Pho-Rang,[7] my country, to live among you. You were slaves and I have
+made you free men and women. Your souls were wandering in the darkness,
+and I have tried to save those ignorant souls, purchased by the blood
+of Jesus Christ; but you have remained blind; you have not wanted to
+believe; you have had for me double hearts and double minds. To my love
+you have answered only with hypocrisy, lies and daily deceits...."
+
+[Footnote 7: France.]
+
+He made a gesture which seemed to sweep them all away from him.
+
+"I am tired," said he, "of struggling for you against yourselves...
+Go away from here. Return to your villages. I send you off.... Go....
+Go...."
+
+A silence of surprised horror weighed upon them. Then a woman's cry
+rang out, taken up and echoed by the voices of the others:
+
+"Father, O Father! ... keep us here!..."
+
+The women had risen to their feet; they ran up, trying to fling
+themselves at the feet of the priest.
+
+"Not that.... O Father.... Not that. We can't go back to the mountain!
+Spare us!"
+
+Fear shook them all, an incomprehensible and unexpected fear.
+
+In his turn a man broke out into supplication:
+
+"Pardon us, Father.... It is true ... we did go there, but we didn't
+know, we didn't think that that would make you angry ... forgive us!"
+
+The missionary gazed at them thoughtfully. Kneeling at his feet, their
+hands stretched out toward him, a mask of very terror distorting their
+features, they groaned and trembled; and although this sudden terror
+seemed to him as yet another mystery, the priest felt a great pity
+sweep over him. His glance strayed about him.
+
+From a pale metallic sky the sun was beating fiercely down. It filled
+the entire court, like a huge cup, with dazzling heat and light:
+above it the air throbbed and palpitated. The blackbirds, who had
+been frightened for a minute, had now returned to their familiar
+roosting-places and were hopping about among the bamboo stakes of the
+palisade, squawking and whistling, intoxicated with the glare.
+
+In the centre of the court the great black cross which dominated the
+chapel threw its shadow, and its wide-spread arms traced on the yellow
+soil the Christian symbol of pardon and redemption.
+
+Father Ravennes raised his hand.
+
+"Very well," said he slowly, "but this is the second time that I have
+pardoned you, and by the holy Cross, whose servant I am, I swear to you
+that if I catch you a third time I shall be inexorable."
+
+A voice promised:
+
+"We will obey...."
+
+And a confusion of cries immediately arose:
+
+"We will never go to the forest any more! We swear it, Father! We all
+swear it! Believe us! Oh, believe us!"
+
+The missionary nodded. His strong face, drawn with fatigue, grew soft.
+
+"It is well," said he, "go now and resume your regular life."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+           AN ENTHUSIAST DISCOURSES ON PRE-HISTORIC REMAINS
+
+
+"Then really," said Wanda, "you are not worried?"
+
+The priest turned his glance upon her. He observed her anxiety.
+Although she forced herself to hide it, her pale face was shadowed and
+her eyelids fluttered lightly. He tried to reassure her.
+
+"No," said he, "certainly I would prefer to know that Redeski had
+reached Post 28. He ought to have got there last week, but when
+you come to think of it, what of it? He is only six days late on
+his schedule, and in the forest that's nothing--especially at this
+season...."
+
+Pierre nodded agreement.
+
+The three of them were finishing their lunch on the balcony of the
+priest's house. Once more clouds had invaded the sky, and across the
+courtyard of the Mission their shadows lay and sped swiftly between two
+shafts of sunlight.
+
+The young girl lifted her relaxed face to the priest with a brave
+attempt at smiling.
+
+"I suppose I am absurd, but Michael means so much in my life.... I have
+no one but him...."
+
+"I understand," said the missionary with tenderness, "but do not
+torture yourself unnecessarily. He will be here in a fortnight at most,
+telling us why he was late.... Besides...."
+
+He broke off, for the serving boy who had placed a basket of fruit on
+the table asked:
+
+"Will the Father take his coffee here?"
+
+Father Ravennes consulted his guests with a look.
+
+"No," said he, "we will take it in 'the Cave!'"
+
+Wanda, who was picking out a fruit, made a sudden movement. The purple
+and yellow pyramid of mangoes and lichis rolled scattered about the
+table. Absent-mindedly she queried:
+
+"The Cave?"
+
+The boy had silently disappeared.
+
+"The room reserved for my prehistoric collection," explained the
+priest, stretching out his legs, and with a laugh he continued:
+
+"It is true ... though of course you could not know it! I am absorbed
+in everything prehistoric, and I realize that this prepossession has
+become a regular passion with me!"
+
+And with a sort of ingenuous doubt he enquired: "You don't see anything
+sinful in that, do you?"
+
+Lursac smiled.
+
+"No," said he, "and I absolve you in advance! Although this scientific
+pre-occupation seems to me neither very Christian nor warranted by the
+doctrines of the Church, and that...."
+
+The missionary protested strongly:
+
+"You are wrong," said he, "there is nothing to prevent priests from
+making a study of this sort.... I was already taken up with it while I
+was at the Seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris, and my masters never
+told me...."
+
+"However," said Wanda in her turn, "doesn't the Old Testament tell us
+that man was created by God not more than six thousand years ago?"
+
+Pierre remarked:
+
+"Well, well, Mademoiselle, I would not have believed you so versed in
+theological matters."
+
+Then turning towards the missionary:
+
+"Well, what have you to say to that?"
+
+Father Ravennes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Simply this," said he, "that Mademoiselle is making a very common
+mistake. You can open the Sacred Book and you will find in Genesis no
+precise date at which primitive man must have been born. It is the
+chronologists who, since the fifteenth century, have endeavored to
+force biblical facts into their system of chronology. The best proof of
+that is that the Church has never consented to making it an article of
+faith that the creation of man took place six thousand years ago."
+
+Lursac, who had just finished peeling a mango, went on teasing him:
+
+"But I don't think, however, that many priests occupy themselves with
+such problems as this."
+
+The missionary disputed the statement:
+
+"Yes indeed!... Abbés Bourgeois and Delaunay, Monseigneur Meignan
+himself--just to quote those who are in some sort my predecessors--have
+all written important works on this very question. Of the present day I
+can cite you Abbés Breuil and Bremond...."
+
+He got up, and walking in front of them he guided them towards "the
+Cave." It was a long room, of which the entire furnishings consisted of
+a narrow bench which ran round the walls and was divided by partitions,
+and a long table on trestles littered with stones, arms and other
+strange and primitive instruments. A large bay with the usual screen
+of plaited bamboo lighted the room, cutting a great rectangle in the
+mud wall through which the sun poured in. On the other walls, from the
+bench up to the ceiling, hung all sorts of prehistoric remains, forming
+an extraordinary mixture. Crowded against each other, each one provided
+with its label or its inscription, they enriched the gray background
+with outlandish patterns. Rough, heavy knives, axes and scrapers of
+flint hung close together beside bone daggers and bodkins worn smooth
+by the lapse of centuries. Further along, gruesome fragments of human
+skeletons colored like old ivory were mixed with pieces of animal bones
+on a large panel, flanked by rags of clothing and strips of hide. In an
+angle near the bay two yellow and angular skulls lay on a shelf. Their
+empty jaws with the mouths hanging open and their hollow eye-sockets
+formed great holes filled with shadows.
+
+The room thus decorated gave the strange and complex effect of a museum
+of bric-a-brac and a tomb combined.
+
+Wanda and Pierre had sat themselves down on the bench.
+
+Standing before the table Father Revennes gazed affectionately at his
+collection.
+
+"My harvest, gathered in the three years that I have been here," he
+said with naïve pride.
+
+Lursac showed his surprise.
+
+"Three years? I didn't know that Laos was so rich in prehistoric
+remains!"
+
+The missionary had taken one of the skulls between his sunburnt hands
+and while he spoke he handled it gently with motions that were almost
+caressing. He did not seem to have heard Lursac's remark. With his eyes
+full of admiration he repeated:
+
+"My most beautiful specimen.... A quarternary human skull! A real
+wonder, for it is unique.... Do you realize it?... Unique! And I defy
+anyone in Europe to show me one as truly characteristic and in such
+perfect condition. Their 'Cro-Magnon'? Pooh! Trash compared to this
+one...."
+
+He gave a smile of triumph at once naïve and solemn.
+
+"And when I think," said he with enthusiasm, "that in this bony cup,
+over forty thousand years ago, there used to be a brain that created
+thoughts, desires, and feelings, which were doubtless exactly the same
+as our thoughts, desires and feelings...."
+
+He stopped, regarding with a sort of affection the skull which he had
+put on the table before him. Then touching his own forehead with his
+fingers he murmured:
+
+"The same forehead, and--who knows--perhaps the same soul, which time
+has simply kept apart from this one without separating them."
+
+The voice of Wanda broke in.
+
+"O Father! can we have the same soul as a superior ape?"
+
+Father Ravennes jumped round.
+
+"Primitive man, an ape!" said he, "where have you read that heresy? In
+Lamarck, in Carl Vogt, or in Huxley? But it is an outrageous theory,
+long ago given up."
+
+He went on, his voice trembling with excitement:
+
+"It is enough to have eyes and to look at them; a child couldn't be
+deceived. How could such a gross error have originated? Everything
+proves that the human type is independent of the animal.... Look!" he
+said, as he took from the shelf the second skull and placed it on the
+table beside the first, and emphasising his words with his finger, he
+continued:
+
+"They pretend to base their opinion on anatomical comparison. The
+ignoramuses! Look! Here is a man's skull from the earliest of primitive
+ages, and here is a baboon's, the simian species which is nearest to
+the human type. See here and here: the chin, the teeth, the general
+appearance, the structural lines of these two skulls proclaim their
+distinct origin and prove that the ape belongs to a totally different
+species from man."
+
+Relieved by his own violence he shrugged his shoulders with scorn.
+Lursac and Wanda had risen and were standing one on each side of the
+missionary. In silence they regarded the hollow bony forms standing on
+the table before them, which, dull and dirty, grinned back at them with
+toothless mouths and missing noses and their whole surfaces spotted as
+with leprosy.
+
+"What does it matter?" said Wanda. "What surprises me as it does Lursac
+is this extraordinary abundance of fossils in the neighborhood."
+
+Father Ravennes turned to them.
+
+"You are right; and my astonishment was even greater than yours. I
+didn't expect such rich discoveries! Just remember that usually it
+needs ten, a dozen, perhaps fifteen years of exploration and of digging
+to discover and bring to light a few anthropological specimens, less
+rare and, above all, in a much worse state of preservation than most
+of these you see here. But what is really extraordinary about it is
+the way in which I found them. It would be natural enough to find here
+in the depths of the Lao-ese forest some remains of quaternary man.
+General opinion agrees, as a matter of fact, that our first ancestors
+were born and lived in central and southern Asia before spreading
+themselves over different parts of the globe.... Yes, here! somewhere
+around us, must have been the cradle of the human race...."
+
+"You said," interrupted Pierre, "that you found these things in some
+extraordinary way.... How was that?"
+
+The missionary smiled mysteriously.
+
+"Listen," said he. "When I first arrived here I built myself a hut,
+and every morning, after I had said mass, I started out on horseback.
+I just followed my nose, attempting to spread the Word of God. One day
+I lost myself in the forest on the border of the Moï country, opposite
+your fort."
+
+Lursac cried:
+
+"Ah! in the Dead Zone?..."
+
+"Yes," said the missionary. "Yes, that is where I have made all
+my finds; and on each occasion the axes, the tools, the arms, the
+skeletons or the clothes were in a heap, piled round a black stone
+curiously shaped, erected like a fetich before a _nihuer_.[8] Therefore
+it is absolutely certain that it was the natives who must have brought
+them there. But where did they find them and why do they attach to
+them this sacred character which seems to be denoted by their presence
+before the altar of incantations?"
+
+[Footnote 8: Altar for performing incantations.]
+
+Lursac thoughtfully listened to him. With his thoughts dwelling on
+these savage hosts in the midst of which the fort and the Mission stood
+up like two lost islands he called to mind the counsels of prudence
+which the missionary had given them the evening of their arrival. And
+suddenly there flashed across him the mysterious fate of Longères and
+Dorcel. With some abruptness he asked:
+
+"Don't you think that this may be one of the elements of this unknown
+religion whose presence we feel all about us?"
+
+Father Ravennes lighted his pipe. Through the open window, beyond the
+bamboos and the trees which surrounded the Mission, the russet-colored
+plain was visible, with the widening line of the canal marked by its
+border of mangroves, and further away the bulk of the Pou-Kas, holding
+up against the luminous sky the dark wildness of its vast flanks.
+
+The missionary, after a long silence, looked at the young man.
+
+"It is a question," said he, "about which I have often thought. It
+seems probable, as a matter of fact, that these prehistoric remains do
+serve some function in the mysterious religion which holds in its grip
+this entire region from the mountain to the plain! Perhaps, indeed, it
+is even the very essence of it."
+
+"Perhaps?" enquired Wanda. "Have you never then tried to find out? That
+surprises me! It seems that I...."
+
+"Find out! ..." said the missionary with a gesture of weariness, "find
+out! Everything that surrounds us here, as I have already told you, is
+vague and incomprehensible. We are struggling in a mass of tricks, of
+lies and hypocrisies from a race that hates us and of which we know
+practically nothing. Find out! I have tried, certainly!... I began by
+questioning those who came to me. But directly one touches the subject
+one finds oneself at a stone wall. Then if one goes on to speak of this
+sorceress, this Jieng, whose power, although it is hidden, is none the
+less actual and far-reaching, they tremble and become terrified. Then
+if one presses them yet further, they say it is a legend and that there
+is no such person as Jieng and never was."
+
+He turned towards the young people.
+
+"However," said he, "you know that I came on them last night with her
+in the forest. But she holds them by some sort of magical charm and
+religious fear.... Never having been able to get anything out of my
+converts, I made up my mind to look for myself. I paid them back trick
+for trick, patience for patience. I became desperate, driven by a
+curiosity which has gradually turned into a strange mixture of fear and
+obsession...."
+
+He broke off to replace the two skulls on the shelf.
+
+"And this is what I finally discovered," he went on. "It's little
+enough and it's so vague in meaning that I have almost hesitated
+to speak to you about it. It was about three years ago--I had just
+arrived, and Post 32 had just been destroyed for the second time--I
+was returning from a circuit that I had made towards the mountain and
+night had overtaken me on my journey--a summer night, warm, milky and
+starlit. I was riding slowly, letting my horse take his own time. When
+I got to the bank of the canal I stopped, looking for the ford by which
+to cross it. Before me, stretching to the horizon, the plain lay lit
+by the moon with that light at once intense and subdued which one sees
+only in the night of the far east. Suddenly my attention was drawn to
+something unusual: across the sandy hills streamed processions of black
+spots, tiny and almost invisible. From the distance it looked like an
+army of ants on the march. I made out four, then six, then eight--eight
+columns, which, crossing the plain, were advancing directly towards me.
+They seemed to come from the extreme edge of the landscape, beyond the
+deserted plain in the middle of which the Mission stands. Intrigued,
+I turned back into the shade of the forest, hid myself and continued
+watching. The eight columns kept on moving. They joined into one the
+other side of the canal, crossed it by the ford, mounted the bank
+on this side and, passing in front of me, commenced to ascend the
+mountain. I followed them carefully, and I noticed with astonishment
+that this strange procession was composed exclusively of women. Walking
+on the edges of it, a couple of dozen men at most, with lances in their
+hands and crossbows on their shoulders, accompanied them. At the head
+of the line went a group of sorceresses, dancing and gesticulating,
+yelling incomprehensible and strident invocations, and lifting towards
+the pallid moon animal-like faces, seamed with scars. When they reached
+the threshold of the Sacred Forest they came to a stop. The women lined
+up in a vast semicircle and I recognized among them girls of every
+age, of every sort and of every race: Reungaos, Halong, Jelung, Benoun
+of the great tribe of Banhars; Keumrang, Duan, Hêre, of the powerful
+clan of the Sedangs; Djiru, Heun, Oy, Sapuan, who all belong to the
+Bolovens.... Every tribe and every dialect of the Moï country was
+represented there. A gathering extraordinary and incredible to anyone
+who knows the love for their own village and the jealous passion of
+separatism with which each of these clans is animated!... And seeing
+all these various and dissimilar faces turned towards the sorceresses
+with the same expression of submission and anxiety upon them, I first
+realized the danger, yes the danger, of an unsuspected religion, and
+it was there in that clearing on the border of the Sacred Forest that
+suddenly I got some idea of the terrible power wielded by Jieng.
+
+"She had at that moment risen up, lame, her face scarred with wounds,
+and with a single gesture she made them all bend, men and women, in one
+simultaneous terrified movement of obeisance. Then with a sharp command
+she sent the men off. 'No males can enter the Dead Country. Your women
+will be returned to you on the seventh night of the fourth moon from
+now. Go!' And they went, their heads hanging, without a word; while on
+their side the great column of women, re-formed under the directions of
+the sorceresses, resumed its march and continued the ascent toward the
+Pou-Kas, slowly entering the great forest and disappearing among its
+shadows...."
+
+He ceased, took several strides about the room, then still holding in
+his eye the vision of the scene which he had just recalled he said:
+
+"That is what I saw.... I know no more!"
+
+Wanda gave a short sigh and asked:
+
+"But where did they go? And what was the meeting for?"
+
+The missionary made a vague gesture.
+
+"I do not know," he said.
+
+Then hesitating and picking his words:
+
+"I imagine,--please notice that I assert nothing because I know
+nothing exactly,--I imagine that in the depths of the Pou-Kas there
+must be a sanctuary,--a temple perhaps--or it may be only a place of
+pilgrimage, to which only women have the right of approach.... Remember
+that sentence of Jieng's, 'Males may not enter the Dead Country.'" He
+repeated thoughtfully:
+
+"A religion of mystery, peculiar to the women and the secret of which
+no man can penetrate, no man, not even those of their own blood!..."
+
+Still seated on the bench, her chin in her hand, Wanda watched him.
+With a light burning in her eyes she asked:
+
+"And this temple ... where is it?"
+
+The missionary shrugged his shoulders. He swept his hand across the
+window and his gesture seeming to include the whole confused mass of
+mountains which stood along the horizon:
+
+"Without any doubt, there!" he said.
+
+Wanda rose. Her lingering glance for a long time searched the blue
+slopes of the Pou-Kas, the sharp crest of which, barred with forest and
+clothed with jungle, dominated the entire range.
+
+She stood, thoughtful, for a moment, then repeated:
+
+"There!..." And smiled strangely.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+                          THE SILENT VILLAGE
+
+
+"Believe me when I say it, Lursac, that it would be simply foolishness
+for you to venture through the forest at this time of year."
+
+Pierre remained quiet. An answer came to his lips which he suppressed.
+An answer which in another place and some weeks earlier he had heard
+given by a young girl.
+
+He contented himself with nodding doubtfully.
+
+Father Ravennes, getting out of his chair, strode up and down the
+veranda, his steps sounding loudly on the bare planking. He went on:
+
+"At least wait until we have an answer from Post 28. The messenger that
+I sent there cannot be very much longer before returning; and, again,
+you must think of Mademoiselle Redeski whom you could not leave alone.
+I only hope that you will never have to repent having brought her up
+here."
+
+Pierre shook his head.
+
+"She would have come just the same without help.... As for leaving her
+alone, I have thought of that; she will come and stay with you here at
+the Mission."
+
+Rising in his turn he took the missionary by the arm and strode with
+him for several paces.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that you understand the situation as well as I
+do. It is now ten days since Redeski ought to have returned. The last
+news we have had of him dates from three weeks back. He was then on the
+Moï plateau marching north. Since that, nothing!... Something serious
+must have happened evidently; it would be childish for us to ignore the
+fact."
+
+"I don't wish to do so," said the priest. "The best proof of that is
+that I have sent out three of my converts to beat the countryside in
+search of information."
+
+"Well?" asked Pierre anxiously.
+
+"Two of them got back yesterday. No results!... No trace of Redeski or
+of his escort."
+
+Pierre shot him a glance. "You see!" said he.
+
+The priest grumbled.
+
+"Yes, I see! I see!... But then again we have no accurate information:
+we don't even know in which direction to search. And on the other hand,
+nothing goes to prove that Redeski is in any danger, and very likely
+we are disturbing ourselves quite unnecessarily. The wisest thing, I
+repeat, is to await our answer from Post 28."
+
+"When shall we have it?" asked Pierre.
+
+"In eight days, ten, at the most. Then it will be time enough to
+organize our expedition."
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Our expedition! ... that's a rather large word."
+
+The missionary, taking out his pipe, filled it carefully, and having
+loaded it he looked thoughtfully at the young man.
+
+"Listen to me," he said hesitatingly, "I ... I do not know if you
+understand why I speak to you in this way, but...."
+
+Pierre looked at him.
+
+"I imagine that you consider yourself responsible...."
+
+The face of the missionary lighted up with a friendly smile.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "that you are just like a child in this
+country."
+
+And as Pierre made a motion of protest he added quickly:
+
+"You misunderstand me.... Bravery has nothing to do with this matter.
+Others who certainly were just as brave as you have lost their lives
+here. The fact is that there are definite rules for the conduct of the
+struggle which we are waging.... And they had no idea of them--while I,
+who have lived fifteen years in the forest, I know the game from the
+bottom up. I say it without any kind of pride and with all sincerity;
+although since my arrival here nothing has yet appeared to confirm my
+suspicions, I have the feeling that of all the parts of Indo-China in
+which I have lived this one is the most unsafe...."
+
+Lursac, attentive to his words, watched the face of the priest.
+
+"What do you mean? I suppose you are thinking of the stories of
+Longères and Dorcel? You know about them of course?"
+
+The missionary made an affirmative motion.
+
+"Yes," said he simply.
+
+A silence fell between them. From the court the voice of the corporal
+calling the men for the night watch came up to them.
+
+"Bao, first watch. Tran, second watch. Vinh and Pâa, the watch over the
+sheds of the elephants and oxen...."
+
+Pierre, facing the priest, asked:
+
+"You know something about their affair?"
+
+Fingering his beard the missionary replied:
+
+"I know nothing ... nothing ... except that we live in the middle of
+a people unknown, who hate us and flee us, and whose invisible spies
+watch around us--around your Post as around my Mission--spying on our
+gestures, watching our comings in and our goings out and our slightest
+actions."
+
+With a movement of his head Pierre signified his doubt.
+
+"Are you certain of all that?" he queried.
+
+The priest thought for a minute, then stretching his hand towards the
+sombre mass of the Pou-Kas standing aloft in front of the fort, he said:
+
+"Look before you."
+
+Pierre raised his head. His look traveled over the scene stretched out
+in front of him. Above the dull-colored gullies of the mountain a livid
+rayless sun was setting slowly. In the middle of the mass of foliage
+carpeting the first slope of the mountain showed a Moï village, with
+its conical thatched huts dotted along a pathway edged with banana
+trees and defended by a triple zareba of brush.
+
+In the declining daylight this lifeless silent village seemed to lie
+asleep.
+
+The priest began to speak again in a louder voice as he pointed to the
+huts:
+
+"How many inhabitants are there there? Fifty?... Three hundred?... What
+do they do? How do they live? We shall never know!..."
+
+Pierre continued to watch the two fortresses, hostile towns, small and
+difficult of attack, which stood, as it were, opposite to each other
+and appeared to watch each other: here, down on the plain and on the
+very bank of the canal the military station; up there, shadowed by the
+trees of the forest the strange native village, the inhabitants of
+which no European had ever seen.
+
+He murmured:
+
+"They are there, nevertheless. Look!"
+
+On the mountain side, every instant becoming less distant, among the
+huts of the Moï village a mysterious liveliness seemed indeed to
+have arisen. Here and there hearth-fires were lit, and among their
+flickering lights human forms could be seen passing. The breeze,
+beginning to blow at the approach of dusk, came lightly over the flanks
+of the mountain and flowed towards the narrow valley, bringing to the
+Post the lingering sound of a litany chanted by women's voices.
+
+"Yes!" said Father Ravennes, "they are there.... But no more than
+Redeski and no more than me, no more than Longères and Dorcel,
+doubtless, will you succeed in seeing them or taking them unawares, as
+their watchword is definite: as soon as white men are seen approaching,
+create a wilderness around them, disappear...."
+
+And as Pierre made a vague gesture he said sharply:
+
+"The best thing would be for you to have experience of it yourself: a
+simple experiment will make you understand the country better. Perhaps
+then you will attach to my advice the importance that it merits....
+Come with me."
+
+The priest strode along swiftly. Before the guardhouse the sentinel
+saluted him without his taking the slightest notice. He cleared the
+gateway with a vigorous stride. In his hurry he had forgotten to take
+his hat and his hair, gray, and standing out in tangled masses, hung
+round his face. He threw it back with a characteristic shake of his
+head. His hand held in a strong clasp the heavy walking stick from
+which he was never separated.
+
+Pierre caught up to him. Side by side they mingled with the shadows
+of the valley through which a narrow footpath wound. Before them,
+shouldering upwards into the red sky was the formidable mass of the
+distant Pou-Kas. From the village the monotonous chant of the women
+continued to flow downward to the plain. They reached the first spurs
+of the mountain. The path disappeared: to the tall grass there had
+succeeded a denser, heavier vegetation of trees and bushes.
+
+Suddenly Pierre stood still.
+
+"Listen!" whispered the priest.
+
+Arrested in their progress they leaned forward and listened with all
+their ears. The unknown singers had suddenly stopped their mournful
+song. There was a short interval, and then the heavy sound of a gong
+spread itself abroad in the forest carried far and near by the echoes
+of the mountain. Then everything became inexplicably silent, and the
+forest appeared more vast, more threatening. From the sky of mauve and
+pink, night was about to fall; and under the final caresses of the sun
+the forest prepared to receive it with a vast immobility of silence and
+stillness. The missionary drew himself up again.
+
+"Let us go on," said he.
+
+They set themselves to continue their climb. With eyes alert they slid
+from tree to tree up towards the mysterious forest, the threshold of
+which like a dark and living wall was stretched out above them. From
+time to time the bark of a wolfhound mixed with the clucking of a fowl,
+without it being possible to say whether it came upwards from the fort
+or downwards from the village.
+
+Finally they penetrated the real forest. Its bluish-green heavy damp
+shadow fell about them, the shadow peculiar to the virgin undergrowth
+which the rays of the sun never reach and which seems all the denser
+and all the colder from its dark stagnation unbroken by anything or
+anybody. Under their feet the soft spongy soil gave and slid.
+
+And suddenly, after their having climbed a last ledge walled about with
+century-old _dau_ trees with enormous trunks, they found themselves
+before the exterior of the village. A narrow path ran forward between
+two massive walls of thorny brush and was blocked by a heavy gate.
+Without the least hesitation Father Ravennes dashed into the outlandish
+enclosure with Pierre close behind him. They no longer took any
+precautions against being seen. They went swiftly, silently, and with
+their attention fixed ahead, following the open runway before them.
+They found two other gates similar to the first one, but lower, and
+they had to bend to get through them. Finally they came out in the
+middle of the village. In the centre of an open space, bordered on
+either side by a row of banana trees, four long dark huts showed
+pointed roofs. In front of each of them a sort of primitive tripod made
+of twisted bamboos supported curiously shaped stones.
+
+As quickly as possible Lursac and the missionary made their way
+forward. Between the shining trunks of the bananas a few fowls ran
+off cackling. From the first hut a hoarse barking arose, and a mangy
+wolfhound with its ribs sticking through its skin dashed out. He made
+for the two men, ran round them growling, from time to time throwing up
+his pointed muzzle towards the sky and howling.
+
+They went through the huts rapidly one after the other, looking
+carefully at the rough walls and searching the shadows which clung
+about the rice-bins and gathered under the straw roofs blackened by
+soot and the smoke of household fires. In one of these dwellings,
+consisting of a single room like all the rest, in the middle of
+a rectangle of stamped down earth surrounded by a great family
+sleeping-bench a few live coals were just dying, showing here and
+there a red spark which was answered by the light of two other smaller
+hearth-fires in the corners of the room set beside the bench on small
+sheets of clay. A warm smell of cooked rice hung heavy in the air. Here
+and there rags were scattered about, and under a beam a crossbow still
+swung suspended from a peg.
+
+The priest turned to Pierre.
+
+"Well! what do you say to that? Is it perfectly plain? Do you
+understand now that to make your way through such a country as this,
+an ... expedition is necessary?"
+
+His voice hesitated and then emphasised the word "expedition."
+
+Lursac spoke his thought aloud.
+
+"How the devil could they have been warned?"
+
+The priest smiled.
+
+"Well, what do you make of the gong that sounded while we were coming
+up here?... The system is perfectly simple: they saw us come out from
+the Post and begin to mount towards the village. One of the native
+braves, while we were struggling in the middle of the forest, ran here,
+got ahead of us, gave three or four bangs on the gong and every one
+cleared out!..."
+
+A feeling of depression came over Pierre.
+
+"They cleared out, certainly, but how? We arrived at the entrance
+to the village a few minutes after the gong sounded, we should have
+seen them if they had come out that way, for at any rate they are not
+invisible!..."
+
+The missionary nodded assent.
+
+"Perfectly right," said he, "follow me!"
+
+He led the way to the last _cai-nha_, and going in, went to the
+furthest angle of the room; then, kneeling down, he slid under the
+bench and disappeared. Pierre imitated him. He immediately discovered
+in the surface of the wall an opening, carefully cut, over which a slab
+of board could be lowered like a shutter.
+
+Going forward on his hands and knees he found himself outside. He then
+saw running through the midst of a mass of tangled underbrush a little
+footpath blocked by a doorway like those at the entrance of the village.
+
+Beside him, Father Ravennes explained.
+
+"The service entrance! ... but I myself have my spies too...."
+
+And as Pierre made a step towards the path he interrupted himself to
+shout violently:
+
+"Don't stir!" at the same time taking him by the arm and pulling him
+backwards. Pierre flinging a rapid look around asked:
+
+"What's the matter? Is there danger?"
+
+The missionary shook his head.
+
+"No good looking at the forest, it isn't what you think. These animals
+are too cunning to attack us from the front. No, it is not around us
+that the danger lies, but at our feet!"...
+
+Flinging down his eyes Pierre examined the soil carefully. About a
+yard before him on the other side of the open gate the path, muddy
+and covered with a carpet of dead leaves and crushed grass, ran with
+sharp turns between its two walls of brush. It seemed to him peaceful
+and familiar, calling up in his mind the memory of those narrow,
+trough-like lanes of Brittany along which he used to go in his boyhood,
+picking the blackberries and the yellow honeysuckle clinging among the
+brambles and wild vines.
+
+He said:
+
+"I see nothing."
+
+"Evidently," said the priest. "I also, in my first experience of them,
+found nothing suspicious, and I paid dearly for it!"
+
+He drew back the edge of his white _cai-quan_, showing his right leg
+which stood out strongly, grooved with veins and studded with muscles.
+With his finger he outlined a sort of long furrow of dark red which ran
+down the flesh of the calf. He explained:
+
+"An extraordinary piece of good luck got me out of it with just this
+slight wound. A few inches lower and I should have had my tendon cut
+and have been permanently lamed ... and then again, I have never been
+able to understand why they did not poison their devilish device, since
+it is their habit to do so! Our lives here, more than anywhere else,
+are in the hands of Providence...."
+
+While speaking he made a few steps forward with great care. Bending
+over in the opening of the gate he grubbed with the point of his
+walking stick in the mud path and the scattered leaves, showing solidly
+bedded in the earth and pointing obliquely upwards a series of arrows
+with sharpened points cut to a fine edge and tipped with a reddish
+stain made by successive dippings in vegetable poison.
+
+He started back.
+
+"Look there!" said he, "no boot sole could stand against that, and no
+flesh and blood either. A slight or a deep cut, and the result would
+be exactly the same: a few minutes after the accident a burning in
+the wounded limb, followed almost immediately by a general stupor, by
+faintings and fever; then after an hour or two of atrocious suffering,
+the end,--unavoidable and without any possible remedy!..."
+
+He stopped speaking. Bending over towards the soil he scraped carefully
+back over the ground which he had uncovered the scattered leaves and
+grass. Pierre said nothing.
+
+Drawing himself up again the missionary pointed out a sort of terrace
+which the forest left uncovered above them.
+
+"And there," said he, "in that exact spot begins what they call 'the
+Dead Country,' that is to say, the zone into which no man is allowed to
+penetrate, even if he is of the Moï race.... Then again, in order to
+reach as quickly as possible the last stage of Redeski's journey which
+we know of, it is across the forbidden country that we must cut. Let us
+wait then. If it is necessary we will organise your troop...."
+
+Pierre still said nothing. Re-covered with their carpet of leaves, the
+arrow heads were no longer visible. Nevertheless, with his features
+drawn, his fists clenched, the young man continued watching the path
+with a fixed and savage stare. He was thinking; and his thoughts,
+whirling and broken, took on a bitter and terrible tinge, a feeling of
+rage and death.
+
+There they stood, the two of them, motionless and wrapped in thought,
+Pierre with his back against the dingy wall of the _cai-nha_ and the
+priest before him watching him. Around them the dusk flowed through the
+forest. The trembling dark sea of trees became every moment more huge
+and more menacing. The clear line of the Pou-Kas when they raised their
+eyes to it became lost in a purple sky already invaded by darkness.
+And, through the silence of the world over which the dark kept watch,
+there rose only from time to time the hoarse voice of the wolfhound
+left alone in the village and baying at the night.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                          LOVE IN THE FOREST
+
+
+The winter season drew along and came near to its end. From the
+piled-up accumulation of clouds which lay on the great group of
+mountains the rain pelted with more violence but at longer intervals
+each day. Between storms the clouds rolled away and opened, blown
+by sudden winds, leaving in the sky great sparkling blue deeps
+through which the rays of the sun flamed and fell upon the Post. The
+atmosphere, one moment dark and thick, and the next suddenly full of
+light, was heavy, moist, and charged with deadly heat.
+
+Wanda and Pierre since their arrival at the Post had introduced a
+certain regularity into their daily life. The same monotony brought
+them together in their difficulties as well as in their pleasures.
+Every morning they went over to the Mission where Father Ravennes gave
+them a lesson in Banhar, the rough and primitive dialect of the natives
+of the region. In the afternoon they wandered on horseback all about
+the station, some days by themselves and others accompanied by the
+missionary. Now and then they climbed up towards the mountain, making
+a circuit about the mysterious village, but always being careful not
+to get too deep into the forest. Then, in the evening, after dinner,
+on the seats under the veranda at the Post they talked together, while
+through the night rose the thin sound of the flutes with which the
+_linhs_ accompanied their homesick chants which they had brought with
+them from their country of Laos.
+
+And this was the peaceful hour--the hour they liked best--during which
+unconsciously both of them put aside restraint at the call of this
+mysterious destiny which had brought them together in the depths of the
+forest alone, each with a heart so ardent and so young.
+
+Lursac, particularly, fell under the charm of this camaraderie and
+enjoyed it to the full, light-heartedly. But soon with this plain
+and simple feeling something more complex, less peaceful also, had
+become mingled. Pierre had very soon indeed found awakening in himself
+for this strange, wilful and beautiful girl a tenderness in which
+admiration, fear, and weakness were mingled. Then, spending his days
+side by side with her, he had felt an eager love take possession of
+him little by little with its hitherto unguessed-at sweetness, and,
+finally, flood his whole being with its irresistible power. Wanda,
+however, continually bewildered him. Generally distant or reserved,
+she sometimes became childlike and tender. At such moments she flung
+constraint to the winds without any warning: then as suddenly froze
+again, disconcerting him by these sudden changes in humor, by the
+caprices of a heart whose secret he could never fathom. So in her
+presence he remained hesitant and timid, irritated by his own weakness
+and impatience, feeling her difficult to understand, impossible to
+follow, with every fibre of his being in revolt against her instability
+of temperament which day by day forced him to put off the avowal which
+he had sworn to himself to make.
+
+On this particular afternoon they were taking their usual ride.
+
+Through thick foliage shining with the damp the path led away,
+obstructed here and there with swamps and blocked in places by trunks
+of uprooted trees. At their regular, undeviating pace, the sure-footed
+ponies followed it, the bridles hanging on their necks. Around them
+the great Lao-ese forest pressed in upon them, vast and deep, cradling
+between its enormous upspringing shafts, which gave it the aspect of
+a giant cathedral, the heavy perfume of rotting earth, voluptuous and
+unhealthy. Among the bushes and the undergrowth a bluish-green daylight
+drifted, uncertain and deceptive--a sunless daylight, transparent,
+the color of green leaves, such as sifts sometimes through the dusty
+windows of an old sanctuary long abandoned and given up to shadows and
+forgetfulness....
+
+Plucking as she went an orchid which hung from a thorny creeper, Wanda
+announced:
+
+"We will stop at the first clearing: I feel tired...."
+
+Absorbed in contemplation of her, Pierre gave no answer. Clothed
+in her gray tailored suit--the same that she had worn that night,
+already so long past, on which she had paid him that strange visit at
+Khône-Sud--she rode before him, and he with his mind lost in a vague
+thoughtfulness watched her. His glance slowly dwelt on the dainty
+outline which not even the jolting trot of the ponies could dishevel,
+and every detail came to him with a new joy:--a bit of her neck shining
+white in the shadow of the felt hat; the curve of her shoulders, as
+the strong and flexible figure gave gracefully to the motion of the
+horse; the supple waist, and the long delicate line of her leg outlined
+in red leather, and the fine arch of the foot strongly planted in the
+stirrup....
+
+With her hand lying on the croup of her animal she turned back towards
+him. Catching the long look charged with emotion and admiration with
+which he seemed to embrace her, she blushed.
+
+"Do you hear me, Pierre, I am tired."
+
+Her voice a little sharp, she spoke louder than usual.
+
+He started, and pushed his mount alongside that of the girl.
+
+"Certainly," said he, "we will stop as soon as you wish."
+
+And he fell again into his dream. At last, watching him out of the
+corners of her eyes, she said:
+
+"You are not very pleasant this morning. I suppose you slept badly?"
+
+He nodded his head.
+
+"True," said he, "I hardly closed my eyes."
+
+And as he spoke there came before him the sleepless night that he had
+just passed. A troubled and feverish night, through which he had done
+nothing but think long thoughts of Wanda; and the visions which had
+obsessed him and kept him wide awake at his window came back into his
+mind. With the sudden beating of his heart there flowed upon him once
+more the violent emotion which had tormented him through the night;
+and the same question which had then haunted him faced him again for
+solution: Did Wanda love him?
+
+The uncertainty was no longer to be borne.
+
+The path, now widening, opened into a clearing. Wanda jumped down from
+her horse and Pierre imitated her. With the bridles over their arms
+they made a few steps side by side.
+
+"Now," thought Pierre, "I will speak to her, I will tell her...."
+
+But the girl's voice breaking the silence interrupted him.
+
+"A poor harvest!" said she.
+
+And sitting on a stump overgrown with moss she spread out before him a
+few curiously shaped stones. She repeated:
+
+"A poor harvest! Father Ravennes will not be able to congratulate us on
+that!"
+
+He stood facing her.
+
+"You are right," he said sharply. "Since Father Ravennes showed you his
+collection of prehistoric remains there doesn't seem to be anything
+else that interests you!"
+
+"Yes, he made a good convert of me," she said, smiling. "Here am I, who
+two months ago didn't even know there was such a thing as anthropology
+or palæontology, now mad about carved flints and dreaming of nothing
+but axes and scrapers and skeletons. But how learned he is on the
+subject, and what words he finds to describe his dear prehistoric
+man!... I shall never forget his face, at once horrified and amazed,
+when I told him that our ancestors must have been horribly ugly.
+'Quaternary man _ugly_!' cried he, 'Who put that into your head?
+Uncivilized, savage, wild, without doubt!--but _ugly_? Good Heavens!
+No! Unless you find horrible anything that resembles nature, anything
+that is strong, powerful and active! Primitive man? He was certainly
+a rough, strong being, with rude health, formidable muscles, and a
+splendid lithe body; a primitive athlete, superb in strength, browned
+by the sun and burned by the weather, hardened by privations and as
+dangerous to the wild beasts as to his fellows....'" She remained a
+moment thoughtful and then:
+
+"After all, suppose he was right?"
+
+Pierre had sat down beside her. With hanging head he absently handled
+the stones laid on the earth before her.
+
+"Yes," said he, "and for a whole week I have beaten the forest with you
+looking for fossils...."
+
+She turned to him and looked at him:
+
+"Are you complaining of it?"
+
+He protested:
+
+"No.... No...."
+
+And, suddenly making up his mind, in an uncertain voice he continued:
+
+"No ... but today, if you will let me, we will not talk of prehistoric
+things, I have something to tell you...."
+
+She drew herself lightly away, but still turned towards him she watched
+him attentively with her frank glance.
+
+He felt his heart beat furiously in little short feverish throbs.
+
+"Something to say to you ...," said he, "a confession ... I...."
+
+Quickly she stretched out her arm and laid her hand across his lips:
+
+"I know," she said steadily, "you love me...."
+
+Pierre, seizing her hand, kissed it passionately.
+
+"No," said he, "you do not know.... It was back there on the
+_Vien-Thian_, when I saw you for the first time!... You were talking to
+Captain Rabaud. Do you remember?... I do not know why the sound of your
+voice attracted me, and when you had refused to take me for a fellow
+traveler I felt disappointment and a strange pain ... and then you came
+to see me at Khône...."
+
+She did not withdraw her fingers. With her head lowered and her eyes
+half-shut she seemed to be thinking deeply.
+
+"I hardly saw you that morning going on shore, and yet, nevertheless,
+somehow I knew that you would not refuse my request," she said.
+
+"Yes ... and your victory was so easy and so complete that you must
+have been surprised at it yourself!"
+
+She raised her eyes to his. He noticed the softened look in them, one
+which he had never seen there before. Profoundly moved, he stammered:
+
+"Wanda ... Wanda ... I love you,--so, so much. Tell me, you believe me?"
+
+Her look flowed into his and seemed to search into the most hidden
+corners of his heart.
+
+There was a little silence which she suddenly broke:
+
+"Yes," she said simply, "I believe you...."
+
+He breathed heavily as though freed from some agony. A wave of joy
+spread over his face.
+
+"When your brother comes back I will speak to him ... you wish me to,
+do you?"
+
+She got up and walked towards her horse.
+
+He followed her.
+
+"Answer me, Wanda!" he implored, his voice hoarse with emotion.
+
+Her foot in the stirrup, she sprang up lightly and settled herself in
+the saddle.
+
+His hand on the neck of her horse and his head raised in anxiety he
+repeated:
+
+"I may?... Tell me!..."
+
+She bent towards him. Their faces were so close that the details of her
+features seemed to escape him and before his eyes Pierre could only
+see two brown eyes wonderfully liquid, the color of dead leaves, and
+palpitating with the beating of the dark lashes.
+
+His look fell lower and caught sight of the moist crimson lips like a
+marvellous fruit.
+
+A violent spasm of emotion overwhelmed him, he shut his eyes and
+shivered at the thought of those lips laid on his in a kiss.
+
+At the same time, with his hands moist and his throat dry, he searched
+vainly for words, for some tender phrase to serve as a plea for his
+love. But in his feverish brain one single question, the same, came to
+the surface like an obsession and for the third time he asked:
+
+"Will you let me?"
+
+She bent a little over him and suddenly taking his face between her
+hands she kissed him on the lips almost savagely while her breath
+mingled with his.
+
+"Yes," she cried, "for I, I love you also."
+
+And she repeated passionately:
+
+"I love you!... I love you!..."
+
+Then flinging herself quickly back from him, she whipped up her pony,
+which started off at a gallop.
+
+He caught up with her in a few seconds, and then they descended
+together the flank of the mountain, letting their animals go as they
+liked. Between the springing shafts of the _dau_ trees, the _igieurs_,
+the _trueuls_, the path zigzagged, here turning to go round a bush and
+there avoiding a mass of creepers. Side by side they jogged along, as
+they went building castles in Spain for the future, and sketching their
+lives together according to their most secret longings.
+
+Suddenly pulling his signet ring from his ring-finger, Pierre held it
+out to the girl.
+
+"I have no other ring to offer you just now," he said, "no jewel, no
+diamond! ... will you wear this for me meanwhile?"
+
+She took the ring, slipped it on to her finger and with her long pale
+hand raised before her eyes she asked:
+
+"Is it very old?"
+
+"Yes, my great-great-grandfather had it when he was killed at the
+battle of Fontenoy. Since then it has passed from father to eldest son."
+
+She examined the coat of arms:
+
+"A lion.... A chevron...."
+
+"_Dexter, argent, a lion sable--Sinister, azure, a chevron or_," he
+quoted, smiling.
+
+She repeated the heraldic description slowly.
+
+"Very well," she said, "I shall know now how to blazon our arms, and I
+will keep them faithfully--as faithfully as my love...."
+
+And in her turn she smiled, with a look at once solemn and tender.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                     AN INTERVIEW WITH A SORCERESS
+
+
+That afternoon, for a change, the weather was soft and clement. Side by
+side, abreast, they descended towards the plain at the easy-going pace
+of their mounts. Between the trees below them they saw the Moï village,
+its straw roofs, long and pointed, piercing the forest like gold
+arrows, while, rising from one of the cabins, a thin column of smoke,
+straight and blue, stood in the motionless air.
+
+Suddenly breaking the silence, the girl asked him:
+
+"Don't you think that that village must be one of the haunts of Jieng?"
+
+"It is possible, Father Ravennes thinks so, but he is no more sure of
+it than we are."
+
+Wanda flung him a sharp glance.
+
+"You speak of it as if it did not matter! Doesn't that interest you in
+any way? For my part, I should like to discover the mysterious power
+that this woman represents and of which Father Ravennes obtained proof
+that night in the forest. And then perhaps she could tell us something
+about what has happened to Michael. Ah! if only I could catch her."
+
+Lursac with a shrug of his shoulders signified lack of interest.
+
+"What good would that do you? You don't imagine that she would tell you
+her secrets?"
+
+Wanda remained thoughtful.
+
+"Who knows?" said she, after a moment's thought. "And, anyway, what
+should I risk? She might say nothing or she might tell me things that
+weren't true."
+
+"Yes," said Pierre, "certainly, and also perhaps you might get an
+unexpected spear-thrust or a dagger in your back!"
+
+The young girl made a motion of scorn.
+
+"She would not dare," said she, "and, besides, this is a very excellent
+chance! Let us try it together!"
+
+"Wanda!" cried Pierre, "Wanda!" He stretched out his hand to try to
+hold her back, but on the word she had pushed forward her horse and was
+galloping down the slope.
+
+He immediately realized that it was too late to stop her; and he
+then had only one thought, to protect her. He whipped up his horse
+mercilessly.
+
+They arrived abreast at the entrance to the village. Pierre recognized
+the path of brush by which he and Father Ravennes had a week earlier
+penetrated into the settlement.
+
+Flat down on the neck of his pony he took the lead of Wanda and passed
+the three gates one after the other. At his side he heard the heavy
+breathing and the hoof-beats of Wanda's horse galloping close behind,
+and when, on coming out on the village square, he stopped, he found the
+girl beside him. He took her by the arm and brought her to a standstill.
+
+"For the love of Heaven!" he cried, "let me do it!"
+
+Jumping to the ground he ran towards a cabin, whose wide-open door
+showed a black rectangle in the midst of which flickered the flame of a
+hearth-fire.
+
+On the threshold of the single room reeking with bitter smoke he stood
+still, searching the shadows before him. Squatted before a fire of
+branches some twenty savages, with long Moï pipes in their mouths, were
+silently smoking. A stupor seemed to hold them all motionless in their
+places. Seated on the bench before the semicircle of warriors a woman
+had just that instant stopped speaking.
+
+Pierre, taking no notice of the men, strode towards her and, by chance
+remembering the description which Father Ravennes had given him, he
+said, in Banhar:
+
+"I greet you, O Jieng!"
+
+Wanda, biting back an exclamation, examined the sorceress eagerly.
+Her bent, crouching body appeared that of a child. Ragged and filthy
+cotton drawers, rolled round her waist and descending below the knee,
+left in plain sight thin, bony shoulders, a withered skin creased with
+wrinkles and hacked with scars. On the hearth a little log was burning.
+In the dancing light the hideous face of Jieng could be plainly seen;
+under her gray hair and narrow forehead showed the bloody marks of
+an outlandish tattooed design gashed into the skin. A single eye was
+alive, half-closed, dull and blinking: the other with its bleared,
+corroded lids gave the effect of a running abscess. A cut, still
+unhealed, disfigured the chin, stretching up towards the cheek, and,
+circling the lips, gave to the toothless mouth, stained with betel-nut,
+the aspect of a raw wound slashed across the face.
+
+Alone in the middle of her dumbfounded people she remained unmoved. She
+turned her mutilated face towards the young folk and regarded them with
+her single eye without showing any emotion whatever.
+
+"I greet you," she replied.
+
+She raised her hand, showing on her arm rings of copper which glistened
+in the dusk. Pointing to the door, she said to the men:
+
+"Go!"
+
+They got up doubtfully. The fire on the hearth lit up their thick, bony
+forms, brought out their strong arms and thighs and revealed their red
+bodies in which the supple, powerful muscles rippled under the skin.
+Pierre noted that they were equipped for war, their faces painted
+white, hatchets on their shoulders, curved daggers stuck into the belts
+of their loin-cloths and their long hair plaited up into knots, while
+collars of animals' teeth rattled round their necks, and their ankles
+and knees were ornamented with copper rings. Already they were in the
+act of taking down their bows and quivers that hung on the wall.
+
+But the young man, with a brusque gesture, signed to them to stop.
+
+"No!" he ordered, "no one is to move."
+
+In her flat level voice Jieng asked:
+
+"Why do you want them?"
+
+And as he hesitated she looked straight into his face.
+
+"Those who sit by our hearth, however they came there," said she in the
+same calm indifferent tone, "have nothing to fear. Were you not aware
+of that?"
+
+And once more pointing to the door, she repeated:
+
+"Go!"
+
+One by one they filed out without Pierre attempting to prevent them.
+On the threshold each stood still for a moment and bowed towards the
+_Bo Jaou_. The salute revealed a wild and haughty servility, a sort of
+fanaticism mixed with fear and suppressed rage. Their supple, gliding
+walk, as of animals in captivity, at once crafty, obedient and ready
+for revolt, suggested the idea of wild animals which give way before
+the tamer, crouching, bent double, kept down by fear, but nevertheless,
+always waiting and ready to give a deadly blow of the paw.
+
+The last of them, a great big fellow with massive shoulders and thick
+hands, cast on the young man a look of hate so heavy, so threatening,
+that the latter felt it cover him almost like something tangible.
+They looked each other up and down for a second, and then, when the
+warrior disappeared, Lursac turned back to the sorceress. Her legs
+folded under her, her body rigid and her hands flat upon her withered
+thighs, she continued to preserve her attitude of a Buddhist idol
+and her expressionless face of a statue. She pretended to ignore the
+presence of the young man, just as she did Wanda sitting beside her on
+the bench, and this indifference, at once haughty and careless, worried
+Pierre.
+
+"This lady," he explained, pointing to Wanda, "wanted to see you."
+
+The sorceress turned her head slightly and, with a glance, she examined
+Wanda:
+
+"She is beautiful," she said simply.
+
+The girl smiled.
+
+"I wanted to know you," said she. "They have talked to me about you so
+much."
+
+Jieng remained unmoved. A short cough shook her and made her hunch her
+shoulders.
+
+"Who, then, talks of an old woman like me?"
+
+"Everyone," said Wanda.
+
+And abruptly she challenged her:
+
+"Do you not reign over this country?"
+
+A light, immediately veiled, flashed in the dull eye of the sorceress.
+
+"How could I?" she asked. "Look at me. Death is waiting for me. For a
+long time I have seen him beckoning to me. The gate is open for me...."
+
+A second attack of coughing tore her skinny chest; choking and
+suffocating, she spat, gasping and twisted with pain.
+
+Already Wanda, full of compassion, was beginning to sympathize with her.
+
+An exclamation from Pierre, however, turned the current of her thoughts
+and reawakened her curiosity.
+
+"Look, Wanda, more prehistoric remains."
+
+She cast a glance at the corner of the cabin at which he was pointing.
+Against a partition of split bamboo, on a large wooden stand, round a
+tiny hearth where a few live coals were gradually dying, flint hammers
+and axes and some bones were set out in a semicircle. A skull dominated
+them, set upon a block of wood; and the red glow from the little hearth
+flecking the ivory of the bones with red, created two pools of shadows
+in the empty eye-sockets.
+
+Wanda examined the peculiar altar with passionate interest. Then her
+attention, up to that time concentrated on the sorceress, passed to the
+entire cabin. On the walls blackened with smoke she noticed the heads
+of animals and the skins of wild beasts; yellow skeletons and tawny
+furs; elephants' ears; monkeys' hands, twisted and brown, showing red
+palms stretched towards the bundles of bows and lances.
+
+Triumphantly, she jerked out:
+
+"And what is that? This skull and these flint weapons?"
+
+The sorceress made an evasive gesture.
+
+"Yes!" said she, "trifles ... that we find in ... in the mountain...."
+
+Wanda imperiously demanded particulars:
+
+"Why do you put them on an altar, as if they were sacred things?"
+
+"These ... these are fetiches, ... the fathers of our fathers did this
+... and in our turn we...."
+
+The girl recognised the hopelessness of her question. She took the
+sorceress by the arm.
+
+"Don't you know? Who, then, is the high-priestess of this religion?
+Aren't _you_?"
+
+Jieng parried the question adroitly.
+
+"We worship everything that seems strange to us--strange ... yes ...
+and above us,--a fire, thunder.... Is that what you mean?"
+
+She had pulled away her arm, but not quickly enough to prevent Wanda
+feeling the shiver which had shaken it: at the same time, with her
+single eye persistently upon him, she watched Pierre standing in front
+of her.
+
+"No," said Wanda, "I am talking of the religion which everywhere brings
+together all the Moï women in mysterious pilgrimages. Where do they go?
+And why only the women?"
+
+The sorceress started. She twisted herself slightly. Once more her
+eye was riveted on the young man. With a sort of tired obstinacy, she
+repeated:
+
+"I don't understand. Really, I don't understand...."
+
+As if crushed, trembling, she began to cough again.
+
+A cruel bronchial rattling seemed to choke her: she groaned, pressing
+her emaciated sides with her two hands.
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders angrily.
+
+"I told you," said he, "that you would not get anything out of her."
+
+Wanda rose. A thought had just come into her mind, while a sentence of
+Father Ravennes' sounded in her ears: "A mysterious religion reserved
+for women, and of which no man must penetrate the secret."
+
+Her look fell in turn on Jieng and Pierre de Lursac.
+
+And to herself she murmured:
+
+"No man ... no man...."
+
+Aloud she said:
+
+"You are right. Let us go. Look and see if the horses are there!"
+
+Standing in the middle of the hut, she followed him with her eyes. On
+the threshold, he turned back and looked at Jieng for an instant.
+
+"Poor old woman!" he said, "she can't last very much longer; in any
+case, she is nothing to be afraid of."
+
+With a doubtful smile on her lips, Wanda remained silent, but directly
+he had gone out she walked resolutely up to the sorceress.
+
+"Jieng," said she, "have you really nothing to tell me?"
+
+The old woman raised her head. Her glance met that of the young girl--a
+new glance, intelligent, acute and deep, which seemed to want to
+penetrate the most secret thoughts of the stranger.
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"Nothing?" ... insisted Wanda. "Not even to me who am a woman. To me
+alone?"
+
+A flash shone from the eye of the sorceress and made it glitter
+strangely. Her entire face seemed to reflect doubt and hesitation.
+
+"To you alone?" she said, uncertainly, "to ... to you, alone?"
+
+Suddenly her visage became stone and took on its mask of passive
+indifference.
+
+"Your companion is calling for you," she said.
+
+Through the open door could be heard the sounds of the approaching
+horses, and the voice of Pierre:
+
+"Wanda, are you coming?..."
+
+The young woman bent over and whispered, quickly:
+
+"If I come back alone, two days from now, at sunset, will you be here?"
+
+Jieng hung her head, her single eye closed.
+
+"Perhaps," she said simply.
+
+But a meaning grin flickered over her mouth and twisted her lips almost
+imperceptibly.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+                             THE FUGITIVE
+
+
+Father Ravennes turned to face the congregation. His joined hands
+separated:
+
+"_Ite, missa est._..."
+
+In the cool, dark chapel his gesture of benediction seemed to spread,
+bowing the heads of the worshipers.
+
+And while the missionary once more facing the tabernacle recited the
+closing gospel, "_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
+God_ ..." the converts one by one left the chapel.
+
+Wanda and Lursac came out last. Above them, the sonorous voice of the
+bell shed abroad its solemn rhythmic cadences. Torn, as it were, by
+long tremblings, the transparent atmosphere vibrated, throbbing slowly
+across the little Christian settlement, as the warm earth reflected the
+dazzling light of the sun and the shadow of the trees and the clear
+outline of the buildings stood rigid and heavy against the glare.
+
+Father Ravennes, coming out in his turn, joined the young folk who were
+waiting for him before the door of the chapel.
+
+Wanda immediately took his arm.
+
+"Your courier has got back from Post 28, I hear. Now what?"
+
+They were walking across the court towards the priest's house. The
+bell had ceased to sound. A vast silence, soft and peaceful, once more
+covered everything.
+
+The missionary, saying nothing, made a slight movement with his head.
+Wanda noticed his air of constraint.
+
+"There is no news, I suppose?"
+
+Her trembling voice, slightly hoarse and heavy with anxiety, moved the
+priest. He made no direct answer, avoiding her question with strategy:
+
+"They believe, back there, that Redeski must have turned off towards
+the west in order to strike for the Post by the southern route. The
+idea is not unlikely; it even seems to fit in very well with the
+information which I got from the last of the messengers I sent to
+enquire in that neighborhood...."
+
+Pierre watched him carefully, trying to read in his expression the
+whole truth of which his words suggested only a small portion. He
+caught the swift, imperceptible sign that the priest flung him. His
+uneasiness grew. He understood that the missionary considered the
+situation grave, and that under his apparent calm was concealed real
+anxiety.
+
+"Think of it, Father Ravennes, it is now nearly three weeks since
+Michael ought to have been back among us," said Wanda. "We must decide
+something, do something, we cannot go on like this in uncertainty...."
+
+The missionary flung a glance sideways towards the mountain.
+
+"I know someone," said he, "who could clear up our doubt, if only we
+could get at her and hold her!"
+
+Pierre, who had followed his glance, immediately guessed.
+
+"Jieng!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Jieng? But we saw her the day before yesterday," said Wanda.
+
+The missionary stopped abruptly:
+
+"You caught sight of Jieng?" he asked curtly. "Where, and when?"
+
+"No," said she, "not caught sight of her, but actually saw her. I even
+talked to her, the day before yesterday, in her village in the midst of
+her warriors."
+
+Astounded, the priest murmured:
+
+"It was madness to dare to do that all by yourself."
+
+The girl, between her half-closed lids, shot a curious look at him.
+
+"Pierre was with me," she said simply.
+
+Then, relating her arrival at the village, she described the assembly
+of men, sketched the portrait of the old woman in agony upon her bench,
+pictured the hut with its walls hung with skins of wild beasts and
+furs, and finally portrayed the strange altar in its corner dedicated
+to prehistoric arms and surmounted with its human skull.
+
+The missionary became excited:
+
+"A skull!" said he, "a skull? Did you examine it?"
+
+"We didn't think of that," said Lursac, "we were too much interested in
+trying to make Jieng talk. You see, we had more or less the same idea
+as you."
+
+Father Ravennes started forward:
+
+"Ah!" said he, excitedly, "did you manage it?"
+
+Wanda answered him:
+
+"No. And in any case she is by no means the imperious and tyrannizing
+priestess we have imagined her, but a very old woman, exhausted, dying."
+
+"Just that," agreed Lursac, "an old beggar whom they no doubt show
+respect to because of her age." And he gave a short laugh. "When I
+think that we took her for this mysterious and maleficent power which
+holds the countryside in terror! Ah! What an idea!..."
+
+The missionary remained silent.
+
+They had resumed their walk. Before the house where the converts lived
+in common they stopped for an instant. Sheltered under the floor of
+the hut, to which the piles which supported it gave the air of a huge
+pigeon-cote, women were grinding rice in a mortar and the heavy sound
+of the pestle kept time with the chant with which they lightened their
+labor. About them a group of youngsters, crouched in a circle, were
+playing at knuckle-bones. As the missionary came up, they stopped their
+game and ran to meet him. Hanging on to his tunic with their heads
+raised towards him, they surrounded him. Their thin faces, unused to
+smiling, were spread with joyous grins.
+
+Father Ravennes tapped them softly on the head.
+
+"Good morning, children!" said he.
+
+His voice, usually piercing and imperious, became caressing. He took
+one of the youngsters and held him up.
+
+"It's nicer here than in the forest, eh! little scamp?" said he,
+tenderly.
+
+The child laughed as he swung his legs happily, stretching out his
+hands and plunging them into the missionary's gray beard. His eyes
+lighted up with kindness, the priest smiled on him; then putting him on
+the ground he cried:
+
+"Attention! Who wants to win a piece of sugar?"
+
+Immediately the court resounded with the children's cries.
+
+Father Ravennes bent his long back.
+
+"Now, listen," he explained, "do you see this key?"
+
+And at the same time taking from his girdle the key of the chapel, he
+flung it in front of him. It flew up sideways, fell, bounced, and came
+to rest finally close to the gate, some thirty yards away.
+
+"The one that brings me that will have the reward."
+
+Already, the children were starting to dash after it....
+
+The priest stopped them.
+
+"Gently! ... gently!... Little ones in front, now ... the big ones
+here.... Good. Everybody ready? Now.... Go!..."
+
+Shouting and pushing, the tiny troop rushed off. Wanda followed them
+with her eyes.
+
+"How pretty they are!" she cried.
+
+Across the court, blazing with light, the little naked bodies, clad
+only with loin-cloths, shone agile and supple in the sun.
+
+"Yes," said Father Ravennes, "true, they are beautiful! With all the
+grace and all the bubbling joy of childhood. And it is of them that I
+am thinking when I pardon their parents all their deceits and all their
+weaknesses. Poor little mites!... Who would have the courage to throw
+them back into the moral misery and the physical degeneracy of the
+forest? Yes, ... my real work is there, and this strength and health
+that I have brought into being around me for the little ones, for...."
+
+Sharp cries interrupted him. Their dash suddenly cut short, the
+children had come to a full stop several yards from their goal. In a
+group before the gate, they gesticulated. One of them made a few steps,
+bent over, and then quickly ran back and immediately with a single
+impulse the whole band rushed back to the priest.
+
+They encircled him, out of breath, crying:
+
+"Ah! ... a woman ... a dead woman!"
+
+Lursac caught one of them by the arm.
+
+"What? What are you telling us? A woman!... Where?"
+
+"There before the gate ... dead, dead...."
+
+Wanda and the missionary hurried off. Pierre came up with them before
+the heavy entrance gate, now blocked by a doubled-up body with the legs
+bent under it and the arms stretched wide.
+
+Father Ravennes, on his knees, lifted the head gently. Between the
+tangled locks of hair a woman's face was visible, covered with dust, as
+with a red mask, her eyes closed and lips bloodless. From a wound on
+the forehead, near the temple, a narrow streak of blood trickled round
+the corner of the eye, down the cheek and chin, towards the throat. She
+was almost naked, only the loins and the upper part of the thighs being
+covered with a wide kilt of brilliant-colored cloth.
+
+The missionary, seeing it, remarked:
+
+"A wild Stieng.[9] It is the only tribe whose women do not wear a
+tunic. But how the devil did she get here?"
+
+[Footnote 9: An independent tribe of Upper Laos.]
+
+"Dead?" asked Wanda.
+
+"No. In a faint. We'll try and bring her to."
+
+He signed to Lursac and to one of his converts:
+
+"Please bring her to my house: I'll go and get what's necessary."
+
+The faithful who had run up were crowding round in order to see better.
+The missionary waved them away with a gesture. Lursac and the man took
+the body and lifted it; they crossed the court again and climbed up to
+the priest's house and took their burden into "the Cave." Stretched out
+on the bench, the woman was seen to be tall and thin, very young, her
+chest furrowed with scratches and her legs stained with black mud.
+
+Wanda had dropped to her knees at her side. With her handkerchief she
+stanched the blood, which was trickling from the temple down to the
+lips. The woman gave a slight shiver, her chin trembled, her fingers
+contracted and a gentle moan came from her throat.
+
+Father Ravennes bent over her and bathed her forehead. The moaning
+ceased; a long groan, broken and gasping, followed which fretted the
+silence of the room with hoarse sound.
+
+"Ah!" said Wanda, "listen, she is trying to talk."
+
+They gathered round her, bending over, the better to catch her
+fragmentary and uncertain words.
+
+"No ... no ... not to the temple.... Thanks! Drink ... drink!..."
+
+Wanda moistened her lips and dropped between the clenched teeth a few
+drops of alcohol.
+
+The voice begged:
+
+"More! ... more!..."
+
+A short silence followed, during which, with her face relaxed she
+eagerly swallowed a little water flavored with rum.
+
+Then she opened her eyes. Her glance wandered around her, vague and
+anxious, then meeting the face of Father Ravennes it fixed itself. In
+the depths of her dark eyes a light came and went, grew, and slowly
+took on the appearance of intelligence and life.
+
+Suddenly, she pulled herself up:
+
+"Father! ... Father! ... save me! They want to take me away to the
+mountain ... they want to take me ... they are coming...."
+
+And, her face distorted by fear, she went off into delirium.
+
+"The Bo-Jaous.... There they are, waiting for me.... Look.... Look....
+their hands are making signs to me and their faces are grinning at
+me...."
+
+Then, with her arms stretched out towards the bay, opening to the
+plains, she shrieked:
+
+"There ... there ... see Jieng, coming to fetch me for tonight ...
+tonight ... the pilgrimage of the sixth month!"
+
+With her clenched fingers she had seized the tunic of the missionary,
+who was trying to calm her; panting, mad with terror, her bloodshot
+eyes fixed on the sunlit square, she clutched the black cloth.
+
+"No ... no ... I will not go! You can try and take me, I won't go!...
+Off with you! Off with you! or I will kill you with my nails ...
+with my teeth.... Not me ... not me.... You already have the white
+officer--the sahib with the two stripes."
+
+Wanda, flinging herself on the woman, shook her wildly:
+
+"The white officer? What white officer? Speak ... speak...."
+
+Father Ravennes and Lursac looked at each other, their faces suddenly
+pale. The missionary, pulling the young woman away, leant over the
+Stieng. He took her hands and looked into her eyes. The gaze of the
+savage meeting that of the priest became fixed; her lids fluttered. The
+priest bent still closer to her, bringing his face down till it almost
+touched that of the girl. They remained thus for a moment.
+
+In a calm decided tone the missionary asked:
+
+"Do you mean the sahib with two stripes? Is it the one who was here,
+and who set out towards the north three months ago?"
+
+The woman started and shivered. Her lips moved, but she remained
+silent. The look of the priest became more insistent. With all his will
+power concentrated, he dominated her.
+
+"Speak!" he said. "Is it he?"
+
+She attempted to answer. The effort she made convulsed her face: deep
+vertical wrinkles came in her forehead; but she was unable to speak.
+She simply made an affirmative sign.
+
+Wanda cried:
+
+"Michael!"
+
+"Be quiet!" said the priest. "Let me manage this!"
+
+He had not let his eyes wander for an instant from those of the woman.
+
+"And it was the sorceresses who took him prisoner? Yes, very well. A
+long time ago? Two weeks--less? Yes! You know where they have taken him
+to? No? You are sure you don't know?"
+
+The woman twisted herself in agony and shook her head several times.
+And as the missionary drew back and let go her hand, she started up
+from her couch with a bound, dashing into the middle of the room,
+where, erect, with a red foam on her lips, she seemed to be struggling
+with some invisible presence. She gasped:
+
+"There! ... there! ... Jieng! She has come back again ... she ... she's
+taking me! ... she's taking me away! No! ... no! ... I won't go!"
+
+She made several steps as if fighting against the vision which had once
+more got her in its power, and her voice rose to a shriek as she called:
+
+"Father ... Father...."
+
+Then, suddenly crumpling up, she rolled over on the mat and lay
+motionless, her face crushed into the ground and the right arm
+stretched out, while she continued to mutter in a hoarse whisper:
+
+"Jieng! ... Jieng!..."
+
+The missionary and Lursac, who had run to her immediately, picked her
+up and laid her back on the bench.
+
+Standing motionless at her side, Wanda watched her.
+
+"Jieng!... Always Jieng!..." she murmured meaningly.
+
+Father Ravennes twisted his beard and flung a glance at Lursac.
+
+"Do you remember," said he, sarcastically, "what you said to me hardly
+an hour ago: 'When I think that we took her for this mysterious and
+maleficent power which holds the countryside in terror. Ah! what an
+idea!'"
+
+Lursac and Wanda turned aside their heads.
+
+"However," said Lursac, "we saw her just the same, bent with age and in
+agony...."
+
+"In agony?" quoted the missionary, "are you so certain of that? But
+that is not the question; we must get to work preparing the expedition
+at once."
+
+Turning to the young man, Wanda begged:
+
+"Yes. Start at once ... immediately, Pierre. Tomorrow go to help him!
+Set him free!"
+
+The missionary did not let her continue.
+
+"Tomorrow? No chance of that!... It will take at least from eight to
+ten days to get together the necessary provisions, supplies, prepare
+the baggage and organize the escort...."
+
+The girl cried out:
+
+"But between this time and that they will have killed him, tortured
+him!"
+
+Father Ravennes shook his head.
+
+"I think not," said he. "This is war beginning. For the third time
+the people of the forest, led by their sorceresses, have made up
+their minds to arrest the advance of the white man, to push back the
+conquerors whose presence annoys them and whose knowledge perhaps
+renders them uncomfortable. Redeski has been taken as a hostage...."
+
+Wanda, lifting towards him a face tortured with fear, repeated:
+
+"They will kill him ... kill him.... You must start at once!"
+
+The priest looked at her almost coldly.
+
+"Above everything," he said, "we must succeed in our attempt and for
+that it will be necessary to make plans and act with prudence...."
+
+Pierre interrupted with a violent gesture:
+
+"Come! come!" he complained, "plans and prudence! That is doing too
+much honor to this mob of thieves and bandits! I intend simply to
+follow Redeski by his tracks, and every time that I meet this rabble I
+shall fall upon them suddenly and sweep them aside with our rifles and
+revolvers."
+
+Father Ravennes shook his head thoughtfully:
+
+"That would be simply inviting failure! What is the good of deceiving
+ourselves? We are face to face with a religious organization whose
+full power, I am afraid, we thoroughly underestimate and whose aims we
+are entirely ignorant of; but there is no doubt that its innumerable
+ramifications cover the whole of Laos in a formidable network. Think
+the matter over. To deliver Redeski would be a matter of force and
+boldness, but simple enough, if it were not for that. But as it is,
+you will be obliged to penetrate to the heart of this forbidden region
+against the will of this unknown organization, and in doing so it
+stands to reason that you will discover its secrets. Think of it well,
+Lursac; this is that great mystery which for centuries has dominated
+this entire country, and you are going to challenge it; and its people
+of the forest and their sorceresses will rise and fight against you
+to defend their beliefs and this power which they have decided we
+must at any cost know nothing of. Now do you understand what you have
+undertaken?"
+
+Silence fell, and lasted some moments. Then the young girl going
+towards the bay leant against the side of it and stayed there
+motionless. Her glance, passing by the plain and the canal, fixed
+itself on the mountain-chain, towering above which the crest of the
+Pou-Kas traced a clear line against the sky.
+
+"So," said she without turning round, "Pierre will not be able to start
+before eight or ten days? I...."
+
+She broke off.
+
+"Not earlier than that," said the priest, "you...?"
+
+"Nothing, ..." said she.
+
+But her eyes continued to search the distant flank of the mountain
+and to look for the village where she had met Jieng two evenings
+ago. Thinking of the rendezvous which she had arranged for this very
+evening, she brusquely asked:
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Six o'clock," said Pierre.
+
+The girl turned towards the two men.
+
+"Au revoir," said she, "I feel very tired!" And she made as if to go.
+
+"I'll go with you," said Pierre.
+
+She stopped in the doorway.
+
+"No," said she, "you must discuss the details of your expedition with
+Father Ravennes ... your line of march."
+
+He agreed:
+
+"You are right. I'll rejoin you in about two hours."
+
+She repeated slowly, as if making a calculation:
+
+"Two hours. Very well...."
+
+She looked at him with a troubled expression, but her voice was
+perfectly firm.
+
+"In two hours," said she. "All right, I shall expect you."
+
+And she went out quickly.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI
+
+                         A DESPERATE ADVENTURE
+
+
+In the village square, along which the banana trees threw their shadows
+in a regular pattern, Wanda stopped. Looking round her, she examined
+the village. Behind their mud walls the cabins appeared silent and
+lifeless ... the quiet wrapped them round and seemed to stifle them
+with its great weight. Wanda stood in doubt. From these huts carefully
+closed and shuttered and about which the dusk was already creeping,
+from this deserted square, from all this silence and this stillness of
+people and things she drew a peculiar impression of doubt and hostility.
+
+In spite of herself, the feeling possessed Wanda. She stood motionless,
+unable to make up her mind. For a moment she hesitated between the
+temptation of keeping the appointment which Jieng, with her reticent
+half-finished sentence, had practically promised her, and the
+sensation, every moment more strong, that danger was about her.
+
+The day slowly faded. Driven by the breeze, the last of the clouds were
+moving overhead in piled up fleecy rolls which the sun here and there
+fringed with scarlet.
+
+From the forest round about the discordant cries of a peacock shrilled
+like a trumpet, and the sounds of the night began to make themselves
+heard: the sweet and tremulous calling of a pair of wood pigeons, the
+ringing call of a wild cock, and the sharp whistlings of the mandarin
+birds....
+
+The image of Michael, imprisoned by the sorceress, came imploringly to
+the mind of the young girl.
+
+Immediately making a decision, she walked straight to the hut of the
+priestess. As she came near it, the door opened and Jieng appeared. The
+crimson light of the flame from the hearth at the back of the cabin
+showed her in clear silhouette. Watchfully, she stood regarding the
+young girl. Wanda greeted her.
+
+"You see, Jieng, I am punctual."
+
+She spoke in Banhar, slowly, and picking her words.
+
+The sorceress bent her head slightly.
+
+"I expected you," she said, simply; and she drew aside to let the
+stranger enter.
+
+Keeping their eyes on each other, they sat down on the bench side by
+side....
+
+There was silence for several seconds. Then, resolutely, Wanda began
+the contest.
+
+"I have come alone," said she, "alone, as I said I would."
+
+Jieng looked up.
+
+"So I see," said she.
+
+And putting aside all the ambiguity and roundabout phrases of the
+native tongue, she asked:
+
+"What do you want to know?"
+
+The directness of the question surprised Wanda, bewildered her. She
+remained silent; and it was the sorceress who continued:
+
+"Was it that that astonished you?"
+
+And stretching out her hand she pointed to the altar with its
+prehistoric arms, its bones and its shining skull.
+
+"Yes, that," said Wanda quickly, "and also the pilgrimage of the women
+every season...."
+
+She stopped speaking, feeling that the moment had not yet come to
+reveal the principal object of her visit.
+
+With a sidelong glance, Jieng watched her.
+
+"That only?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," said Wanda. "Where do they go, and why do they have these
+meetings?"
+
+Jieng broke into a fit of coughing.
+
+"They go to pray," said she finally, "to the gods who protect husbands
+and mothers."
+
+She spoke quickly, without hesitation, in a clear voice.
+
+"Ah!" said Wanda, "and these prayers, where do they take place? In a
+temple?"
+
+Her voice, although she was still in command of it, trembled slightly
+as the thought came to her that it was towards this unknown place of
+pilgrimage that they must have taken Michael.
+
+The sorceress shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"What does that matter to you?" she asked. "Here, there or everywhere
+are the altars of our gods, of the guardian spirits of those in whose
+veins runs the blue blood of the Moïs, the free savages who live in
+the mountains among the inhabitants of the forest, and whom nobody has
+ever been able to enslave.... Nobody ... neither the Annamese nor the
+Lao-ese nor the Siamese ... and not even you others, you white folks,
+in spite of all your efforts!"
+
+While speaking, she had risen. With her figure supple, her chest thrown
+out, her gestures full of life, she seemed a new and different being
+from the suffering old woman whom Wanda remembered and of whom nothing
+seemed to remain except the face wasted with wounds and the shoulders
+seamed with scars.
+
+"Indeed," cried she, "what has it got to do with you? Our gods belong
+to us as yours belong to you. Who among us tries to find out the
+mysteries of your religion?"
+
+"Oh!" said Wanda, "some of them do! And Father Ravennes...."
+
+Spitting on the ground with disgust, Jieng broke in:
+
+"Traitors," said she, "renegades! They shall die!..."
+
+She stared the young girl in the face and grinned fiendishly.
+
+"Do you see? I am speaking frankly. I am telling you everything, even
+at the risk...."
+
+It was Wanda's turn to interrupt.
+
+"Then," said she without any change of expression, "since you are
+telling me everything, tell me what they have done with the lieutenant
+who was in command of the Post."
+
+Jieng remained unmoved. She neither answered the question nor took the
+trouble to make any denials.
+
+"He is in the hands of the gods," she said simply.
+
+The young girl had a feeling of foreboding.
+
+"By what right ..." she began.
+
+The sorceress, resuming her seat, stopped her.
+
+"By what right did he penetrate into the Dead Country, into the forest
+where no man, not even if he is of our own blood, dare enter?"
+
+Without taking any notice of the interruption, the young girl went on:
+
+"He is alive, is he not?... You ... you have not...."
+
+Jieng smiled ironically.
+
+"How does this stranger interest you?" she asked.
+
+Wanda, seizing the priestess by the wrists, clutched convulsively.
+
+"He is my brother," she groaned. "Where have you taken him? Is he
+alive? I must know. Do you hear? Either willing or unwilling, you shall
+tell me...."
+
+With a sudden shake, the sorceress got free. She took a few steps about
+the hut, and came up to the young girl again. With her face twisted by
+an evil grin, she said:
+
+"Do you want to know? Do you?"
+
+"Yes!" cried Wanda.
+
+And she plunged her fingers into the pockets of her jacket. Coins
+jingled, and she withdrew her hands full of money which she threw
+on the bench. The money rolled in all directions on the dark wood,
+scattering sparks of light.
+
+"I will give you all that.... But answer me...."
+
+Jieng took not the slightest notice. With her head drooped in thought,
+she was considering. Finally, she looked the young girl straight in the
+eyes.
+
+"I cannot tell you anything, as I have no authority ... but...."
+
+She held back the young girl, who had flung herself upon her.
+
+"But, ... this evening the pilgrimage of the sixth month takes place."
+
+"I know.... I know.... What then?"
+
+The sorceress hesitated. A flash lit her eye, which she quickly veiled
+with lowered lids.
+
+"I suppose," said she, slowly, "that in order to learn everything that
+you want, you would be willing to mingle with the women who are going
+to enter the Dead Country ... and that you would follow them wherever I
+lead them...."
+
+She made a pause; between her half-open lids a direct glance flashed
+sideways on the brown eyes of the young girl.
+
+"That is only a supposition, you understand!"
+
+"Then," said Wanda, who had become very pale, "then suppose that I do
+follow you...."
+
+A triumphant smile came and went on the priestess' face.
+
+"If you were to do that, I am certain that no one would prevent you ...
+no one...."
+
+The young girl, gripping the sorceress by the shoulder, laughed:
+
+"No one, of course not, only there would be just one more victim on
+your altar, wouldn't there?"
+
+Jieng did not flinch.
+
+"No harm would come to you," she said calmly.
+
+And as the young girl continued to smile ironically, she went on:
+
+"No one would dare to touch you ... I tell you that for a fact."
+
+Then repeated sarcastically:
+
+"A victim!"
+
+And she shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"You came, you and that white man, into my village. My warriors were
+there. You were alone; there were a dozen of them. If I had wanted
+victims, why should I have waited? Were you not caught there in my hut
+just as surely as a wild beast in a trap?"
+
+Again she shrugged her shoulders scornfully and stopped speaking.
+
+The silence lasted some moments. Wanda thought of Michael. Her tortured
+heart was stronger than her reason; she reflected rapidly:
+
+"I don't risk much.... I shall tell Pierre about it, he will follow my
+track and will catch up with me. Meanwhile I shall get the better of
+Jieng, and when he arrives...."
+
+She stopped thinking. She saw just the one thing: here was a chance of
+reaching Michael, of seeing him, helping him, perhaps of aiding in his
+escape.... She cried:
+
+"So be it! I will follow the women on their pilgrimage. What must I do?"
+
+The priestess remained deep in thought for a second, then picking up in
+a businesslike way the coins scattered under the bench, she hid them in
+her belt.
+
+"You must dress like one of our women."
+
+And as the young girl began to protest, she stopped her with a gesture.
+
+"It must be so, or you cannot come with us," she said with an air of
+final authority: "Decide!"
+
+"Very well," said Wanda. "When do we start?"
+
+Jieng bent down, rummaged under the bench and drew out a tunic, a pair
+of loose trousers and a turban which she handed to the young girl.
+
+"Here are your clothes," she said, "in ten minutes I will come for you."
+
+And she went off.
+
+Wanda called after her:
+
+"Can I leave a message for my friends?"
+
+The face of the priestess took on a peculiar expression. Wanda thought
+she heard her laugh, but she had not the time to be uneasy about it.
+
+Jieng assented.
+
+"Yes," said she, "that will be better."
+
+And she went out, shutting the door behind her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Wanda emerged from the hut a few minutes later, the dusk was
+falling on the mountain. A torch in her hand, Jieng was waiting for
+her. The girl gave her the leaf that she had torn out of her notebook.
+
+"Here is a letter for Father Ravennes."
+
+"He shall have it tonight," promised the sorceress.
+
+And without another word she started off, Wanda following her. It was
+warm; into the stormy looking sky swollen clouds were climbing heavily.
+The dark bluish outlines of the mountain stood out solidly among the
+shadows that were beginning to creep over them. On the very tip of the
+crest of the Pou-Kas a last ray of sunlight spread in purplish gold,
+and the shining wave-like line of light stretched further and further
+until the mountain looked like the body of a great sleeping monster.
+
+They went on and on together, both of them silent. Above them, dull and
+confusedly in a sort of scattered murmuring, the noise of human voices
+gradually became audible--the subdued hubbub of a multitude.
+
+Still they climbed. Little by little the noise became more definite,
+and finally developed into a wild recitative sung by many voices and
+marked by the rhythmic bang of gongs and resounding blows on copper
+tom-toms.
+
+It was the procession of the pilgrims, who, before entering the Dead
+Country, were invoking their mysterious gods.
+
+Suddenly, at a curve in the path, the body of women could be seen in
+a large opening. Crouched in a thin, wide semicircle, and guarded by
+sorceresses, there were perhaps a hundred of them. Around them torches
+stuck into the ground waved smoky flames, throwing streaks of red light
+on the white-clad backs which were now all bowed in a simultaneous
+obeisance: patches of heavy smoke whirled upward into the dark: the
+bitter smell of burning resinous wood drifted slowly into the air:
+around them stood the dark wall of the inviolate forest.
+
+At an order from Jieng, the women got up and took their places. They
+were now silent. Above, on the mountain which the darkness now hid, a
+vast silence seemed to weigh.
+
+A short incantation, sung in unison by all, a sharp order, and then the
+procession got under way and entered the forest, where it was rapidly
+swallowed up in the damp shadows of the trees.
+
+Left behind by herself, Wanda looked about her. The abandoned clearing
+seemed suddenly increased in size by the darkness which had fallen
+on it, now that the torches had been carried away. Before her, she
+could feel, vast and threatening, the Pou-Kas hidden in the blackness.
+Impulsively, she turned to look behind her, and far below her, in the
+valley, she could pick out the lights of the Post which twinkled feebly
+across the darkness. Her heart shook: thinking of Pierre, she could
+imagine his anxiety on account of her absence, and for a moment her
+resolution was shaken.
+
+A wave of tenderness compounded of weakness and sweetness flowed
+through her. _He_ was there in the hollow of the plain, watching for
+her return!... These lights which beckoned to her were those of the
+lamps that she lighted every evening while she waited for him! Before
+her eyes she saw the little round table in the dining room where the
+two of them met every night at dinner-time. She could actually see the
+circle of light thrown by the pink-shaded lamp which broadened and
+illuminated the interested face of the young man as he talked to her.
+She could even distinguish his expression and his familiar gestures.
+She noticed once again the nervous knack he had of pulling his light
+moustache in little jerks. Above all, there came to her his laugh,--a
+clear bantering laugh which drew his lips to one side and showed a
+corner of his white teeth. Then, feeling the gray eyes of the young
+man full upon her, she smiled across the night to him. Her head thrown
+lightly back, her face forward, she seemed gently to offer him her
+lips, instinctively repeating the gesture which had become habitual,
+a gesture in which mingled the lure of a caress and the flicker of a
+smile and which always had a strangely intoxicating effect upon Pierre.
+
+But quickly shaking off her weakness, she recalled the image of
+Michael, whom she was going to find and whom she would save at whatever
+cost. Remembrances of her childhood, in which he was inextricably
+mingled, brought to life again different moments of her past. Her
+heart, captured again by the days gone by, was full of him, and
+sisterly love once more dominated her.
+
+Her head erect, with a noble gesture of sweetness and passion, she
+opened her arms and closed them again slowly as if to embrace once more
+the love she was leaving down there in the hollow of the shadow-drowned
+valley.
+
+Then with her teeth clenched she turned back, and hurried to catch
+up with the troop of women who were mounting towards the mysterious
+sanctuary in the heart of the Dead Country.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+                           THOSE LEFT BEHIND
+
+
+Night had taken possession of the Post. Over-flowed by the shadows, the
+palisades were invisible, and the buildings ranged on the edge of the
+canal formed a single confused mass along the base of which the gliding
+water lapped monotonously. The dreary slopes of the Pou-Kas were lost
+in night and the whole world, smothered under a sky heavy with rain,
+seemed nothing but a limitless gulf.
+
+Leaning on the balustrade of the veranda, Pierre, who had been back for
+over an hour, watched the darkness. In the court, a body of riflemen
+and mahouts were working feverishly in getting ready for the coming
+expedition. Somewhere or other the sound of the flute rose gently,
+lulling the night.
+
+Turning back to the dining room, where the boy was at his work, he
+asked:
+
+"What o'clock is it?"
+
+"The second watch has just struck, sahib."[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: The night-watches are four in number, of three hours
+each, beginning at six o'clock in the evening.]
+
+Pierre strode nervously up and down the veranda. The silence deepened.
+Finally, not being able to stand it, he asked:
+
+"About how long ago did Mademoiselle go out?"
+
+The boy, a rough Méo with thick hands and a bony face, whom the priest
+had engaged for the young people, stopped in the doorway.
+
+"She came just before they sounded the first night-watch, and she
+started out again immediately."
+
+Pierre stepped up to him quickly.
+
+"What! She said something, and you didn't tell me?..."
+
+The Méo fixed his expressionless eyes on Lursac.
+
+"The sahib did not...."
+
+"Idiot!" cried Pierre. "What did she say? Tell me quickly!"
+
+Flurried, and his broad forehead wrinkled in a frown, the other
+murmured:
+
+"Mademoiselle said, 'If the gentleman asks for news, you will tell him
+that I have returned to the house of the Cross.'"
+
+Lursac drew himself up abruptly.
+
+"To the Mission?" said he, in surprise. "How strange that we didn't
+cross each other on the way!"
+
+He reflected for a moment.
+
+"What horse did she take?"
+
+The boy bent his head and looked up at him.
+
+"She went on foot."
+
+Pierre remarked his hesitating and uncomfortable expression.
+
+"On foot? To go seven miles? What sort of nonsense are you telling me?"
+
+He grasped the man by the shoulder and shook him.
+
+"You know something! Where has she gone?"
+
+The Méo opened his large hands and spread out his arms:
+
+"I don't know anything, sahib ... I swear. Only what Mademoiselle told
+me to tell you and that she started on foot.... That's all. Yes, really
+and truthfully."
+
+"Ah!" said Pierre.
+
+And in spite of himself his voice trembled. Understanding that he
+would get nothing more out of him, he flung the boy from him. A vague
+distress had taken possession of him. He went to the balustrade of the
+veranda again.
+
+The flute was now silent. A slant of wind went whirling into the
+darkness, a hoarse call sounded from somewhere.... The minutes crawled
+by....
+
+Anxiously, with his face stretched towards the forest, Pierre searched
+the night with his glance. The noises of the mountain reached him,
+distinct, and apparently nearer. The same hoarse cry rose again on
+the slope of the mountain and, echoing back from the river, died away
+slowly. Then other cries arose, multiplied and mixed in the depths of
+the underwoods. And almost immediately from one slope to the other
+of the mountain the people of the forest awoke and took up the rough
+discordant song, the wild song of the free forest. The coughing of
+hunting tigers mingled with the snarling of panthers; the sudden
+trumpeting of a herd of elephants crashing through the silence filled
+with its sonorous flourishes of sound the shadows already heavy with
+the distressed bellowing of a stag at bay and the screeching cry of a
+pair of nocturnal birds of prey wheeling over the plain.
+
+Thick, heavy clouds had accumulated overhead, rolling up in billows
+like a stormy sea. A few warm, heavy drops fell and drummed on the dry
+rustling straw of the hut roofs. Then suddenly, like a waterfall, the
+rain beat down in a roar. Lursac shuddered.
+
+"No," he murmured to himself, "she is not at the Mission. However," he
+at once thought, "she told the boy that she was going there and I have
+never yet known her to say anything that was not true. Perhaps, as I
+was late in coming back, she wanted to know the arrangements we had
+made...."
+
+Buoyed up by this hope, he thought:
+
+"Yes.... It must be that. But why on foot? Why?"
+
+His anxiety suddenly greater, he burst out:
+
+"I cannot wait any longer, I must know. Whatever it is, I am going over
+there."
+
+Turning round, he cried to the boy:
+
+"Sao! I am going to the priest's house. If Mademoiselle comes in while
+I am gone, send someone at once to tell me."
+
+And in a few strides he was down the steps.
+
+Before the quarters of the riflemen he stopped for a moment to give
+orders to the corporal:
+
+"Have the gate opened and the sampan ready to cross the canal; I am
+going to the Mission."
+
+And he made rapidly towards the stables.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the rain which fell continuously the pony galloped, with his
+hoofs splashing into the spongy soil of the plain and the mud squirting
+up at every step.
+
+Regardless of the water which whipped his face in the squalls, with his
+eyes intent on piercing the darkness, Pierre pushed his mount brutally,
+and the poor animal was gasping, his breath coming heavily and his legs
+laboring, while a bitter smell of sweat mounted from his skin.
+
+Then suddenly a blackness still blacker than the surrounding dark
+showed where the stockades of the Mission stood. They took shape,
+framing the narrow entrance-gate defended by its heavy door of solid
+wood reënforced with beams.
+
+Down off his horse in an instant, Pierre called out. Minutes, which
+seemed appallingly long, went by. Then the door grated halfway open,
+and the young man, violently pushing to one side the convert who had
+come to admit him, dashed forward and ran. He crossed the court, which
+was now wrapped in sleep, and strode up the steps leading to the
+missionary's cabin. Suddenly, as he reached the veranda a hope relaxed
+the tension. His heart beat more naturally and more calmly. Through the
+chinks of the door rays of light filtered out.
+
+"She is there: they are still talking," he sighed.
+
+He grasped the latch, but instantly his agony returned, for the door
+opened, and in the doorway, with a lamp in his hand, stood Father
+Ravennes. He was completely dressed, and wrapped in a waterproof cloak.
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+He raised his lamp so that the light fell upon Pierre and quickly came
+towards him.
+
+"Lursac! Great Heavens! What a state you are in! I was this very minute
+coming to the Post.... You know, then?"
+
+In a hoarse voice, Pierre cried:
+
+"Wanda? Where is Wanda?"
+
+The priest looked at him. He saw the tortured face of the young man,
+his eyes shining with distress, his soaked and muddy clothes. His voice
+softened:
+
+"Come in," said he, "come in.... I want to speak to you."
+
+He took Pierre by the arm and drew him into the room. Flinging himself
+on the only stool, Lursac drooped his head and closed his eyes.
+
+The priest had put the lamp on the table. He came up to Pierre and
+thoughtfully looked the young man over.
+
+A long silence fell while each followed his own thoughts. Then Pierre,
+raising his eyes to the missionary, asked:
+
+"You ... you have not seen her, have you?"
+
+His voice trembled and seemed ready to break at any minute. He stopped.
+
+The priest looked down on him slowly. Finally, he shook his head.
+
+"No, but she has written to me."
+
+He rummaged in his pocket and stretched out a leaf of paper to the
+young man.
+
+"Here!" he said. "Read it!"
+
+Pierre sat up suddenly; a spasm passed over his face. In a voice
+suddenly changed, he asked:
+
+"She has written to you?... To _you_?... Why?"
+
+"Read it!" repeated the priest, gently.
+
+Snatching the letter from the hand of the missionary, Pierre read:
+
+"_Dear Father: I dare not write to Pierre. I have seen Jieng.... The
+pilgrimage of the sixth month starts this evening for its mysterious
+meeting place, the location of which I do not know. I only know that
+Michael is alive. I have managed to join the women who are going and
+I have not courage enough to wait for Pierre's expedition. Anyway, he
+would have refused to take me! Tell him; and both of you pardon me the
+anxiety which I am going to cause you.... WANDA._"
+
+Pierre blanched. He cried out:
+
+"They have enticed her into an ambush ... she is lost! ... lost!..."
+
+His heart seemed to break. He raised his drawn face to the priest.
+
+"Ah! you don't know; I love her.... I love her.... We've been engaged
+for two days ... a secret engagement ... and I have held her in my
+arms, and still upon my lips is the very imprint of...."
+
+The missionary took his hands:
+
+"My poor boy," said he, "I understand your agony, but nothing is
+lost. I have sent one of my men, the one I can trust best, to Jieng's
+village. He has orders to pick up Mademoiselle Redeski's track and to
+note carefully any signs which may serve to make our search easy. Wait
+for him...."
+
+"Ah!" said he, "we are losing time! And Wanda...."
+
+The priest leant from the window to listen to the multiple voices which
+the silence of the night carried.
+
+"No," replied he, "we can do nothing before dawn."
+
+And he repeated:
+
+"Let us wait."
+
+Slowly the minutes drifted away, one by one, long and mournful.
+Minutes, hours, a portion of the night.... Pierre kept no count. He
+strode up and down the narrow room. On the mats his feverish footsteps
+rustled dryly. From time to time, tired, with his mind empty, he stood
+still and listened. Through the open window the continuous noise of
+the rain penetrated into the room and filled it with an all-pervading
+whisper in the midst of which the splashing of a stream of water from
+the roof mingled its own special sad and haunting note. Again he set
+himself to pacing up and down between the lowly folding bed and the
+bare wall, in the middle of which shone the only ornament of the
+chamber, a great ivory crucifix, pale and suggestive.
+
+The third night-watch struck, and then the fourth, and still the time
+drifted away.
+
+Rigid, in the same position, his breast supported by the window ledge,
+Father Ravennes stood silent and thoughtful. Finally drawing himself
+up, he said:
+
+"Here he is...."
+
+Pierre rushed to the door and flung it open.
+
+"Well?" cried he.
+
+Muddy, drenched with rain, his features drawn with fatigue, the man
+entered, speechless.
+
+Under his arm he held a parcel which he spread out on the ground.
+Clothing unrolled from it and a woman's boot fell against the foot of
+the bed.
+
+Pierre gave a cry.
+
+"Wanda's clothes!"
+
+"Yes," said the man, "which I found in Jieng's hut, hidden under the
+sleeping bench; that's all I found!"
+
+He leaned, panting, against the wall.
+
+"And she? She? ..." asked Pierre.
+
+"No trace, sahib. After searching all the huts in the village,
+nothing.... Then I ran into the forest, I called, I shouted, I
+looked...."
+
+He lifted up his bleeding hands and showed his body torn with
+scratches, and repeated:
+
+"Nothing.... They must have taken her into the Dead Country."
+
+The priest looked at him steadily.
+
+"Listen," said he, slowly, "we are going to start tomorrow. You and
+Pâa, you are the only ones in whom I put my trust, the only ones also
+who know the country. You will come with us as guides."
+
+The man shivered: his face went gray.
+
+"Men," he whispered, "do not go into the Dead Country."
+
+The missionary, taking him sternly by the arm, fixed his eyes upon the
+man's.
+
+"You will come with me," said he, yet more sternly.
+
+The savage bowed his head.
+
+"With you ... very well, Father!"
+
+Father Ravennes patted his shoulder in a friendly way:
+
+"That's right," said he, "I knew it ... good!... Go and get ready."
+
+He went back to Pierre.
+
+"We will save her, Lursac; her and Redeski."
+
+The young man bent his head despairingly.
+
+"Remember Odend'hal, Robert, Paris and the others: Longères ...
+Dorcel...."
+
+Heavily he lapsed into silence. Before his eyes the tragic victims of
+Indo-China's history rose, one by one: Odend'hal, enticed into the
+hut of the Fire King, the mysterious and all-powerful chief of the
+sorcerers, and treacherously beaten to death with bludgeons and then
+burnt; Robert, attacked at his post in broad daylight and assassinated,
+with twenty-four wounds in his body; Longères, who had disappeared in
+this very place, disappeared without anyone ever having succeeded in
+finding out what had become of him; and, finally, Dorcel, brought back
+to Saigon in agony, and who died of an unknown disease without even
+having regained consciousness.
+
+He shuddered. It seemed to him at that moment that the universal terror
+which lay upon this whole region was beating on the Mission, that it
+found its way into the room in which the two of them stood--the only
+ones of their race--alone in the middle of the immense Lao-ese forest
+in which prowled invisible powers and unknown rulers.
+
+"We will find her," repeated the missionary insistently.
+
+Pierre raised his head.
+
+"Yes," said he, "but how? We are two--two against a whole people. And
+then, where have they taken her? We have no idea whatever! What shall
+we do? Search the whole mountain range? Beat the entire forest?"
+
+He gave a gesture of despair.
+
+Motionless, Father Ravennes considered. Suddenly an idea flashed into
+his mind. He stepped up to the young man and with his two hands on
+Pierre's shoulders, he spoke:
+
+"Come, Lursac, pull yourself together. You must keep your self-control
+above everything. We will find your fiancée! Listen: what we have got
+to do is to reach this sanctuary to which the pilgrimages are made."
+
+His voice sounded calm and solemn. The atmosphere of anguish which had
+filled the chamber seemed put to flight. A feeling of certainty and
+tranquil force took its place, relaxing Lursac's nerves and restoring
+his balance. Almost calm, he answered:
+
+"Yes, but where are we to look for the sanctuary? Do you know?"
+
+"No," admitted the missionary, "but that is what we are going to find
+out. Come."
+
+He went out. Almost persuaded, Lursac followed him. Together they
+crossed the court towards the huts of the converts, the pointed roofs
+of which could be seen over the dark mass of the chapel.
+
+It was no longer raining. From the thatched roofs, still wet, and from
+the bending trees the moisture continued to drip. And under the vast
+silence of the heavens, across which the clouds were still driving
+in wandering squadrons, there was no sound heard now but the sharp,
+distant noise of the dripping on the earth.
+
+Before the door of a hut marked with a white cross the priest stopped
+and banged on it with his fist. The wood of the door rattled, and
+while a voice from inside began asking questions, he entered, Lursac
+following him. He pushed back the door and lighted a torch. On the
+sleeping bench set against the wall a woman was sitting up, bending
+forward, half-dressed.
+
+Pierre seized the arm of the missionary, gripping it strongly.
+
+"The wild Stieng woman whom you saved," said he; "I understand now."
+
+And he looked at the young woman with anxiety. Would she know anything,
+and could she be made to speak?
+
+Father Ravennes sat down. With a gentle movement he took the hands
+of the woman. She raised her head. Her face, which the flickering
+torch brought into relief with purple shadows, appeared young and
+almost pretty, in spite of the short and flattened nose, and of the
+small suspicious eyes deeply sunk under a rounded forehead. The thin,
+clearly cut lips trembled, giving to the whole face an air of knowing
+intelligence, an appearance strangely mobile and alive, almost feline.
+
+The missionary riveted on her his grave, compelling eyes.
+
+"Listen," said he. "When I found you this morning by the gate, dying,
+tortured with hunger and thirst, half mad with terror, I didn't ask
+whence you came or who you were; I didn't question you at all. I took
+you in and took care of you and protected you without thinking of the
+hatred and the vengeance that my action might bring on me."
+
+He stopped a moment and looked at her still harder. He spoke slowly
+in the Banhar dialect, while Lursac standing beside him watched the
+woman's face for the effect of his words. She listened to the priest
+attentively, trying to understand all his meaning.
+
+After a moment, looking down, she said simply:
+
+"I know your goodness, Father!"
+
+Then with a note of supplication in her voice she asked:
+
+"You will keep me with you?"
+
+The missionary promised:
+
+"Whatever happens you shall stay here as long as you wish. But in my
+turn, today I have need of your help. Will you give it?"
+
+"What can I do?" she asked.
+
+"Answer the questions I am going to put to you. Answer them without
+evasion and without trickery, freely and loyally."
+
+And he repeated sternly the question which she had avoided a few
+seconds earlier.
+
+"Will you?"
+
+She shut her eyes and bent her head.
+
+"Yes," said she. "What I know I will tell you truly."
+
+Father Ravennes sighed heavily: his face relaxed. He threw a glance
+sideways at Lursac. For several moments he did not speak, concentrating
+his thoughts; then forcing the young woman to look at him he asked:
+
+"It was this evening that the pilgrimage of the sixth month began, was
+it not?"
+
+She shivered, turning away her eyes and slowly made a sign in the
+affirmative with her head.
+
+"Good!" said the priest. "Where was it to start from?"
+
+In a very low voice she said:
+
+"From the third clearing above the village. From there...."
+
+"From there?"
+
+She got up suddenly, a look of distress on her face and an air of
+listening.
+
+"From there?" insisted Father Revenues.
+
+She stood rigid in the middle of the room.
+
+"I cannot ... I cannot," she murmured. "If they knew that I had told
+you this they would kill me."
+
+"Come now," growled the priest, "no pretences, please. No one will know
+what you are saying. We are alone with you.... Speak."
+
+She broke out wildly.
+
+"I don't want to die, and they are all round us. Listen! You can hear
+them walking, quite close to us! No, I am not lying. Come, look for
+yourself."
+
+As she spoke, she had taken the priest by the hand and was pulling him
+towards the door. Violently she pushed the heavy slab, which slammed
+back against the wall. A fresh smell of wet earth and damp herbage blew
+into the room. Standing on the threshold of the hut the missionary
+shot a quick glance around him. The dawn was already on its way. In
+the clean-washed sky the innumerable stars were beginning to pale and
+disappear. The rising light was slowly putting the dark to flight;
+and before the advance of the morning which trembled on the horizon,
+the night was thinning out and melting into a river of shadows in the
+middle of which the Mission buildings stood up with vague, uncertain
+outlines. Round the angle of the chapel, close by, a human shadow
+glided, fled away and disappeared.
+
+With her finger the young woman pointed it out to the priest.
+
+"You see!" she cried.
+
+And shutting the door again, she re-seated herself on the sleeping
+bench and remained motionless.
+
+"Ask me anything," she said, "except what I cannot tell you, the thing
+that they have forbidden me to speak."
+
+Angrily, Lursac demanded:
+
+"They? What they? Of whom do you speak?"
+
+She listened to him with eyes full of fear. A shudder ran through her
+body.
+
+"They.... The Red Gods! ..." she whispered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two men looked at each other. The flickering flame of the torch lit
+up their pale faces twisted anew with anguish. For the first time the
+names of the unknown gods whom the mysterious sorcerers served had been
+pronounced, and before their eyes swam blood-stained visions.
+
+The torch, burned down to its socket, began to splutter and a heavy
+smoke filled the room with an acrid fog, and suddenly with a last leap
+of flame it expired. Cold and livid, the dawn filtered into the hut.
+
+Pierre thought of Wanda. Beside him the missionary repeated feverishly:
+
+"The Red Gods!... The Red...."
+
+Shaken with a frightful shudder the young man looked at him, and once
+again despair seized him in its grip.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+                         THE FUGITIVE'S STORY
+
+
+Shrugging his shoulders, Father Ravennes took some strides about the
+hut. Suddenly stopping before the young woman he took her by the arm
+and forced her to stand up.
+
+"Follow me," said he.
+
+And he pushed her outside, led her to the chapel and opened the door.
+
+"Come in!"
+
+He pushed her before him, stood aside to let Pierre pass, and then
+entering in his turn into the sanctuary he carefully bolted the heavy
+door.
+
+Through the blinds a vague light stole in. The Stieng woman looked
+round her with curiosity. She saw the pale walls with their cheap
+copies of the Way of the Cross, each of the colored chromos framed with
+a simple casing of black wood. Then she saw the painted roof of thatch
+with its confusion of unsquared beams, and below it, in front of her,
+slightly raised on a few shallow steps, the altar--modest and simple,
+and on which all the light of the glowing dawn seemed to concentrate
+itself between the groups of candles. In the centre, dominating the
+tabernacle, a large Christ on the Cross twisted his body in agony.
+
+Father Ravennes made the young woman sit down on the altar steps.
+
+"You are afraid," said he, "that somebody will overhear your words, but
+here no one can hear us. See for yourself. The chapel is too large for
+your voice to be heard outside."
+
+He raised his hand, pointing to the crucifix above them. His voice, at
+once grave and ardent, continued:
+
+"And there is our God--the omnipotent and merciful God of the white
+people, whose sovereign power directs the world. We are all in His
+keeping, and if I have brought you here into His very shadow it is
+that He may protect you and preserve you. Now if He wills it, you will
+speak. May His will be done!..."
+
+He stopped speaking and closed his eyes. The heavy silence of
+expectation bent their heads. The lips of Father Ravennes moved slowly
+in words that were inaudible: he was praying.
+
+The woman with a sudden shrug of the shoulders seemed to fling off a
+burden.
+
+"I believe you," said she. "I will tell you everything that I know,
+everything that happened to myself. Is that what you wish?"
+
+The missionary opened his eyes, now animated by a strange expression of
+thankfulness and joy.
+
+"Yes," said he.
+
+And in a low voice he murmured:
+
+"Thy goodness be praised, O God!"
+
+Already the woman was talking.
+
+"My name is Hmon, of the village of Khon-Ko-Xan, of the country of the
+Stiengs, where I am a free woman among the free people of the forest.
+Four years ago my parents married me to the chief of the village. Our
+first two years were happy ones. Then little by little hatred came to
+us and took up its abode in our hut. It was because, in spite of all
+my prayers and all my sacrifices to the gods, I had given no child to
+my husband. Then one afternoon at the men's council I was named with
+a group of other childless wives to take part in the great pilgrimage
+which twice a year goes up into the Dead Country to pray to the Red
+Gods.
+
+"There were eight of us women, and three men fully accoutred for war
+were to accompany us. And the very same evening we started on our
+journey. The seventh night after our departure, at the hour of the
+second watch, we arrived at the threshold of the Sacred Forest.... At
+its very threshold indeed, sahib!..."
+
+She fell silent as a shudder ran through her. Father Ravennes took hold
+of her hand.
+
+"Continue," said he softly.
+
+She gave one look at the missionary and then in little, short,
+disconnected sentences she continued:
+
+"The priestesses took charge of the group which had come up from the
+entire country. They arranged us in ranks, and counted us one by one.
+Then, having sent off the men, they showed us the way towards the
+mountain.
+
+"After five hours of marching we reached the clearing, the meeting
+place. Jieng, the chief sorceress, was waiting for us there. After a
+short stop we took to the track again. Four times the sun, towards
+which we were advancing, rose and set, and at the beginning of the
+fifth night as the moon was rising and getting larger and larger, we at
+last caught sight of the temple hanging on the very edge of the crest
+of the Pou-Kas."
+
+The missionary grasped Lursac's wrist.
+
+"The temple ... on the very edge of the crest of the Pou-Kas," he
+whispered.
+
+The woman did not hear him. She continued:
+
+"When it was perfectly dark they made us enter. Between the two high
+centre towers there was a long gallery two stories high; then a huge
+interior court, square, and paved with ancient stones. Around the whole
+ran a platform reached by four wide staircases. Between these stairs
+against the wall below the platform were ranged statues of warriors and
+priests, of horses and elephants in war-harness, keeping guard. Between
+the stones of the courtyard banyan trees were growing. The air sang
+among their branches, but our hearts were bowed in agony. It was warm.
+Above our heads, in the small area of sky that we could see, flowed the
+night, the same night which we knew at home. We had seated ourselves.
+I heard the creaking of an insect close by me. In this way an hour
+passed, and then from the building opposite to the entrance gallery of
+which the walls seemed built right into the cliff of the Pou-Kas, a
+chant arose, sahib.
+
+"At the same moment Jieng appeared and cried:
+
+"'Those from the village of Dong-Track, in the land of the Reungaos....'
+
+"Five women arose and she made them enter the temple.
+
+"More time passed, and again Jieng returned and called out:
+
+"'Those from the village of the Xieng-Khon in the land of the
+Sedangs....'
+
+"And only three women came forward, who in their turn penetrated into
+the sanctuary.
+
+"From time to time she came and called thus. And all the women of the
+Moï, all the wives from the free clans of the mountain and forest were
+taken into the palace of the gods, to whom they were going to pray that
+their sterile bodies might bear fruit.
+
+"'Those from the village of Khon-Ko-Xan in the land of the Stiengs.'
+
+"Our moment had come. I took the lead. When I reached Jieng, I bowed
+to the ground humbly, like the others, and entered. We crossed a long
+narrow room with thick walls entirely covered with carvings. Before us
+a curving subterranean passageway led down. Its sweating walls were
+lighted by braziers on heavy copper tripods. While we went forward the
+chant came nearer. We walked on for some time. Finally after a sharp
+turn we came out into a round room, the floor of which was hollowed
+out into a large basin. Eight sorceresses with torches in their hands
+were waiting for us ranged round the sides of the room. After we had
+been dipped in the waters of the basin they took charge of us. First of
+all they put on us black tunics and then covered our faces with sacred
+masks, the soft moist skin of which was cut with four openings for the
+eyes, the mouth, and the nose. Then escorting us they opened a door and
+drew us through. The chant which had been still going on all this time
+suddenly burst louder on our ears, and we understood that we were in
+the sanctuary in which was enthroned the image of the gods we had come
+to implore.
+
+"With my throat grown dry, and trembling to the tips of my fingers
+I looked round me. On my right, an enormous serpent with nine heads
+supported a heavy column. A little further, an animal with the body of
+a dragon and the head of a bird appeared to be flapping its wings; and
+as far as I could see on both sides other pillars spread upward towards
+the roof, invisible in the shadows.... But I had not time to look about
+me any longer; a push forced me forward.
+
+"We were going on. Under every monster a sorceress stood with a torch
+to light our way. There were some sixty sorceresses on the right and
+on the left, while we marched between them. Their faces slashed with
+wounds, their eyes fixed in front of them, they stared at us as we
+passed. They made no movement, but sang without stopping. Now we had
+come to the foot of the altar. We had come to the end of the columns,
+the sanctuary grew nearer. Before us were three wide semi-circular
+recesses, each led up to by three steps; each recess was hidden by a
+transparent veil embroidered with silver under which we had to creep
+after we had made obeisance on our faces. When the last curtain was
+passed I saw at last the statue of the god. He was sitting with his
+legs folded under him. His swelling chest was covered with a brown fur,
+his red body sparkled and his beautiful face smiled strangely. From his
+shoulders hung twelve arms with great open hands, the palms turned flat
+towards the earth in a sweeping gesture of blessing.
+
+"Then behind us the voice of Jieng ordered:
+
+"'Go, and each one of you place her head under one of the hands of the
+God of wives'
+
+"We drew near with our heads bowed. I was on the right, under the
+fourth hand. Slowly I drew myself up until my forehead felt the weight
+of the cold hard palm. I stammered the words of the ritual:
+
+"'O God of barren women, give life to my body!'
+
+"Beside me seven other voices repeated continuously:
+
+"'O God of barren women, give life to my body!'
+
+"On my throbbing temples I felt the metal fingers which seemed to get
+heavier and heavier. A sweet perfume, floating about me, took me by the
+throat and rendered me dizzy.
+
+"I fell, and night flowed into me."
+
+Again she stopped. Father Ravennes asked:
+
+"Is that all?..."
+
+The woman shook her head.
+
+"No," said she, "or I should not be here. When I woke up I found myself
+in the same place lying on the stone floor. I looked up. Above me the
+red hands were still outstretched. Nothing had changed; except that the
+sorceresses still standing at their posts were no longer singing. There
+was a great silence, peaceful and satisfying. The voice of Jieng once
+more rose:
+
+"'Go,' said she. 'The Red Gods will lend a favorable ear to your
+prayers.'
+
+"I got up. My head was heavy and a great feeling of tiredness possessed
+my whole being. In the chamber of ablutions I took off my mask and put
+on my usual clothes. Outside I found a surprise. The sun was setting on
+the horizon. I had been more than four watches at the feet of the gods.
+
+"Ten days afterwards I was back in my village, and once again the god
+of happiness took up his abode in our house. I waited with confidence,
+knowing that the gods had worked innumerable miracles. But a year went
+by without my hope being realized. For the second time I returned to
+the Dead Country and bent under the image of the god. Again, eleven
+months during which anger and hatred were my portion continually.
+
+"Three weeks ago, considering me incapable of giving him a child, my
+husband called the council of chiefs together. My case, unique in our
+clan, was discussed and I learned that the men's meeting had decided
+to make a gift of me to the Red Gods. The morning after, a sorceress
+came to talk with my husband. The same evening she took me away, after
+having announced to the clan the capture of the sahib of the two
+stripes, who was in command of the Post here.
+
+"Fear took possession of me. I became nothing more than a trembling
+body without will. Continually I recalled the laws of the Dead Country,
+the laws of the sorceresses. I remembered that only ugliness is
+pleasing to the Red Gods, and that all those who are set aside to serve
+them must be tortured and disfigured. I thought of Reung, whose arms
+are now only stumps; of Saond, whose leg, broken and destroyed, drags
+along behind her like a hanging rag; and finally of Jieng, with her
+dead eye, her cut-about lips and her flayed nose.
+
+"All the tortures that I would have to undergo came before me,
+surrounded me, and seemed to squeeze my brain. I was almost insane,
+sahibs, and one morning at dawn I fled. For ten days I wandered into
+the forest, tracked by the priestesses and pursued by all the clans of
+the forest; and I arrived here the very morning of the pilgrimage of
+the sixth month, this pilgrimage on which I was to have been taken to
+the Dead Country in order to have been consecrated as a sorceress."
+
+She turned towards the priest a face in which there was reflected a
+shadow of the fear which she had just recalled, and with a long look at
+him she said:
+
+"They told me you were kind, O Father, and I came to you. You received
+me and took care of me, and my heart--the heart of a free woman of the
+forest--will not forget. I have told you everything that I know. Truly,
+I have told you everything. Have I told you what you wanted?"
+
+And as with a gentle motion of his head the missionary answered in the
+affirmative, she added with a strange cry, pointing to the crucifix:
+
+"May He guard me, as I know that death is round about me! But what does
+it matter? You have saved me; in my turn I have done you a service. As
+for the rest we are in the hands of the gods."
+
+The two men had risen.
+
+"Yes," said Father Ravennes, "I know that you have told me everything,
+without concealing anything and without lying, as I asked you. I thank
+you. Now go!"
+
+And as she went Lursac said:
+
+"We now know what we wanted to. It is towards the Pou-Kas that we must
+bend our steps. The pilgrimage has only about twelve hours' start of
+us, and it is composed of women. If we travel night and day we shall
+perhaps be able to catch up with them...."
+
+The missionary looked at him.
+
+"Catch up with them? ... but we shall not be able to make one hour's
+march towards the Pou-Kas without their being warned of it. And when
+we arrive before the sanctuary either we shall find it abandoned or we
+shall have to fling ourselves against defences thoroughly prepared and
+against which all our efforts will be useless. We shall be lucky indeed
+if they do not have us massacred on the way there. No! Will you put
+your trust in me?"
+
+Together they left the chapel. Around them, under a sky like a blue
+crystal basin, everything still slept.
+
+In the air, growing every moment more beautifully transparent, the
+whistling of the blackbirds quarrelling on the stockades broke the
+silence.
+
+"When do we start?" demanded Lursac sharply.
+
+Father Ravennes calculated:
+
+"Allow one hour for you to get back to the fort and two hours to
+make our preparations. Take only what is indispensable. Twenty days'
+provisions per man. We must march swiftly. As few cases and packages
+as possible, and no more men than we really need: the six elephants
+with their mahouts to carry our outfit, and fifteen riflemen with the
+corporal. Above all, on no account tell them where we are going."
+
+He stretched his hands to Pierre. A short grasp brought them together
+for an instant, mingled their emotions and made their hearts beat in
+harmony.
+
+The missionary released his fingers almost roughly.
+
+"Start, start," said he, "I will join you there in three hours."
+
+And while the young man hurried towards the gate, he made off with
+great strides in the direction of his cabin.
+
+In the middle of the court he stopped suddenly, wrinkling his brow
+thoughtfully. From the other side of the palisade came the sound of the
+galloping of Lursac's pony, rapidly fading into the distance.
+
+Mechanically the priest listened until he could no longer hear it,
+while with raised head he watched the Pou-Kas of which the distant
+summit barred the heavens with a clear horizontal line.
+
+"There must be some roundabout way, some path where they do not set a
+watch!" thought he. "Why did not I remember to ask about it, for that
+is the one we shall have to follow if we do not wish to be stopped."
+
+He hesitated a minute, then turning back on his steps he walked to the
+hut set aside for Hmon, the Stieng woman. Through the wide-open door he
+saw her lying at the foot of the sleeping bench, her forehead on the
+black wood and her arms stretched out.
+
+He entered and placed one of his hands on the uncovered shoulder of the
+young woman.
+
+"Hmon," said he, "I have yet this...."
+
+The words died on his lips. He jerked away his fingers, disagreeably
+surprised by the touch of her cold, rough flesh. He bent over her.
+Along her amber-colored neck a thin trickle of blood, almost coagulated
+already, came from under the hair, and making a bend over the left
+shoulder, lost itself inside the tunic below.
+
+"Hmon! Hmon!" he called.
+
+At the same time, taking the woman's head, he raised it. The face
+was gray, marbled with pale spots; the eyes, half-shut, showing the
+eyeballs, sightless and strangely fluid. The thin, discolored lips,
+however, seemed to smile at him strangely from the other side of the
+Unknown.
+
+Father Ravennes gently let the forehead fall back, and the body in its
+black tunic once more resumed its attitude of supplication and prayer.
+Against the dark wood of the sleeping-bench the long livid hands
+showed up clearly. The paleness of the bent neck was emphasized, and
+suddenly among the lowest strands of hair at the base of the skull he
+saw the head of a large pin, curiously ornamented with a grinning mask,
+sticking out, glittering and ominous.
+
+The missionary looked at it for a second; then, taking from his neck
+the beads, from the end of which hung his crucifix, he passed it about
+the shoulders of Hmon the Stieng, and going down on his knees, he
+clasped his hands and prayed.
+
+Outside, the brisk crow of a cock vibrated, saluting the warm and
+golden resurrection of the day.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+                           INTO THE UNKNOWN
+
+
+Over the crest of the mountains the sun showed its edge, and slowly
+rose. An elephant, lifting his brown trunk towards it, trumpeted long
+and loud. The pink and gray of the daylight filtered into the sky and
+drove away the shadows lying deep in the ravines of the mountain. The
+pachyderms chained to their pickets before the gate of the fort rocked
+slowly from side to side.
+
+Seated on a packing-case Pierre was overseeing the loading of the
+baggage. By blows of their ankuses and with cries and insults the
+mahouts made their beasts bend their necks and forced them to kneel.
+On the square pack-saddles, strengthened by thick belts of split
+bamboo, the sacks of rice and the packages of provisions were heaped.
+Each elephant, after its loading was finished, with a slow pitching
+movement raised itself and took up its place ready for the start.
+The mahouts, crouched on their great necks, exchanged jokes with the
+Cambodian riflemen camped around them and to whom the headman, standing
+before the emptied packing-cases distributed munitions and arms: a Gras
+musket, model of 1874, and one hundred and fifty cartridges to each man.
+
+A flock of egrets rising from the bank of the canal flew across the
+shining sky. Their sharp cries made Father Ravennes lift his head. He
+watched for a moment their glittering flight in the direction of the
+mountain, then he turned to his two guides:
+
+"You understand, do you not? We are to cross the canal and strike
+towards the east. No one except you two, Sahib Lursac and myself is to
+know the exact object of the expedition."
+
+The two men made a sign of agreement. Their long Moï lances in their
+clenched hands, their loins swathed in narrow cloth bands, they
+stretched their naked bodies, over which the muscles stood out clearly,
+and smiled with an animal pleasure in the growing warmth of the day.
+
+One of them said:
+
+"That's understood, Father. For three nights we are to march across
+the plain, then on the morning of the fourth day we are to turn and go
+straight towards the Pou-Kas."
+
+"Yes," agreed Lursac, "that is right. But shall we have, by that time,
+got far enough round the mountain to take it in the rear? Understand me
+well: it is absolutely necessary for us to come out on the other face
+of the plateau and not before the temple itself. What we have to do is
+to surprise them. To do that there is only one way: to arrive there by
+a path which no one has thought of, and to catch them in the rear. It
+is above all necessary that before attacking the Pou-Kas itself we must
+have got well round it."
+
+The man who had already spoken again assured him:
+
+"We understand: the three days' march towards the east will be plenty.
+But then those people will see where we are going, and..."
+
+With his finger he pointed at the riflemen and the mahouts grouped
+before the fort.
+
+Lursac stopped him.
+
+"Don't worry about them," said he, "I will undertake to make them
+march."
+
+The man looked at him thoughtfully.
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better to tell them, but you are the
+master...."
+
+A ray of sunshine slanting towards the valley shed an oblique light
+upon it and illuminated the fort. The bespattered straw roofs showed
+their steep slopes of blazing yellow against the morning sky.
+
+Pierre watched contemplatively the familiar scene now so vividly
+illuminated by the sunlight. He thought of his arrival three months
+earlier. The missionary dropped his hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"The time is come," said he.
+
+Pierre shivered and signalled to the guides.
+
+"Start!"
+
+The two men set out towards the canal and behind them the caravan
+stirred into motion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were struggling through the desert. Around them the sun
+beat heavily upon the naked sandy plain which reflected its rays
+mercilessly. Here and there dried-up swamps showed their clay bottoms
+covered all over with heat cracks, while the herbage, which during
+the rainy season had made a girdle of green about them, hung yellow,
+withered and sapless.
+
+Far away, in the west, along the blue horizon, the banks of the canal
+with their string of reddish mangroves made a thin edging which grew
+smaller and smaller with every hour of their march. Distant and
+threatening, the Moï mountains now made under the burning sky but a
+single confused crowd of peaks above which the Pou-Kas alone soared
+clear and dominating.
+
+Towards evening the first hillocks made their appearance. Like small
+waves stricken into stillness the plain broke into undulations which
+ran east and west so that the setting sun shining over their tops
+barred them alternately with light and shade.
+
+Between two hillocks where the course of a dried-up stream had still
+left a patch of stagnant water the guides called a halt. Then, in the
+limpid night, the fires of their first camp shot up in twisted flame
+and threw against the shoulders of the hills the magnified shadows of
+the elephants sporting in the slimy water.
+
+On the summit of one of the hillocks one of Father Ravennes' guides
+had taken his stand as sentinel. He stood erect, immobile, leaning on
+his lance. Against the milky sky his body stood out in its barbaric
+profile, and through the night, until the dawn, his guttural voice
+cried out the hour of the watch at the measured time.
+
+For two days more, the march resumed at dawn continued all day till
+night across the Waterless Country, a gloomy land made desolate by
+drought. Under the sky, shining like a polished steel mirror, the
+desert flamed monotonous and endless. The wind tearing down from the
+high plateau to the north swept it with long strokes. The sand rose up
+in clouds and rolled round the caravan, whipping the faces of the men,
+scorching their throats and leaving between their cracked lips voices
+which had sunk to a hoarse whisper and their breath dry and laboring.
+The heat of the ground burnt their feet through their sandals, and upon
+their backs bent by marching the implacable sun fell like flame.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third night found them seventy miles from the station, on the edge
+of a water-course cut between two hillocks. The muddy banks, burnt hard
+by the terrible heat, had broken away under the enormous weight of the
+elephants. Between the sandy slopes under the meagre shade cast by a
+prickly gum-tree was a large pool of stagnant water, now transformed
+into red mud by the trampling of the elephants. In their tent, pitched
+on the point of the dune, Father Ravennes and Lursac were listening
+while the headman made his daily report.
+
+He was an old Cambodian with dreamy eyes and leisurely movements. In
+his sing-songy voice sounded caressing inflections which suggested the
+sweetness and tenderness of the love-songs of the Lao-ese country which
+he was in the habit of singing to his men on the march to keep them in
+step.
+
+"Then, to sum up," said Lursac, "we now have four men sick?"
+
+"Yes, three have fever and the fourth was wounded in the right foot
+this morning. His comrades have had to carry him here."
+
+Lursac looked at the headman and his eyebrows drew together making a
+bar across his forehead.
+
+"That man," said he, "cannot go on. He would be a nuisance to us and
+would keep us back. And the others? Is it just a slight fever or a
+serious attack?"
+
+The headman flung his arms wide with an air of disgust.
+
+"Who knows?" said he, "they complain. Their feet and legs are swollen,
+and when we camp they don't eat and don't sleep. They spend the whole
+night crouched before the fires, close enough to roast themselves."
+
+Lursac turned towards Father Ravennes.
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+The missionary nodded his head thoughtfully.
+
+"I am afraid that they are seriously ill. These feeble constitutions of
+theirs, ready to contract any disease, always take the fever badly and
+with distressing violence. I would rather they had got something else.
+Quinine does not act on them, and in any case, they need, in order
+to fight the disease, an energy and a moral force which they do not
+possess."
+
+Pierre asked:
+
+"Then you think that the best thing we can do is to leave them behind?"
+
+"I am sure that it would be dangerous to encumber ourselves with
+sick men. From the minute we enter the forest our approach will be
+signalled. It's no good deceiving ourselves. A body of men like this
+cannot march unseen. From that moment our principal chance of success
+will lie in the swiftness of our march. We must get up there as quickly
+as possible."
+
+Pierre assented with a nod. He signed to the headman.
+
+"You will pick out two men from the less serviceable ones and at
+sunrise they are to start back and return to the Post with the four
+invalids."
+
+He rapidly scratched a few words in his notebook, tore out the page and
+handed it to the headman.
+
+"Here are their marching orders. We will give them six days' rations
+of rice and dried fish. The sick men are to keep their muskets and
+thirty cartridges each. The two men of the escort will take fifty each.
+The ammunition which they leave behind is to be distributed among the
+remaining riflemen. That's one thing settled. Have you anything else to
+tell me?"
+
+"Nothing, sahib."
+
+"Good. Start at the same hour tomorrow. That's all. You can return to
+the camp."
+
+The man bowed.
+
+"I salute you, sahib."
+
+"I salute you, Ket-Noi."
+
+With a bitter smile on his lips Pierre turned to Father Ravennes.
+
+"Six men less," said he, "and we have not yet even entered the forest!"
+
+The missionary made a soothing movement.
+
+"What matter? Six men more or less! The important thing is that our
+troop, however much it may be reduced, should continue a solid,
+homogeneous force, well in hand. These days of march across the
+Waterless Country have naturally provided a sort of preliminary
+trial,--the first selective process, of distinct value. The mountain is
+probably keeping for us a second and more difficult one. I am afraid
+of it, because it is a moral one. From tomorrow it will not be only
+fatigue, fever, bad weather and privation that the men must face; there
+will be something else."
+
+He was silent. Motionless in the middle of the opening of the tent he
+turned his eyes towards the confused huddle of the Moï mountains of
+which the vague cloudy masses under the tender sky made one think of
+some slowly passing troop of animals monotonously heading towards the
+north.
+
+Lursac, standing beside him, followed his look. The priest finished his
+thought:
+
+"There will be also, and above all, fear," he murmured.
+
+Pierre remained silent.
+
+The warm dark came; and the quiet brought to their ears the sound of
+talking among the native soldiers camping by the bed of the dried-up
+torrent and the stamping of elephants in the swamp, the guttural calls
+of the mahouts and even the crackling of the fires.
+
+Above the hillocks the rushing flight of a night-bird passed, faded
+into the distance, and came back with beating wings, and at the sound
+of its flight which seemed to fill the night with invisible rustlings,
+the image of Wanda arose and filled all the dark spaces about him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Lursac, come and look at this...."
+
+Pierre, who was prone before the fire, towards which he was stretching
+his hands, got up and went over to Father Ravennes. Kneeling down, with
+his body bent over the black, leaf-covered earth, the missionary looked
+thoughtfully at an object which it was difficult to distinguish clearly.
+
+"What is it?" asked Lursac.
+
+The priest raised his head: there was a strange ring in his voice.
+
+"Here, look what I have just found under this thin coating of leaves."
+
+He stretched out to him over his shoulder a sort of hammer made of
+stone set in the end of a forked branch. The young man threw a rapid
+glance over the weapon. It seemed to him clumsy, commonplace and of no
+particular interest.
+
+"A skull-smasher left by some Moï?" said he.
+
+The missionary continued to look thoughtful.
+
+"Have you ever before seen any instrument of theirs like this?" he
+asked. "I am well acquainted with most of the savage tribes of this
+region. They are all armed with the lance, the crossbow, the curved
+sword, and sometimes with a little iron hatchet with two cutting edges,
+but never yet have I found among them a weapon in any way resembling
+this...."
+
+He returned to his place before the fire. He continued to examine the
+primitive instrument, turning it about between his hands.
+
+"No," said he, "this is certainly an axe belonging to prehistoric
+times. Observe the oval shape of the flint, flattened on the two
+sides and shaped by hand over its entire circumference. But there
+is something even more strange about this simple stone. Look at it
+carefully. Don't you notice anything?"
+
+"No," said Pierre absent-mindedly, "and I fail to understand your
+surprise. Have you not already picked up more than thirty of the same
+kind? As for me, I see no difference whatever between this hatchet and
+all those I have already examined in your cabin."
+
+The priest said slowly:
+
+"The fact is that you do not know how to see."
+
+He held the flint close to the fire. On the regularity of its facets
+the flame was reflected in small, sharp patches of light.
+
+"Look at these flakings still fresh from the cutting! That is what is
+the peculiar thing about it. It's that that bewilders me and astounds
+me. If I could trust to appearances I would swear that this weapon,
+which all my anthropological knowledge tells me must be not less than
+30,000 years old, has been cut by the maker within a few months. If
+I were in Europe I should not hesitate to assert positively that the
+thing was a fake, and that it came from one of these factories of
+'prehistoric' arms that exist wherever the scientists dig for real
+ones."
+
+Pierre smiled in amusement.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "and sometimes they do manage to humbug the
+palæontologists."
+
+The missionary quickly protested:
+
+"Not now, but when the science was in its infancy, it was a trade that
+often proved lucrative; but to imagine that here in the depths of
+the Moï country there could be an industry of that sort would be too
+preposterous!... However ..."
+
+He stopped and looked the weapon over once more with the greatest care.
+
+"However, I am not dreaming. This dull look is too characteristic for
+me to be deceived about it. These are fresh fractures. The perfect
+state of preservation of the stone itself signifies nothing, I know;
+but the absence of patina,[11] of dentrites,[12] and of coloration on
+this flint--how will you explain that? This is indeed one of the most
+extraordinary problems that I have ever encountered since I have been
+interested in prehistoric remains."
+
+[Footnote 11: A greenish gray discoloration which occurs on ancient
+bronzes and other worked articles.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Faint branching marks, which occur on flints which have
+been worked by men of prehistoric times. These designs are due to the
+long-continued oxidisation of the iron and manganese in the stone.]
+
+"Bah!" said Pierre, "a Moï may have found the weapon in a hollow in
+some ravine and used it himself and made these new fractures that seem
+so strange to you."
+
+Father Ravennes made a sign of incredulity.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I thought of that. That explanation would be likely
+enough if this find were my only one; but in the two days that we have
+been in the forest this is the eleventh discovery that I have made.
+Yesterday four scratching pins and two other hatchets; today, two
+knives, two scrapers, and now this hatchet.... And every one of these
+instruments without exception offers the same appearance of newness and
+the same recent fractures. No, believe me, Lursac, this is one more
+mystery added to the other, to the great secret towards the discovery
+of which we are marching."
+
+He remained thoughtful. The flame of the camp-fire flickered in his
+pale pupils. He had a peculiar expression in his eyes.
+
+"At least," said he, "there may be one single mystery, and this,
+perhaps, is just one of its elements, one of its unforeseen aspects."
+
+Pierre looked him up and down sharply.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked. "You seem to have thought of something!"
+
+The missionary avoided the pointed enquiry of his eyes.
+
+"Nothing," said he evasively, "I am groping my way. Amid the darkness
+which surrounds me I seem sometimes to find a ray of light. It
+appears suddenly, flickers, flees and disappears. A light ... I am
+searching...."
+
+He thought for a minute and then continued:
+
+"I say to myself that in the heart of this Moï country, whose people
+still live a life which is animal and primitive, an existence very
+similar to that which the men of the first days of life on the earth
+must have lived, there lies a great temple without doubt several
+centuries old. How and by whom was this temple built? That is the
+first question. In this sanctuary mysterious divinities reign--the
+Red Gods--of whom an image in purple metal, probably copper, is
+enthroned in the centre of the main hall. But these gods themselves,
+what are they? That is the second question. Sometimes the people call
+them the Living Gods. Do you remember Hmon's story? What then? Are
+they Lamas, living Buddhas, similar to those who reign on the lofty
+plateaus of Thibet? There would be nothing impossible in the thing,
+nothing unlikely. And the sect that worships them? To what faith do
+they belong? Buddhism, Taoism, Brahmanism, or just fetichism? Finally,
+why is the matter wrapped about with secrecy so impenetrable and so
+fiercely protected? The natives must know that their religion, whatever
+it is, has nothing to fear from French rule. The pagodas and bonzes of
+Annam, Tonkin, of Cochin-China and Cambodia are there to bear witness
+to that! What then?... No! there is evidently behind all that, behind
+and beyond it, something or somebody: a secret association, or a
+mysterious personage, of which this temple is the dwelling place. The
+religious question is only the camouflage that the sorceresses keep up
+carefully, and which they use to hide this reality of which I have long
+suspected the existence without ever having been able to discover in
+what it consists. Hmon only told us the least important part of it ...
+and I am searching...."
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"What is the good of imagining all these worries? In three days we
+shall be up there and we shall know with what we have to deal. As for
+these weapons, the reason for their presence here is probably much
+simpler and much less romantic than you think. Prehistoric man probably
+had one of his first dwelling places on these plateaus. Didn't you tell
+me so yourself? The Moïs must have found some of the caves which these
+prehistoric men used to occupy, and in the caves these remains which
+they left lying about throughout the region. What worries me much more
+than that is the behaviour of our men and of our beasts."
+
+The missionary made no answer. He seemed to accept Pierre's explanation
+but his eyes retained their expression at once thoughtful and anxious.
+In any case, the last remark of the young man had brought up other
+matters for concern.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night before, they had plunged into the maze of the mountain
+masses. The sudden change of direction, which had been ordered at
+dawn of the fourth day, had obviously provoked among the men of the
+escort an anxious disquiet, a sort of vague uneasiness. Nevertheless,
+the roughness with which Pierre had imposed his will upon them seemed
+to have dominated them. The mahouts on their heavily swaying beasts
+had followed the guides, but their eyes remained glued to the forest
+of which the details slowly came nearer and grew clearer. The native
+soldiers behind them walked without speaking to each other, and the
+caravan went forward in the midst of a troubled silence in which
+nothing was heard but the dull trampling of the elephants. Little by
+little the scenery changed. To the sandy desert had succeeded the
+dazzling monotony of a grassy plain which in turn gave way to the
+first slopes of the mountain range carpeted by the bamboo-grass of
+the forest clearings, with slender shrubs and the _Irui_, whose long,
+pointed purple buds stretched themselves skyward like solid flames.
+Here and there stagnant creeks lay across their path, green and slimy,
+attracting the elephants so that the mahouts had to stab their ears
+with heavy ankus blows to prevent them rolling in the sticky blackish
+hollows encircled by thorny, twisted and misshapen trees. Then the
+mountain, heaving up its giant flanks, had barred the way of the
+expedition with its steep declivities. Immediately difficulties had
+arisen. Among the tangled confusion of twisted trunks, of creepers,
+of cane-palms, of pandanus trees and of interlacing undergrowth, the
+riflemen, axe in hand, had had to cut a way for the beasts. The ground,
+covered with a heavy carpet of sodden leaves, sweated a perpetual
+moisture; and wherever they trod the decay from the rotting masses of
+vegetation underneath burst upwards in black bubbles.
+
+From the piled débris covering the path hungry leeches, the innumerable
+red leeches of the Moï forests, swarmed in their turn, crawling to
+attack the men. They tore them off as they walked, but the first
+evening, just before camp had been made, three of the men, with their
+legs streaked with long trickles of blood and covered with wounds, the
+muscles swollen and stiff, had rolled over groaning. Dull and resigned,
+their faces drawn with pain, they had seated themselves on the trunk of
+an uprooted tree where they shook their naked feet mottled with bloody
+spots to which clung new leeches, avid and persistent. It had been
+necessary to dress their wounds and to help them to walk to the camp.
+And next morning, before continuing the march, Pierre found himself
+obliged to send them back. Worse than that, the elephants, worn with
+exertion, weary from having hauled their great weight up slopes of
+hills and ravines and furiously shaking their great ears all bloody
+from the recent stabs of the ankuses, had shown throughout the day
+signs of growing terror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now, before the camp-fires the mahouts were on guard. They had
+doubled the chains that secured their beasts, as at night, even more
+than during the day, the thick brains of the pachyderms seemed to swarm
+with obscure thoughts of rebellion and angry confusion.
+
+Around his picket Bookobomo-of-the-Forest, the leader of the elephant
+file, could be heard stamping heavily. He was an enormous male recently
+captured on the high Boloven plateaus. He had retained a lively
+remembrance of the noises of the forest and the mountain passes; and
+when, during the afternoon, he had crossed the track of a herd of wild
+elephants and stopped long to sniff at it, for a long time after he had
+trumpeted deafeningly and savagely towards the depths of the woods,--a
+trumpeting in which vibrated unaccustomed tones and through which
+seemed to sweep the rude breath of the wind bending the great grasses
+in which, a few months before, he had lived his wild free life. The
+other beasts of the convoy--the females--were under the influence of
+his force and ascendancy. Slow and docile they had followed him on the
+march.
+
+Hearing the hammer blows of his stamping, Pierre became anxious.
+
+He repeated with seriousness:
+
+"Yes, what worries me is the behavior of the men, and even more so that
+of the beasts...."
+
+He looked around him. Grouped before a large camp-fire which the two
+guides in turn attended to, the riflemen lay wrapped in a heavy sleep
+broken by nervous movements.
+
+The voices of the mahouts, camped with their elephants near a swamp at
+some little distance, came to him through the curtain of the trees.
+
+The atmosphere, cold and heavy, shed its damp in a thin steam, and an
+inexpressible weight seemed to bear down upon the forest. Giving way
+to the universal torpor which the night distilled around him, Pierre
+stretched himself and yawned, then remembering Wanda he rose to his
+feet. With his eyes set in an expression of stern determination, and
+shaking off his premonition of failure, he stiffened his will and
+stilled his doubts with an energetic affirmation:
+
+"I will get there, with or without them--alone, if necessary."
+
+Roughly, almost violently, he repeated it looking at the missionary:
+
+"I will get there ... I will get there...."
+
+But the forest, drowned in darkness, seemed to stifle his voice; and
+the priest, deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, said nothing.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV
+
+                           DEEPENING MYSTERY
+
+
+"_Bay chon?_"
+
+"_Breil koil toxo!_"[13]
+
+[Footnote 13: What is it?
+
+They have gone, they have fled!]
+
+The cries of the two guides rose followed by a string of oaths.
+
+Awakened with a start, Pierre looked around him. Lying on his back,
+with his hands crossed over his chest, Father Ravennes still slept.
+His face even in his sleep wore an air of serenity and kindness which
+struck the young man afresh. Around them was beginning to float a
+grayish clearness.
+
+The voices of the Moïs came nearer and louder, and the flap of the
+tent, pulled violently aside, gave entrance to the men. With their
+lances in their hands they burst in, shouting and gesticulating.
+Instinctively Pierre stretched out his hand and seized the revolver
+which lay beside him in its holster.
+
+Jumping to his feet with a single spring, the missionary broke in:
+
+"What's happening?"
+
+The guides both together cried out:
+
+"They've gone, all of them ... all of them ... while we were asleep!"
+
+They stammered: their eyes were dazed and their movements jerky.
+
+Lursac looked at them without understanding. He imagined they were
+drunk.
+
+"Gone, where? Of whom are you speaking?"
+
+Ngur swore:
+
+"The _linhs_, those sons of dogs.... Gone, run off! I told you, sahib!
+It would have been better to tell them. We should have known at once
+what to expect...."
+
+Pierre no longer listened. He had gone suddenly pale and then a wave
+of red surged into his face. He elbowed the two men aside and rushed
+out. Father Ravennes hurried at his back. In the middle of the glade
+they stopped. The camp-fires were going out. Among the warm ashes a few
+live coals still glowed. Here and there lying on the ground abandoned
+haversacks still showed the marks of the heads which had lain on them
+during the night. Around lay packets of cartridges.
+
+His teeth clenched in fury, Pierre mechanically counted some twenty of
+them.
+
+"The brutes! ..." he groaned. "The brutes!..."
+
+He turned toward the guides.
+
+"But what on earth came over them? Last night when the headman made his
+report we guessed nothing, suspected nothing. There was not a sign that
+could lead us to think of a desertion. When did you become aware that
+they had disappeared?"
+
+Ngur answered:
+
+"Just a few minutes ago. We were sleeping in the middle of them. Pâa
+was lying by the headman's side. Waking up, we were surprised not to
+see any of them ... and then finding _this_ close by our faces we
+understood!"
+
+And with the point of his lance he pushed two bunches of half-burnt
+roots.
+
+Father Ravennes bent over quickly to look at them.
+
+"Ah!" said he, rising again, "_koh-heun-kauang_, the smoke of which
+intoxicates and stupefies. They made sure of the silence of our guides
+by burning this stuff under their noses during the night. They must be
+a long way off by now!"
+
+He turned to question the guides.
+
+"How long ago did they start, do you think?"
+
+The two men looked carefully at the half-dead fires and the abandoned
+haversacks.
+
+"See for yourself, Father. The sacks are damp, but rain has not fallen
+since the second watch, the mahouts tell us, therefore, they must have
+started before it stopped."
+
+Pierre gave a start. He turned abruptly on his heel.
+
+"The elephants? The elephants?"
+
+And running, he reached the swamp ringed about with trees and thick
+undergrowth, on the edge of which the mahouts had made their camp.
+
+Sunk to their knees in the blackish water of the creek, the beasts were
+squirting their muddy sides with great jets from their bent trunks.
+Seated beside the saddles on the ground the mahouts were talking among
+themselves.
+
+Pierre experienced a profound relief, and he slackened his pace
+and entered the group of La-oese who had risen respectfully at his
+approach. Standing among them he examined their faces. He scrutinized
+their eyes with a quick look. He found them emotionless and passive,
+awaiting his instructions, and the sight of their indifference brought
+back to him his own self-control.
+
+He said nothing to them about the desertion of the riflemen. Quietly
+lighting a cigarette he gave the order to load the elephants. Then
+he went back towards the clearing. His mind upset for an instant had
+recovered its equilibrium. His decision was made: the march must
+continue.
+
+He found the missionary at the place where he had left him several
+minutes before, still arguing with the guides. He avoided the glance
+with which the priest acknowledged his return and addressed himself to
+Ngur and Pâa:
+
+"Go and help the mahouts. We will start as soon as they are ready."
+
+The two men showed no signs of surprise or of wishing to dispute the
+order. They assented:
+
+"Very well, sahib"; and without a word set off at their habitual easy
+gait.
+
+Roughly, with the object of impressing his will and cutting short all
+arguments, Lursac said:
+
+"It is too late to go back. If we tried to catch up with the riflemen,
+what would be the good? First of all we should probably be unable
+to catch them; and then, secondly, supposing we did get them and
+bring them back, we should only have lagging behind us a body of men
+prostrated with terror, a mob of cowards, who at the first occasion
+would desert us afresh."
+
+He stopped, awaiting a reply. The missionary remained silent: with a
+rather sad smile upon his lips he contented himself with listening
+attentively to the young man.
+
+"And anyway," continued Pierre, "the elephants with their mahouts
+remain to us; the guides also. They are the ones that are really
+necessary. Once we have arrived at the top I shall consider, I shall
+make a plan which afterwards I can modify according to circumstances."
+
+He intentionally left the missionary out in explaining his project.
+The words that he had spoken the evening before came back to his lips
+instinctively and once more he spoke them to alleviate his distress:
+
+"I will get there ... alone if necessary.... I will get there!... I
+will get there!"
+
+Abruptly he fell silent. His eyes met those of the priest, and before
+the latter's meaning glance, his long look charged with reproach, he
+hung his head. He was ashamed of having doubted him, of having tried
+to impose his own authority upon him. The missionary, however, did not
+seem to notice: he said simply:
+
+"I shall go on with you, if you will let me."
+
+But the smile with which he accompanied the words was sadder and graver
+than ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards night they came to the bank of a river, before which Bookobomo
+stopped distrustfully. Behind him the other elephants stood motionless
+in file. The rain had begun to fall again. Under the flood which
+drenched them and made them shiver, the men, chilled and covered with
+sticky mud, looked down at the gray waters of the river which the
+downpour seemed to riddle with innumerable perforations.
+
+Above the rift, which the course of the waters had notched in the
+forest, hung a lane of gray sky marbled with heavy, round clouds that
+lay dark and motionless. The five mahouts who had swarmed down from the
+necks of their beasts were grouped round the great male whose driver
+was the only one remaining at his post. Crouched over the bony head of
+his beast, the man talked to his mount while he stroked its wrinkled
+neck and encouraged it. Slowly swinging his trunk, Bookobomo began to
+go forward, descending the bank and stepping cautiously into the water.
+The current slid between his great pillar-like legs, rose to his knees,
+then to his stomach, washed his wrinkled sides, rose yet further and
+continued to rise....
+
+Then with a sudden turn, Bookobomo flung himself backwards, stumbled
+out of the water and with his feet driven into the mud of the bank he
+defied all attempts to move him. Around him the cries of the mahouts
+and the guide broke out, mixed with insults and entreaties. Armed with
+sticks they tried to make him turn round and face the water again.
+Persisting in his resistance, Bookobomo trumpeted but refused to stir.
+The men on all sides began beating him. A fit of rage seized the
+pachyderm. He tried to get rid of the man crouching on his back. He
+scraped himself against the trunk of a mangrove and then lay suddenly
+down on his side, but the Lao-ese, who had drawn back to the rear end
+of the beast, outside the range of his trunk, continued to beat him
+on the head with his ankus.... Supported by one hand caught in the
+ropes of bamboo which secured the pack-saddle he tirelessly raised and
+let fall on the head of the beast the heavy pole of wood shod with an
+iron point, until the blood squirted from the neck and forehead and
+ran down in rivulets along the brown skin. Getting up and shaking his
+massive body violently, with his trunk rolled backwards in its fighting
+position and his head held high, Bookobomo trumpeted afresh. Then with
+a dash he flung himself into the current and swam furiously. Reaching
+the other bank he climbed it and turned his great head towards his
+companions who remained on the other side, and again the call of his
+trumpeting broke out savagely, sounding rebellion and defiance. On
+the edge he had just left, the trumpeting of the females rang out in
+response.
+
+The guides standing beside Pierre and the missionary exchanged an
+anxious glance which Father Ravennes caught.
+
+"What is worrying you?" he asked.
+
+Ngur pointed at the five females who were getting ready to cross the
+creek.
+
+"They are calling too loud," said he, "and he," pointing at Bookobomo,
+"since he got into the forest is thinking too much of the mountains of
+the Bolovens where he used to live in freedom. We shall have to watch
+them tonight."
+
+"Yes," Pâa said in his turn, "the elephant which cries in the forest is
+on his way to becoming wild again."
+
+"The advice is good," said Pierre. "We will watch them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the four men in their turn reached the other bank, the night
+was already falling. A flurrying wind blowing the rain before it in
+slanting torrents invaded the forest, making the trees groan beneath it.
+
+Camping on the threshold of the wood, a quarter of a mile beyond the
+creek, the men made their meagre meal. The elephants, attached by their
+hind feet to the trunks of trees, pulled down the branches above them
+and ate the leaves slowly. From time to time they stopped, and with
+waving trunks and pricked-up ears seemed to be listening to the voice
+of the wind as it sang through the aisles of the forest. Gathered
+together round a single fire the two guides and the mahouts warmed
+themselves. One of them recited aloud an adventure at once puerile and
+complicated, a story of love and terror in which the embraces of a
+Pou-Sao[14] rewarded the fabulous exploits of a buffalo-hunter. And the
+others, like children, listened intently.
+
+[Footnote 14: A Cambodian girl.]
+
+In the middle, rolled up in their cloaks and lying side by side, Lursac
+and Father Ravennes talked in low voices.
+
+"Tomorrow?" asked Pierre. "Shall we get there tomorrow?"
+
+His voice trembled.
+
+"I think so," said the missionary, "we are not more than five hours'
+march from the Pou-Kas. Five hours ... four, perhaps! And we will allow
+as much more for the finding of the mysterious entrance to the temple
+which we none of us know...."
+
+He hesitated for a moment, and then in his turn asked the question:
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+Pierre signified doubt by a vague movement.
+
+"I know nothing about it," said he. "The desertion of the riflemen has
+upset all my plans. We can no longer hope to rescue Wanda from them by
+force."
+
+He turned suddenly to the priest.
+
+"Do you know how much we have got left in the way of arms and
+ammunition? My service revolver and a dozen cartridges which I had on
+me! All the rest was carried off by the riflemen! Ah! the brutes! If
+they only had left us even two rifles, one each...."
+
+The priest looked at him with his kind eyes.
+
+"Only one of them would have been used," said he gently. "God alone,
+who gives life to men, has the right to take it away from them. I have
+no right to kill. My only hope...."
+
+He interrupted himself and smiled.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he. "It seems as if I were preaching a sermon
+and this is not the time, and still less is it the place. I will come
+back to my question: What will you do when you reach there?"
+
+Pierre looked vaguely in front of him. His thoughts had gone back in
+search of a memory and were already in the past. He swiftly lived over
+again his declaration to Wanda in the forest; the feel of the kiss
+that she had given him--of the only kiss that he had ever had from
+her,--came again to his lips. With a slight tightening at the corners
+of his mouth and his eyelids beating rapidly he closed his eyes.
+
+"We will hide somewhere near the temple and wait for an opportunity
+to get inside," said he. "We shall have to make use of patience
+and subtlety. We must remain invisible and watch the goings-in and
+comings-out. The whole thing will be to see the most favorable moment
+and be quick to use it."
+
+The missionary approved.
+
+"That is the wisest plan, and the one which I had myself thought best
+from the beginning; but is also the one which will demand calm heads
+and the power of waiting passively. The least imprudence, the first
+too-hasty movement, will deprive us of any chance of success. We must
+succeed at the first attempt...."
+
+"Have no fear," said Pierre, "I will wait as long as necessary, and I
+will not act except on a certainty. For the rest...."
+
+The trumpeting of the elephants interrupted him. Straining hard at
+their bonds they had all together flung a sudden loud call into the
+night. The mahouts and the guides, suddenly ceasing their talk,
+nervously watched the brutes who were snorting and restlessly moving
+about. They had stopped eating. With their heads turned towards the
+depths of the forest they seemed to be listening to mysterious voices
+which were inaudible to the ears of man.
+
+Ngur murmured:
+
+"They are calling...."
+
+But one of the mahouts, shaking his head, corrected him:
+
+"No ... worse than that.... They are answering! Listen!"
+
+They all remained intensely on the alert. Having thrown aside their
+cloaks, Lursac and Father Ravennes sat up. With their eyes, like the
+others', instinctively fixed on the sombre masses of the woods, they
+listened absorbedly.
+
+Confused noises far in the distance came to them, so vague that they
+could not define them. Then they grew louder and more definite. It
+sounded like the trampling of a great herd of animals on the march
+through the underbrush. It came nearer and nearer, until it was
+apparently opposite them: they could hear the heavy thuds of feet mixed
+with the crashing of the torn-up bushes and the breaking of trees and
+smashing of branches. It stopped. There was a short silence: then the
+noise began again, diminished, turned to the right, went behind them,
+then to the left and finally was heard once more opposite, having made
+a great circle about the camp, with the caravan as its centre.
+
+Wrapping his trunk round the _klong_-tree to which he was tied, and
+leaning his whole weight against it, Bookobomo shook it in a desperate
+effort to uproot it. The top of the tree waved violently, scraping the
+trees around it with its branches. However, it stood firm. The elephant
+became enraged and pulled still harder. The slim, straight tree-trunk
+trembled: around the roots cracks came in the soil and Bookobomo roared
+in a voice vibrating with triumph, while, following him, the females
+in their turn trumpeted into the shadows. Again there fell a silence.
+Then suddenly in the distance a great call rose up to the sky and tore
+through the night, a strange call which resembled the trumpeting of
+the elephants but which was somehow different, more sonorous, and with
+sharper inflections, wilder and stronger.
+
+Father Ravennes shivered. He had that strange look on his face which
+Pierre had noticed two days earlier.
+
+"Extraordinary," he murmured. "I must clear this up!"
+
+He had already risen to his feet, but Ngur stepped in front of him.
+
+"No, Father, it will be better for you to stay here because of those
+people." Indicating the mahouts with a movement of his chin, he added:
+
+"I will go myself."
+
+The missionary was on the point of protesting, but at this moment the
+mahouts, jumping up in excitement, shouted:
+
+"Torches! Quick ... quick!..."
+
+And at the same time with flaming firebrands in their hands they flung
+themselves at their beasts, making a circle of flame about them. Lursac
+and the priest took part in it. They all ran round and round the
+elephants, shouting and waving their torches and striking the elephants
+with heavy blows from their ankuses.
+
+For over an hour the pachyderms turned and circled round the trees to
+which they were attached, rocked from foot to foot, reared up on their
+hind legs and made desperate efforts to get loose. Finally, however,
+blinded by the torches, in agony from the ankus blows, their excitement
+diminished and they stood sulkily by their trees, stilled and conquered.
+
+Meanwhile, about them the disturbance of the mysterious herd that had
+been prowling there, became more distant and gradually quieted down,
+seeming to make its way towards the north from which it had come.
+
+"A herd of wild elephants who were coming down to drink at the river,"
+said Pierre, "our presence must have...."
+
+But the return of Ngur cut short his explanation. At the sight of the
+face of the usually impassive Moï, now transfigured with emotion and
+completely changed in this short time, he lapsed into silence.
+
+The man stood apart and called to Father Ravennes with a gesture.
+
+The missionary took Pierre's arm.
+
+"Come," said he.
+
+Throwing down their torches, they went to speak to Ngur.
+
+"Well," asked the priest, "what is the matter?"
+
+Wiping his face, down which the rain was streaming, with the back of
+his hand, the guide said:
+
+"I saw them. They were elephants, but of a kind I do not know and which
+I have never met before."
+
+Eagerly the missionary questioned him:
+
+"What were they like?"
+
+The man spread his arms wide.
+
+"The one which passed in front of me," said he, "was, perhaps, twice as
+big and twice as heavy as Bookobomo, with its body covered with hair
+and a long head."
+
+"And its tusks? Its tusks?" demanded the missionary.
+
+The hoarseness and jerkiness of his voice astounded Lursac.
+
+"I did not have the time to see properly. He charged through the
+undergrowth and passed ahead of me, going very fast. Perhaps the tusks
+were broken. Further away I saw other great male elephants running in
+file."
+
+The missionary remained a moment without speaking, listening to the
+sound of the rain falling through the forest.
+
+"They are a long way off now," he murmured.
+
+His words seemed to carry a feeling of regret which he immediately
+admitted:
+
+"Ah! if I had been there myself! You are sure that they had their
+bodies covered with hair?"
+
+"Sure, Father! Long hair, which came down to the bottom of their legs
+and made a sort of mane round their necks."
+
+The missionary's face lit up and became eager. He seemed to have
+forgotten the guide and Lursac.
+
+With his head hung forward, he stared a moment absorbedly in thought.
+Then slowly in a changed voice he murmured:
+
+"Long hair, which comes to the bottom of their legs and lies in a mane
+along their backs. Can it possibly be that what I saw three days ago is
+true? After all, why not? All the same it would be terrible if--....
+No, it is impossible and beyond all reason. It is no good my
+looking ... there isn't a link missing in the chain that I have
+followed, in the chain that has led me to this conclusion. Nothing!...
+But what then?..."
+
+Pierre, astounded, heard him give a loud laugh, bitter and strange,
+which the scene about them made yet stranger....
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+                      NEAR THE END OF THE JOURNEY
+
+
+The dawn found them once more on the march. The rain still fell, fine
+and persistent. Its pattering had now become familiar music to them. It
+formed the setting of their words and of their movements, and they had
+become so thoroughly accustomed to the vast sound of splashing by which
+they were surrounded that they no longer noticed it. The rest of the
+night had been spent in watching the elephants and keeping guard over
+their still dangerous excitement. Only the missionary, quite careless
+of the general anxiety, had remained apart from the others with his
+back against a tree, taking no notice of the rain which poured over
+him, turning over in his mind thoughts for which he had no words and
+the hidden current of which left his face drawn and his eyes filled
+with shadows.
+
+Now, lost in his meditations, he walked at the tail of the procession.
+Pierre, tired of his silence, had gone on to join the two guides. The
+elephants advanced rapidly. The soil, now spotted with patches of
+moss, gave better footing for their heavy steps. The last slope of the
+towering mountain whose successive heights they had climbed during the
+last few days offered itself to their advance in a gentle declivity,
+which they were ascending with comparative ease. Towards the middle
+of the day they reached the last height. Before them, surrounded by
+the forest which reached halfway up its sides, the very crest of the
+mountain stood naked, rising out of a billowing sea of giant grasses.
+Pierre gave a deep sigh. Here, this very ground on which he was
+treading, was the extreme summit of the "Moï Country": this hill, of
+which the caravan was already beginning to descend the reverse, was the
+roof of the whole of Indo-China. He forgot his fatigue, his suffering,
+his disappointments. Around him lay unrolled on every side the country
+which no one had yet reached, the immense territory into which no
+European, up to that moment, had succeeded in penetrating. The spirit
+of the great explorers inspired him for a moment--their soul and their
+keen pride of achievement.... Towards the south and the east, violet,
+blue and gray, crests of all shapes and sizes--rounded, domed and
+pointed--one behind the other spread away in ranks like the steps of a
+great staircase marking the stages of the route which they had followed.
+
+The glance of the young man then turned towards the west. The mountain
+on which he was standing culminated in a short, steep slope, from the
+foot of which, level and boundless and clad in its thick mantle of
+trees, the plateau of the Pou-Kas stretched to the horizon, the plateau
+on the other edge of which, facing the south, stood the temple of the
+"Red Gods." At the same time his mood of exaltation suddenly fell away
+from him. The totally unexpected contour of the ground near at hand
+became clear to him. A sort of natural fault in the rock, about a mile
+and a half wide, crossed it, encircling it, as it were, with a deep
+gulf which stretched to the very edge of the forest. He calculated
+that in order to reach the western side of the plateau on which the
+sanctuary was built it would be necessary to follow the edge of this
+crevasse for a distance of at least thirty miles.
+
+"Two more days' march at least," he thought aloud.
+
+The voice of the missionary, answering him unexpectedly, made him start.
+
+"Perhaps!" he said; "but on the other hand, perhaps we have already
+arrived."
+
+Pierre turned quickly and saw the priest standing behind him. His arms
+crossed on his breast, his head bare, regardless of the rain which was
+whipping his face and moulding his tunic to his body, he was looking at
+the strange valley that lay before him.
+
+"I don't understand you," said Lursac. "It will be absolutely necessary
+to go round this crevasse."
+
+The missionary looked as if he didn't hear him. He followed out his own
+thoughts.
+
+"Notice," said he, continuing to gaze before him, "the direction of
+this gulf. It runs parallel to the edge of the plateau. Notice also
+how the cliff on the further side which faces us comes in places quite
+close to this edge."
+
+"Yes," said Pierre, "there only seems to be a space of about half a
+mile between them just here."
+
+"Good! Well, now remember what Hmon told us--'before us a subterranean
+passage descended and turned downwards. Walls trickling with moisture
+were lighted up from time to time....' Among many others, these phrases
+struck me. They came to my mind immediately when I saw this great
+canyon in the rocks. Have they no meaning for you? Doesn't that suggest
+an idea to you--the same one which has just crossed my own mind?"
+
+"Ah!" cried Pierre, "the other entrance to the sanctuary, which no one
+knows, but which, however, must exist?"
+
+The priest nodded his head.
+
+"Go on," said he, "finish your thought; this entrance?..."
+
+"You believe that it is to be found at the bottom of this crevasse?"
+
+"The more I think of it the more the thing seems likely. Anyway, it is
+quite easy to make sure of it. We can wait till evening on the edge of
+this canyon; spend the night in it and tomorrow...."
+
+"Tomorrow," murmured Pierre, "always tomorrow!"
+
+And he began to descend the slope of the mountain. A cry from Father
+Ravennes stopped him halfway. He turned round so quickly and with such
+anxiety that he was astonished at himself.
+
+At the same time he called:
+
+"Ravennes! Ravennes!"
+
+The sound of his own voice, changed by emotion, seemed strange to him,
+and he suddenly understood the quality and force of the affection which
+bound him to his companion.
+
+The priest at this moment appeared running towards him.
+
+"Ah!" said Pierre, "how you frightened me. What's the matter?"
+
+The missionary, taking him by the arm, pulled him in the direction of
+the plain.
+
+"Come," said he, "come!"
+
+And as they went together he explained:
+
+"It seemed to me from up there that I could see ... but I thought I
+must be mistaken. Here ... look ... yes ... at the angle of the glade
+down there, on the left, just where the level ground begins."
+
+Pierre bent over and examined the glade which a single unexpected ray
+of watery sunshine clothed in a veil of gold; it seemed to him to be
+empty and dominated by the top of an enormous mango-tree which stood in
+its centre.
+
+They continued their descent. The top of the giant tree, making a
+motionless patch of darkness in the midst of the packed undergrowth
+served them as a goal. When they got to the level they did not even
+need its aid. Through the high grass a sort of track was visible. They
+followed it. Before them, describing great circles in the transparent
+sky three tawny eagles sailed with long metallic cries, encircling the
+leafy summit of the mango-tree in their flight.
+
+The missionary began to hurry, almost running. When he arrived in front
+of the glade he had to stop, gasping for breath. He was trembling with
+exhaustion and emotion. The beating of his heart shook his entire
+body and hammered in his temples. Supporting himself against a tree
+he looked over the clearing. It was long and narrow, and surrounded
+with thorny undergrowth. In the centre the gigantic mango-tree soared
+aloft, casting all around a heavy shadow from its leafy branches about
+which the three eagles still turned slowly in wide circles. Everything
+was silent and still. The ray of sunshine having passed on, the whole
+place was clothed in shadow except that just behind the tree a single
+luminous spot remained.
+
+Walking towards it, the missionary murmured:
+
+"It is there."
+
+Then he was silent.
+
+In the middle of a splash of gold which the sunlight made on the earth
+and which was getting smaller minute by minute a large hole in the
+ground had just become visible to him, with a thin covering of branches
+and grass which lay gaping open, as though torn by some shock.
+
+Pierre, who had caught him up, thought he understood what it meant.
+
+"An elephant trap!"
+
+At the same time seeing a ragged tunic lying on the ground close to the
+hole, he cried:
+
+"Ravennes ... there.... Look!"
+
+The missionary made no answer.
+
+Kneeling on the edge of the pit he was separating the branches and
+pulling the covering of grass away, bending over to see better.
+Suddenly he flung himself back, his face as white as a sheet.
+
+Pierre, bending down, in his turn, looked also.
+
+He saw an excavation which seemed several yards deep, with sharpened
+stakes sticking upwards from the bottom. Caught on one of them lay a
+white man. Below him on the ground lay spread the bones of a skeleton
+still decorated with rags of clothes.
+
+The priest gave a hoarse sigh:
+
+"Redeski!"
+
+Clinging to the wall of the trap he climbed down into it. The officer's
+body was hanging from a stake; the sharpened point of the picket had
+pierced his side and was sticking out through the abdomen. On the other
+side the head dangled down, the hair falling loose. In the waxen face
+the mouth hung open with a red froth around it, while on the shirt
+above the heart there spread a large purple patch which looked like the
+blood-colored flower of the flame-tree.
+
+Down the haft of the spike the blood had flowed slowly and dried in a
+black stream.
+
+Father Ravennes lifted the pallid head and looked at the blue eyes half
+open in death. A vast sadness oppressed him.
+
+"The poor boy!" he said, "the poor boy! They got rid of him by flinging
+him there...."
+
+He gently wiped the red slime from the lips, and slowly and tenderly,
+shaken by heavy shudders, he lifted the body with its horrible ragged
+wound off the spike.
+
+Stretched out on the ground on his back with his arms wide open the
+young officer seemed thin and very tall. His face, although drawn with
+terrible suffering, still seemed to bear a strange expression of calm
+and strength.
+
+Father Ravennes bowed himself in prayer.
+
+"O God," said he, "receive him in thy divine mercy. We lived three
+months together and I found him upright, ardent and young: his soul was
+that of a man. O God, accept him!"
+
+Then taking the body in his arms he lifted it out of the pit to Pierre,
+who took it. Between them, without speaking and as quickly as possible,
+they managed to dig a grave in the shadow of the mango-tree. When the
+simple burial was over, they stood up and looked at each other. Pierre,
+pale and with his fists clenched, murmured:
+
+"It is only a few days since they killed him, isn't it? Ah! the
+savages!..."
+
+The missionary, however, had not heard him. Having gone back to the
+edge of the pit and bending over, he was looking down into it at the
+skeleton which lay there. One of the rags of cloth hanging to it still
+bore a metal button. Seeing it, he murmured:
+
+"A strip from a tunic. The remains of another white man for certain."
+
+He stayed there for a long time wrapped in thought; and when he got up
+and looked for Pierre, he found that the young man had started back
+towards the caravan. The priest sighed, and then heavily, with bent
+shoulders, he in his turn followed towards the plain and rejoined his
+companion, while above the mango-tree the three eagles resumed their
+circling flight, with their stretched-out wings flashing red in the
+light of the setting sun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had been back in the shelter of the forest for some time now. The
+rain, so fine that it seemed to float softly like a watery dust rather
+than fall, mingled under the trees with the mist which rose from the
+soil to create an atmosphere of damp stagnation. One seemed to breathe
+water; and night, which was coming on, darkened the landscape, sucking
+the color from everything and turning the surroundings into a dull
+uniform sombreness--the end of another gray and sullen day.
+
+And, suddenly, as the darkness fell over the plateau, Pierre ordered
+a halt. They had come, without warning, to the edge of the forest: a
+narrow belt of ground, about fifty yards across and covered with short
+turf, alone separated it from the sunken canyon. In the open the wind
+was whipping the plateau and buffeting it with billowing gusts.
+
+While the mahouts and guides were busied about their beasts, Lursac and
+the missionary walked forward cautiously. On the lip of the crevasse
+they bent over, eagerly plunging their eyes into its depths. But they
+saw nothing; for the night had taken possession of the precipice and
+had made of it a formless and endless gulf, a gigantic pit brimming
+with matted shadows.
+
+They flung themselves down on the ground side by side with their heads
+over the edge and listened. No sound came up to them. The missionary
+stretched down his arm and fingered the rocky wall below him, feeling
+over it carefully: it was hard and cold, cut sheer down through the
+rock in a vertical cliff.
+
+For a long time they remained thus, silent and motionless. The rain
+whipped their faces and drenched them to the skin; now and again a
+short shiver would shake one of them, while the quick beatings of their
+hearts resounded dully against the soil and beat like hammers in their
+brains.
+
+"Nothing! ..." said Pierre. "Nothing! ... emptiness! ... silence!..."
+
+They were getting ready to rise when the missionary, gripping him
+violently by the shoulder, whispered:
+
+"Opposite ... a little to the left ... lights!"
+
+Striking through the darkness two luminous points had just become
+visible. They seemed far away, against the opposite side of the
+crevasse, and diminished by distance they winked feebly in the middle
+of a little yellow halo. Then around them other lights sprang up one by
+one. Lursac counted seven altogether.
+
+"The gulf is inhabited," said he. "Without doubt those are the guards
+of the entrance."
+
+The missionary gave a silent laugh. His hand on Pierre's shoulder
+trembled and tightened.
+
+"It is inhabited," said he; "these lights prove it; but one would think
+that they were on the wall itself."
+
+He repeated several times in an absent-minded tone:
+
+"On the wall itself...."
+
+Then he added:
+
+"Caves, doubtless ... perhaps the underground entrances to the
+temple ... or perhaps something else!..."
+
+The extraordinary tone of his voice made Pierre shudder, and he was
+just about to question him when a thought suddenly flashed through his
+mind.
+
+"Our own fires!" he murmured.
+
+And flinging himself backwards he ran as hard as he could towards the
+encampment, reaching it just in time to see the first flame spring
+up from a pile of leaves and branches around which the mahouts were
+crouched. One man bending over the fire was blowing to hasten its
+igniting. Pierre with a push shoved him away, and then with great kicks
+scattered the brands and beat them out.
+
+"No fires," said he, "do you hear me? None!"
+
+The darkness which had thickened around him prevented him seeing the
+men, but the noise of torn branches revealed the neighborhood of the
+elephants. He called the guides:
+
+"Ngur and Pâa! Where are you?"
+
+The two Moïs approached.
+
+"Here, sahib!"
+
+Pierre turned to them.
+
+"You know where the bundle of rope is that we brought with us," he
+said; "get it, and meet me at the edge of the crevasse. I will wait for
+you there with Father Ravennes."
+
+Before starting, he flung another order.
+
+"The mahouts will remain to watch the beasts. I definitely forbid you
+to stir from here. Understand that?"
+
+And without waiting for any answer he set off.
+
+He found the missionary at the same spot, where he continued to lie
+motionless, taking no notice of the return of his companion. Pierre
+seized his arm.
+
+"Come," said he, "we must make up our minds."
+
+The missionary suddenly came out of his trance. He looked about him and
+sighed deeply.
+
+"Oh!" said he, "you! I was thinking over some means of getting down
+there."
+
+"I only see one," said Pierre. "The cliff goes sheer down. We shall
+have to use ropes, so I have ordered the guides to bring them here."
+
+"Will they be long enough? We know nothing of the height of this wall
+of rock."
+
+"Well," said Pierre, "I shall go on trying. We have at least two
+hundred and fifty yards of rope. If there is any need of it we could
+tie the lashings of the elephants' pack-saddles to that. That would
+give us another fifty yards. Say a total of three hundred...."
+
+"Yes," said the priest, "that is the best plan; but should we take the
+risk of doing it at night?"
+
+"I say yes," said Pierre. "In daylight we should be discovered
+immediately. Once we get down there we can wait for daylight in order
+to creep near the caves. In any case I will go first, alone."
+
+Father Ravennes gave a start.
+
+"Alone," said he, "what are you talking about? We will go together.
+Ngur and Pâa can watch over our descent and draw us up again in case of
+need."
+
+Pierre felt for the missionary's hand and grasped it in silence.
+
+"Don't thank me," said the priest, disengaging his fingers; and in a
+low voice he confessed with a sort of humility mixed with discomfort:
+
+"You do not know. My attitude during the last days must have seemed
+strange to you, very strange. Perhaps there is a good deal of
+selfishness in my devotion. I hope, however, that you will pardon me
+when ... but that will wait! For the moment understand this: nothing
+could make me give up exploring, with you or without you, the bottom of
+this fissure."
+
+He repeated in a louder voice:
+
+"Nothing ... nothing...."
+
+"Very well," said Pierre; "we will go down as soon as the guides get
+here."
+
+All that was necessary having been said, they were both silent.
+
+In the crevasse the seven lights continued to flicker, and, as the
+fog thickened about them it enveloped them with halos which minute by
+minute became larger and more livid....
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII
+
+                           A FREAK OF NATURE
+
+
+Letting down his legs cautiously, Pierre tried the ground. The level
+bare soil reassured him: he stood upright. Searching the night with his
+glance, he made a few steps before him at random, trying to explore his
+surroundings. He realized that he was on a narrow platform of rock;
+some thirty yards below he thought he could see the bottom of the
+fissure revealed by a dark patch made by a clump of trees. A gentle
+slope led down to it. Crouching down, the young man felt the ground
+in front of him and found it covered with grass, and here and there
+spotted with patches of lichen. He made a gesture of satisfaction: it
+would be possible to walk without making a noise.
+
+Undoing the rope which was round his body under the armpits, he
+returned to the foot of the rocky wall. He gave three quick jerks at
+equal intervals, the signal agreed upon, and an answer came to him in
+a few seconds: three answering jerks, which set the rope swinging, and
+while it was being slowly pulled up he leant his back against the wall
+of rock and waited.
+
+The minutes passed. Around him silence reigned; opposite him the fires
+continued to burn, but now in order to see them he had to raise his
+head, and he estimated at a guess that he must be sixty yards above
+the level of the bottom of the crevasse. He also tried to calculate
+the height of the rock walls by recalling approximately the time he
+had taken in reaching the bottom; but he had no exact idea of the rate
+of his descent so that he gave that up. Moreover, violent emotion was
+keeping his ideas in a whirl, and although he compelled himself to
+remain calm his heart, haunted continually by the image of Wanda, beat
+wildly with an irregular feverish rhythm. She was there in the heart
+of this rocky mass which contained the temple, and of which these
+winking lights certainly indicated the entrance. His hands clenched,
+a shivering fit ran through him. How was he going to find her? For he
+was now certain of seeing her again. Concerning that he had no doubt
+whatever. This certainty had come to him suddenly, and took possession
+of him as an article of faith or an instinct which dominated him and
+concerning which there could be no argument. He was going to see her
+again! soon ... tomorrow ... in a few days perhaps, what would it
+matter! He would have again before him her subtle face, her luminous
+and tender eyes, her long pale hands and her warm lips, all of those
+lineaments, the exact image of which he treasured in the recesses of
+his memory.
+
+A scraping above his head made him raise his eyes. He drove away the
+thought-phantom and called softly:
+
+"Ravennes!"
+
+The missionary's voice, discreetly muffled, came down to him:
+
+"Here I am.... But what an oven! I can't see a yard in front of me...."
+
+Pierre raised his arms and found the legs of the missionary.
+
+"Let yourself go ... there ... that's right ... you're there."
+
+Getting rid of the ropes which surrounded him, the priest whispered:
+
+"Ouf! I thought I should never get here. Do you know how much rope is
+left unused up there? Less than thirty yards including the binding
+ropes of the elephants' pack-saddles. Two hundred and sixty yards of
+perpendicular depth. You were not very far out in your calculations."
+
+A kind of deep joy seemed to animate him. His voice was full of
+restrained vibration. He drew himself up to his full height. Pierre
+heard his joints crack; he asked:
+
+"You have left instructions with Ngur and Pâa?"
+
+"Yes," said the missionary, "they are to pull up the rope as soon as
+I have given them the signal. There, that's done! Their orders are
+to remain continually on the edge of the cliff and wait for us. At a
+single revolver shot they are to send down the rope: at the second shot
+they are to haul it up. The mahouts will help them. That is for the
+day-time, but all night, and every night, the rope is to be left down.
+Three pulls is a signal that they are to haul up, two pulls, they are
+to send down provisions. This is to go on for fifteen days. If between
+now and then they have no news of us they are to return to the Post.
+They understood thoroughly, and on this point we can remain perfectly
+at ease. Anything new on your side?"
+
+"Nothing," said Pierre. "The bottom of the crevasse lies at the foot of
+this short descent. Do you see that clump of trees, there, opposite? I
+think that the best thing we could do would be to make for it and wait
+for the day there."
+
+The missionary peered into the darkness.
+
+"Yes, I am beginning to see a little better ... your advice seems
+excellent, let us follow it at once: the dawn will not be long in
+breaking."
+
+With his hand he brushed the rocky wall.
+
+"Good," said he, "the rope is no longer here. They have begun to pull
+it up. Let us start."
+
+Slowly trying out the ground with every step they made their way down
+towards the bottom of the ravine. The wet grass wound round their legs
+and made them stumble. The ground sloped gently, regularly, without
+obstacles. The thick silence was broken by no creaking of insects, no
+rustling of leaves, the air was motionless, heavy and stagnant.
+
+They reached the threshold of the wood and made their way in. The
+darkness became even thicker around them: between the black trunks was
+a mass of tangled bushes, making a double layer of vegetation: on the
+top the trees with their bushy crowns forming a dome, and below, the
+compact undergrowth--a tangle of bushes, interlacing creepers and giant
+tree-ferns.
+
+They advanced with the greatest difficulty, climbing between the bushes
+until their faces and their hands were scarred with scratches and the
+sweat rolled down them, often mingled with their blood. They took turns
+in carrying the bag which contained the three days' provisions which
+they had brought down with them from the plateau. From time to time,
+Pierre stopped and raised his head looking for the lights in the caves.
+And suddenly, as for perhaps the tenth time he searched, he saw them
+before him on the right. They had reached the west angle of the wood.
+
+They stopped there for a considerable time, panting, unable to think,
+simply exhausted with the efforts that they had made.
+
+In front of the thicket, and extending from the wood proper, some
+scattered shrubs pushed out. Their shadows made dark patches on the
+surface of a swamp, the fog arising from which prevented Lursac and
+Father Ravennes from seeing how far it stretched. They could see
+nothing whatever of the rest of their surroundings. The fog buried
+everything and stretched around the two men a pallid veil only pierced
+by the seven fires on the cliff. A faint sweet scent floated in the air.
+
+Father Ravennes, seated by Pierre, fingered the trunk of a tree. He
+pulled off strips of bark and murmuring to himself turned them about
+and about. Pierre caught fragments of phrases.
+
+"Strange!... I should have said it was the smell of the prickly Brazil
+tree ... hard, compact tissue ... sugary taste...."
+
+Pierre saw him searching the ground around him.
+
+"Flat seed pods, oblong, spongy, four seeds.... It certainly is ...
+the Brazil tree ... in the middle of the Moï country! But then? But
+then?..."
+
+He had got up, a prey to violent agitation.
+
+"What is it?" said Pierre. "What is the matter?"
+
+The question of the young man seemed to pacify him suddenly. He sat
+down again.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "I have just made a most astounding discovery: a tree
+essentially characteristic of the Brazilian flora, here, in Indo-China!
+Admit that there is something to be surprised about in that...."
+
+Pierre, with his eyes passionately fixed on the lights of the cliff,
+remained indifferent to this botanical problem. His thoughts, circling
+about the caves, awoke in him contradictory and confused ideas, and he
+answered absent-mindedly:
+
+"Truly remarkable!"
+
+But the vague and careless voice showed no curiosity. Falling back into
+their silence they resumed their watch. The damp enwrapped them and
+made them shiver from time to time. The fatigue, stillness and silence
+weighed heavily upon them. A torpor stole upon them and overcame them.
+They slept heavily.
+
+A shrill cry brought them to their feet at a bound facing each other.
+Some time had passed.... Some time ... minutes or hours? They did not
+know.
+
+"Did you hear?" asked Pierre.
+
+"Yes," said the priest, "it seemed to me...."
+
+They took a few steps and listened. The silence was unbroken....
+Looking about them they began to distinguish the details of the valley,
+above which now floated the dawn.
+
+The light, clearer each minute, sucked up the fog and dissolved it,
+and the surroundings little by little stood revealed. Immediately in
+front of them the swamp stretched with its dead waters, its muddy
+banks marked out with giant grasses. It appeared large and triangular
+in shape, with its sharpest angle pointing towards the wood. Beyond,
+rising from the mist the whole depth of the ravine lay visible. Lursac
+and the missionary looked at it eagerly. It was very long, longer than
+they had believed. The wood in which they were, extended on their
+right and joined itself to the edge of a forest of which the dark
+solidly-packed frondage, filling the entire width of the valley, ran up
+against the cliffs on both sides and lost itself in the distance. On
+the left of the marsh spread a great grassy plain, seven or eight miles
+in length, dotted with thick copses and bristling with rocky masses:
+beyond it, a second forest stretched towards the south, strangled
+between the walls of the ravine, which there drew closer together until
+its further end was lost to sight beyond a turn in the rock.
+
+The fog, drawn up by the sun, grew thinner and thinner, and the
+cliffs, revealed in their full height, were gradually clothed in the
+glory of the warm and luminous morning. Straight and sheer they fell
+perpendicularly into the valley, shutting it round with enormous
+unscalable walls. A little to the right of the marsh, about two hundred
+and fifty yards from the threshold of the first forest, the caves cut
+dark mouths in the rock. Pierre counted seven of them, grouped on the
+same level, close together. They were all dug in the face of the rock
+about fifty yards above the ground, with a gentle grass-covered slope
+leading up to them.
+
+With his face stretched forward, and his eyes fixed eagerly on the
+cliff, the priest began to talk to himself.
+
+"Yes, it's certainly that: Gneiss! ... a solid fragment of a
+prehistoric mountain-chain ... a whole block of the land of
+Gondwana.... Hairy elephants ... my tree of last night.... _Elephas
+primigenius_.... Brazilian tree...."
+
+He followed Pierre, who had begun to go forward. While advancing, the
+young man explained:
+
+"We will reach the forest and work along the edge of it. Taking
+advantage of the cover of the trees, we shall be able, without showing
+ourselves, to get near the caves and establish ourselves in their
+neighborhood to keep watch over them."
+
+The missionary mechanically acquiesced.
+
+"Yes, yes, excellent!"
+
+But he was not listening. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he pulled
+feverishly at his beard.
+
+"I know that I am not mistaken.... I know it.... Intuition stronger
+than reason tells me so. The truth is there, however extraordinary it
+may be."
+
+They had reached the forest. The undergrowth being too scattered to
+hide them made it necessary for them to make their way well into it
+in order to seek the obscurity of its recesses. And as they pushed
+forward, the trees, at first slender, became larger and taller, and
+finally enormous, with an entirely changed appearance. The usual
+vegetation of the Moï country became rarer, altered in appearance and
+soon an entirely new flora, unknown to Pierre, took its place--an
+unfamiliar, astounding flora.
+
+Stammering like a drunken man, Father Revenues named the different
+species as he recognized them, and with each one his agitation
+increased. He seemed to be struggling against some sort of internal
+excitement, and his face reflected a mixture of feelings--joy, terror
+and doubt.
+
+"There ... yes: this enormous bulk of which the rust-covered trunk is
+perhaps fifty yards round and whose roots spread out over the soil.--Do
+you know what that is? No? A baobab!... Do you hear, Lursac! A baobab!
+The _Adamsonia digitata_ of the Soudan, of Darfour and of the Congo;
+the tree of such long life that it requires from six to ten thousand
+years to attain its full growth! And there ... there, on the right,
+that other giant, a mammoth among trees, a _Wellingtonia gigantea_, an
+extinct species which is preserved only in California on the Sierra
+Nevada where Lobb discovered them quite recently. This one is at least
+from four to five thousand years old ... and then look again further
+along. Yes, that one that looks like a palm tree with all its branches
+terminating in bunches of fleshy leaves stretched up towards the sky: a
+_Dracæna draco_ of the Canary Islands, a dragon tree, a more beautiful
+one and huger even than the specimen at Orotava, celebrated as that is
+for its size and its age: seven to eight thousand years!... Here again
+this shrub, an Australian _Banksia_!..."
+
+He had caught Pierre by the arm, and was shaking him as he dragged him
+from one tree to another. He trembled, patting the wrinkled trunks and
+caressing them: the excitement which was stirring his whole being broke
+out in jumbled words, in short confused and unfinished phrases. He
+jumped from one idea to another in a whirl of excitement.
+
+"Well, what have you got to say about it? Astounding, isn't it? Here
+in the middle of Indo-China, in the Moï country, at the bottom of this
+ravine, gathered side by side, not as fossils but alive, thoroughly
+alive ... specimens of Brazilian flora, trees of Africa, of America,
+of Australia and even of the Canary Islands! ... growing together as
+they did formerly ... as they did forty or fifty thousand years ago and
+perhaps very much earlier[15] when the remains of the great equatorial
+continent of Gondwana were still in being and the Brazilian-African
+plateau united in a single mass Central America, Africa, India, Arabia,
+Indo-China and Australia ... there is the _only_ explanation!... The
+explanation which several days ago I foresaw and had to face."
+
+[Footnote 15: Father Ravennes was considerably out in his estimate.
+The continent of Gondwana of which he spoke dates from the first part
+of the secondary era in which the great Hercynian upheaval took place.
+The discovery of radium has given us a method of establishing the
+distance of that era from our time as about four million years. If we
+admit then that the Gondwana ravine discovered by Lursac and Ravennes
+only dated from the end of the secondary era it would be separated from
+the present day by the entire tertiary era and the beginning of the
+quaternary era in which we now are. According to the calculations of
+Dana, of Lord Kelvin and of Edmond Perrier, the tertiary era and what
+has elapsed of the quaternary make a total of at least one million five
+hundred thousand years.]
+
+Violently he dug his heel into the ground.
+
+"And now it forces itself upon us, bewilderingly, blindingly! However
+fantastic that may seem, this ground that we are standing on is the
+same--yes, the very same--as that which in the great geographical
+periods of the globe cradled the germs of life. We are mounting to
+the first ages of the world ... we are living backwards ... a great
+fragment of the past has risen before us, uncovering for us the first
+hours of Genesis!"
+
+Pierre listened to him with bewilderment.
+
+"The ancient strata of the secondary era," continued the missionary,
+"pushed aside by the Hercynian movement, and then later by the
+Alp-Himalayan upheaval, broke up and disappeared; but a vertical crack
+must have been produced here which the upheavals of succeeding times
+have left untouched, while around it the great secular changes have
+worn down mountain summits, parted continents, and dug the seas. This
+cleft in the rocks, preserved by I know not what mysterious destiny,
+has remained intact and been preserved unchanged!..."
+
+He remained where he stood, turning round and round and stamping on the
+ground. Pierre took him by the arm and drew him aside.
+
+"Come on," said he. "We have no time to lose if we want to reach the
+neighborhood of the caves before night."
+
+The missionary followed him with docility. They continued their
+advance. The heat increased and became overwhelming. About midday
+they halted and hurriedly ate a few biscuits, resuming their journey
+immediately. They walked side by side without a word and finally it was
+Pierre who, after a long while, first broke the silence:
+
+"Are you quite sure of that?" he asked.
+
+The priest showed no surprise. He understood that the same thoughts
+were working in Pierre as in himself.
+
+"Well," he confined himself to saying, "you have seen as much as I
+have!"
+
+But as the young man made a vague gesture he immediately said:
+
+"I know, I know.... Someone may have planted them, or at least have
+brought the seeds here. That is your idea!... You see that has already
+suggested itself to me. I thought of that at once when I found the
+Brazil tree ... as for that ... it was possible ... but for these
+others, the age of which varies from six to ten thousand years? The
+others! The baobabs ... the dragon-trees ... what does that lead to?...
+Who could have worked to make a sort of botanical garden in this
+out-of-the-way corner, a kind of forcing-bed for the flora of five
+continents? No, we are actually on the very land of Gondwana, on the
+ancient secondary soil."
+
+A shudder shook him: his eyes flashed.
+
+"And I am thinking," said he eagerly, "about the beings who have
+certainly lived here, of the monstrous reptiles and the prodigious
+birds that came from it, of the huge mammals and of all the crowd of
+gigantic beasts which today have disappeared!"
+
+He gave a peculiar smile and continued immediately:
+
+"Disappeared?... Not all of them! ... the invisible herd on the banks
+of the creek which prowled round our camp on the evening of our first
+arrival, that herd, one of the members of which Ngur described to me as
+an elephant with long hair and a mane, was nothing else than a herd of
+mammoths!"
+
+A cry of stupefaction escaped from the young man:
+
+"Living mammoths? You are crazy!"
+
+The priest did not flinch. Quite calmly he assented.
+
+"That's exactly what I said to myself when the thought came to me the
+first time with a shock.... I did not want to believe it.... I took
+it for granted that there must be a race of elephants as yet unknown.
+Then other ideas came to me which had already been rising obscurely at
+the back of my brain, other ideas which my successive discoveries have
+clarified and confirmed...."
+
+"Other ideas?" said Pierre. "What ones?"
+
+The missionary gave him a long look. He hesitated; then shook his head
+in token of refusal.
+
+"No, don't ask me! In two cases already you have questioned me and
+each time I have asked you to wait: this will be the last time. Have
+patience yet for a few hours. I do not want to speak before being
+certain of what I say. I don't mind your believing me crazy! To change
+the subject, here we are at the end of the forest, and the further
+cliffs are before us. We have therefore crossed the entire width of the
+ravine. Now the question is to get near the caves."
+
+Pierre turned about. Before them, running along almost at the foot
+of the cliff a hollow way under the trees stretched in a southerly
+direction. They turned and followed it. It wandered about, making sharp
+curves, going round swampy spots and avoiding rocky masses overgrown
+and buried in vegetation. Little by little the trees began to get
+smaller and shorter and thinned out. The path broadened and finally
+came to an end in an open circle surrounded by trees. Between the slim
+trunks they could see that the day was beginning to fade.
+
+The two men hurried on. The tree-trunks became fewer and more
+scattered; masses of bushes succeeded to them. Gliding between these,
+Lursac and Father Ravennes came out opposite the left bank of the
+swamp. The failing light threw a mantle of softness over the valley,
+above which the clouds and mists stretched to the level plateau
+forming, as it were, a fleecy and delicate tent. The scene which they
+had observed at dawn they now saw from another angle. The marsh was not
+as big as they had thought it. Between it and the cliff in which the
+caves were a grassy way stretched as far as the plain: beyond that the
+second forest stood in a compact mass. Looking back, Pierre saw on his
+left the edge of the wood which they had quit some hours earlier. At
+the same time he made out the cliff down which they had come.
+
+A hoarse cry suddenly forced itself from his throat.
+
+"The scream ... the scream this morning!" He pointed out the wall of
+rock against which, halfway up, two corpses attached to a rope, _their_
+rope doubtless, were hanging.
+
+The missionary looked back swiftly and his face seemed to shrivel, it
+went white and his lips trembled.
+
+"Ngur and Pâa," he murmured almost in a whisper.
+
+The breeze, forerunner of the evening dusk, began to blow, making the
+trees rustle; while against the gray rock wall the naked bodies of the
+two guides swung gently. Above them on the edge of the plateau three
+elephants of gigantic proportions were walking in file; and against the
+mauve background of the sky their hairy bulk and their curved tusks
+showed up with extraordinary distinctness.
+
+The missionary stretched his hand towards them.
+
+"Mammoths!" said he, in a voice strangely calm.
+
+But Pierre saw his hand tremble.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                         BACK IN THE STONE AGE
+
+
+Lursac, the first to turn away his head, touched Father Ravennes' arm.
+
+"We no longer have any choice," he said. "If we wish to get out of here
+we shall have to find our way up to the temple, or at any rate climb
+one of the cliffs."
+
+The missionary reluctantly turning from his contemplation of the
+mammoths shook his head.
+
+"No," said he, "they are all smooth and absolutely unscalable."
+
+"Then it remains to discover this entrance."
+
+"I have thought of that," said the priest, "but...."
+
+"But?" questioned Pierre.
+
+"What can we hope from that?... Think of it, Lursac, we are two and
+they, up there in the temple...."
+
+The young man shrugged his shoulders with restrained impatience:
+
+"Have you another plan to propose to me?" he broke in.
+
+And as the missionary shook his head, he went on bitterly:
+
+"And in any case that's the only chance that we have of finding Wanda,
+perhaps of saving her...."
+
+He looked at the priest and repeated still more forcibly:
+
+"We must find the entrance to the temple and manage to get in somehow.
+After that, it is in the hands of God!"
+
+The missionary saw him make a gesture which spoke of both resolution
+and despair.
+
+"So be it!" said he. "According to the directions of Hmon, the
+sanctuary faced towards the Post, and consequently to the south. As we
+have come on it from behind, it is there, towards the south, that we
+shall find it."
+
+He stretched his hand in front of him towards the extremity of the
+ravine which an angle in one of the cliffs prevented them from seeing.
+
+"And what about the caves?" asked Pierre, surprised, "I thought--as you
+did for the matter of that...."
+
+"No," said the priest, "no, I have come to a different conclusion since
+then...."
+
+He hesitated, and his voice took on a peculiar intonation while he
+added:
+
+"The caverns are used for ... something else ... at least I think
+so.... Look!"
+
+Together they raised their heads in the direction of the dark openings.
+They were not now more than a hundred yards from them and they could
+distinguish details clearly.
+
+The darkness which was gathering prevented their seeing into the
+interiors, but each of the caves had in front of it a platform with
+a gentle grassy slope leading down to the valley. The mouths of the
+caves, cut roughly and irregularly into the rock, remained empty and no
+sound or sign of life gave token that they were inhabited.
+
+Slowly the dusk fell. Little by little the surroundings lost their
+distinctness: the ceiling of fog began to flow downward between the
+cliffs, while above the two forests at each end of the great depression
+and over the surface of the swamp a fine mist floated and spread. From
+the opposite end of the valley a confused murmuring arose. Astonished,
+the missionary looked across the marsh and searched the plain. By
+turns, visible and disappearing among the clumps of trees, he could see
+a brown spot. At the same time the noise which had surprised him became
+more distinct. It was a heavy beating of the ground like a hurried
+stamping of a herd in flight. He touched Pierre's arm. Both of them
+gazed eagerly. The spot grew larger, came nearer, and disappeared into
+a streak of fog and reappeared suddenly at the corner of a copse.
+
+"Buffaloes!" whispered Pierre.
+
+The missionary made no answer.
+
+The herd was hurrying across the plain. Following the bank of the marsh
+opposite which it had debouched from the wood, it gained the grassy
+runway, spread along the bottom of the cliff and passed in front of the
+caves. The hammering hoofs mingled in a frenzied rush. The troop of
+over two hundred beasts tore along with their heads lowered, and the
+tall grasses mowed down by their weight were torn apart and trodden
+into the ground. The herd was rushing straight for the forest in which
+the two men were hiding. Now the animals could be seen with clearness
+and the priest shot a glance at Pierre as he corrected him:
+
+"Buffaloes? No,--aurochs!"
+
+The beasts galloping side by side in thick ranks formed a single brown
+mass. Leading the herd, a great male bounded along, holding his horns
+high and bellowing furiously. He passed in front of Lursac and the
+missionary, bearing away slightly to the right. His left haunch was
+bleeding; three arrows were sticking up to the heads in his tawny hide;
+in his withers, swinging at every bound, they could see the handle of
+a great axe sticking out. In a second he was buried in the shadows of
+the forest, and behind him with the rush of an avalanche the entire
+herd swept under the trees breaking down the bushes, tearing the
+thickets apart and smashing everything in their way. In another minute
+the thunder of their flight, mixed with bellowings, was separated from
+the observers by a screen of leaves and gradually faded away into the
+distance leaving silence behind it.
+
+Father Ravennes recalled to his mind the great male who had charged
+galloping at the head of the herd, his vast size, his long legs, the
+crinkled hair of his head and neck, his great wicked-looking muzzle,
+his low-lying horns.
+
+"Yes, ..." said he, "aurochs! The giant bulls of the quaternary epoch,
+of which the entire species is now extinct...."
+
+"Ah!" said Pierre, "the hunters! What of the hunters! You saw the
+arrows, the axe?..."
+
+The missionary gave him a quick look and turned round towards the
+plains.
+
+"The hunters?" said he. "Well, look, there they are!"
+
+Sudden emotion seemed to overcome him, his features were strained into
+an expression of intense expectation.
+
+In his turn, Pierre turned to look.
+
+At first he only saw a number of small dark specks, scarcely visible,
+which moved at the end of the valley and gradually came closer until
+they formed a single group which moved towards the marsh. Following the
+passage torn by the herd of aurochs a few moments before, they came
+along slowly and still without any regular formation. They reached
+the swamp and followed along the bank. The mist which floated on the
+waters prevented the watchers from seeing them clearly. They finally
+arrived at the entrance of the grassy runway and Pierre began to be
+able to see them better. There were about forty of them, divided in
+three groups following close after one another. First of all, alone,
+walking with great steps, was a Man. It was upon him that Lursac and
+the missionary's attention became concentrated.
+
+Night was falling; a dusk of luminous mauve enwrapped the scene,
+flinging over everything a veil of indefiniteness and beauty. The
+entire plain, with its forests sunk in the shadows of the distance,
+with its gray walls and it green grasses and the silvery surface of
+its swampy lake, gave the impression of a picture harmoniously and
+cunningly put together by some classic artist.
+
+On the background of this sylvan scene the Man advanced. Soon he was
+within three hundred yards of them, ... two hundred. His outline,
+an outline of strength, tall and vigorous, became larger and more
+distinct. Certain details standing out little by little from the
+vagueness caught the attention. First of all his raiment; a simple
+animal skin with long brown fur, shaped like a chasuble, which fell
+down to the middle of his thighs and was bound to him by a cord; then
+his weapons--a heavy club which he balanced on his bare arm, a lance on
+which he leant now and again with his left hand.
+
+The hunter was by this time at the foot of the caves scarcely one
+hundred yards away from the missionary and Lursac. They saw him in
+profile. He had stopped, apparently waiting for the rest of the troop
+to come up. He lifted his arm and made a sign, and his call mounted in
+the silence:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... êp ... iê ... ê ... êp._"
+
+He turned slowly, and his face became visible; red-skinned, crude,
+large and low-browed, with high cheek bones and eyes deeply set--a face
+simple and uncivilized with something savage and yet sweet in it at
+the same time, a fierce and powerful face, framed in long reddish hair
+falling to the shoulders....
+
+The missionary seized the young man by the arm, gripping him with
+almost painful violence:
+
+"The quaternary man ... the ancestor of the human race. The man of
+Cro-Magnon and of Mentone ... alive! ... alive!..."
+
+He trembled; his voice, hardly understandable, seemed to scrape his
+throat painfully. He gave the young man no time to give vent to his
+astonishment; he went on:
+
+"Yes ... you heard correctly.... I am not drunk! ... this is not a
+nightmare.... The Red Gods: a clan of prehistoric men who continue to
+lead here in this deep recess which walls them in from the rest of the
+world the same life that they have lived for thirty thousand years,
+and everything is explained. The mystery with which the sorceresses
+envelop this region, the death with which they strike those who wish
+to penetrate it, the flint arms which bestrew the entire district, the
+legend of the Living Gods, everything! ... everything!..."
+
+"But," said Pierre.
+
+"I am sure of it ... sure of it ... I suspected it long ago. The whole
+thing, tangled and obscure, has been turning over and over in my mind
+for some time. When I heard Hmon pronounce those words: the Red
+Gods ... the Red Ones,[16] that is to say the earliest ... yes ... at
+that moment I began to.... However, I was doubtful. It appeared to
+me so fantastic that I did not, could not believe it. I looked for
+some other explanation. But now the truth is standing there before
+me. However incredible it is, I cannot disbelieve it. You have seen
+the face of the Man. He belongs to no existing race. His appearance
+is neither that of a Moï, a Chinese, a Lao-ese nor yet of a European.
+These features are those of the primitive Mongoloids, of the primeval
+ancestors of the human race."
+
+[Footnote 16: Father Ravennes was here making allusion to the
+traditions of antiquity which are all agreed on the existence of a
+prehistoric race called the Red Race which must have been the first
+human race. This Red Race was that of the masters, the Gods. The
+Egyptian bas-reliefs show (writes M. Michel Manzi in a remarkable
+scientific work) that there were then four races, the red, the
+yellow, the black and the white. In India the famous Rutas who are
+traditionally supposed to have brought civilization to the world are
+represented as red men. All the most ancient peoples, the Iberians,
+Basques, Chaldeans, etc., claimed to have been of this color and to be
+descended from the sons of Ad the first man, the Red. The word Adam
+indeed means Red Man.... The Arabs also claim descent from the sons of
+Ad, the great antediluvian race, the race of giants who erected vast
+buildings of hewn stone.]
+
+An immense joy had taken possession of the soul of the scientist. He
+raised his head proudly, his voice filled out with sonorous resonance.
+
+"This extraordinary thing _we_ have been the first to see. It is we,
+Lursac, _we_ who have made this astounding discovery. All the old
+disputes of the schools, all the theories about which the seeker and
+scientist argue, the great problem of the origin of humanity--we have
+found their solution! We!... We!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile the tribe had begun the ascent of the slope leading to the
+caves. The hunter with the club walked at their head. Behind him
+came eight men carrying on their shoulders a litter made of leaves
+and branches. On it lay the body of an animal. Of its monstrous bulk
+nothing could be seen but one of its enormous black hairy paws which
+hung over the side of the improvised stretcher and swayed gently with
+the motion of its carriers.
+
+Then in a compact group the other hunters followed slowly. The sound
+of their voices could be heard, now and again dominated by a high
+guttural note. They were all armed with lance and pointed axe, and
+all alike clad in dark reddish furs. Their faces all showed the same
+characteristic features, and were framed by the same long red hair
+which fell round their shoulders in bright tawny locks.
+
+Although they were of a stature well above the normal, they seemed less
+finely built and less harmoniously developed in every way than the Man
+who walked at their head and was evidently their chief. At a sign from
+him they stopped.
+
+With his face turned towards the cave's opening, about fifty yards
+ahead of him, the hunter once again emitted his hoarse cry:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... êp._..."
+
+And after him the men took up the call and sent it ringing across the
+valley. For a moment they all stood motionless, faces turned towards
+the platforms of the caves. Already the night was stealing along the
+cliffs. The dark mouth of the caverns became indistinct and only the
+narrow platforms which stood in front of them still caught a little
+light from the bluish dusk.
+
+There was silence. Then other voices thinner and less strong, worn
+voices of old men, clear high voices of women and children sounded
+through the valley:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... êp._..."
+
+Dark forms swarming out of the caves ran on to the platforms and leaned
+over. A few of them separated from the mass and began to descend to
+meet the men. A last ray of light shone slanting on the little hill.
+The troop of men had resumed their march. The darkness thickened, their
+silhouettes became indistinct. On the shoulder of the hill the ray of
+light narrowed and retreated. The chief of the clan first, and after
+him the body of the hunters, reached it and passed through it, and
+their slow procession crossing through the pencil of pale gold again
+went into the darkness; while before the caverns the fires, lighting up
+one by one, pierced the obscurity with their seven-fold spears of red
+light.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+                          OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE
+
+
+The two white men were overcome with a feeling of stupefaction.
+
+The night, bitter cold, descended upon them and chilled their bodies,
+but they did not feel the bite of the cold: they could think of nothing
+but watching. Settled on the platforms the tribe was taking its
+evening meal. Before the fire silhouettes were ranged like phantoms,
+and their shadows, grotesquely exaggerated, were flung against the
+rock, where they jerked about and disappeared suddenly with enormous
+gestures and fantastic distortions. A smell of roasting flesh floated
+down the valley in thick waves. Now and again a body, elongated by the
+flickering light of the fires, appeared momentarily, and the brown fur
+with which he was clothed shone out for a second with a bizarre effect.
+The hunters were grouped round the fires in bands of six; some women,
+a dozen or so of children and some old men joined them. Behind them
+yawned the caverns. From time to time could be heard the crackling of
+a stick in the fires or the snapping of a bone under the blows of a
+hatchet.
+
+When the meal was over the feasters gave themselves up to a period
+of relaxation. The tribe, gorged with food and stupefied by the heat
+of the fires, lay lounging about the platforms. Men's voices, rough
+and monotonous, rose and fell. They spoke little, accompanying their
+short phrases with gestures and signs. Here and there a laugh rang
+out and echoed in crude and guttural tones against the cliff. In a
+corner of the nearest platform near the opening of the cave the skin
+of the beast, the flesh of which had provided the feast, was drying,
+stretched out on four stakes with its head hanging down. In the clear
+light of the fires it stood out distinctly. The missionary examined
+with profound interest the enormous black hairy pelt. The massive skull
+surmounted by a rounded forehead accentuated by two great lumps, the
+gaping muzzle with its formidable teeth left no doubt in his mind.
+
+"_Ursus spelæus_--the cave bear," he whispered, "the usual prey of
+primitive man, and the one of which most bones have been found in the
+caves of Aurignac, of Sainte-Reine, of Fontaine, of Moutier and of
+Lhern.
+
+The old men, the women and children, now rising, went back into their
+caverns. A youngster, before disappearing, stopped for a moment in
+front of the skin and amused himself by banging the heavy muzzle with
+slaps of his open hand. The enormous snout thus put into motion began
+to swing backwards and forwards, while at each stroke a drop of blood
+fell, which the child caught in mid-air in the palm of his hand and
+licked up.
+
+A sharp command sounded from the group of men, and the youngster
+stopped his game, hastened into the cave and was lost to sight.
+
+Left alone, the hunters spread round the fires prolonged their session.
+From time to time one of them would rise, draw his powerful body erect
+and give a long stretch, then sitting down once more would stretch his
+hands towards the flame. Others worked: a round stone in their heavy
+hands, and another piece of stone between their knees, they shaped the
+flint by little precise, minute blows, at which, sparking, the chips
+flew up and scattered around the workman. Now and again, neglecting
+their task for a minute, they lifted their heads and looked down into
+the bottom of the ravine. At such moments their faces, lit up with the
+red gleams of the fires, revealed themselves as primitive and violent.
+
+Two hours passed thus; then as the fog became denser they shook
+themselves one by one and disappeared into their caves.
+
+The empty platforms suddenly seemed larger: the fires, piled up for the
+night, shot their lights higher and further before the caverns: their
+circles of purple light were the only things left to watch throughout
+the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They waited another hour, then Lursac, turning towards the priest, said:
+
+"They must be asleep now ... let us go on."
+
+They began to move forward cautiously, and stole along the foot of
+the cliff. Keeping under cover of the shadows at its base they passed
+quickly in front of the caves and gained the shelter of the grassy
+passage. They worked in the direction of the plain and the further
+forest: the grasses among which they slowly forced their way came up to
+their waists and their clothes were soon nothing but wet, cold sheaths
+bound tight against their bodies.
+
+At last they reached the plain, and the going became easier and faster.
+When they turned their heads from time to time they could see behind
+them like a long silvered plaque, each time a little smaller and less
+distinct, the motionless surface of the marsh, and on the left, high
+up, the seven fires marking the entrance to the caverns. In front of
+them the threshold of the wood towards which they were moving became
+clearer every moment, and between the cliffs which were beginning to
+close in towards each other the darkness seemed denser and denser.
+
+Pierre walked ahead. With an instinctive motion, thinking of the skin
+of the cave-bear killed by the clan, he loosened his revolver in its
+holster and pulled it out when they found themselves among the first
+trees of the forest. However, this second forest proved to be less
+dense than the one which they had crossed in the morning, and it was
+seamed with long tracks, narrow paths it is true, but quite possible
+to follow. One of them bearing somewhat to the right followed close
+to the base of the cliff. This one they took. As near as they were
+able to make it out, it ran in a southerly direction following closely
+the very juts and hollows of the cliff. They followed it for a long
+time. Occasionally the flight of some invisible animal, an unknown
+roaring, or a cry which they did not recognize made them stop. At other
+times the bushes thrust apart by the passage of some animal that they
+could not see crashed together loudly, the noise being magnified by
+the stillness of the night, and they stood rooted to the spot until
+the noises ceased. The alarm past, they pursued their way. Fatigue,
+however, began to weigh on their limbs and to cloud their minds. As
+they walked their motions became no more than a succession of automatic
+movements. The dark, however, now became less opaque and a diffused
+light began to flow between the leaves. Raising their heads in the
+middle of a clearing, they saw above them, bound in a watery halo, a
+dull reddish moon swimming in the sky. A few minutes afterwards they
+stopped. The forest had come to an end. Between it and the extremity of
+the ravine a belt of ground studded with low bushes sloped gradually
+upward and terminated in a dark line which seemed to be that of a
+foundation wall, above which, rising to about half the height of the
+cliffs against which their irregular mass was silhouetted, buildings
+arose. Against the grayish sky, roofs could be seen in profile, and
+springing above them, still higher and more clearly visible, the
+pointed shadows of four towers in a circle.
+
+"The temple!" whispered Pierre.
+
+Without making any answer the priest continued his advance. Gliding
+from bush to bush they made their way up towards the buildings and
+reached a sort of long, narrow platform. Before them in the solid
+shadow stretched a heaped-up mass of rocks.
+
+Father Ravennes looked up; the roofs seemed far above him.
+
+"Let us rest till daylight," he advised, sitting down.
+
+Pierre assented. An immense fatigue gnawed at his powers of endurance.
+His arms and legs were stiff with strain and his heavy lids weighed
+upon his eyes. He flung himself down on the ground and stretched out
+alongside of the missionary.
+
+For a moment his mind remained sentient and he began to make plans and
+to consider chances for the rescue of Wanda.
+
+The temple, swathed in darkness, seemed deserted. There was no noise,
+no light. The moon, covered with a blanket of clouds, disappeared, and
+suddenly the darkness became thicker yet.
+
+The cry of an owl somewhere in the direction of the forest rang through
+the night, and from the sallow down-bearing sky a cold mist floated.
+
+Overpowered by exhaustion, Pierre fell asleep. The priest bent over
+him. Twisted in an uncomfortable position, his face creased with
+nervous lines, the young man began talking out loud in his sleep,
+and his incoherent words as well as his panting breath revealed
+the nightmare from which he was suffering. In his fevered brain
+recollections, images drawn from the depths of his memory--his arrival
+at the Post, the course of the expedition--were mixed with visions
+called up by Father Ravennes: the continent of Gondwana and its
+vanished fauna; its prehistoric inhabitants; giant trees of Africa,
+Australia, America; the aurochs; the death of Ngur and Pâa, fantastic
+silhouettes of the temple; the sorceresses; Jieng, the mammoths--were
+all tangled together to form a grotesque and disordered circle turning
+about one clear central figure that dominated them, that of Wanda.
+
+The missionary, perceiving how he suffered, thought of waking him; but
+he shook his head:
+
+"What is the good?" he murmured. "There is nothing to do now but to
+have patience; and however tormented his sleep is, it will at any rate
+enable him to gather a little strength!"
+
+Thoughtfully he watched the sombre mass of the buildings stretching
+upwards in the darkness. The cold made him shiver, so he got up and
+walked a while along the platform. Then he came back to his place by
+Lursac, and sitting with his back against a rock he took his rosary and
+slowly began to recite the prayers.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX
+
+                           INSIDE THE TEMPLE
+
+
+The dawn awoke Pierre with a start. He shivered and looked round him
+with an empty stare. Then, memory coming back to him suddenly, he got
+up and his eyes sought Father Ravennes but did not find him.
+
+Beginning to be uneasy he called out:
+
+"Ravennes!"
+
+"Here.... Come to me."
+
+Turning his head in the direction of the voice he saw the priest
+who, hidden between two lumps of rock some twenty yards to the left,
+was beckoning to him. Rapidly the young man crawled to his side and
+crouched down next to him.
+
+The missionary explained:
+
+"We are at the very base of the temple. Turn slightly to the right ...
+yes, there it is.... As an observation post we could not have thought
+of anything better than this. Now be silent and let us watch...."
+
+Pierre asked:
+
+"Nothing has stirred?"
+
+"Nothing," said the missionary.
+
+Carefully lifting his head Pierre looked round the scene. Day was
+coming--a dull, unpleasant day, shrouded in a thick fog through which
+the light could only penetrate very slowly. As the mist rose, the end
+of the ravine revealed itself. First of all, the rocky mass on which
+the temple was built became visible. Enormous blocks of stone heaped
+together rose towards the sky and at each side reached the very walls
+of the fissure which they here filled entirely. The ravine at this
+point was no more than a gorge, three hundred yards across, deeply
+overshadowed by its vertical walls. Out of this chaotic pile of rock
+the foundations of the temple rose. They gripped and mixed themselves
+with the stone, completing its rugged outline, and carrying it upwards
+with the very same rough gray exterior, so that in places Lursac could
+not even distinguish where the rock ended and the building began.
+
+Gradually, as the mist lifted higher, the two men were able to perceive
+a dozen doors let into the stone at regular intervals in the foundation
+wall. The ensemble of the buildings, however, remained still invisible.
+For some little while longer they continued to be hidden; then a shaft
+of sunlight drove its way through the mist and splashed the cliff on
+the right with light. The mist drew away and the entire temple stood
+revealed before them little by little. First of all the four towers
+of unequal height, built up in tiers, and together resembling one of
+those slender tiaras worn by Cambodian and Siamese idols; then the
+long, irregular, clear line of the roofs, and finally the gigantic and
+wonderful façade, ornamented with porticoes, broken with chapels and
+pierced by innumerable windows all barred with rows of small columns.
+
+The voice of the priest trembled with emotion.
+
+"A Kmer temple," said he. "_The_ Temple ... purer in style and more
+magnificent than Angkor-Wat itself, and certainly more ancient!"
+
+He had stood up and was staring at the enormous building framed between
+the cliffs of the ravine:
+
+"One hundred and fifty yards high.... Prodigious!"
+
+Forgetful of the place and of the circumstances, remembering no longer
+their danger or the sorceresses or Wanda, he gave himself up to the
+pride of his discovery, to the admiration which overcame him. He almost
+laughed.
+
+"Yes.... _The_ Temple! The model, the jewel, the original which those
+that came after copied ... and that in the depths of the Lao-ese
+forest, among peoples as uncivilized and as primitive as the beasts!
+Well, then? Who undertook this gigantic and surpassing work.... Who ...
+and why _here_? I...."
+
+He was suddenly silent. Pierre, pushing him back, whispered in his ear:
+
+"Quiet! Be silent!..."
+
+The priest saw him point with his finger towards the forest, on the
+edge of which a human being had just become visible. He was strangely
+clothed in a brown fur which covered his shoulders and waved about his
+figure. On his head was set the muzzle of an ox surmounted with horns
+curved in the form of a lyre. The man, walking along the edge of the
+wood, reached the foot of the wall, then he crossed the narrow belt of
+ground and came to the rocks. Standing upright on one of them he raised
+his head towards the façade of the sanctuary.
+
+He was scarcely thirty yards from Lursac and Ravennes, and against the
+gray front of the temple his figure was silhouetted with precision. He
+was very tall, with astonishingly long legs, a narrow waist and large,
+strong shoulders. Turning towards the plain, he first of all watched
+the forest; then his glance slid along the cliff and came back to the
+buildings, ran over them rapidly and then fixed itself on one of the
+windows. He cried with a ringing, and surprisingly sweet, voice:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... iêp...._"
+
+Pierre and the missionary recognized him at the same moment: the hunter
+with the club, the chief who had marched at the head of the clan on
+their return from the hunt on the evening before.
+
+Suddenly he dashed forward and began to climb the stony blocks. He
+mounted towards the temple by supple and accurate leaps, bounding from
+one stone to the other and walking with long strides when the ground
+permitted it. Each one of his movements and of his attitudes gave a
+curious impression of strength and grace. He suggested one of those
+great animals of the cat tribe, fierce and full of vital strength at
+the same time: his powerful muscular body had the same sinuous movement
+combined with suddenness of action, the same sure and silent footfall.
+
+He was now at the very foot of the temple. In front of him stood the
+foundation, with its rugged wall broken by the line of doorways;
+further up, on a jutting balcony, was another row of doors, of which
+each one was flanked by a window barred with small columns.
+
+The Man looked at them carefully. He seemed to hesitate. Then deciding,
+he climbed the whole height of the foundation-wall. The irregularities
+of the stone which he gripped with his feet, his hands and his knees,
+were worn in places and gave way under him; but with a twist of his
+body he balanced himself afresh and continued to mount. At last he
+reached the cornice and drew himself up on it, and then ran along the
+narrow balcony, coming to a stop towards the middle of the façade under
+one of the windows.
+
+Standing on tiptoes he raised his arms, seized the auroch's skin by
+the horns with which his head was ornamented, and with a sweeping
+gesture of one who makes an offering, he hung it up on a jutting piece
+of stone. Then he remained motionless, his face pressed against the
+columns of the window.
+
+Lursac and Ravennes had breathlessly watched his ascent. With their
+eyes fixed on the opening under which the brown auroch's pelt was now
+hanging, they noticed with astonishment its extraordinary appearance.
+It was surrounded with peculiar offerings, great aurochs' muzzles,
+heads of stags, skins of enormous bears, bunches of half-faded flowers,
+bundles of fruit, barbaric collars of wild beasts' claws, and in an
+angle, set on the same support, a comb of honey from which bright
+yellow tears of juice were dropping. Pierre and the missionary looked
+at one another, the same question came to their minds: what was this
+strange worship? To whom was it addressed? These Red Gods, these
+prehistoric men miraculously preserved and perpetuated, these Gods
+which were worshipped, did they in their turn worship Something or
+Somebody?
+
+With a shake of his head the priest signified the impossibility of
+solving the problem.
+
+In any case they had not the time to think of it very much longer.
+The Man up there abandoned his position of contemplation, and their
+attention was once again concentrated on him. Without giving himself
+the trouble to climb down the whole height of the foundations, he
+calculated for a moment, leaped, and covering the ten feet or so which
+the wall measured, he recovered himself by a simple bending of the
+knees. Then, once again turned towards the buildings, he looked at the
+strange window. After which he set out towards the valley, disappeared
+between the rocky blocks and reappeared further off at the top of a
+rounded granite mass, ran down towards the plain, crossed it hurriedly
+and re-entered the forest.
+
+The sun, by this time already hot, had dissipated the fog. Lursac
+pointed out to the priest the dozen doors set in the wall.
+
+"There is the way we must enter the temple," said he.
+
+With a nod the priest assented.
+
+"Yes, we must try and force one of them at random, it doesn't matter
+which! Look, this one, which is opposite to us."
+
+They had now risen and, in their turn hiding themselves as much as
+possible in their ascent, they climbed towards the temple.
+
+A mass of granite formed a sort of narrow parapet in front of the door
+and on it they stopped bewildered: in the stupendous wall they could
+see the door in its doorway and it was half open. Pierre pushed it
+gently, and with his revolver drawn ready to fire entered it. Behind
+him, the missionary followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thick gloom and clammy cold struck them in the face and clung to them
+as they entered. They shivered. Motionless, with every faculty on the
+stretch, they waited and listened. The heavy damp silence reassured
+them. The missionary struck a match. With a dry scratch the tiny flame
+ignited, lighting up dimly the rocky walls and discovering to them,
+close by the door by which they had entered, a tripod with its bundle
+of resinous branches and dry leaves prepared for lighting.
+
+"Wait," said Pierre, "I will shut the door, then we will set fire to
+this."
+
+A few minutes later, by the light of the fire they were able to examine
+the cell in which they found themselves. It turned out to be square and
+disproportionately high, practically forming a cube. The walls were
+gray, on the floor of beaten earth a lance and some hatchets with heavy
+flint heads were lying about. On one side was the door by which they
+had made their entrance: on the opposite side, a gallery was visible,
+separated from the cell by a row of columns set close together and
+reaching from the ground to the vaulted ceiling: on the left a stone
+wall: on the right a second wall, but pierced by another door, heavy
+and re-inforced with metal work, and furnished with a heavy iron lock.
+Pierre, going up to it looked at it closely, felt it and tried with the
+help of his pocketknife to make it work. The bolt of the lock rattled
+and moved. He tried harder, but the blade of his knife broke with a
+snap and he gave a growl of fury.
+
+"Curse it!... One must use violence. So much the worse, but we have no
+choice."
+
+He flung a look round and noticed the axes. But already the missionary,
+bending down, had picked one up. He swung it about for a moment and
+fitted the haft of it well into his hand.
+
+Advancing, he pushed Pierre on one side.
+
+"As soon as the door gives way," he said, "we will rush through. The
+main hall must be far enough away for us not to be heard. Anyhow we
+have no other way of doing it. Are you ready?"
+
+He drew up his great body, raised his arms to their full height and
+then heavily brought the club down with his full strength. The lock
+rang and sparks flew, while fragments of the flint were scattered
+around. Without waiting, he repeated the action several times in
+succession with his full strength. Under the echoing vault the noise of
+the blows was magnified and made a shattering noise. The lock, injured
+and finally broken, gave way revealing its mechanism. With a last blow,
+which shattered the wood around it, he made it leap from the door.
+Flinging the axe behind him, the missionary, with a violent blow of his
+shoulder, pushed back the heavy door and flung himself forward followed
+by Pierre. The flickering light of the fire lighted up the entrance
+of a subterranean passage. They could distinguish the first steps of
+a narrow stairway of which the rest was lost in the darkness. They
+commenced to climb it cautiously and soon the shadows closed around
+them. The priest mounted slowly, trying the ground at each step. His
+hands stretched out before him, Pierre, his revolver ready to fire,
+counted the steps one by one.
+
+"Eight ... nine ... ten ... eleven...."
+
+"Lursac!"
+
+The sharp call brought the young man to a sudden standstill; he cried
+excitedly:
+
+"Ravennes!"
+
+The cry of the priest, now indistinct, came twice more.
+
+"Lursac!... Lursac!..."
+
+Pierre ran forward and crashed into and thrust aside invisible forms.
+He heard the labored breathing of Father Ravennes, and a warning voice:
+
+"Look out!... We are attacked!... Try to...."
+
+At the same time, pushing on him from all directions, a mass of bodies
+suddenly materializing out of the night flung itself upon him, carried
+him off his feet and overthrew him. His head wrapped in a thick cloth,
+his legs encircled, he fell. About him other bodies, clinging to his,
+fell with him and rolled over him. There was the sound of stifled
+oaths, groans and curses. Then once more all was silent, and he felt
+that he was being carried away.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+                          THE LAW OF GONDWANA
+
+
+    "... _It is written: that those who wish to know--may know. This
+    is the Law of the Red Gods--the Law of the barren wives, the Law
+    of Gondwana. But those of our blood only--and among those only
+    women and the servants of the Gods--may hear it and know it without
+    dying._"
+
+The voice which was chanting stopped and an order sounded:
+
+"Untie their legs and take off their veils that they may see. The law
+is the law."
+
+Pierre, freed from the cloth which had been wrapped round his head,
+looked about him with curiosity. He found himself in the middle of an
+interior open court, square in shape, of which the four sides were
+lined with galleries one above the other, narrowing as they ascended,
+and forming a tangle of recesses and stalls and compartments, over
+which innumerable canopies and roofs twisted into spiral pinnacles
+jutted out, tumbling in all directions, straddling over each other,
+crowding one upon the other in an intricate mass.... The centre of the
+court was hollowed out, forming a sort of basin paved with large, gray,
+flat stones, the spaces between which were green with moss. It was in
+this basin that they lay, he and the missionary. Very far up in the
+centre of the grotesque and involved crowding of the roofs a section
+of blue sky shone. Under the galleries the crowd of sorceresses was
+massed. Among the twisted pillars and the square columns could be seen
+groups of faces, scarred and twisted with every form of unimaginable
+deformity, but all bending eagerly towards the two men. How many of
+them were there? One hundred?... Two hundred?... Perhaps more!
+
+Pierre and the missionary examined them eagerly. They looked from one
+gallery to another, inspecting the compartments, roving up and down the
+long façades; and first one, and then the other, suddenly cried out:
+
+"_Wanda!_"
+
+"_Mademoiselle Redeski!_"
+
+There she was, standing in one of the galleries, bending forward with
+her eyes fixed on them. The roof of the gallery in which she stood
+flung its shadow over her so that the upper part of her figure, clad
+in a black tunic, was in full blaze of light while the rest of her
+remained in the shade. She was surrounded with sorceresses. She hung
+over a little further. The sun lit up the masses of her hair so that
+she seemed haloed with pale gold. With her arms stretched wide she
+called:
+
+"Pierre!"
+
+The young man made a motion of rage. She saw that he was ready to rush
+blindly towards her, and called out hurriedly:
+
+"No ... no ... don't stir.... Presently ... after the...."
+
+Then she fell suddenly silent. Around her the sorceresses were jostling
+one another, drowning her voice with their ironical laughter and sneers.
+
+Motionless, his face turned towards the young woman, Pierre looked at
+her long and searchingly. Their glances met and mingled, and their
+love, stronger than the sense of danger, flamed up and flowed through
+them, overwhelming them both with the same emotion and the same hopes.
+It seemed to them that they were close to one another, so that their
+lips at the same moment gave and received an imaginary kiss, and they
+smiled, taking no thought of their sorry plight.
+
+Once more an order tore through the silence:
+
+"Hear ye all.... This is the true word."
+
+Their ecstasy was shattered.
+
+Pierre, turning towards the voice which had just sounded, recognized
+Jieng: Jieng who, now clad in a tunic of white silk and seated in a
+stall of carved stone decorated with blazing gold, was presiding over
+the strange assembly. She bent a triumphant grin on the young man and
+her lids flickered when their eyes met.
+
+Then Lursac looked at the missionary beside him.
+
+"A kind of trial I suppose," said he.
+
+"Yes," said the priest, "but listen!"
+
+The chant continued:
+
+    "... _At the time when the Gods descended on the world the temple
+    was built--built with their hands. And hundreds and thousands of
+    moons have since then rolled into darkness. Afterwards the Gods
+    created peoples and animals and last of all they created the
+    Law--their Law._..."
+
+Once more Pierre turned to face Jieng. She sat motionless in a hieratic
+pose copied from Siamese idols: at her feet crouched the woman who was
+chanting; and, as she read, the yellow parchment inscribed in unknown
+characters unrolling, stretched itself along the floor and seemed to
+glide towards the two men.
+
+Jieng made a sign.
+
+    "... _And in order that their will should be obeyed they called
+    together the women who live beyond the mountains in the cold white
+    country and said to them: This is our Law of which you shall be
+    the servants, and your power shall be great, for you shall be the
+    makers and the mothers of the Moï people--the free people of the
+    forest._"
+
+A murmur arose, and a great wave of pride tingled in the scarred faces
+of the priestesses and shone in their eyes.
+
+Father Ravennes interrupted a moment the rosary which he was saying in
+a whisper and caught Pierre by the elbow:
+
+"What do you intend to do?" said he calmly.
+
+Jerking himself free, the young man walked towards the high priestess.
+When he was only separated from her by the edge of the basin in which
+he stood he turned his eyes upon her. For a minute their hates flashed
+out and Pierre cried roughly:
+
+"Your religious laws don't interest us! What we want is that white
+woman whom you carried away here and whom you are holding against her
+will. Do you understand?"
+
+Jieng did not deign to answer. She contented herself with laying her
+finger on the shoulder of the reader crouched at her feet....
+
+    "... _As the servants did not understand, the Gods told them more:
+    This is the Temple in which you are to live. Here is the holy
+    valley, the valley in which time shall stand motionless. And here
+    are the males of the Race-which-shall-not-change. They shall be the
+    Living Gods. These shall be Life and they shall be called 'the Red
+    Gods,' that is to say the First, the Sons of the Queen-race, the
+    Rmoahal[17]-race._
+
+[Footnote 17: This confirms very precisely the hypothesis made earlier
+by Father Ravennes. The Red Gods of the Pou-Kas would, according to
+this, be a preserved branch of the great antediluvian race of the sons
+of Ad. From these, according to the sacred writings of India, the
+different races that peopled the earth had their origin: first the red
+race and then the yellow race. The first included, the Rmoahal, the
+Zlavakis, the Zoltecs. The Rmoahal, who are evidently the red gods of
+Lursac's history are described as follows: "This was the most ancient
+race--four or five million years old. The men were walnut brown and
+very tall--ten to twelve feet. At the time of the great earth cataclysm
+they emigrated towards Upper Asia."]
+
+Pierre stretched his hand towards Jieng:
+
+"Listen," he cried; "if you don't give us back this woman our brothers
+will come and destroy your temple and raze it to the ground. You shall
+all be dispersed and slain. Our revenge is terrible!"
+
+Jieng, implacable, slowly raised her withered hand:
+
+    "... _And henceforth the first Rule of the Law shall be concerning
+    your fate: you shall be conquered throughout the centuries but you
+    shall never be subdued. Everything which is taken from you you
+    shall some day recover, as the free people of the forest, the Moï
+    people, shall not die. They shall remain a strong people, for the
+    women of the race whose bodies are sterile shall come here and
+    shall be the brides for one night of the Living Gods, and they
+    shall carry back to the people of the forest the life and the
+    strength of the Race-which-shall-not-change._"
+
+Pierre bent his head; he felt himself fighting against a stupendous
+power, in the face of which all resistance would be useless. The
+versicles chanted in Banhar by the reader seemed to him a fantastic
+story without interest. He thought of nothing but Wanda. Would he ever
+be able to set her free? He looked at her. Her face seemed to him
+paler, yet more wonderfully sweet and tender, in the midst of these
+ravaged faces of the sorceresses! But at the same time he realized his
+weakness against their numbers. The disproportion of their forces came
+home to him with brutal certainty, and he knew in advance that he would
+go down to defeat. He would not save Wanda ... he would not be able to
+save her!
+
+To his rage succeeded a dull despair. He turned to the missionary, and
+the priest, aware of his sufferings, said gravely:
+
+"Wait, the goodness of the Lord is without bounds: we have no right to
+despair...."
+
+The voice of the chantress continuing her litany interrupted him:
+
+    "... _They shall be brides of a night--but they shall not know
+    it, for they shall remain wrapped in slumber, as no woman except
+    their servants may see the Living Gods. No one--unless her life
+    henceforth is to be that of one of their servants and that she
+    remain among them until her death. And this is the second Rule of
+    the Law._"
+
+Jieng bent forward: she looked the young man up and down.
+
+"Do you hear?" she asked in her expressionless voice. "She wanted to
+see the Red Gods. She has seen them, and she must remain among us until
+her death. It is the second Rule of the Law...."
+
+She leaned back.
+
+    "... _But the women of the free people who have been three times
+    brides of the Gods and who shall still remain sterile shall become
+    their servants. Then their portion shall be ugliness and obedience.
+    Those who are not ugly shall be made so; so that all the women who
+    are thus offered to the Gods shall alike have faces without thought
+    and without mind,--as beauty and thought will bring to blossom in
+    the holy valley as they have in the rest of the world the trees of
+    love, of hatred and of revolt.--And this is the third Rule of the
+    Law._"
+
+The parchment, now almost all unrolled, stretched out towards the
+hollow in the centre of the court, brushing the feet of the two men
+and jerking with every movement of the reader, whose voice, up to that
+moment level and expressionless, suddenly became vibrant and sonorous.
+
+    "... _Men even of Moï blood shall never see the Temple, and the
+    Dead Zone shall be their boundary. Nevertheless fifty warriors
+    shall live in the Temple, but without knowing the Gods; and before
+    entering there they shall have been made no longer fit to be called
+    men. This is the penultimate Rule of the Law._"
+
+A long pause, then the voice rose and became strident and flung out
+like a defiance or a verdict of death the last section of the Law.
+
+    "... _And if a man who is neither of the Moï blood nor of the Moï
+    country comes to the Temple, drawn by the lust of knowledge or even
+    by chance, the Slow Death shall be his portion. And this is the
+    last Rule of the Law._"
+
+Lursac saw the missionary blench.
+
+"Is it this verdict of death which causes you anxiety?" he asked.
+
+The priest shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Didn't you hear? We are condemned to the Slow Death. I suppose you
+know what that means?"
+
+"Yes," said Pierre, "starvation and thirst!"
+
+"No," interjected the priest, "it is something much more horrible,
+a punishment which is celebrated in the annals of the Kingdom of
+Annam."[18]
+
+[Footnote 18: The "Slow Death" was, to be precise, invented by the
+emperor Gia-Long, founder of the dynasty of Nguyen. He practiced it
+on the daughters of Huë, chief of the Tay-Son rebels, and on thirty
+members of his family. Here is the description of the torture given by
+the Annamese historian, Truong-Vin-Ky: "First the flesh of the limbs
+is cut off strip by strip and the bones are broken. After which the
+abdomen of the victim is cut open and his viscera removed. Finally
+after his left hand has been cut off at the wrist the limbs are chopped
+off at the trunk. This left hand is then embalmed and sent to the
+family of the criminal in order that they may remember his fate and
+meditate upon it."]
+
+The voice of Jieng interrupted him. She had risen. With her two hands
+sweeping the air in a wide threatening gesture, she cried out:
+
+"The Law is the Law. You have come here to find out, and you have found
+out; but now the Law of Gondwana has become your Law. Hear this also
+which is the first word, at once the first and the last, as the chain
+which binds you is complete.
+
+    ... _It is written: that those who wish to know--may know. This is
+    the Law of the Red Gods--the Law of the barren wives, the Law of
+    Gondwana. But those of our blood only--and among those only women
+    and the servants of the Gods--may hear it and know it without
+    dying._..."
+
+A great clamor filled the hall: all the priestesses standing upon their
+steps with their eyes turned towards the two men repeated in unison:
+
+"_And the Law of Gondwana is become your Law._"
+
+Clear and sudden, silence fell and lasted for a moment; then Jieng gave
+the order:
+
+"Set them in the eighth gallery of the end hall until sunset. Then they
+shall be carried to the statue of the God; and when the dawn comes the
+last rule of the Law shall be carried out...."
+
+She looked the missionary in the face.
+
+"And now I shall find out how those who serve your God can die," said
+she.
+
+Straining towards him she seemed to await his answer. But the priest,
+with his eyes in front of him, gave no evidence of having heard her
+except by a faint smile.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII
+
+                         WANDA TELLS HER STORY
+
+
+The eighth gallery in which they were now confined was a peculiar
+prison. It was a room about five or six yards long and not more than
+a yard and one-half broad--a sort of corridor, with a very lofty
+ceiling, its floor tiled with black and white mosaic ornamented with
+purple gold. Its strangeness consisted in a feature which gave it a
+disquieting and peculiar appearance of a combined cage and chapel. The
+one and the only wall was hollowed out into an apse, at the back of
+which an enormous idol in red metal smiled a beatific smile, seated in
+the hollow of a huge flower formed by the spreading of seven flattened
+heads of a gigantic Brahminic cobra. At the other end, opposite, was
+the door by which they had been forced to enter the room, and on both
+sides, arranged clusterwise, there rose a double row of columns almost
+touching each other and leaving between them space hardly large enough
+to slip one's arm through.
+
+There was no furniture in the gallery; but on the floor, at the foot
+of the Buddhist statue, against the wall, there was stretched a bed of
+beasts' skins, with rough thick hair.
+
+Pierre had set himself upon this, while the missionary, his face
+pressed between the pillars, watched everything within reach of his
+eyes.
+
+The gallery in which they lay formed the short end of an enormous room.
+To right and left other halls, one leading into another, stretched
+away, separated by lofty arches. Here and there opened dark entries
+to semi-visible passages. A bluish-green daylight flowed between the
+gray walls from some source which they could not determine. A smell of
+stale incense and of mould was over everything. Striking down from some
+invisible opening in the roof a dazzling ray of sunlight fell obliquely
+on the tiling of the floor, making a broad splash of pale light. The
+priestesses came and went. They glided noiselessly from one hall to
+another, going about their customary duties, taking no notice of the
+two men, not even glancing at them. They simply appeared from some
+passage, crossed a hall and were swallowed up in the shadows of another
+passage; and sometimes they were accompanied by native warriors with
+bare breasts and legs and cloth kilts about their middles.
+
+Somewhere a woman's voice chanted a canticle, a sort of hymn to death;
+and amid the vast silence this was the only sound that could be heard.
+
+The minutes passed. Pierre, with his head between his hands, was lost
+in vague thought: an immense exhaustion had fallen upon him and bitter
+despair. He thought of Wanda: the image of the young woman haunted him
+and he was obsessed by the words which she had spoken out there in the
+middle of the strange tribunal which had condemned them to Slow Death.
+They went round and round in his brain which burned as with fever.
+
+"Presently.... After the...."
+
+His own fate did not disturb him. His nerves prostrated by fatigue and
+his will in abeyance, he was a prey to his physical weakness, and,
+in the dull stupefaction in his brain there floated only a single
+craving--to give up, to lie down on these warm furs and never move
+again, never think, and just forget everything.
+
+"Lursac ... come! come quickly!..."
+
+Pierre looked at the missionary with dull eyes, and getting up slowly
+and awkwardly he went to join him.
+
+The priest, pointing out the series of rooms in front of him, said
+simply:
+
+"Wanda!"
+
+Pressing his face between two pillars, Pierre looked. She had just
+appeared at the bottom of the furthest hall. She was running. Under an
+arch she had to stop to let a procession of priestesses followed by
+a dozen warriors go by. Then she came on again. The long black tunic
+which she wore made the pale gold of her unbound hair all the more
+luminous by its contrast.
+
+Pierre stretched his arms toward her:
+
+"Wanda!... Wanda!..."
+
+In a moment she was before them. A priestess accompanied her and opened
+the door for her, shutting it behind her, and then went off without a
+word. Standing in the middle of the gallery, the young woman now gave
+way and cried with convulsive spasms of silent weeping. Pierre had
+caught her hands and kissed them passionately one after the other.
+Words came to him, tumbling out confusedly:
+
+"My dear one!... Wanda!... My love! ... you are here.... Lift up your
+head so that I may see your eyes ... yes, that's right.... Don't cry! I
+love you!..."
+
+He pressed her to him passionately, stroking her hair, her shoulders.
+Then raising her face gently he drew her towards him and bent over her:
+their lips came together and clung.
+
+Releasing herself, she saw the missionary who had sat himself down upon
+the heap of furs: she called to him:
+
+"My Father!"
+
+Then, running up to him, she knelt and stretched her hands, which he
+caught and held.
+
+"My poor child!" said he, "how did you manage to get to us?"
+
+He felt the long, cold fingers tremble in his.
+
+"I am free," she said, "free to come and go throughout the temple. No
+one takes any notice of me since ... since I must live here henceforth
+until I die."
+
+They were both silent, full of thoughts and conflicting feelings. It
+was the young woman who first broke the silence:
+
+"And Michael?" she questioned anxiously, seizing the priest by the arm,
+"have you found him?"
+
+The missionary confessed the truth, telling briefly the story of their
+descent into the ravine, the death of their guides, and how they made
+their way into the temple and had been captured.
+
+She interrupted him, crying aloud again and yet again:
+
+"All that has come about through my fault! Forgive me!... Forgive
+me!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then in her turn she spoke:
+
+"I wanted to save Michael! His disappearance, the terror which weighed
+on the whole region, the sorceresses, the pilgrimage for women, all
+that seemed to be part of a single whole.... I knew that Jieng must
+know all about this terrible occult system of which my brother was the
+prisoner, and that she must be a part of it...."
+
+She turned to the missionary.
+
+"You said: 'I cannot depend on starting in less than eight days? I
+was appalled.... I was afraid that we should arrive too late. When
+I left the Mission I went to find Jieng by myself in order to force
+information from her, but I got nothing ... nothing, except that if I
+accompanied the pilgrimage of the sixth month which was starting that
+evening, I should at any rate be able to see Michael.... I thought I
+should be able to join him and give you the time to arrive and rescue
+him, and perhaps that I could help him to escape. And then, you see,
+Jieng allowed me to send you a message. So I set out, one of the troop
+of Moï women. I walked with them all the way and arrived in front of
+the temple where they made us enter a court...."
+
+"Yes," said Pierre, "we know all about that."
+
+And he recounted the tale which Hmon had told them. She assented to it
+with nods of her head as he went along, and without speaking.
+
+When he had finished, she looked at him.
+
+"And then?" she asked.
+
+"That's all," said Pierre. "She waked up at the feet of the idol. What
+had happened while she was asleep she knew nothing of...."
+
+The young woman bent her head. Hiding her face between her hands, she
+whispered:
+
+"I know.... I know.... When we arrived at the pagoda, Jieng said to me:
+'Do you want to see your brother? Perhaps he is here ... mix with the
+priestesses and look....' So with the priestesses I made one of those
+who lined the passages through which the Moï women walked, and I saw
+everything. As soon as they were asleep, four priestesses picked them
+up. Behind the statue of the God there was a door through which they
+took them. And Jieng again said to me, 'Follow them.' Then immediately,
+seeing my movement of instinctive recoil, she said, 'Then stay behind;'
+but her scornful smile decided me to go on. I found myself in a
+subterranean passage: before me four priestesses were carrying a woman:
+behind me two others were walking, with torches in their hands. The
+passage came out on a high narrow gallery lighted with braziers set on
+tripods. On one side there was a clammy wall dripping with moisture,
+and on the other a row of columns close to each other, just like these
+of this gallery. Spaced among these pillars were doors,--I counted
+twelve of them. One of the priestesses opened one of them, the first.
+Leaning against the columns, I looked into a sort of rectangular cave."
+
+The missionary watched Pierre with a sidelong glance:
+
+"Yes, ..." he whispered, "it was through one of those that we got
+here...."
+
+The young woman seemed not to hear him: she continued:
+
+"Two doors opened out of it: one through which the sorceresses were
+already pushing the body of the woman, the other opposite. Behind this
+latter I thought I heard movements and hoarse whispering. I went a
+little further down the gallery, and I discovered that behind each of
+these twelve doors there was a similar cell, and that in each of those
+a sleeping woman was lying on the ground. When I returned to the first
+one, the woman that I had seen carried there was lying stretched out
+on the ground chained by the wrist. She was still asleep; and only a
+single sorceress was by her, who, approaching a tripod on which live
+coals were glowing, threw upon it a pinch of powder. A flame shot up,
+blinding and livid. Twice more she repeated her action, and then came
+back to me. Behind the second door the footsteps approached and became
+louder. At the same moment a sharp click made me jump. Behind me the
+door by which we had come in was shut. I was alone in the gallery.
+Lying along on the ground, the woman who was there moaned softly in her
+sleep. At the same time the second door was violently flung open ...
+and...."
+
+She gasped. Through her fingers tears began to drip.
+
+Pierre repeated:
+
+"The door opened, and?"
+
+In spite of himself the words sounded rough.
+
+She sobbed more terribly.
+
+"A man came in," said she, "a red man. He was very tall and clothed in
+a reddish fur; he looked round with a hard shining look and ran towards
+the woman. I cried out.... He stopped, and flung an enquiring glance
+around him; he saw me. He was some steps from me but quite near. I
+saw his eyes open wide with astonishment. He looked down at the woman
+lying at his feet and then quickly looked up again at me. Fear overcame
+me.... I ran along the gallery. From all the cells that I passed I
+heard cries and noises: I thought I understood, and an immense horror
+overcame me. Staggering, I came back and reached the first cell in
+which the man.... He was still there motionless in front of me. His
+mahogany-colored face took on an extraordinary expression of curiosity
+and respect, then suddenly it moved spasmodically and he ran at me. I
+felt his hand on my hair. Ghastly fear made my knees give way. Falling,
+I flung myself back with all my might and called out...."
+
+She hesitated. Pierre saw her hands tremble and clench.
+
+"And then? then?" he asked.
+
+"I ... it is all confused in my brain. I had shrunk away ... yes ... as
+far as possible! I was afraid! afraid! But I continued to stare at him.
+I could neither turn my eyes away nor close them. I saw him standing
+against the columns, his closed fist held a lock of my hair and he was
+looking at it. He stayed like that for a long time, looking now at the
+woman sleeping on the earth and then at me. Finally he drew back slowly
+and went out."
+
+She stopped speaking.
+
+The missionary stretched his hand to her in a gentle gesture of pity
+and compassion, but Pierre, his face drawn and his teeth clenched,
+cried out:
+
+"And then?"
+
+She drew back her hands from her face and cast a gentle look upon him.
+
+"After ... I do not know.... With my face in my arms I cried and cried.
+Time went by: silence was everywhere around me. I dragged myself to the
+door. I cried aloud and banged on it. Then suddenly, when I had given
+up hope, it opened, and Jieng appeared accompanied by two guards. She
+turned towards me and grinned. The warriors under her order held me up
+and helped me along: they took me back into the temple and conducted
+me into a long room with sculptured walls. After having laid me on a
+sleeping bench covered with furs they went out. Jieng remained alone
+with me. She looked me up and down.
+
+"'This,' she said, 'will be your room. You are free to leave it if
+you wish. Do whatever you want. But I said to you one day, 'no harm
+will happen to you,' and I don't want a pig of a barbarian to be able
+to accuse me of having lied. The priestesses of the Red Gods do not
+lie. Go out of the temple if you wish, but do not forget this: Out
+there'--she pointed in one direction--'at the principal entrance by
+which you came in is the forest, and death for those who are not of our
+race. On this side'--and she pointed to the façade of the sanctuary on
+which the door and window of my room gave--'on this side dwells the
+clan of the Red Gods which you have just seen.' She paused, gave a
+short, strident laugh, and went on: 'Do, then, as you will. Whatever
+happens to you now it will be only your own wish which has brought you
+to it.'
+
+"She went off before I could make even a movement. I remained on the
+sleeping-bench, overcome, and my mind empty. I felt incapable of
+moving. Affairs presented themselves to me in their true light. Making
+use of the disappearance of Michael, Jieng had inveigled me into an
+ambush, and from now on I was her prisoner. The words which she had
+just said to me echoed in my hollow brain. On one side the unknown
+mountain range, a desert which no man left to himself could manage to
+cross, on the other the ... the...."
+
+Wanda was silent. Her look was full of a sort of horror. She raised
+dull eyes towards the two men and went on:
+
+"When I recovered from my prostration I dragged myself to the window
+of my room, which was barred with small columns. The growing light
+of dawn showed me a wild landscape: a chaos of rocky blocks massed
+perpendicularly on the edge of a gentle slope, and beyond that the dark
+sea of the forest buried in a gorge of which the abrupt walls flung
+themselves up towards a livid sky and surrounded with their implacable
+ranks the entire temple."
+
+"The ravine," murmured Pierre.
+
+"Hush!" said the priest, "let her continue!"
+
+The young woman, without looking at them, went on:
+
+"I stayed there a long time. The sun rose and its light shone into
+my room. I was able to see every detail of it. The walls, from top
+to bottom, were graven with designs, lotus flowers, impossible
+animals, warriors and bonzes in attitudes of struggle or prayer. The
+sleeping-platform, two chests and two or three stools, crudely carved,
+made up the entire furnishings. The gate to the right of the window
+which opened on the façade of the temple fronting the ravine, was heavy
+and made of rough wood: a bar almost as big as a squared beam crossed
+it. I made sure that it was firmly shut, and then I left the room.
+I wandered through the halls of the temple. The priestesses and the
+warriors whom I met took no notice of me.... But I heard behind my back
+ironical laughs and sneers. I made my way back to my cell, and throwing
+myself on my bed I sobbed desperately until fatigue, stronger than
+suffering, brought me unconsciousness.
+
+"A ringing cry awoke me suddenly. I got up and looked about me. Between
+the columns of my window I made out the face of a man. The face that I
+had seen the night before in the cell back there.... I cried out, and
+stood ready to run away....
+
+"But he gave an uneasy smile, and lifting up his hands seemed to show
+me something which I could not make out properly: then he disappeared.
+I waited a few seconds, and carefully approaching the window I dared to
+look out. The sun was setting. On my window-sill I found a stag's head
+with its antlers. In the distance among the rocks the man was running
+away."
+
+The young woman bent her head down and stopped speaking.
+
+Pierre, tortured with doubt, did not dare to ask her any questions;
+while the missionary, remembering what he had seen that same morning at
+dawn, reflected deeply. Before his mind there came again the picture
+of the barbarian and his attitude of silent adoration; and suddenly he
+understood what they had taken for the ritual of an unknown worship was
+nothing but an expression of adoration--an outbreak of this eternal
+instinct of love which down through the ages from the earliest days
+of humanity to the present time has taught the males of the species
+the same thoughts and the same actions, of which accumulated centuries
+of civilization and of progress have only succeeded in reducing the
+primordial brutality ... nothing more than this! The silence grew
+longer and it was Wanda who of her own accord continued:
+
+"How did he manage to discover which was my window? I do not know.
+But from that time on, every morning at dawn, and every evening at
+night-fall, he came up to my room and prowled about it. When he left,
+a new trophy was added to the others. When I wake in the morning I
+see his great face and his gray eyes, and in the evening I perceive
+his shadow flung across the window of my cell. For I do not sleep any
+more.... I do not sleep any more.... I am afraid.... Although I know I
+have nothing to fear; but from dread of feeling there, behind my door,
+this invisible presence, of being aware that I have been ceaselessly
+watched by this human beast for all of the eight days that I have been
+here.... Ah, the horror of it!..."
+
+Her glance became fixed. In the depths of her eyes, grown large with
+fear and reddened by sleeplessness, a vision arose, the vision of a
+scene which had been enacted the evening before, and of which the
+memory, overshadowing her, still made her tremble. She lived again
+through those frightful minutes during which, pressed against the wall,
+her heart beating wildly, she had listened to the man scratching at her
+door, feeling it all over, trying his strength against it, endeavoring
+to enter into this room in which lay the female with the gold hair,
+the prey which he desired above all else. She recalled again his
+appearance at the window, his efforts to break through the columns,
+and his cry--this strange cry which had terrified her by the desire,
+the wrath, and the sadness which it expressed. Then, mad with terror,
+she had rushed at him armed with a torch. She saw again his face which
+the purple light of the firebrand had sharply lighted up--the face of
+a conquered wild beast, savage, humble, and grief-stricken all at the
+same time.
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Ah! the horror of it! ... the horror of it! ..." she repeated in a low
+voice.
+
+Pierre, who had been wildly striding up and down his narrow prison,
+came back to her. He seized the hand of the young woman on which still
+sparkled the signet ring which he had given her. He stroked it gently,
+and passionately kissed the fingers one by one. A great pity had taken
+possession of him: he tried to find soothing words:
+
+"My loved one ... my darling ... you must not think of all that, you
+must not torture yourself like this ... I love you!..."
+
+She raised her head suddenly. Her face, wet with tears, became
+illumined with an expression of longing and passionate love. She drew
+him to her.
+
+"I love you!... I love you ..." she whispered, offering him her lips.
+
+And once again their love made them regardless of everything but
+themselves.
+
+The missionary, standing beside them, looked into the distance.
+Gradually the darkness stole in. The ray of sunlight had long gone from
+the furthest arch. Bluish shadows little by little invaded the temple.
+The night filtered softly into the halls; the further ones gradually
+melted into the obscurity and became invisible.
+
+The priestesses, scarcely seen, continued to go back and forth through
+the sanctuary. In the distance the unknown voice continued to chant its
+song of death; and the darkness mingling with the sadness of the chant
+sung upon two minor tones gave it a peculiar sweetness.
+
+Minutes passed, and then from the dark of a passage a procession of
+eight priestesses carrying torches appeared, accompanied by a dozen
+warriors, their lances in their hands. The troop, crossing the various
+rooms, advanced towards the prisoners.
+
+Jieng was at their head.
+
+The missionary followed their march with his eyes for a minute, then he
+murmured:
+
+"_Let them be put in the eighth gallery until the setting of the
+sun._... And the sun is set!"
+
+He called to Lursac:
+
+"They are coming to fetch us," he said; and he walked towards the door.
+
+The voice stopped him:
+
+"No ... you will not be taken there for an hour."
+
+Pierre, raising his head, perceived Jieng. Standing before the pillars
+she watched the three Europeans: a grin wreathed her face, twisting it
+into wrinkles. With a gesture she dismissed her escort; then she spoke
+in Banhar, addressing herself to Pierre and the girl.
+
+"You came to see me down there in my village. I have not forgotten it."
+
+And she bowed in an ironical salute:
+
+"In my turn I come to see you.... Is not that the custom among you?"
+
+The young people made no answer: they clung to each other. Jieng gave a
+little dry laugh.
+
+"Aïa ... Aïa ..." said she. "Is your curiosity then dead? Has fear
+killed it?"
+
+The missionary, as she looked at him, shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Hé!" he growled, "I wonder what there can be left for us to know now?"
+
+Although he had spoken in a very low voice, the sorceress heard him.
+
+She gave a short laugh.
+
+"What there remains for you to know? Very nearly everything!..."
+
+The three Europeans started violently. The answer had been spoken
+in French, slowly but almost without accent. The smile of the
+high-priestess became more marked and full of irony.
+
+"Yes," she said, "first of all that: I speak your language."
+
+She enjoyed their astonishment for the space of several seconds, then
+she continued:
+
+"You could not imagine that!... And who could have supposed it?...
+Here, in the depths of the forest, an old woman shut up in her
+hut, leading the existence which animals lead in their lairs--a
+savage, brutalized by this primitive and bestial life, just a Moï
+beggar-woman--_speaking French_!... Incredible, isn't it? Yes ... I am
+beginning to interest you."
+
+The missionary, taken unawares, had instinctively moved towards the
+columns.
+
+Her glance settled on him.
+
+"I was certain," said she, "that my visit would not displease you.
+The explanation?... How and where I learned your language? It is much
+simpler than you imagine. I suppose you know the orphanage of the
+Little Sisters of Saigon? I was there eight years, from the age of six
+to fourteen. Then suddenly I disappeared. They looked for me. I was
+taken away by a street-beggar and brought back among my own people to
+be made ready for my present rôle. Ten years of work and initiation,
+twenty more years during which I learned all the secrets of the Law
+of Gondwana; then at the death of my mother came my nomination as
+Bia-Bo-Jaou.[19] I have been that for eighteen years. I was forty-four
+at the time. And ever since then, every two years at least, I have
+been to Saigon. I was there when this man"--and she pointed to
+Lursac--"landed. I shall be there again four months from now. I go
+there to follow the course of your conquest, to watch the progress of
+your forward movements."
+
+[Footnote 19: Chief of the sorceresses.]
+
+She made a pause: her voice became stronger, and an extraordinary
+expression of hardness contracted her deformed face.
+
+"Ah!" said she, "you are powerful: your spirit of order, your system of
+violence and persuasion by turns, this mixture of force and subtlety,
+of terrorization and of free infiltration, has given you unexpected
+results, as, little by little advancing, and settling yourselves as you
+penetrate, you have arrived at the very foot of our mountains...."
+
+She made a movement of restrained rage.
+
+"Yes ... you have arrived so far, but at the same time you have
+attained the limit which I had set to your encroachments...."
+
+She noticed the somewhat disdainful smile with which Pierre received
+her declaration. All the hate in her showed in her face. She growled
+out:
+
+"You may smile. I told you just now: you know nothing! Listen ... you
+are going to die in a few hours. She--"and her stretched-out finger
+pointed to Wanda--"she will never leave the temple again.... You wanted
+to find out, like the others--like Lieutenant Redeski and Lieutenant
+Longères whose corpses you found in the ravine--like Captain Dorcel,
+whom we allowed to return to Saigon because I knew he could never speak
+again, and because I thought thus to turn aside the suspicions which
+the disappearance of Lieutenant Longères had aroused. Like them you
+wanted to know; but also, like them, you will never be able to tell
+anybody what you do know."
+
+She stopped to sneer. Father Ravennes mechanically enquired:
+
+"Then ... it is you?..."
+
+She did not allow him to go on; she swelled with pride.
+
+"It is I! But there is more and better to come ... for this is only a
+minor issue, an unimportant detail of the contest which I am waging
+against you. Remember the rebellion of the Bolovens, a revolt at once
+religious and patriotic, the taking of the post of Psi, the putting
+to death of Robert, condemned by me because his curiosity began to be
+inconvenient! At the same time do not forget the death of Odend'hal who
+was too anxious to find out about it."
+
+She stamped her foot and cried out:
+
+"All that ... all that, is my work ... it is my will which has caused
+it ... it is my power which has commanded it and brought it about."
+
+The missionary, standing upright before her, looked at her.
+
+"Why?" he asked quietly. "Why? We have never sought to do you any
+harm!... We come to you...."
+
+She spat on the ground and interrupted him:
+
+"Done me harm?..." she repeated violently. "By what right do you set
+yourselves up as masters? This land is ours! However far you may search
+back into the Chinese historians you find that this soil was inhabited
+from the beginning by our race. Invasions occurred: the Kmers, the
+Chams, the Lao-ese, the Cambodians, the Annamese, all, all invaded us
+and fell upon our plateaus like swarms of hungry insects. We gave way
+as much as possible. We fled into the most inaccessible forests and on
+to the most precipitous mountains. We, formerly the masters of this
+country, we fled. The rich, fertile soil of the plains we abandoned to
+the greed of our invaders: we were condemned to a miserable life, the
+life of the beasts, hunted in the depths of their forests and pursued
+even to their lairs. But we remained free, we were always the Free
+People of the Mountain."
+
+"Then, in your turn, you came. These fragments of our possessions,
+these last vestiges of our territory--even these--you wanted to take
+from us. And above all, above all, you wanted to rule us, to make
+us subservient to your laws ... to your customs ... to your
+religion; ... like those other peoples worn out with debauchery and
+weakened with opium, like the Lao-ese, the Cambodians, the Annamese,
+we were to have become your servants and the instruments of your
+greatness!... Ah! but we would not. And I, on the other hand, I, Jieng,
+less than anyone, because, while those others simply dislike you, I
+hate you.... I hate you because of your power and your civilization
+which make you so formidable. I hate you because, great and strong as
+you are, you are for ever thinking how to stretch out your hands over
+the miserable territories of a people that you think cannot resist you.
+I hate you because your domination would mean the annihilation of all
+that our race has done, the work of my people; our customs, our laws,
+our habits, our religion: because ten years of European influence is
+enough to wipe out the centuries of our history; this history that the
+members of my family have built up one after the other, down to me....
+I hate you!... I hate you!..."
+
+Little by little her voice had risen in tone, and she flung out her
+last words with a sort of furious violence. Then, suddenly, she was
+taken with a fit of coughing which bent her double.
+
+Pierre and Wanda, motionless, watched her with immense surprise. The
+priest alone remained unimpressed. He listened with grave attention,
+and when once more the high priestess was silent he slowly stretched
+out his arm towards her:
+
+"What does it matter?" said he. "As for me, I do not hate you: you
+serve your religion...."
+
+Jieng lifted her head again.
+
+"I serve my religion?" said she, "Ah! Ah! They think that! ... and
+after all that I have just said to them ... they have not even
+understood!... Dorcel even was more intelligent than you.... My
+religion? You are as simple as all my people.... For them there must
+be gods, divine beings whom they never see and whom terror makes them
+obey better than they do us plain mortals.... The Red Gods! ... yes,
+for them, for all of them, these are gods.... But for me ... for me ...
+they are the pure race, the strong race, which makes it possible for me
+to preserve in the people of the forest its hardiness, to infuse into
+it a new unfettered blood to fight against its bastardization, against
+its degradation. It is the giant tree from which I drain into the veins
+of the Moï people a new sap ... it is the life which I preserve for my
+people in order that the word of the law of Gondwana shall some day
+become the truth: _You shall be conquered throughout the centuries but
+you shall never be overcome, and everything which has been taken away
+from you, some day you shall retake_."
+
+"But," said the priest, "what about them, the men of the tribe?"
+
+The eyes of the priestess looked at him:
+
+"They," said she, "they do not know. Life for them has always been
+there, and never anywhere else. The fathers of their fathers have lived
+there, and for them the world has no other features but those of this
+valley and the rear façade of the temple. Ten male children and ten
+girls are enough to assure their perpetuation. Is that what you wanted
+to know?"
+
+The resonant note of a gong at the end of one of the halls filled the
+vaults with its call and vibrated long under the vaulted ceilings.
+Jieng, turning towards her escort, made a sign: the warriors got ready
+to march away. The high priestess cried in a loud voice:
+
+"This is the hour!..."
+
+Wanda had fallen on her knees. She sobbed.
+
+Lursac, bending over her, said quickly:
+
+"Follow us, and stay as near as you can to the hall into which they
+take us. Perhaps we can manage...."
+
+She gave a cry of despair:
+
+"No! No! They are too strong and there are too many of them!"
+
+The priest in his turn said decidedly:
+
+"Lursac is right. Anything may happen when God wills it."
+
+And as they opened the door of the gallery he crossed the threshold and
+of his own accord placed himself between two of the warriors. Pierre
+did likewise. Wanda had pulled herself together and went out of the
+gallery, and when the priestesses started off she tried to follow them.
+Two men stopped her. She struggled and tried to pass in spite of them.
+They held her by force, and one of them explained to her with a high,
+almost feminine voice:
+
+"Only those who are going to die are allowed to watch under the statue
+of the God."
+
+She called out:
+
+"Pierre! Pierre!..."
+
+But the escort had disappeared, swallowed up in the dark mouth of one
+of the passages. The warriors had loosed her. They watched her. The one
+who had already spoken said baldly:
+
+"Women and female beasts are just alike, they cry after the male...."
+
+Then she fled, and the laughter of the two guards followed her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                          A TERRIBLE BARGAIN
+
+
+She had fled into her room. Flung upon her sleeping-bench she
+was thinking rapidly. Her tears flowed no longer. With her will
+concentrated to a point, she forced herself to subdue the tumult of
+her thoughts and to bring order out of the chaos of ideas and emotions
+which surged up in her.
+
+The night had flowed into and drowned her cell,--this night which was
+to be the last one for Pierre and Father Ravennes. Tomorrow, at dawn,
+their torture would begin,--this fearful torture, the Slow Death, which
+Jieng one evening had complaisantly described to her: the flesh torn
+off bit by bit, the bones broken one by one, the entrails.... With a
+bound of horror the young woman flung herself from the couch and stood
+upright in the middle of the room. The darkness became unbearable to
+her. She lighted the torch fixed in the wall above the window. But the
+vision which she had thought to banish in driving away the dark, came
+back to her, haunted her.... Pierre cut to pieces, dismembered, a mere
+bleeding stump!... Pierre! and all this through her own fault...
+Yes, ... through her fault alone....
+
+The details of her last visit to the sorceress flashed through her
+mind, and among them the strange look of Jieng when she had given
+permission for Lursac and Ravennes to be notified. A bait! That was
+it.... She had been a bait used to entice the two men, to bring them
+into the trap, to call them to it certainly and irresistibly.
+
+And now, now.... Gripping her arms in her hands she twisted them in
+agony; all her love, all her suffering, broke from her in a strangled
+sob.... Ah! if it were possible to save them!... To snatch Pierre from
+this nameless and horrible death.... To save him.... She thought of
+the last words of the young man: "Perhaps we can manage...." She shook
+her head wildly: No. Nothing! He could do nothing!... For she knew,
+she had seen the warriors and the sorceresses. There were too many of
+them! What then? What then? She thought in a flash: "If I went there,
+I ... if instead of them Jieng would...." But she stood frozen into
+immobility at the thought that it was not she whom they wanted to get
+rid of, but they, the men who knew too much, who had discovered too
+many secrets,--they who represented the conquerors, the witnesses,--as
+they had already got rid of Dorcel, Longères, Redeski.... No, it must
+be something else ... she must find some other way.... But what?... The
+question obsessed her and would not let her go, beating round and round
+the walls of her brain.... What? She could not think of anything ...
+and the horrible scene which she visioned in advance dwelt obstinately
+before her eyes: the scene of the torture, tomorrow, in a few hours....
+
+Once more, seized by despair, she flung herself across the foot of
+the sleeping-bench and with her head buried in her arms she sobbed
+convulsively. Suddenly she heard a call, that hoarse, lingering,
+drawn-out cry which she had so often heard and knew so well. She
+turned her head towards the window and saw the Man. With his face
+pressed against the little columns, he was watching her. She remained
+motionless: what did he matter? She was now in the grip of a different
+fear, a more terrible one, which made her forget the one which had so
+long pursued her.
+
+They looked at each other, face to face: he with his eyes shining with
+the fever of passion; she with a mechanical stare which hardly saw him.
+He drew himself still closer to the window and called once again:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... êp._..."
+
+But his voice now had in it something timid and imploring which made
+the girl tremble. His eyelids flickered. She got up and stood facing
+him. Leaning against the wall she considered the face of the savage. It
+seemed to her now that she saw him for the first time. A line of shade
+from one of the columns hid his right ear, a part of his neck and the
+middle of his chest; but his heavy square forehead, high, and rising
+from bushy eyebrows; his deep-sunk eye-sockets, in the depths of which
+under quick flickering eyelids shone the thin, sharp, clinging look
+of a bird of prey; his strong red mouth and his hard, prominent chin;
+the entire face copper-colored, and softly touched into uncertain,
+purplish lights and shadows by the flame of the torch. And this face
+now appeared to Wanda strangely beautiful and savage at the same time.
+
+The Man, with a slow, gentle movement, as though afraid of frightening
+her, held up an enormous branch, covered with fruit, which he laid on
+the sill of the window, and on his face spread a shy boyish smile.
+
+Panting, Wanda suddenly made a couple of steps toward him. She
+staggered. With a violent effort which contorted her features, she
+conquered her weakness and let her look rest on the Man. A swift flame
+flashed in her eyes giving them a desperate expression. Then, dropping
+her glance, she stretched her hand and pointed to her door.
+
+When she looked again the window was empty. She trembled with dread
+lest he had not seen her sign and had gone away, not to return until
+the hour of dawn, according to his usual custom--At dawn, that is to
+say, too late! But she suddenly heard his step behind the heavy door
+which she had pointed out to him, and this time she was again shaken by
+a terrible shudder because he had understood....
+
+Instinctively she recoiled; but again the vision of Pierre being
+tortured appeared to her and she groaned. She walked stiffly to the
+door, while upon her lips, which she bit in order not to cry out,
+little drops of blood sprang out. She stretched out her hand and began
+to loosen the enormous wooden bar and let it fall on the ground. Then
+she drew back.
+
+The door, pushed violently open, slammed against the wall, and the Man
+appeared framed in the doorway of the cell.
+
+He was a magnificent figure. His fur garment girded about his waist
+left part of the chest bare and fell to his knees. The free shoulder
+was big and rounded, it had the metallic gleam of virgin copper.
+Along his bare arms the muscles stood out. From his whole body, at
+once massive and beautifully proportioned, radiated a singular sense
+of power. As he slowly twisted the upper part of his body, his whole
+figure turned with a supple flexion, and the fur which clothed him
+moulded still more clearly his athletic torso, showing the rounded
+flanks and bringing out the curve of his haunches.
+
+Wanda remained as though petrified in the middle of the room, unable to
+turn her eyes from the giant form. With a leap and a growl he was close
+to her, so near that she felt on her face the warmth of his breath. For
+a second he remained motionless, and then his neck, corded with muscles
+and veins, swelled as he stretched his hands to her.
+
+The danger awoke the young woman from the paralysis which held her.
+With a sudden movement she flung herself against the wall by the window
+under the torch. The Man looked astonished. He hesitated, his eyes
+looked suspiciously round the room and came back to the young woman.
+Shaking his rough, tawny mane of hair he came towards her. This time
+she did not stir: she felt instinctively that the time had come to
+face him--to face him and conquer him. This love which he had for her
+and which she was going to use must be set free and tamed at the same
+time,--and for that it was necessary that he should not suspect the
+blind terror which possessed her.
+
+When once again he was close in front of her, he spread wide his arms
+and opened his hands. She saw the grip ready to fall on her and seize
+her. The face of the Man and his warm breath came close, bending
+towards her golden hair which drew him like a charm. And as she felt
+on her shoulders the touch of his fingers, at once hard and light, she
+flung forward her little white and trembling fist and struck him full
+in the face with all her force. The Man, with a deep growl, manifested
+his astonishment, but he still held her. With a violent shake she got
+free but stood her ground. For a second they looked each other in the
+eyes. She saw clearly his fawn-colored pupils in which the reflections
+of the torch made red dancing spots; and there she saw suddenly come
+to a head all the instincts of violence and all the brutality of his
+primitive soul.
+
+She forced herself to stare at him, unwinking, and she spoke in a low,
+rather hoarse voice:
+
+"You have come every morning and every night.... You have brought me
+offerings. I know.... I have seen you.... I have heard you.... And
+tonight, I ... I ... have opened my door...."
+
+She spoke in Banhar, slowly picking her words. She did not consider
+what she was saying; the main point was that he should hear the sound
+of her voice and listen to it. It was essential that this light in the
+depths of his eyes should disappear.
+
+He, for his part, seemed entirely taken up with the contemplation of
+her hair, the inexplicable golden-ness of which obsessed him like a
+marvellous and unexpected vision.
+
+She went on speaking to him, but louder:
+
+"I have opened my door to you ... because I want to ask something of
+you ... something...."
+
+Suddenly he seemed to awake from his daydream: his eyelids beat
+rapidly: his lips, half-opened, showed the ivory sparkle of his teeth,
+and he savagely brought down his hands and clutched her arms. His
+features tightened with a terrific expression of cruelty, and all that
+had been awakened in him of softness and hesitation was crowded out
+and carried away by the sudden outbreak of primitive instinct: he was
+no longer anything but a male facing his desired love-prey. She knew
+this, she read it on his contorted face, and her fear sweeping back
+upon her she cried out. He lifted her up and sought to carry her off.
+She struggled and fought desperately with her nails, her feet, and her
+knees. The sleeve of her tunic which he had caught in his grip gave
+way: she managed to wriggle out of his grasp, leaving the strip of
+black silk between his fingers. Freed, she stumbled, fell against the
+columns of the window and remained clinging to them, trembling with
+fear and shame.
+
+Recoiling for an instant the Man watched her, while mechanically he
+wiped away with the back of his hand the blood from his neck covered
+with Wanda's scratches. She raised her arms above her head without
+letting her eyes wander from his. With her finger-tips she explored
+the wall above her until she felt the handle of the torch. At the same
+moment, a hoarse growl coming from the depths of his throat and his
+hands stretched out like claws, he flung himself at her. Seizing the
+torch she thrust it at him suddenly. The flame twisted in front of his
+eyes and a drop of burning resin fell upon his hand. Checked in his
+attack he jumped backward several steps. At that she followed him up,
+continuing to threaten him with the firebrand. Before the fire, this
+mysterious and living thing, this strange red flower, at the same time
+kindly and cruel, he slowly broke away. Perhaps there lingered in his
+brain the remembrance of another similar scene, of another evening when
+she had in the same way obliged him to leave her window and to give
+way before her. Or perhaps it was her face and her tragic beauty which
+impressed him.
+
+All his violence fell away from him. He still growled low in his
+throat but it was no longer savage or cruel: rather, on the contrary,
+complaining and imploring.
+
+When she had driven him close to the door by which he had entered,
+Wanda stood still and looked him in the eyes. Standing before her,
+with his head hanging, he turned away his face. She knew that she had
+conquered him, that he had submitted. Then, without taking any notice
+of him, she went and replaced the torch in its bracket above the
+window. Turning round she saw him standing in the same place, his eyes
+moving alternately from her to the door and back. She knew at once that
+he was hesitating whether to flee or not; and an agony of suspense came
+upon her lest he should disappear. Thinking of Pierre, whose image had
+remained with her throughout, she murmured:
+
+"I will save him, ... I will save him at any price!"
+
+Resolutely she went close to the Man. Without making any movement he
+watched her approach him; and when she laid her finger on his wrist a
+shiver went through him, but he still stood motionless. Again she spoke
+to him:
+
+"I said to you that I had something to ask you. You must listen to me,
+for then, if you do this thing, then...."
+
+He raised his head and looked at her attentively. She saw him watching
+anxiously, trying to understand her; and his desire to comprehend her
+words was so acute as to bring a deep wrinkle between his eyebrows.
+Then a wave of red flowed into the pallid cheeks of Wanda, and she
+finished her sentence:
+
+"Then," she said, "I will go with you--I will go with you always ...
+everywhere...."
+
+He breathed deeply and repeated:
+
+"Always ... everywhere, with me...."
+
+She acquiesced with a simple nod and closed her eyes.
+
+While speaking she had made a step in his direction. Now she felt his
+arms carefully take hold of her round the back and draw her to him. He
+pressed her against him for a second without her attempting to free
+herself; then she pushed him gently away and he let go of her.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I will do it if you free my brothers...."
+
+Her voice trembled. She did not even dare to to look at him, but stood
+waiting.
+
+"Your brothers?" said he, in his turn.
+
+"Two men of my race, of my blood," she explained. "The servants of the
+temple captured them yesterday; they have taken them into the great
+hall before the red figure of the god, and they are going to kill them
+when day comes, and that--" she almost screamed--"that I will not
+have...."
+
+The Man did not answer. In his thick skull obscure thoughts were
+beginning to stir. Again she stood in front of him.
+
+"With your companions you could rescue them, carry them away from here
+into the forest," said she. "They will go away, and I ... I will stay,
+down there...."
+
+And she pointed with her hand in the direction of the ravine.
+
+He trembled and put his arm round the waist of the young woman.
+
+"Good!" said he, "tomorrow, before the rising of the god who lights the
+world they shall be free...."
+
+She gave a long, deep sigh.
+
+"But are there enough of you, and will the others consent?"
+
+He drew himself up and threw out his chest, he clenched his fists
+roughly.
+
+"There are forty of them," he said with fierce pride, "forty, and
+for four seasons the clan has marched behind Maa-Wang.... Where I go
+the others will go, for I am Maa-Wang, the Man-who-goes-in-Front,
+He-who-carries-the-Club, he whom they follow...."
+
+He stopped and his rough voice softened.
+
+"Your brothers shall be free ... but then it is you whom the servants
+of the temple come to look for and will put to death...."
+
+"What does that matter?" said Wanda carelessly.
+
+He gave no heed to her. Like her, some moments earlier, he cried out:
+
+"I will not have that: Follow me!"
+
+And as she instinctively moved back from him, he said more softly:
+
+"You shall wait for Maa-Wang; and when those of your blood are free in
+the forest, then only will I come to fetch you."
+
+He had taken her arm as he spoke and drawn her out of the room. On
+the threshold she felt herself giving way. All her courage, all her
+exaltation vanished. She saw no longer anything but the horror of this
+sacrifice of herself: she was on the point of calling to him....
+
+But the savage, seeing her totter, had picked her up. He held her
+carefully against his great chest and advanced to the edge of the
+outside balcony. She could feel his heart beating in heavy, rhythmic
+throbs.
+
+She resigned herself to the sacrifice.
+
+Now the Man was carrying her in one arm. He descended the furthest
+wall and when he had reached the granite base on which the building
+was planted he stopped a moment searching the shadows. The night was
+light and filled with milky mist: above their heads the lighted window
+cut a luminous rectangle in the sombre façade of the temple, while the
+columns in front of the window flung across the narrow gallery in front
+of it alternate bars of shadows and bands of light.
+
+Once more Maa-Wang set forward. He slowly and carefully picked his way
+down the massed heap of rocky blocks, trying the ground before him at
+every step, and finally came to a sort of deep grotto hollowed between
+two enormous stones leaning one against the other. The opening was low
+and he had to bend himself to enter. He put the young woman on the
+ground: darkness wrapped them in its impenetrable mantle.
+
+"Here," said he, "no one will be able to find you except me."
+
+He was silent. Wanda understood that he was awaiting her reply. She
+gathered up all her remaining energy and was finally able to stammer:
+
+"I will wait for you."
+
+She could no longer see him, but she heard the noise of his breathing
+which receded and grew fainter, and she knew that he was going. She
+then saw his bent silhouette as he glided out of the cavern. Finally
+she saw him roll a mass of rock in front of the opening. Then a second
+one, and, after it, others, which he heaped on each other. The fragment
+of pale night which she could see through the cavern-mouth got narrower
+with each stone and finally disappeared altogether. The cave was filled
+with black shadows....
+
+The young woman then heard the footsteps of the savage become fainter
+and vanish into silence.
+
+Suddenly the veil of unconsciousness fell upon her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                              THE RESCUE
+
+
+Drawing up his great muscular form to its full height Maa-Wang
+stopped: behind him the whole clan followed his example. The
+Man-who-goes-in-Front carefully looked over the façade of the temple.
+It was dark. Wanda's window, only, still lighted-up, pierced the gloom
+with a thin rectangle of red.
+
+The night was beginning to thin. The roaring of wild beasts sounded
+from the valley. The depths of the gorge were still a sea of darkness,
+but the foundation wall of the temple, in front of which stood the
+tribe, gradually became distinct, and the nearest door showed darker in
+the midst of the dark mass.
+
+Maa-Wang turned towards his clan, raised his club aloft and started
+off again, a low growl rumbling from his lips. At his back moved the
+hunters, all on fire for the battle towards which their chief was
+guiding them. They spoke no word: their great hands clutched the
+handles of their axes: the flatness of their faces was accentuated:
+their clenched jaws and their chins vibrating with impatience stood out
+starkly: in their eyes, narrow and flickering, shone strange lights.
+
+They passed through Wanda's cell. The door giving on the gallery
+was shattered with a blow from the club and they streamed into the
+corridor behind the columns, pushing the wreckage out of their way.
+The narrow subway then forced them to form into a procession of two
+abreast. Maa-Wang went at the head, silent, his fingers on the wall of
+the passage, feeling his way. His fellows followed through the blank
+darkness. Several minutes they marched thus, here and there stopping to
+listen; but they found nothing but silence, a living silence heavy with
+invisible vibrations. Again they started onwards.... An axe now and
+again knocked against the wall, and the meeting of the two stones made
+a short, clear, clink, greeted by a surly growl. The passage curved and
+turned on itself. Then, at the top of the second staircase, guarded by
+a narrow rail, the opening suddenly appeared before them, showing a
+pointed archway against the lighted depths of the great hall.
+
+Maa-Wang, bending forward with his great body, shouted the call of the
+clan:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... iêp._..."
+
+And he rushed forward, club aloft, while behind him the troop streamed
+into the sanctuary.
+
+In front of them, with its back to them, rose an enormous statue which
+they passed round. Close on their left, the altar revealed its three
+steps and the transparent hangings behind which flamed the divinity.
+Above the twelve arms which stood out from the body the metal face
+reproduced with extraordinary exactness the face of Maa-Wang: the
+great swelling forehead, deep eye-sockets, prominent jaw bones and
+chin sticking out strongly, hair of a burning red. It was the Man of
+the early days, the ancestor of the human race deified. A deep red fur
+covered the upper part of the body: in truth it was the Red God,--the
+graven image of the "Living Gods"!
+
+At its feet Lursac and the missionary were stretched, gagged, their
+legs and arms bound and their clothes torn to ribbons.
+
+Discovering them, the hunters broke out into confused clamor, and while
+Maa-Wang ran to the two men, the others stood around them watching them
+with stupefied glances. Beyond them the hall unrolled its immensity,
+surrounded with enormous square pillars based on fantastic animals who
+stretched up towards the dim vaulted room their preposterous muzzles.
+In front of each one of these monsters taken from the old Brahmin
+legends flamed a brazier, flinging patches of blood-colored light on
+the gray scaly stomachs of these granite beasts; and on the white
+tiling of the floor the reflections of the quivering light mingled with
+the flickering shadows in a grotesque dance.
+
+Pierre, whom the Man had now freed from his bonds, stood up, staggering
+and swaying. He could not understand.... He was still stupefied from
+the hours of suspense which he had passed at the foot of the statue. It
+seemed to be the continuation of the evil dream which throughout the
+night had harried him without ceasing: the nightmare of the prehistoric
+tribe and then of the priestesses.
+
+But now from all the shadowy recesses and from all the corners
+unreached by the lights of the braziers there seemed to arise
+sorceresses and Moï warriors. There must have been a hundred of them,
+and their cries and calls echoed and re-echoed through the sanctuary.
+
+At their appearance the clan irresolute, turned back and fluctuated
+aimlessly. In doubt, Maa-Wang looked at the two Europeans one after the
+other.
+
+"Her brothers?" he murmured. "That is what she said...."
+
+The missionary heard him; he nodded, beginning to understand, and
+thinking of Wanda.
+
+"Her devotion has been useless," he thought. "We shall never get by
+them."
+
+At the same moment pointing out to the Man the army of priestesses and
+guards, he said, simply:
+
+"There are too many of them."
+
+The Man said nothing. He gave a hoarse sigh and once again his cry rang
+out:
+
+"_O ... ô ... iê ... êp...._"
+
+Shaken out of their surprise, the hunters at once recovered their
+natural instincts of violence. The joy of coming battle swelled their
+breasts and broke out in guttural exclamations. Maa-Wang, with Lursac
+and the missionary on his left hand, took his place at their head.
+His lips drawn back in a grin of fury, his eyes flaming, he dashed
+upon the hostile forces. Behind him the clan flung itself forward like
+a whirlwind, and suddenly the temple filled with screams and yells.
+Raising their axes like great wood-choppers the men of Gondwana brought
+them down in every direction around them. Skulls split with the crash
+of their blows: crushed breasts gave way with a softer sound. The flint
+weapons, splashed with blood up to the handles, became bright red.
+Over the tumult rang groans and the death-rattle of those who fell.
+Two braziers were over-turned, flinging their flaming coals right and
+left, and the smell of burning and a cloud of smoke mingled with the
+hot and bitter tang of blood. The war-cry of the clan, the long and
+sonorous _o ... ô ... iê ... êp_ ..., dominated the strident screams of
+the sorceresses. A staggering body, falling, brought down with it other
+bodies and the tiled floor became clouded with blood.
+
+Driven back on itself and ripped to pieces, the troop of sorceresses
+slowly gave way. A bo-jaou, her smashed face spurting blood, jumped
+at Lursac, trying to grasp him with clutching hands. Maa-Wang with a
+single blow of his fist knocked her headlong backwards, and plunged
+forward, his arms plastered with red patches, his face splashed with
+blood, a short low growl coming ceaselessly from his throat, the true
+frenzy of fight possessing him utterly. About a dozen hunters who were
+all wounded were cornered in an angle of the building and fighting a
+losing fight against an encompassing mass of Moï warriors; but he gave
+no thought to them. His aim was the door of the sanctuary. In front of
+him and around him the cluster of battling human beings swarmed and
+circled, gave way, fell and rolled in agony; wounded men, trampled
+upon, screamed. A Moï warrior, with an axe sunk deep in his naked back
+ran before him, stumbled, and collapsed.
+
+The missionary, his rosary in his hand, walked steadily forward, and
+the Man, for a second, threw an astonished glance at this strange being
+who walked at his side in the middle of this butchery, calmly, with a
+sad face, unarmed and silent. When they had reached the door, he looked
+at him a second time, still without understanding, and saw him at that
+very moment fling up his arms, stumble and fall, his side laid open by
+a sword blow. As Lursac with a cry ran to the priest, he stopped him,
+leant over quickly, lifted up the body in his left arm and ran through
+the doorway. Behind him, Pierre and some twenty hunters rushed down the
+passageway, shouting. Between the walls, lighted up by the tripods, a
+confused mass of Moï warriors and sorceresses was running away. The
+hunters in their turn ran. The noise of the battle grew less and died
+away behind them and once more they found themselves in a silence only
+broken by the panting of their own breath....
+
+Outside, in the great court they came to a stop.
+
+In a corner under a tree the six elephants of the expedition, recently
+captured by the Moïs, were standing tied to the columns; the mahouts
+with their arms and legs bound shivered with fright as they saw these
+strange beings approaching them.
+
+Against the lightening sky, still sown with stars, stood out the
+piled-up roofs of the buildings. The moon, pale and narrow, was pierced
+by the spike of one of the turrets. The air was soft and warm. A gentle
+breeze which could hardly be felt brought with it the vast murmur of
+the surrounding forest.
+
+Grouped about their chief the hunters stood waiting.
+
+Maa-Wang had laid the body of the missionary on the ground; he looked
+around, and seeing the elephants he walked towards them. Dazed, and
+with a great gash on his forehead, Pierre had sat himself down on the
+root of a banyan tree. From time to time he mechanically wiped away the
+blood which flowed down into his eyes and along his nose. Exhaustion
+had left his muscles relaxed and his nerves in a pitiable state; and he
+remained there motionless, shaken by the throbs of his exhausted heart.
+Dizziness, against which he vainly tried to fight, was overcoming him.
+Every minute he was coming nearer to complete collapse. He wanted to
+get up and walk about, but his drained energy could not bring itself to
+the point, and he stayed there, corpse-like and inert.
+
+Near by, under the tree, Maa-Wang unbound a mahout and helped him to
+hoist himself on to the neck of one of the animals. Together they came
+up to the remnants of the clan and the chief ejaculated a few words,
+short and forcible.
+
+Two men picked up Pierre and carried him to the kneeling elephant.
+Maa-Wang himself had taken charge of the missionary; he had picked him
+up in his arms and carried the long thin body against his breast as
+one carries a child. Pierre realized vaguely that he was being bound
+on to the back of the beast. Then he felt a sudden pitching movement,
+and realized that the animal was getting up. But although he tried
+desperately, he was not strong enough to open his eyes; and he gave up,
+and, his will in abeyance, lay supine.
+
+Maa-Wang then raised his hand. The elephant, followed by the hunters,
+moved forward and passing through the long vaulted entrance came to
+a stop again in front of the temple. The tribe, grouped about their
+chief, seemed to be waiting. He stretched out his arm and with a
+circular gesture pointed to the great territory which lay unrolled
+before him,--the vast scene, which appeared to have no limits and which
+the strengthening light of the day made clearer, showing a confusion of
+the great jumbled mass of mountain crests, plateaus and hills.
+
+"I promised to lead you to the great hunting ground, to the country
+without walls, and it is before you.... Go!... As for me ... I stay
+here.... Someone else whom you will pick for yourselves will become the
+Man-who-goes-in-Front."
+
+He was silent.
+
+Around him the hunters stood wordless; they gazed at the new world
+which was being opened to them and their faces reflected the
+contradictory feelings which swept through their minds: amazed wonder,
+the intoxication of endless spaces across which they were about to
+travel, and the fear of the Unknown. One of them suddenly made up his
+mind and set off; and the others in small groups ran after him in their
+turn.
+
+Maa-Wang watched them go; and when they had faded into almost invisible
+shadows he turned to the mahout:
+
+"You are free.... Go. Take these two back where they came from."
+
+Without awaiting an answer from the Lao-ese he lifted the heavy club
+and brought it down on the back of the elephant who promptly started
+forward. For an instant longer he stared, following with his eyes the
+elephant who had already begun to swing up the slope of the Pou-Kas
+carrying, hanging at its sides, the two human bodies.
+
+Then, turning round, he ran back to the temple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He made his way back to the hall of the God, where the battle had taken
+place a few minutes earlier. The signs of it were still visible. Bodies
+of dead warriors were strewn pell-mell about the sanctuary; the white
+tiling was here and there stained with large dark patches which grew
+black as they coagulated; the dying coals of the over-turned braziers
+sent up a bitter-smelling smoke, the smell of which mingled with the
+unmistakable smell of stale blood. In a corner the hunters who had
+been overwhelmed by a superior number of Moï warriors lay in a group
+of corpses, and the red furs which they had worn were huddled together
+with the broken bodies of the Moï guards, with whom, tangled together
+even in death, they had fought to the bitter end. Axes, lances and
+swords lay about on the ground. Groans and the moaning of a woman lying
+on her back with a lance through her chest rose in the cloudy air. At
+the foot of a winged dragon a Moï warrior with his side laid open by a
+great wound was still twisting about in his last agony.
+
+All this he saw as he went, just as he saw vaguely behind the three
+silver embroidered veils the enormous dark red statue in its eternal
+attitude of blessing and peace. But he had left it all behind him,
+for he had found again the subterranean passage, the gallery and the
+cell. And at last he emerged from the temple at the foot of the giant
+foundation-wall.
+
+The blaze of the sunshine, after the shadows and darkness of the rooms
+and corridors which he had just crossed, dazzled him. He blinked his
+eyes, and stopped to make sure of his direction. Then he ran towards
+the grotto in which he had enclosed his prey, the living trophy of
+his victory. On his breast, on his left thigh, and on his shoulder,
+savage wounds ran blood, but he felt them not. He thought only of
+the golden-haired woman. His desire for her, and the pride of having
+conquered as she had told him to, swept from his mind all other
+feeling and all consideration of everything else. He came near the
+cave in which she was waiting for him. A last bound brought him to the
+entrance--and he saw it yawning open, all the rocks which he had piled
+up against it flung to one side.
+
+After a short pause of stupefaction, he jumped into the cave. It was
+empty. He remained a second without understanding, looking at the
+ground stamped with footmarks, the mouth of the cavern, and the huge
+stones flung about the entrance. Then, bending down, he picked up a
+strip of white silk tunic, and this rag, which he recognized as the
+same material which Jieng wore as her sacred uniform and which he found
+now in the very place where he had shut up his vanished prey, filled
+him with insane rage....
+
+A cry like that of a wild beast sprang from his throat. All his animal
+fury came back in full force: he rushed towards the temple. A single
+thought, a single instinct drove him: to find his woman, to take her
+and carry her away.... Once more he came out into the sanctuary. His
+face contorted in frenzy, he looked about him, seeking and running from
+one shadowed corner to another, looking behind the pillars, upsetting
+the braziers, savagely mutilating with his axe the granite idols that
+he found in his way. His lust for murder became a paroxysm! He growled
+without ceasing; and before his haggard eyes the light of the brazier
+fires seemed to grow larger and to mix one with the other. The hall of
+the temple looked red to him ... red ... for he was now nothing but a
+brute beast in delirium.... He ran straight ahead, turning neither to
+the right nor to the left; and suddenly he found himself opposite the
+three silver veils facing the statue of the God. He flung himself madly
+upon them. The curtains, torn apart, fell upon him. He fought with
+them, rending them to shreds and stamping on them. Then he attacked
+the image of the God. The arms, the face, and the metal body of the
+Divinity splintered by his club were defaced, broken and wrecked. It
+rocked on its base; a final blow flung it crashing to the ground.
+Hanging over it he tore from the image the barbaric collar that it
+wore about its neck, then he set himself again to pounding it into
+fragments....
+
+Through the silence the sound of his blows rang and rang until the
+idol was nothing but a broken heap of formless wreckage. Leaving it
+then, he resumed his furious course and burst howling into a corridor.
+He crossed other halls and other passages, swinging his club about
+him at random. From his open wounds the blood trickled and ran in
+streams spattering the tiles and the walls. Fragments of stone and the
+splinters from the flint of his club had struck him in the face; the
+cuts they had made had bloodied his forehead and his cheeks. He was red
+from his hair to his heels. Everything that was human in him was in
+abeyance. He was now only a male animal, a brute, mad with the frenzy
+of battle and disappointed desire.
+
+He continued his aimless rush through the temple, crossing room after
+room; but now on his way phantoms slid from his path and hid themselves
+behind pillars, reappearing behind him, following his course and
+accompanying him, invisible, but every moment more numerous. At last
+he arrived in a narrow room without any other exit than a lofty door,
+above which, on a cornice formed by a heavy marble slab the granite
+image of a giant dragon stood on guard. He ran straight for the door
+but just as he was crossing the threshold with a sudden crash the
+dragon fell, pinning him to the ground....
+
+He fell without a cry.
+
+And while the priestesses swarmed out from all the dark corners and ran
+towards him, two sorceresses, crouched on the edge of the cornice from
+which they had pushed the fallen dragon, leant over and watched the
+trickles of blood which began to flow and spread from under the massive
+stone monster....
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV
+
+                                ESCAPE
+
+
+The elephant, with a heavy swinging gait, made its way through the
+green shade of the forest. Hanging from its side Lursac, with wide open
+eyes, shivered all over. Around him floated the stagnant, decaying
+smell of the undergrowth, like the sickening and enervating atmosphere
+of a hot greenhouse. The vegetation became thicker. A dull greenish
+half-light, like an illumination at the bottom of the sea, seemed to
+suck the color from the bushes and spread over the massed verdure a
+uniform light as of the interior of a tomb.
+
+Hours passed thus, and finally the light grew dimmer. An acrid mist
+rising from the soil spread itself in long streamers and floated upward
+like a pallid veil. Under the frondage the dusk became more sombre and
+violent in tint; a shaft of reddish light struck through the branches,
+lingered for a moment; then suddenly darkness spread over the mountain
+and invaded the depths of the forest. The mahout continued to urge on
+his beast. The voices of the night arose, and unknown cries came out of
+the darkness. But now Pierre was delirious. Great phantoms, grotesque
+and nameless, danced and fled before his eyes. Imaginary scenes rose up
+before him, and with all his strength he tried to pursue them. He could
+not sleep; he hung there motionless watching the peopled night before
+him with fixed eyes....
+
+In his waxen and rigid face only his eyes seemed to be still alive.
+They stared straight in front with a burning gaze focussed in the far
+distance. Now and again the strange shapes which inhabited the darkness
+caused him to break into a terrified laugh. The suspension of his
+reasoning powers had left him just a wounded animal clinging to life in
+spite of everything, with nothing but a persistent instinct to guide
+him.
+
+Suddenly Father Ravennes, his head hanging loose and jerking with
+the steps of the elephant, began to groan. His moans broke the heavy
+silence of the night steadily, persistently, with a sound that was
+gently monotonous. And this was the last noise which Pierre remembered
+before falling into the depths of an unconsciousness as deep as death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was still this moaning that he heard when he came out of his
+insensibility and had begun reaching towards life again. He opened his
+eyes. It was day. Above his head he saw the leafy summit of a tree--the
+only thing within his circle of vision--with branches of a green that
+was almost black and leaves of a more vivid hue. He tried to move, to
+sit up, but an intense weakness held him full length on the earth, his
+backbone pressed to the cold damp soil and his face staring at the sky
+and watching through the leaves the trailing streaks of gray cloud.
+
+He did not understand it yet. What was he doing there? Why were these
+trees all round him?
+
+The groaning continued. Now and then it stopped, but went on again more
+heavily. He turned his head in the direction of the sound and he found,
+a few paces away from him, the missionary, his back supported against
+the trunk of a tamarind, his eyes closed, his face livid, and his
+half-open mouth emitting this endless moaning.
+
+Suddenly his brain was flooded by a wave of remembrance which swept
+away his passive acceptance of things as they were. He struggled to his
+knees and cried out:
+
+"Wanda!... Wanda!..."
+
+Clutching the tree under which he had been lying, he managed to stand
+up, but he had to cling to the trunk to prevent himself falling.
+Leaning against it he cast a hesitating glance about him. He was on
+the outside of the forest, opposite a narrow clearing which ended in
+a definite opening, looking out upon a valley of which he was able to
+see the further end stretching southward to the horizon. Close by him,
+at his very feet, a ray of light struck down between two branches and
+broke in fragments of gold on the patches of moss. The dense shadows of
+the trees fell on the ground in parallel bars of black shade. A lizard,
+pressed into the warm hollows of the rock, shrilled its short musical
+cry. Dazed, and with flickering eyes, Lursac remained motionless.
+The sun flamed overhead, flooding the scene beyond the forest with
+merciless light. The radiant air seemed to vibrate.
+
+The young man drew in one deep breath after another; the blood came
+back to his face and he cried again:
+
+"Wanda!... Wanda!..."
+
+At the sound of his voice the priest opened his eyes and his groaning
+became louder and more heart-rending. Pierre shook his head, trying
+with every ounce of strength that was in him to conquer his weakness.
+He managed to walk heavily and slowly in the direction of the
+missionary. When he got close up to him he felt like fainting at the
+terrible sight which he saw.
+
+The whole side of the priest's tunic was stiff with coagulated blood.
+In the middle of this, through the rents made by the Moï sword, two
+ghastly wounds could be seen covered with ants,--the terrible red ants
+of the Lao-ese forest--which swarmed to the attack in a column along
+the leg of the helpless man.
+
+Before the horror of the martyrdom which the missionary was undergoing
+and must have suffered for hours, Lursac shuddered and had to clench
+his teeth to prevent himself from crying out. He ran at the insects
+and dispersed them with stamps and blows, sweeping them away with his
+hands and tramping them into the ground. Then he pushed the priest
+a little further off to protect him from their attacks and laid him
+gently down. Tenderly raising the edges of the tears in the clothes
+he exposed the two wounds: a great deep slash in the side through
+which at every respiration the blood pumped afresh, and down the leg a
+long jagged tear. With a strip from the lining of his military tunic,
+Pierre cleaned the wounds, sweeping out the voracious insects which
+still clung there, and did his pitiful best to make the dying man
+comfortable. It was when he saw his own hands bathed in the blood of
+his friend like those of a butcher that once again a mortal sickness
+came over him and he was on the point of fainting.
+
+The priest closed his eyes; he was no longer groaning. He murmured:
+
+"Thank you.... I am not in pain now...."
+
+Trying to raise his hand, he whispered:
+
+"My cross."
+
+Pierre, taking off the rosary of black wood which hung from the
+missionary's neck, put it between his fingers. The pale hand fumbled
+with the beads until it reached the silver cross, which it gripped
+caressingly. His features suddenly relaxed and took on an appearance of
+peaceful sweetness.
+
+"And you ... you? ..." he muttered.
+
+Pierre understood his thought; tears rose to his eyes.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders wearily.
+
+"Don't worry about me," he said, "I will take you home....
+Afterwards ... afterwards ... I do not know...."
+
+The priest moved his head; his voice became stronger, almost clear:
+
+"No.... I am done for.... I am dying ... here in the heart of this
+country which I have loved so much and where I have suffered so
+much...."
+
+His gray beard suddenly seemed to become darker against the livid
+pallor of his face.
+
+"And then, I have seen," he said, "that wonderful thing, the Red Gods:
+a prehistoric tribe such as used to be thirty thousand years ago...."
+
+A scarcely visible smile fluttered on his colorless lips.
+
+"My God," he whispered, "pardon me!... This is my last attack of
+pride...."
+
+He gave a groan; the movement having sent a spasm of torture through
+his side, he shut his eyes. His wax-like lids became gradually mauve,
+then white with a whiteness that seemed unreal and almost transparent.
+
+Pierre bent over him, heard him murmuring softly, peacefully:
+
+"Since it is here that you have willed that I should die.... Thy holy
+will be done, O God!..."
+
+Then in a voice now vague and indistinct he said once more:
+
+"Sweet Jesus, give me rest!..."
+
+His words became still more indistinct and confused, and he repeated
+several times:
+
+"Rest ... rest...."
+
+And then he was silent. The pale and shrunken hand which pressed the
+crucifix against his lips stiffened, slipped, and fell back on his
+breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a long time Pierre remained on his knees in contemplation
+before this ascetic, sad, waxen face now smiling with a curious
+smile--peaceful, tender and serene--a last gleam from this great sweet
+and kindly soul....
+
+Then in a sort of unconscious torpor, against which vague images
+floated, flickered and vanished, he thought of the conventional rites;
+but the earth in which he would have dug a bed for this poor martyred
+body was cold and hard, full of tangled roots and crossed by veins of
+rock, and he had to content himself with drawing the corpse to the
+foot of a tree and covering it with a thick mass of leaves, branches
+and moss. From the branch of the tree above he hung the rosary of the
+priest, and over the rough and ready tomb the silver crucifix swung
+softly in the breeze.
+
+When Pierre had finished this last office for his dead friend, he sat
+down and wiped the sweat from his face. He stayed motionless, delving
+among the remembrances of his childhood for the words of a prayer, but
+nothing came--only a single phrase kept recurring to his mind, and he
+repeated it mechanically over and over again:
+
+"Our Father which art in Heaven.... Our Father which art in Heaven...."
+
+The rest of the invocation had lost itself in the troubled night of
+forgetfulness, in a mingling and changing wave of images, thoughts and
+feelings which rushed into his mind, passed through it and fled....
+
+Wanda.... The Post.... Redeski.... The temple.... The ravine of
+Gondwana.... The aurochs.... The mammoths.... Jieng.... The battle in
+the sanctuary.... The caverns.... And then Wanda again.... Wanda....
+Wanda.... Wanda...!
+
+He stood up: an immense despair fell upon him. He looked again at the
+simple tomb in which the missionary was sleeping; then he went. His
+legs bent under him with weakness, his brain reeled, as he walked
+towards the edge of the clearing. At the same moment a bell in the
+distance began to sound slowly. Stupefaction struck Pierre motionless,
+then a shock drove him forwards. A bell: houses, ... white men, ...
+help, ... life.... He ran forward stumbling, and, suddenly opening his
+arms wide, he fell on his knees.
+
+At the bottom of the green, level valley, which he saw before him and
+recognized immediately, there was no longer any Post 32.... Its wrecked
+palisades showed great breaches. Against the background of the canal,
+which flowed peaceably on its way as usual, the burned piling showed
+its blackened stumps: of the huts which had sheltered Wanda and himself
+so recently, of the sheds which served as lodgings for the riflemen, of
+the stables and the guardhouse, nothing was left but five gray patches
+out of which stuck blackened beams.
+
+But on the horizon, in the midst of its green peaceful oasis the bell
+of the Mission still sounded, and across the military post, which the
+people of the forest had just destroyed for the third time, its frail
+metallic voice was wafted on the wind, ringing the evening Angelus.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI
+
+                         A MESSAGE FROM JIENG
+
+
+Buttoning up his waistcoat, Pierre went to the window and pushed open
+the blinds. A wave of sunlight flooded his little room, lighting up
+the whitewashed walls and making the copper-mounted bed sparkle. Under
+its influence, the odor of drugs which had filled the room seemed to
+evaporate from the two arm-chairs and the bamboo table loaded with
+pots and bottles. Outside, the clock that ornamented the façade of the
+hospital struck the hour, five clear leisurely strokes, which fell
+slowly, one by one, in the vast sluggishness of the afternoon. Other
+blinds were thrown back noisily, and little by little life pursued its
+daily resurrection after the torrid hours of the siesta.
+
+Leaning on his elbows at his window, Pierre let his glance wander over
+the familiar scene. Beyond the great veranda which ran the whole length
+of the building, and upon which the rooms of the patients opened,
+he could see the hospital park spreading out with its green turf
+and leafy trees, and between them the sanded walks, stretching like
+yellow ribbons striped alternately with shadow and sunlight. Far off,
+half seen through the gaps in the foliage, shone the whiteness of the
+hospital wall which kept at a distance the noise and the traffic of
+Saigon.
+
+Pierre stretched himself and tried his muscles. He felt himself
+very weak, his nerves flabby and his body heavy; the slowness and
+uncertainty of each of his movements showing him how complete had been
+his physical breakdown, how deep and lasting the disarrangement of his
+vital mechanism to which five months of hospital treatment had only
+succeeded in bringing back a weak illusion of energy, a pretense of
+strength.... He smiled bitterly. Nothing would ever bring back to him
+the vigor of his body, the richness and the freshness of his blood--in
+a word, his youth!... And his mind itself, disrupted by suffering,
+suddenly appeared to him old, worn out and pitiful.
+
+The noise of the door opening behind him interrupted his gloomy
+thoughts.
+
+He turned about, raising his sallow face to the Sister of Charity who
+had just entered. She smiled softly, with that self-effacing smile
+which was habitual with her:
+
+"Well, my child, I hope you are pleased. Today for the first time you
+are to be allowed to go out into the park."
+
+He made no answer, keeping his expression of indifference and
+depression.
+
+She shook her head, making the white wings of her head-dress flap to
+and fro:
+
+"How do you feel?"
+
+She looked into his eyes.
+
+"Come," said she, "that's enough of those black thoughts. Come for a
+walk outside--the sun will do you good."
+
+He bowed his head and remained motionless and lifeless.
+
+"Listen, Sister Thérèse," he said, "I want...."
+
+He hesitated, his eyes sought the eyes of the sister:
+
+"What?" she asked, "still full of questions, eh? How did you get here?
+This is the twentieth time you have asked me that, but I know nothing
+about it, my child. If I knew, I would tell you, you know that! Why
+should I want to hide it from you? But no, I promise you.... They
+brought you here one evening; I was on duty, and I took you in and
+looked after you. You were delirious, and I thought,--I can tell you
+this now that you are practically cured--that you were going to slip
+away from me. And then you had an attack of gastritis complicated with
+brain-fever and you talked ... you talked...."
+
+Pierre raised his head quickly.
+
+"What did I say?"
+
+"How do I know? If you think I take notice of all the nonsense my
+patients talk! I have lots of other things to think about. First of all
+I had to prevent you getting out of bed, and your one idea was to dress
+yourself and start off."
+
+She spoke lightly, accompanying her phrases with gestures. Underneath
+her words could be felt the joy which she experienced in seeing this
+patient of hers, for whose life she had fought hour by hour, up and
+about again. She took his arm and shook it affectionately.
+
+"Now, go, you stupid!" she said. "Underneath the wall over there you
+will find your friends. Talk with them: it will ease your mind. They
+will tell you the latest scandal of Saigon. You will see, they have
+lots of jokes--at least I suppose so from hearing their shouts of
+laughter--for they take very good care never to tell them to me, the
+scamps!"
+
+And she pushed him out of the door and shut it behind his back with a
+little laugh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pierre found himself under the veranda. The sweetish smell of the
+bougainvilleas in flower, the stems of which crept in masses over the
+wooden balustrade, floated heavily in the air and mingled with the
+stale odor of drugs, whiffs of which escaped from the open door. Rolled
+up in rugs, their skeleton-like bodies loose in the hospital pyjamas
+of gray wool, the convalescents lay, trying to accustom their eyes to
+the blazing light which fell from a cloudless sky the color of deep
+turquoise. A gentle breeze drifted among the deck-chairs, enveloping
+the patients with its kindly warmth.
+
+Pierre went down a staircase and came out into an avenue. He walked
+slowly with short steps as groping and uncertain as his thoughts.
+In the middle of a circle of turf a watering-pipe sent up a mist of
+spray which the setting sun edged with a miniature rainbow. A vast
+peace lay over the whole park,--a satisfying and contemplative silence
+broken only here and there by the sudden whistlings of birds. Pierre,
+following his course, came into an avenue of flame-trees: on the bare
+earth large purple blossoms fallen from the branches made spots of
+vivid red across the patches of shade which were riddled with little
+circles of sunlight ceaselessly trembling and dancing among them.
+
+At the end of the avenue a chorus of cries greeted him:
+
+"Aha, Lursac! Out for the first time?"
+
+"This is better than the native huts!"
+
+Pierre acknowledged the greetings with a weary movement of his hand.
+
+There were four of them--four young men escaped like himself from the
+privations of the forest and re-united here by the chances of sickness.
+One down from Cambodia, two from the Chinese frontier and the fourth
+just brought in from Cochin-China.
+
+This last said to him:
+
+"Yes ... it is a good deal better. As for me, when they let me out
+after three months in bed...."
+
+And he went off into a long account of his own convalescence.
+
+Pierre lay back in an arm-chair by the table on which playing-cards
+were lying about in disorder by open newspapers.
+
+The man who had spoken first--a big fellow with laughing eyes and
+sarcastic mouth--took one of the papers, unfolded it, looking for
+something.
+
+"Here you are, old chap. There's something about you in this ... half a
+column at least. 'The famous Post 32 again!' Good heading, eh? As for
+the article, it is a regular wonder, nothing better was ever invented
+in any editorial office!"
+
+Pierre stretched out his hand for it.
+
+"No, listen.... I'll read it to you out loud. It is worth the
+trouble!..."
+
+And in his mocking voice he declaimed:
+
+                      "'THE FAMOUS POST 32 AGAIN
+
+    "'Without doubt our readers will remember the tragedy which took
+    place here some five months ago at the foot of the Pou-Kas, the
+    scene of which was Post 32, long celebrated in the annals of our
+    Indo-Chinese history. For those of our readers who have forgotten
+    this sad affair we will give a brief resumé of it. M. de Lursac,
+    a young administrator with splendid prospects ... (I salute you,
+    my boy; the Press admires you! It is the only original passage in
+    the article. I continue:) ... a young administrator with splendid
+    prospects was despatched at his own request to Post 32, the
+    responsibility for which he was to share with Lieutenant Redeski.
+    Administrator Lursac had been ordered to proceed, on taking up his
+    duties, with a police operation against the independent Moï tribes
+    of the district. Everybody still remembers the result of this
+    expedition. Starting out in company with the Rev. Father Ravennes,
+    of the Apostolic Mission to the Banhars, M. de Lursac was found a
+    month later wandering in the forest in a condition of collapse and
+    sickness which left the possibility of his recovery doubtful for
+    a long time. His escort of native riflemen scattered in continual
+    attacks, his elephants killed by poisoned arrows, his reverend
+    companion dead by the way of a wound received in an ambush, he
+    was alone in the midst of the vast Lao-ese forest. M. de Lursac
+    was attempting to find his way back to the Post when he fell,
+    conquered by weakness and exhaustion; but he had succeeded, thanks
+    to an extraordinary will power ... (I greet you once more!) ...
+    in reaching the outskirts of it, and it was at a distance of only
+    a few miles from the station which had been destroyed during his
+    absence that the converts of Father Ravennes discovered the young
+    administrator, dying, and in a state of destitution impossible
+    to describe. We understand that a successor to him has just been
+    appointed. Would it not be better before uselessly sacrificing
+    the lives and energies of our young men ... (All salute him,
+    gentlemen!) ... to first of all set to work seriously to clean out
+    the district and to put down with an iron hand this rebellious
+    horde that makes our rule over this part of the hinterland simply
+    illusory? It appears to us indeed, impossible that the authorities
+    who pretend to be so anxious about it, etc., etc.'
+
+"Then follows a whole list of suggestions--all illusory, as the editor
+of this estimable journal would say--in which the Colonial Government
+gets a few of these truths which it is customary to hand it on
+occasion.... What have you got to say about it, young administrator of
+most splendid prospects?"
+
+He stopped speaking. All eyes turned to Lursac. He considered. What
+could he tell them? The truth!... Ah! the truth!... He shrugged his
+shoulders, deciding to leave uncontradicted the fantastic version given
+by the Saigon papers.
+
+But the other obstinately asked a definite question:
+
+"How much truth is there in all this nonsense?"
+
+Pierre felt that it was necessary to give some answer.
+
+"Sentences here and there!" he said, evasively. "It was very simple....
+The _linhs_ deserted almost at once; the mahouts in their turn got away
+with their animals and all the provisions, so that I found myself one
+fine day alone with Father Ravennes, who had been wounded the night
+before during an attack on a village. We wandered through the forest
+aimlessly, straying here and there and going in a circle and then ...
+and then...."
+
+He shut his eyes. An unconquerable lassitude fell upon him, he lay back
+heavily in his chair.
+
+"And then," continued the voice of one of the young men, "you woke up
+in hospital. Here or elsewhere it is always the same story. Some leave
+their skins behind and others bring them out with them. That's life,
+that is!... They give us an order, we carry it out. As for the rest, it
+all depends on the will of Buddha. As my girl says to me, 'We are in
+the hands of the Perfect One!'"
+
+He crumpled up the paper, rolled it into a ball and flung it over the
+wall.
+
+There was a long silence. In the street which ran just the other side
+of the wall, the rhythmic trot of a rickshaw coolie came up, passed by,
+and died into the distance, and then a song rose; it was the song of a
+beggar imploring charity in a tremulous tearful voice. The sun, slowly
+descending, shot slanting rays of light across the avenues of the park.
+The sky, changing slowly through gold and purple, became mauve: the
+piping birds sounded more softly and less often: an invisible bell
+behind the wall of trees and buildings sounded out in short repeated
+strokes.
+
+The young men got up.
+
+"Are you coming, Lursac?"
+
+Pierre was recalling the past. Once more he saw Ravennes and the humble
+tomb of greenery above it; and in the depths of the vast Lao-ese forest
+the rosary that would swing its crucifix of tarnished silver whenever
+the wind blew from the north down the slope of the Pou-Kas. He thought
+of Wanda. Where was she, and what had become of her? Was she still a
+prisoner of the tribe? Prisoner?...
+
+He saw again the wild rush of the men of Gondwana. He thought of the
+love of their chief for Wanda. Prisoner? Ah!... Ah!...
+
+A hand shook him:
+
+"Lursac! Here, Lursac! When are you going to finish dreaming with your
+eyes open? The first dinner bell has just rung. Are you coming?"
+
+Suddenly the song of the beggar on the other side of the wall died away.
+
+Pierre shook his head.
+
+"I have plenty of time," he said, "it is still quarter of an hour to
+the second bell."
+
+The young men, careless, left him. One of them began telling a
+scandalous story which was going the round in Saigon. Gradually his
+voice and the laughter of his fellows became indistinct as they moved
+away.
+
+Once more fallen into a revery, Pierre felt a bitter pleasure in again
+going over his sufferings in detail. Suddenly his former despair fell
+upon him. Again he was tortured,--perhaps more terribly than he had
+ever been. His grief which had remained in abeyance during his illness
+came alive again. His heart contracted; he called out, hoarsely:
+
+"Wanda!... Wanda!..."
+
+Behind the tall white wall the dragging footstep of the beggar and her
+song came again--then something pale, flung from the street, fell on
+an arm-chair, rebounded and rolled on the ground. Pierre, surprised,
+remained motionless for a second. The song had again ceased and hurried
+steps could be heard making away. Bending down he picked up the object
+and examined it. It was a packet, carefully done up in a dirty rag.
+Opening it with an instinctive fear he looked at the contents and
+seized with a convulsive fit of trembling remained nailed to his seat,
+incapable of moving.... Then, he rushed to the entrance gate. The
+rifleman on guard, scared at his violence, watched him go out without
+making any effort to stop him. There was not a soul in the street.
+Pierre made the complete circuit of the hospital, running as hard as
+he could, coming back to the entrance gate. Then dashing into the next
+street he followed it exhausted, his heart beating so as to suffocate
+him, until he could run no longer. His clenched hand clung to the
+packet.
+
+About him people hurried to and fro, elbowing him and pushing him aside
+without his noticing it. At the corner of the boulevard he was almost
+run over. The coachman, flinging himself back on his seat with the
+reins pulled up tight, dragged his ponies to one side and missed him
+by an inch, cursing him volubly. He heard him not and noticed nothing.
+His eyes looking straight before him saw a phantom which fled him
+ceaselessly and which he as ceaselessly pursued.
+
+At last, opposite a shop window he pulled up. The glass of the
+window reflected his own image and he looked at it for a moment with
+stupefaction. Was that he?... This fleshless skeleton of a body ...
+with gestures feverish, ugly and grotesque? Was that the body of him,
+Pierre de Lursac?... That livid face, all flat hollows and projecting
+bones; this withered flesh; these wrinkles; these eyes shining with
+fever and yet dull; these loose burned up lips--all these things ...
+were they his eyes, his face, his mouth?... He gave a terrible grin and
+clenched his fists; the packet which he was still carrying crackled....
+And once more he resumed his aimless way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Under the arched trees along the avenues the shade was deeper.
+Rickshaws and carriages went about hurriedly to unknown destinations.
+The usual life cast up its flood of passers-by, its under-current of
+natives, its noises, its smells;--and he, among it all, was like a
+scrap of flotsam drifting at random.... Then night fell, and lights
+shone through the dark. They became fewer and disappeared altogether
+for a while, for he was following a road which led out of the city and
+ran across the open country.
+
+He still kept going.... He came to a canal and followed it. The voices
+of sampan men came to him and the smell of Annamese cooking. At long
+distances between, a victoria, a malabar and a few rickshaws passed him
+or met him. The light of their lanterns striking out in the darkness
+threw a brief illumination upon him and shed a narrow, yellow light
+on the opposite side of the road which quickly fled away from him and
+disappeared....
+
+Then, again, he found himself in the neighborhood of a crowd of human
+beings, the lights and the human scurryings of a native village. And
+suddenly he came to himself. With a flash the cloud of hallucination
+which had encompassed him fell away and vanished. He looked about him
+with haggard eyes. He was on the outskirts of Cho-lon. On his left he
+could see the dark furrow of the canal crowded with a mass of junks and
+sampans and spotted with enormous native lamps; on his right the houses
+of the Chinese town rose with their colored lanterns and flamboyant
+signs and gildings and their stalls.
+
+He hesitated. Casting a heavy glance over the canal with its black and
+oily water, stagnant between its muddy banks, he then turned towards
+the town and saw in front of him a shop above which a panel of black
+lacquer bore in gold letters the name of the proprietor. He read
+mechanically between two columns of Chinese characters:
+
+                               TSEN-TAC
+
+                       CHINESE CURIOS AND SILKS
+
+                       CANTON. SAIGON. SHANGHAI.
+
+He said to himself:
+
+"Tsen-Tac?... Tsen-Tac?..."
+
+This name brought to life in some obscure corner of his mind a sleeping
+memory. Suddenly he remembered: at the bottom of the passageway in the
+inner shop: Opium,--the drug that gives forgetfulness and peace.
+
+Making up his mind he walked to the door and pushed it open violently.
+The pot-bellied owner, with his little narrow eyes lost among the
+billowings of his vast face, greeted him with an obsequious smile. He
+was already framing a phrase of welcome when Pierre cut him short with
+a rough shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"Shandoo," he said heavily.
+
+And he rattled several piastres in the bottom of his pocket.
+
+The "compere"[20] made his smile still broader. His fat face took on an
+air of secrecy. He flung a cautious look around the empty shop and then
+with his hand, sparkling with rings of pink and green jade, he pointed
+to a hanging in the furthest corner.
+
+[Footnote 20: Name given to the Chinese.]
+
+Pierre, raising it, slid into the passage. In front of him at the
+further end stood a door, lighted by a dim lantern of figured silk. He
+stopped for a second, pushing his hands into his pockets. With a hoarse
+sigh, he felt the packet which had come to him in such a strange manner
+a few hours earlier and he began to withdraw his hand slowly, bringing
+out with it towards the light the.... A shudder shook him from head to
+foot. He could not complete the movement; more haggard than before, if
+possible, he bent his head....
+
+"I cannot ... not yet.... Later ... presently.... When I have smoked
+ten pipes ... twelve pipes.... When the opium has.... Then, yes....
+I will see if it is really her ... her hand ... with the ring ... my
+signet ring...."
+
+An uncontrollable sob shook him.
+
+Once more he repeated:
+
+"Her hand ... her hand...."
+
+And he pushed open the door and entered the opium den.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79053 ***