The Red One E-Book

Jack London

• Herausgeber: ShadowPOET
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

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

Leseprobe

TheRedOneBy

JackLondon

Publisher: ShadowPOET

THEREDONE

There it was!The abrupt liberation of sound!As he timed it with hiswatch, Bassett likened it to the trump of an archangel. Walls of cities, hemeditated, might well fall down before so vast and compelling a summons.For the thousandth time vainly he tried to analyse the tone-quality of thatenormous peal that dominated the land far into the strong-holds of thesurrounding tribes.The mountain gorge which was its source rang to therising tide of it until it brimmed over and flooded earth and sky and air. Withthe wantonness of a sick man’s fancy, he likened it to the mighty cry of someTitan of the Elder World vexed with misery or wrath. Higher and higher itarose,challenginganddemandinginsuchprofoundsofvolumethatitseemedintended for ears beyond the narrow confines of the solar system. There wasin it, too, the clamour of protest in that there were no ears to hear andcomprehenditsutterance.

—Suchthesickman’sfancy.Stillhestrovetoanalysethesound.

Sonorous as thunder was it, mellow as a golden bell, thin and sweet as athrummedtautcordofsilver—no;itwasnoneofthese,norablendofthese.There were no words nor semblances in his vocabulary and experience withwhichtodescribethetotalityofthatsound.

Time passed. Minutes merged into quarters of hours, and quarters of hoursinto half-hours, and still the sound persisted, ever changing from its initialvocal impulse yet never receiving fresh impulse—fading, dimming, dying asenormously as it had sprung into being.It became a confusion of troubledmutterings and babblings and colossal whisperings. Slowly it withdrew, sobby sob, into whatever great bosom had birthed it, until it whimpered deadlywhispersofwrathandasequallyseductivewhispersofdelight,strivingstilltobeheard,toconveysomecosmicsecret,someunderstandingofinfiniteimportand value.It dwindled to a ghost of sound that had lost its menace andpromise, and became a thing that pulsed on in the sick man’s consciousnessfor minutes after it had ceased.When he could hear it no longer, Bassettglanced at his watch.An hour had elapsed ere that archangel’s trump hadsubsidedintotonalnothingness.

Was this, then, his dark tower?—Bassett pondered, remembering hisBrowning and gazing at his skeleton-like and fever-wasted hands.And thefancy made him smile—of Childe Roland bearing a slug-horn to his lips withan arm as feeble as his was. Was it months, or years, he asked himself, sincehefirstheardthatmysteriouscallonthebeachatRingmanu?Tosavehimselfhecouldnottell.Thelongsicknesshadbeenmostlong.Inconsciouscount

of time he knew of months, many of them; but he had no way of estimatingthe long intervals of delirium and stupor. And how fared Captain Bateman oftheblackbirderNari?hewondered;andhadCaptainBateman’sdrunkenmatediedofdeliriumtremensyet?

From which vain speculations, Bassett turned idly to review all that hadoccurred since that day on the beach of Ringmanu when he first heard thesound and plunged into the jungle after it.Sagawa had protested.He couldsee him yet, his queer little monkeyish face eloquent with fear, his backburdened with specimen cases, in his hands Bassett’s butterfly net andnaturalist’sshot-gun,ashequavered,inBêche-de-merEnglish:“Mefellatoomuchfrightalongbush.Badfellaboy,toomuchstop’malongbush.”

Bassett smiled sadly at the recollection. The little New Hanover boy hadbeenfrightened,buthadprovedfaithful,followinghimwithouthesitancyintothe bush in the quest after the source of the wonderful sound.No fire-hollowed tree-trunk, that, throbbing war through the jungle depths, had beenBassett’s conclusion. Erroneous had been his next conclusion, namely, thatthesourceorcausecouldnotbemoredistantthananhour’swalk,andthathewould easily be back by mid-afternoon to be picked up by the Nari’s whale-boat.

“That big fella noise no good, all the same devil-devil,” Sagawa hadadjudged.And Sagawa had been right.Had he not had his head hacked offwithin the day?Bassett shuddered.Without doubt Sagawa had been eaten aswell by the “bad fella boys too much” that stopped along the bush. He couldsee him, as he had last seen him, stripped of the shot-gun and all thenaturalist’s gear of his master, lying on the narrow trail where he had beendecapitated barely the moment before. Yes, within a minute the thing hadhappened.Within a minute, looking back, Bassett had seen him trudgingpatiently along under his burdens. Then Bassett’s own trouble had come uponhim. He looked at the cruelly healed stumps of the first and second fingers ofhis left hand, then rubbed them softly into the indentation in the back of hisskull. Quick as had been the flash of the long handled tomahawk, he had beenquickenoughtoduckawayhisheadandpartiallytodeflectthestrokewithhisup-flung hand. Two fingers and a hasty scalp-wound had been the price hepaid for his life. With one barrel of his ten-gauge shot-gun he had blown thelife out of the bushman who had so nearly got him; with the other barrel hehad peppered the bushmen bending over Sagawa, and had the pleasure ofknowingthatthemajorportionofthechargehadgoneintotheonewholeapedaway with Sagawa’s head.Everything had occurred in a flash.Only himself,the slain bushman, and what remained of Sagawa, were in the narrow, wild-pig run of a path.From the dark jungle on either side came no rustle ofmovementorsoundoflife.Andhehadsuffereddistinctanddreadfulshock.

Forthefirsttimeinhislifehehadkilledahumanbeing,andheknewnauseaashecontemplatedthemessofhishandiwork.

Then had begun the chase. He retreated up the pig-run before his hunters,who were between him and the beach.How many there were, he could notguess.Theremighthavebeenone,orahundred,foraughthesawofthem.

Thatsomeofthemtooktothetreesandtravelledalongthroughthejungleroofhe was certain; but at the most he never glimpsed more than an occasionalflittingofshadows.No bow-strings twanged that he could hear; but everylittle while, whence discharged he knew not, tiny arrows whispered past himor struck tree-boles and fluttered to the ground beside him. They were bone-tippedandfeathershafted,andthefeathers,tornfromthebreastsofhumming-birds,iridescedlikejewels.

Once—and now, after the long lapse of time, he chuckled gleefully at therecollection—hehaddetectedashadowabovehimthatcametoinstantrestashe turned his gaze upward.He could make out nothing, but, deciding tochance it, had fired at it a heavy charge of number five shot. Squalling like aninfuriated cat, the shadow crashed down through tree-ferns and orchids andthudded upon the earth at his feet, and, still squalling its rage and pain, hadsunk its human teeth into the ankle of his stout tramping boot.He, on theother hand, was not idle, and with his free foot had done what reduced thesqualling to silence. So inured to savagery has Bassett since become, that hechuckledagainwiththegleeoftherecollection.

What a night had followed! Small wonder that he had accumulated such avirulence and variety of fevers, he thought, as he recalled that sleepless nightof torment, when the throb of his wounds was as nothing compared with themyriad stings of the mosquitoes.There had been no escaping them, and hehad not dared to light a fire.They had literally pumped his body full ofpoison, so that, with the coming of day, eyes swollen almost shut, he hadstumbledblindlyon,notcaringmuchwhenhisheadshouldbehackedoffandhis carcass started on the way of Sagawa’s to the cooking fire. Twenty-fourhours had made a wreck of him—of mind as well as body. He had scarcelyretained his wits at all, so maddened was he by the tremendous inoculation ofpoison he had received. Several times he fired his shot-gun with effect intothe shadows that dogged him.Stinging day insects and gnats added to historment,whilehisbloodywoundsattractedhostsofloathsomefliesthatclungsluggishlytohisfleshandhadtobebrushedoffandcrushedoff.

Once, in that day, he heard again the wonderful sound, seemingly moredistant, but rising imperiously above the nearer war-drums in the bush. Rightthere was where he had made his mistake.Thinking that he had passedbeyonditandthat,therefore,itwasbetweenhimandthebeachofRingmanu,hehadworkedbacktowarditwheninrealityhewaspenetratingdeeperand

deeper into the mysterious heart of the unexplored island.That night,crawlinginamongthetwistedrootsofabanyantree,hehadsleptfromexhaustionwhilethemosquitoeshadhadtheirwillofhim.

Followeddaysandnightsthatwerevagueasnightmaresinhismemory.

One clear vision he remembered was of suddenly finding himself in the midstof a bush village and watching the old men and children fleeing into thejungle.All had fled but one.From close at hand and above him, awhimpering as of some animal in pain and terror had startled him.Andlookinguphehadseenher—agirl,oryoungwomanrather,suspendedbyonearm in the cooking sun.Perhaps for days she had so hung.Her swollen,protruding tongue spoke as much.Still alive, she gazed at him with eyes ofterror.Past help, he decided, as he noted the swellings of her legs whichadvertised that the joints had been crushed and the great bones broken.Heresolved to shoot her, and there the vision terminated. He could not rememberwhether he had or not, any more than could he remember how he chanced tobeinthatvillage,orhowhesucceededingettingawayfromit.

Manypictures,unrelated,cameandwentinBassett’smindashereviewedthat period of his terrible wanderings.He remembered invading anothervillage of a dozen houses and driving all before him with his shot-gun save,foroneoldman,toofeebletoflee,whospatathimandwhinedandsnarledashe dug open a ground-oven and from amid the hot stones dragged forth aroasted pig that steamed its essence deliciously through its green-leafwrappings. It was at this place that a wantonness of savagery had seized uponhim.Having feasted, ready to depart with a hind-quarter of the pig in hishand,hedeliberatelyfiredthegrassthatchofahousewithhisburningglass.

But seared deepest of all in Bassett’s brain, was the dank and noisomejungle.It actually stank with evil, and it was always twilight.Rarely did ashaft of sunlight penetrate its matted roof a hundred feet overhead.Andbeneath that roof was an aerial ooze of vegetation, a monstrous, parasiticdripping of decadent life-forms that rooted in death and lived on death. Andthrough all this he drifted, ever pursued by the flitting shadows of theanthropophagi, themselves ghosts of evil that dared not face him in battle butthat knew that, soon or late, they would feed on him. Bassett remembered thatat the time, in lucid moments, he had likened himself to a wounded bullpursuedbyplains’ coyotestoocowardlytobattlewithhimforthemeatofhim, yet certain of the inevitable end of him when they would be full gorged.As the bull’s horns and stamping hoofs kept off the coyotes, so his shot-gunkept off these Solomon Islanders, these twilight shades of bushmen of theislandofGuadalcanal.

Came the day of the grass lands. Abruptly, as if cloven by the sword ofGodinthehandofGod,thejungleterminated.Theedgeofit,perpendicular

and as black as the infamy of it, was a hundred feet up and down.And,beginning at the edge of it, grew the grass—sweet, soft, tender, pasture grassthat would have delighted the eyes and beasts of any husbandman and thatextended, on and on, for leagues and leagues of velvet verdure, to thebackbone of the great island, the towering mountain range flung up by someancientearth-cataclysm,serratedandgulliedbutnotyeterasedbytheerosivetropic rains.But the grass!He had crawled into it a dozen yards, buried hisfaceinit,smelledit,andbrokendowninafitofinvoluntaryweeping.

And,whilehewept,thewonderfulsoundhadpealedforth—ifbypeal,hehad often thought since, an adequate description could be given of theenunciation of so vast a sound melting sweet. Sweet it was, as no sound everheard. Vast it was, of so mighty a resonance that it might have proceededfrom some brazen-throated monster.And yet it called to him across thatleagues-widesavannah,andwaslikeabenedictiontohislong-suffering,painrackedspirit.

He remembered how he lay there in the grass, wet-cheeked but no longersobbing,listeningtothesoundandwonderingthathehadbeenabletoheariton the beach of Ringmanu. Some freak of air pressures and air currents, hereflected, had made it possible for the sound to carry so far. Such conditionsmight not happen again in a thousand days or ten thousand days, but the oneday it had happened had been the day he landed from the Nari for severalhours’collecting.Especiallyhadhebeeninquestofthefamedjunglebutterfly, a foot across from wing-tip to wing-tip, as velvet-dusky of lack ofcolour as was the gloom of the roof, of such lofty arboreal habits that itresorted only to the jungle roof and could be brought down only by a dose ofshot.ItwasforthispurposethatSagawahadcarriedtheten-gaugeshot-gun.

Twodaysandnightshehadspentcrawlingacrossthatbeltofgrassland.

He had suffered much, but pursuit had ceased at the jungle-edge. And hewouldhavediedofthirsthadnotaheavythunderstormrevivedhimonthesecondday.

And then had come Balatta. In the first shade, where the savannah yieldedto the dense mountain jungle, he had collapsed to die.At first she hadsquealedwithdelightatsightofhishelplessness,andwasforbeatinghisbrainout with a stout forest branch. Perhaps it was his very utter helplessness thathad appealed to her, and perhaps it was her human curiosity that made herrefrain. At any rate, she had refrained, for he opened his eyes again under theimpending blow, and saw her studying him intently. What especially struckher about him were his blue eyes and white skin. Coolly she had squatted onher hams, spat on his arm, and with her finger-tips scrubbed away the dirt ofdays and nights of muck and jungle that sullied the pristine whiteness of hisskin.

And everything about her had struck him especially, although there wasnothing conventional about her at all. He laughed weakly at the recollection,forshehadbeenasinnocentofgarbasEvebeforethefig-leafadventure.

Squat and lean at the same time, asymmetrically limbed, string-muscled as ifwith lengths of cordage, dirt-caked from infancy save for casual showers, shewasasunbeautifulaprototypeofwomanashe,withascientist’seye,hadevergazed upon.Her breasts advertised at the one time her maturity and youth;and, if by nothing else, her sex was advertised by the one article of finery withwhichshewasadorned,namelyapig’stail,thrustthoughaholeinherleftear-lobe. So lately had the tail been severed, that its raw end still oozed blood thatdried upon her shoulder like so much candle-droppings.And her face!Atwisted and wizened complex of apish features, perforated by upturned, sky-open, Mongolian nostrils, by a mouth that sagged from a huge upper-lip andfaded precipitately into a retreating chin, by peering querulous eyes thatblinkedasblinktheeyesofdenizensofmonkey-cages.

Not even the water she brought him in a forest-leaf, and the ancient andhalf-putrid chunk of roast pig, could redeem in the slightest the grotesquehideousness of her. When he had eaten weakly for a space, he closed his eyesin order not to see her, although again and again she poked them open to peerattheblueofthem.Thenhadcomethesound.Nearer,muchnearer,heknewit to be; and he knew equally well, despite the weary way he had come, that itwas still many hours distant.The effect of it on her had been startling.Shecringed under it, with averted face, moaning and chattering with fear. Butafterithadliveditsfulllifeofanhour,heclosedhiseyesandfellasleepwithBalattabrushingthefliesfromhim.

When he awoke it was night, and she was gone.But he was aware ofrenewed strength, and, by then too thoroughly inoculated by the mosquitopoison to suffer further inflammation, he closed his eyes and slept anunbrokenstretchtillsun-up.AlittlelaterBalattahadreturned,bringingwithher a half-dozen women who, unbeautiful as they were, were patently not sounbeautiful as she. She evidenced by her conduct that she considered him herfind,herproperty,andtheprideshetookinshowinghimoffwouldhavebeenludicroushadhissituationnotbeensodesperate.

Later, after what had been to him a terrible journey of miles, when hecollapsedinfrontofthedevil-devilhouseintheshadowofthebreadfruittree,she had shown very lively ideas on the matter of retaining possession of him.Ngurn, whom Bassett was to know afterward as the devil-devil doctor, priest,or medicine man of the village, had wanted his head. Others of the grinningand chattering monkey-men, all as stark of clothes and bestial of appearanceas Balatta, had wanted his body for the roasting oven. At that time he had notunderstoodtheirlanguage,ifbylanguagemightbedignifiedtheuncouth

sounds they made to represent ideas. But Bassett had thoroughly understoodthematterofdebate,especiallywhenthemenpressedandproddedandfeltofthefleshofhimasifheweresomuchcommodityinabutcher’sstall.

Balattahadbeenlosingthedebaterapidly,whentheaccidenthappened.

Oneofthemen,curiouslyexaminingBassett’sshot-gun,managedtocockandpull a trigger. The recoil of the butt into the pit of the man’s stomach had notbeen the most sanguinary result, for the charge of shot, at a distance of a yard,hadblowntheheadofoneofthedebatersintonothingness.

Even Balatta joined the others in flight, and, ere they returned, his sensesalready reeling from the oncoming fever-attack, Bassett had regainedpossession of the gun. Whereupon, although his teeth chattered with the agueand his swimming eyes could scarcely see, he held on to his fadingconsciousness until he could intimidate the bushmen with the simple magicsof compass, watch, burning glass, and matches.At the last, with dueemphasis,ofsolemnityandawfulness,hehadkilledayoungpigwithhisshot-gunandpromptlyfainted.

Bassett flexed his arm-muscles in quest of what possible strength mightreside in such weakness, and dragged himself slowly and totteringly to hisfeet. He was shockingly emaciated; yet, during the various convalescences ofthe many months of his long sickness, he had never regained quite the samedegree of strength as this time. What he feared was another relapse such as hehad already frequently experienced. Without drugs, without even quinine, hehad managed so far to live through a combination of the most pernicious andmost malignant of malarial and black-water fevers. But could he continue toendure?Such was his everlasting query.For, like the genuine scientist hewas,hewouldnotbecontenttodieuntilhehadsolvedthesecretofthesound.

Supported by a staff, he staggered the few steps to the devil-devil housewhere death and Ngurn reigned in gloom.Almost as infamously dark andevil-stinking as the jungle was the devil-devil house—in Bassett’s opinion.Yet therein was usually to be found his favourite crony and gossip, Ngurn,alwayswillingforayarnoradiscussion,thewhilehesatintheashesofdeathand in a slow smoke shrewdly revolved curing human heads suspended fromtherafters.For,throughthemonths’intervalofconsciousnessofhislongsickness, Bassett had mastered the psychological simplicities and lingualdifficultiesofthelanguageofthetribeofNgurnandBalattaandVngngn—thelatter the addle-headed young chief who was ruled by Ngurn, and who,whisperedintriguehadit,wasthesonofNgurn.

“WilltheRedOnespeakto-day?”Bassettasked,bythistimesoaccustomed to the old man’s gruesome occupation as to take even an interestintheprogressofthesmoke-curing.