Page:Amazing Stories v08n02 1933-05.djvu/17

Rh were being rent asunder, the universe torn to shreds! It terrifies me even now. I’ll go mad thinking of it! Never for an instant, day or night, has it ceased beating upon my brain, tearing at my ear-drums! It was not only the awful sound itself—as if a thousand steam whistles were blowing within six inches of my ears, it was an actual physical thing, tearing at me like a hurricane, pounding me like a million hammers. It seemed to be crushing my skull, searing my brain. I felt blinded, deafened, tortured as if on a rack. And dimly, through the agony, the dread terror, the indescribable vibrating sound that seemed disintegrating my very bones, I saw Matson and the others struggling, writhing, falling prone there in the open space beside the body of the masked Indian.

That was my last sensation. When I again returned to consciousness, utter silence reigned; but within my brain was a chaos. All the agonies of the damned seemed centered in my head and body. I was powerless to move, I was paralyzed. I felt as if I were being spun at terrific speed lashed to the rim of a gigantic flywheel. I don’t know how long I had been unconscious. I can’t even say how long I lay there, conscious, suffering tortures beyond human endurance, motionless, dead save for the spark of reason, the ability to suffer, in my brain. Nothing seemed real except the agony. Everything else seemed a dream, a nightmare. Yet I remembered what had occurred. I remembered Matson dragging the girl from her hut, the masked Indian, the sequel, the terrible, soul-searing, mysterious sound—and—yes, that fearful scene that I had glimpsed the moment before I had lost consciousness—the sight of Matson and the others, writhing in agony, falling in contorted shapes to the earth.

ITH an almost superhuman effort I forced my eyes to open. With an even greater effort I managed to turn my head so I could see something other than the sky above me. A horrified groan escaped my lips. Standing over me was a bearded savage Xinguay with a short bone-headed spear in his hand. Another instant and — Sheer horror galvanized me into life. With a wild inarticulate cry I sprang up. The effect upon the Indian was amazing. He reeled back as if struck, the spear fell from his hand, and with a hoarse yell of abject terror he fled.

I couldn’t understand it. Remember, my mind was in a turmoil and I was sick, nauseated, weak, and every bone on my body aching. It was like break-bone fever only worse. Then it dawned upon me. No wonder the Indian had fled; he had thought me dead and I had come to life. Thought of death whipped my mind to memory of my comrades. Were they all dead? I stared at them where they still lay, silent, motionless, where they had fallen just before I lost consciousness. The Xinguays had withdrawn. They were standing on the farther side of the open space, gazing at me, not knowing what to expect from a dead man who had come to life; all their superstitious fears were aroused. I rather wondered why they should act that way, why they didn’t reason that I had merely been unconscious. But later I knew. Good Lord, no wonder they thought me immortal! With difficulty, groggily, every step bringing a groan of agony from my lips, I moved towards the bodies of my comrades. Bodies! Oh, God have mercy! They were mere heaps of pulp, blobs of jelly under their garments! Ugh!!—” Stirling shuddered as he spoke to me, and his face paled at the recollection—

“It was too ghastly for words. But I must tell you, I’ll go stark, staring mad if I don’t. There was nothing human about them—they were like stranded medusae cast up on a beach—shapeless, formless. Only their eyes! Their eyes—”

Stirling almost screamed the words. He shook as if with a chill. Sobs racked his emaciated frame. But in a moment he regained control of himself, and continued:

“No, no, I must’tmustn't [sic] give way! he exclaimed. I must go on! Their eyes! It was the most ghastly, most horrifying, most terrible sight!

Only by their clothing could I distinguish one body from another. Matson, Pembroke, Jerome, Barlow and the others—nothing but blobs of pink, pulpy flesh, as boneless as though a steam roller had passed over them. They were— Yes, that was it! They were like dead octopuses with the featureless heads taking the place of the devil-fishes’ bodies, with their goggle eyes staring upward at the sky. Suddenly something seemed to snap in my brain and I laughed wildly, maniacally.

F all the fifteen white men who had set out from Merced, I alone survived; a single white man in the heart of the Gran Pajonal, a single civilized human being among unknown savages! For a moment I think I must have gone quite mad. I screamed, yelled, cursed, laughed by turns. Thank God that in His mercy He so willed it, for it was that temporary fit of madness that saved me, that enabled me to survive, that let me escape and that brought me here—here to tell you of the Death Drum, to let the world know the fate of the fourteen men of the Matson party. Of course you know why. You know that a crazy man is safe among any Indians, that they regard him with superstitious awe, as a being in touch with the gods. Plow long I was out of my mind, I don’t know. It couldn’t have been but a short time, for when I became rational I was still there in the plaza. But now the Indians—or at least two of them, one of whom was the chief—were near me, kneeling, kowtowing to me. They managed to make me understand that they only awaited my commands. Commands for what? I wondered. Then I understood. My orders as to the disposal of my dead comrades. I didn’t know then how