Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

Rahossis and Quet made their way to the jungle and finding a convenient spot sat down. Nicky stole after them, his drunken brain seething with chaotic thoughts engendered by his pent-up passion.

He'd show this laughter maker! he told himself. He'd show him who was who! Yes Sir—an' how. The dirty wisecracking Mexican dago—and that would learn Rahossis too. Every woman liked a man who was a man. Someone who wasn't afraid to fight for her. They loved that, damn their hard little souls. Particularly these savages. That 'ud get her for sure. He'd show her— Yes Sir and the world. Why the hell hadn't he thought of this before?

He nearly fell into the lake but recovered and stumbled on until, directed by their voices, he found Rahossis and Quet lying side by side in one of the jungle clearings.

Rahossis gave a heavy sigh as he appeared. 'Oh, dear, it's you again! This is too much. Why must you follow me even here?'

'Want to talk to you,' said Nicky thickly.

He had ignored Quet for the moment but the dark man stood up apparently in a high good humour.

'You wish to speak with Rahossis?' he said in the English which did not come at all naturally to him. 'You choose a curious time. However—' he gave a shrug which was purely French and broke into that language—■ 'Messieurs les Anglais tirez le premier.'

Nicky did not understand the jest and thought that Quet was carrying Atlantean politeness to extremes because he was frightened of a fight.

Actually the Atlantean was completely certain of himself and the situation. As he parted the bushes to walk away he said to Rahossis in their own tongue:

'This fool becomes a positive nuisance. I must speak to Menes about him in the morning. Get rid of him as quickly as you can and in the meantime I will bring fruit for our breakfast.

'Huh!' exclaimed Nicky with disgust on Quet's departure. 'You see he's yellow. That's what he is—yellow. Good thing for him he cleared out when he did though—otherwise I would have shown him.'

'You are an unpleasant creature and extremely stupid,' said Rahossis quietly. 'If Quet wished he could paralyse you with one glance from his eyes.'

'What me!' Nicky did not take her words literally and only thought she meant that Quet could scare him with a look. He laughed contemptuously. 'Jus' let him put his dirty head roun' the bushes again an' I'll show him! I'm not a feller to be trifled with. I'll show you too—by God I will.'

Without further preamble he fell upon her.

Rahossis was big limbed and muscular. There was never the least likelihood that she would be the victim of Nicky's assault before Quet's return. Disdaining to cry out she fought her attacker off as he ripped her tunic from breast to thigh. But the panting struggle only lasted a moment. There was a rustling of the shrubs and Doctor Tisch appeared. In one glance he had taken in the full significance of the scene.

After copious potations of Tokay at the Feast he had suddenly remembered that there was one Atlantean flower which he particularly wished to see and that it only blossomed at night. He had collected his torch and come to the jungle in search of it.

t.f.a.—l 321

'Why, Nicky!' he exclaimed. 'What do you do! This is not right!'

Nicky staggered to his feet and confronted the little doctor. 'Get to hell out of here, you dirty spy,' he yelled, swaying drunkenly.

The Doctor held his ground. 'But, Nicky . . he expostulated.

'Get out, you little rat!' Losing all control Nicky followed up his words with a smashing blow.

It caught the Doctor full in the face. He dropped his torch, staggered and fell, his head coming into collision with the trunk of a tree.

Little Doctor Tisch lay quite still where he had fallen. Nicky grabbed up the torch and flashed it on him. A trickle of blood was oozing from his temple.

Rahossis turned over on her face and moaned just as though she had received the blow herself. In a moment her moans had become a wild wailing.

Nicky, terribly sober now, propped up the Doctor's body and strove to rouse him, but he remained limp and silent. The blood fell in slow drops on Nicky's hands and it seemed to him that they fell in time to Rahossis' heartrending cries.

The Doctor was quite dead. In his fall he had cracked his skull upon the tree against which Axel had leaned when a little over a month before he had said so thoughtlessly to Luiluma :

'This is like Eden—to make it complete you only need the Serpent.'

Death in the Garden

Axel and Lulluma were sleeping peacefully, her dark head pillowed on his shoulder, when Rahossis' screams roused them to the awful knowledge that some terrible thing had shattered the peace of the island.

Without a word they sprang up and raced along the tortuous paths through the jungle towards the sound of that dreadful wailing. They found the small clearing and pulled up with a jerk in its entrance. One glance was enough to tell them what had happened. For a second they stood there silent, too overwhelmed to speak, then Axel gasped:

'Good God, man! What have you done? You've killed him.'

Nicky still held the torch and was kneeling by the Doctor. 'I—I didn't mean to,' he stammered. 'It was his fault—he tried to interfere but—Oh, God, I didn't mean to.'

Lulluma was clinging to Axel's arm. Her eyes were distended with terror, then the beam of the torch lit the Doctors head again.

'Blood!' she whispered. 'Blood!' and her voice trailed away into a whisper.

'Beloved!' Axel sought to comfort her, passing his arm round her waist so that he could press her closer. 'Don't look if it frightens you. We'll—we'll . . .' He broke off not knowing what next to say and she began to wail like Rahossis; just as though she were about to die.

The bushes rustled and Quet thrust his way through into the other side of the glade. He said something in Atlantean which neither Axel nor Nicky understood. His accent was harsh yet held a note of underlying terror. Only Lulluma caught the meaning of his exclamation.

'Blood!—blood has been spilled—Who caused this awtul thing?'

He looked at Axel with dark fiery eyes and Axel made a helpless gesture towards Nicky.

'I couldn't help it,' Nicky said heavily. 'I only hit him, then he fell and cracked his head against that tree. I never meant to kill him! It was an accident, I tell you.'

Without a word Quet fixed his eyes upon him and held his gaze. To Nicky those eyes seemed to become Quet's whole body, the rest of it became shadowy and was swallowed up; the bushes and the clearing disappeared. Those eyes were forcing him down into black depths of unconsciousness. He struggled for a second, whimpered and slipped to the ground beside the Doctor.

'Did—did you do something to him—or has he fainted?* Axel asked shakily.

'I have placed him so that he can bring no more evil among us for the moment,' Quet answered in a hushed voice.

Danoe and Karnoum appeared. Immediately their glance fell on the Doctor's face Karnoum began to tremble and the girl added her wailing to that of Rahossis and Lulluma.

It was a dreadful sound. Axel felt he had never heard anything so terrible. The high piercing note seemed to drag at bis very heart-strings. Within five minutes every member of the island's population was gathered about the clearing and other voices had been added to that ghastly chorus.

None of these screaming women had ever had more than a casual friendliness for the poor little doctor and it was not for him they beat their breasts and tore their lungs in such uncontrollable grief and terror. It was because 'blood' had been spilled in anger.

Even Menes, when he arrived, seemed stupefied by the shock and quite incompetent to deal with the situation. In consequence the McKay took charge and the rest, as usual, accepted his orders without any question.