Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

Tall warriors armed with hastily snatched up spears, knob-​kerries and hide shields, women of all ages, with their pierced ear lobes stretched six or eight inches by the insertion of brass ornaments, and innumerable children, came streaming out of the huts. Pushing and jostling they formed an excited, jabbering concourse at the riverside as the boat drew in and her three passengers were landed.

After a few moments the crowd fell back and made a space for an old, old wizened man. He addressed the strangers, but they could not understand him. All Roger could do was to lift his right hand open and with its palm outward, in the knights' gesture from which the salute originated, indicating that it held no weapon and that they came in peace.

Several other elderly men joined the wizened one. They held a swift palaver, then the three Europeans were beckoned forward and led to an empty hut. Presently women brought them bowls of stew, fruit and a fermented liquor that tasted rather like sour beer; but they signed to Clarissa that she should take none of these and, instead, gave her a half-​coconut filled with a strong, but not unpleasant smelling, porridge. In spite of these attentions, Roger noted with some misgivings that a big negro with a tufted spear had been placed on guard outside the hut.

After the meal, in spite of their anxieties, they all fell asleep in the close hot darkness. They were woken by the rhythmic beating of drums, and soon afterwards their guard shouted to them to come out of the hut. Clarissa was now recovered and, as the three of them emerged from the low doorway, they saw that night had come. A group of a dozen warriors, some holding torches and others spears, were waiting for them outside and closed round them immediately they appeared. Emitting high piercing cries and doing a dance-​march of two steps forward, stamp, one back, this formidable escort conducted them to an open space in front of the great hut, where the whole tribe had now assembled and was squatting cross-​legged on the ground.

There, too enthroned upon a pile of bleached skulls, and surrounded by a score of wives, the Chief was sitting. He was a huge man with a broad fleshy face and an enormous stomach. On his head he wore a fan-​shaped crown of ostrich-​feathers, round his neck were half a dozen necklaces of beaten gold,

and his loin-​cloth was of leopard skin. Otherwise he was naked and his ebony stomach, knees and bulging arms glistened from the oil with which they had been massaged.

Beside him was an even more terrifying figure, and Roger had little doubt but that it was the old, old, wizened man who had met them at the landing place, now dressed in his ceremonial trappings. His feet were in shoes each made from the head of a baby alligator, the jaws with their long rows of teeth pointing forward and wide open. His skinny calf’s disappeared under a grass skirt, above which he was girdled by a large living snake that flickered its tongue and slowly waved its head to and fro. His naked chest was painted with white and ochre markings, the most prominent of which were two ovals on his nipples, and with lighter strokes below, obviously intended to represent two huge eyes. His wrists and elbows were tufted with monkey fur and from his shoulders there arose a huge and hideous mask surmounted by a pair of bull's horns.

A hush fell on the assembly; the Witch Doctor sprang forward. With clicking tongue and falsetto voice echoing strangely from inside his great hollow mask, he addressed the Chief, but from time to time swung round towards the people as though appealing for their support. From the way in which he pointed to the three prisoners, stamped his alligator-​shod feet, and frequently waved a short glittering knife threateningly in front of their faces, it was inescapably clear that he was demanding their deaths. And Roger, grimly eyeing two great cauldrons with fires ready lit below them, a little distance away outside the great hut, decided that the tales of cannibalism he had heard must be true and that, if they were slaughtered, they would afterwards be eaten.

While the hideously apparelled priest raved and ranted, the Chief remained impassive. Seated cross-​legged on his throne of skulls he might have been an obese ebony idol, but for the fact that he now and then stretched out a hand to one of his women, who handed him a calabash from which he swilled down a gulp or two of some whitish liquid.

At first the people, too, while watching the proceedings intently, remained silent; but, after a little, appreciative murmurs began to run through them. Soon these increased until each of the Witch Doctor's violent outpourings met with a great shout of endorsement. Suddenly he ceased, stopped dead in front of the Chief and flung wide his arms, clearly asking that the prisoners should be given to him to kill.

Chapter12

The Will of Allah

Roger, Clarissa and Bill Bodkin stood before the throne of skulls in their tattered rags, just as they had been washed ashore. Nothing had been taken from them and Bodkin was wondering how many of the warriors he could kill with his cutlass before he was killed himself. He doubted if it would be more than one, as all of them had spears in their hands. In two swift moves, he reckoned, he could draw and nearly decapitate a painted brave who stood within a yard of him, but it seemed unlikely that he would have time to raise his blade again before a shower of spears pierced him and forced him to the ground. He was not afraid of death, but the thought of the spears piercing his body made him break out into a sweat. His lips moved in a prayer that it would be over quickly, for he had no doubt at all that his last hour had come.

Clarissa was standing between the two men. Although she was a little above the average height for a woman, with the heels of her shoes broken down and her hair scragged back flat on her head, she looked small and frail. She had never been given to deceiving herself, and like Bodkin, felt that there was no hope for them. Only one thought comforted her a little, When they had first been brought before the Chief she had seen his eyes run over her, openly appraising her as if she were a head of cattle. Too many men had looked at her with desire for her to mistake the expression in his eyes. It was not desire, but contempt. His reaction to her pale slim beauty had been exactly the same as would have been a fastidious white man's to an enormously fat coal-​black negress. That being so, she had only death to fear, and if Roger was to die she had no wish to live. Her heart was pounding heavily, but she was clasping his left hand with her right hand which her will was strong enough to prevent from trembling.

Almost from the beginning of the Witch Doctor's oration, Roger had felt sure that his worst fears were to be realised. Whether or not the tribe were cannibals and intended later to feast upon their flesh was immaterial. The croaking and gestures of the hideously masked old man made it clear beyond all doubt that he was demanding to be allowed to butcher them as a sacrifice to some obscene jungle god; and, since the whole tribe were obviously in favour of his demand, there seemed no reason whatever why the Chief should refuse it.

Like Bodkin, Roger meant to go down fighting if he had time; for, unlike Clarissa he had not taken in the Chief's appraisal of her, so he meant to kill her first. He would have time for that, but it seemed doubtful if he would afterwards be able to make another move before a spear was thrust through his back or a knobkerrie smashed in his head.

That, of course, was if he waited for the Chief to give the Witch Doctor the signal to proceed with their butchery. He could act first and, although there was no possible hope of cutting their way to safety, it meant that before killing Clarissa he would have dealt the whole tribe a blow that they would not soon forget. It was, too, a blow that his shrewdness told him might just possibly lead to saving their lives.