The Black Tower, Page 7

  A brilliant light flared in the sky ahead of the dhow and off her port side—to the craft's southwest. The light grew in size and intensity, its color shifting through a range from magenta to dazzling orange to turquoise; then, slowly, it faded.

  Clive heard the gasps and exclamations of superstitious Arab sailors as the display continued.

  A second light flared and faded.

  Then a ring of shimmering lights grew and began slowly to revolve.

  It was like a fireworks display over the Thames, but never had Clive beheld so magnificent a show of lights, especially in broad daylight.

  The Arabs were exclaiming. The few words of their language that Clive had picked up lately were sufficient to tell him what they thought they beheld.

  This must be a display of angels, one sailor asserted. Some great soul had cast aside his bodily raiment and was being welcomed into paradise by a ring of angels and houris.

  No, a second sailor argued. The lights were the flaming gates of hell, and demons in the service of Shaitan were preparing to descend upon the earth and make war upon the armies of the faithful. Surely this was the result of their having sailed aboard a dhow with so impious a name as Azazel—an angel indeed, but one who had rebelled against the will of heaven and been cast out to become the despised and accursed Eblis!

  The dhow's lateen sail had fallen slack during the strange display. Now the sky began to darken and the sound of a distant howling began softly to be heard.

  Clive watched as sailors fell to their knees, raising their hands in supplication to their deity, crying out in terrified prayer. He felt a similar impulse himself, resisting it in order to maintain his dignity among these half-civilized Semites. Even so, the aerial display had been amazing and mystifying. What could the lights have represented? And if a phenomenon of nature, they were unlike any Clive had ever before known. And if a phenomenon of human origin— but no, that was too farfetched even to contemplate.

  The dhow's sails began to flap fitfully. The ship's captain, a muscular Arab in filthy robes and straggling beard, strode among his men, screaming at them to return to their stations, but to no avail.

  The air felt heavy, wet, and suddenly, shockingly, frigid.

  Clive drew his lapels around his chin. He clutched them with one hand, the dhow's rough wooden railing with the other, and gazed in awe toward the north.

  A titanic black cloud was advancing across the Strait of Zanzibar. Beneath it a swirling mass of blackness extended down toward the water, while from the surface of the strait a column of green extended upward to meet the blackness. Bolts of lightning danced between the cloud and the sea. Some of them shot up and down the sides of the monstrous waterspout. Others discharged inside the column, illuminating it for fractions of a second so that the entire funnel cloud and waterspout were turned into a dazzle of black and green.

  The preternatural stillness that had prevailed, a stillness in which every guttural prayer and curse, every creak of the ancient dhow's rotting timbers, could be heard, came to an end. With a single screaming gust of wet brine the waterspout was upon Azazel.

  Clive Folliot found himself lifted bodily from the deck of the ship. His grip on the railing was broken as if he were an infant from whom a toy had been seized by a bully.

  It was a moment of strange objectivity. As if detached from his body, Clive could observe the things that befell him and those around him, but he was utterly helpless to resist the forces that imposed themselves upon him and his world.

  Everything revolved. The sky became the sea; the sea, the sky. In his state of objectivity Clive rejected this explanation. Instead, he deduced, he had been turned upside down by the monstrous wind that had seized him and all around him.

  He saw sailors floating through the air like grace-

  He saw Azazel rise from the surface of the Strait of Zanzibar and revolve with dignified grace through the air.

  He wondered at the others on board. He recognized the captain's form twisting slowly in the air, his beard whipped sideways by the whirlwind, his face a mirror of astonishment.

  He recognized other sailors whom he had seen on Azazel's deck.

  For a moment he thought he recognized the face of Horace Hamilton Smythe, but the quartermaster sergeant turned mandarin turned sultan's guard was gone before Clive Folliot could be certain.

  He saw the blackish water of the strait rising toward him, and in his mind converted the picture to one of himself plummeting from the sky toward the brine.

  Even as he plunged into the water he could hear the cacophonic mixture of Arab wails, crashing timbers, howling wind, pounding waves—and another sound, a strange, distant sound that he was unable to identify, but which he knew in some inexplicable way held the key to his fate.

  He might have regained consciousness briefly while still submerged in the heaving waters of the strait, but if so it was only for a moment, and then he lost himself in the darkness again.

  When he recovered he was lying on a rock-strewn, sandy beach. The sun was rising over a stand of palm trees while the last stars faded from a fast- brightening sky. He pulled himself to his feet, survived a short bout of dizziness without going down again, and staggered to the nearest boulder. He leaned against it and tried to get his bearings.

  The Strait of Zanzibar showed no evidence of the fierce storm that had passed—or of the dhow Azazel. Clive felt for his pocket watch and discovered that his clothing had been half torn away by the violence that had destroyed the sailing ship.

  His watch was still in the pocket where he had placed it, but it had been smashed by some impact as well as drenched in brine. With an oath he threw it into the water.

  Jetsam from the wrecked dhow littered the beach. Clive surveyed what he could see of it, tramping up and down the sand, his khaki rags and waterlogged boots picking up additional layers of sand every time he knelt to examine some piece of furnishing.

  There was nothing useful. Smashed timbers, shredded bits of sail canvas, broken fittings. No utensil, no ship's tool, no blade or firearm. He was a latter-day Robinson Crusoe, and he tried in vain to remember whether the original had found weapons and tools on his desert island or had had to make do with only the raw materials of nature.

  Perhaps Clive Folliot would find a Friday to assist him!

  He continued along the beach. He thought he recognized the form of a supine human. He sprinted clumsily along the sand, his boots heavy and chafing on his feet.

  It was a man—a sailor from Azazel!

  Clive knelt beside the man and peered into the unmoving face. The horror in the man's eyes struck to Folliot's core. He tried to raise the man from the sand, and realized that the sailor's neck was broken. He laid him back once again and with trembling fingers managed to close his eyes.

  Other grisly evidence of the storm's murderous effects littered the beach, but Clive could not bring himself to examine any of the bodies more than was needed to ascertain that it no longer lived.

  Ami the only one spared? he pondered. Did the storm kill every last occupant of Azazel?

  Perhaps Robinson Crusoe was not the model for his situation after all. Perhaps he was more of a modern Jonah.

  He made his way to the edge of the jungle that marked the end of the beach. To his astonishment he discovered that he had found his pith helmet somewhere in his wandering, and held it in one hand.

  Abstractedly, he placed it on his head.

  He tried to calculate the number of bodies he had seen scattered on the beach. Surely there were far fewer cadavers than there had been sailors aboard Azazel. The others might have landed farther along the coast or even have been swept out to sea, but it was possible, also, that he was not the sole survivor of the storm.

  Could others have survived in the water and been picked up by later, passing craft? Or been washed onto the shore and made their way inland before Clive regained his senses?

  He cocked an ear. Somewhere he heard the sound of running water. He turned slowly
until he located it, then began slowly walking along the edge of the jungle, heading toward the sound.

  He had no appetite for food, but he had swallowed salt water during his ordeal, and then had lain overnight on the beach. Now, as the sun rose toward its tropical zenith, its rays baked him dry and he found himself suffering from a thirst such as he had never before experienced.

  He stumbled along the beach for what seemed many hours, yet each time he stopped and estimated the time of day from the position of the sun, he found that only minutes had passed. He staggered back to the water's edge and dipped his hand into the gentle surf. It was amazing to think that this softly curling water had only the night before been a raging maelstrom.

  He lifted a handful of the water, held it before his face. He thought that he could smell it, imagined that he could taste its cool freshness on his swelling tongue and splitting lips.

  With a moan he let the brine trickle between his fingers.

  All too well he knew the price that he would have paid for the moment of false relief that a single sip of brine would have brought!

  He broke into a staggering, shambling run. The sound of flowing water was close! He stumbled back to the shade of the jungle's edge, forcing himself to move ahead, step by step.

  Before him the clear water of the Wami River cut through the sandy beach and joined the brine of the Strait of Zanzibar.

  Clive threw himself onto his belly and slaked his thirst in the Wami. First a tentative taste of the water, to assure himself that it was clean and free of the taint of salt. Then a cautious swallow, and then as much as he felt his parched stomach would tolerate.

  He made his way a few hundred yards upstream, walking through tall trees that came almost to the edge of the river. He reached for the leather tube in which he carried his dispatch paper and pens and the few rough maps he had been able to obtain of the area.

  Of course—the case was gone.

  He tried to find the royal patent from Seyyid Majid ben Said. Not only was the patent lost, the very garment in which Clive had placed it was lost as well.

  It was time to get hold of himself. He sat beside the river and strove as calmly as he could to recall the map to his mind's eye. A mystic power like those fancied by du Maurier would have come in handy, but Folliot had only the limited power of human recollection to rely on.

  He was headed for Bagomoyo, and he knew that the town lay some miles down the coast from the Wami. And he knew that the Wami flowed in an easterly direction, into the strait. From where he sat on the riverbank, the water flowing from his right to his left, the Strait of Zanzibar marking the mouth of the river, he knew that he would have to cross its waters before trekking to Bagomoyo.

  The only alternative was to head north for . . . He tried to remember. If he headed north he would eventually reach the Pangani River. There was a settlement at the mouth of the Pangani, but Folliot had no desire to add the extra distance to his trek. He had no container in which to carry fresh water, and he had come perilously close to yielding to temptation and drinking the brine not long ago.

  The Wami looked neither too deep nor too rapid to cross.

  Folliot searched up and down the riverbank until he found a limb that had fallen from a tree—he thanked heaven that the common palms were not the only growth in this jungle! He removed his boots, tied the laces together, and attached them to the tree limb. He stripped his trousers and added them.

  Clad only in shorts and a ragged strip of shirt, his pith helmet still perched comically on his head, he began to swim across the river. One arm slung over the tree limb, he used it both as a support for himself and as a transport for his boots and trousers.

  A few other logs seemed to be floating on the slow-moving Wami. Clive found the clean water invigorating, the sand washing off his body. He was almost to shore when one of the floating logs opened a pair of yellow, catlike eyes and stared at him.

  With a flip of its muscular tail the crocodile lunged at Clive, pink-lined mouth opened wide, triangular teeth glistening.

  Clive dodged, but it was the arrival of a second amphibian, larger and hungrier than the first, that saved his life.

  The second crocodile closed its jaws upon the neck of the first, knocking it sideways and provoking a roar of rage and pain that sent Clive paddling even more frantically for the shore.

  The two hungry beasts—the first of them easily twelve feet in length and the second closer to fifteen— thrashed and snapped and roared in the Wami's waters. Clive scrambled onto the riverbank, tugging his tree limb and its precious cargo with him. He stared in horror at the animals that now fought mindlessly, to every evidence having utterly forgotten the presence of a human and his value as a potential dinner.

  Clive retrieved his boots and trousers from the limb and pulled them on. The tree limb was too heavy for him to carry, but he managed to break a length from its end, and he took this with him to use as a walking stick and potential weapon, should he find himself in need of one.

  The sounds of the battling crocodiles faded as Clive made his way from the river. By nightfall he was exhausted. His thirst had returned, and this time it was accompanied by the stirrings of hunger.

  There was no readily visible food, and Folliot was in no state to begin a hunt. He found a tree that he was capable of climbing, crawled to a position he could tolerate, and managed a few hours of fitful slumber.

  Stiff in every joint, sore in every muscle, a foul taste in his mouth and a grumbling in his belly, Clive Folliot crept from the tree in which he had spent the night.

  He took his bearings and resumed his trek toward Bagomoyo. He considered once more searching for food, but decided that he could make the village by noon, and that he would do better to seek nourishment there than he would here in the jungle.

  He was not an experienced traveler in the African jungle, and while he realized that his ignorance was his greatest handicap, he realized also that his awareness of that ignorance was his greatest asset. He would be on the alert, he would be wary of his surroundings, and that watchful caution would keep him alive.

  He kept near the edge of the jungle, thereby avoiding the direct sunlight and parching air of the beach without having to deal with the perils of the interior. He watched the branches of the trees above him, ever aware that a great snake or other predator might be waiting to drop on him.

  He had hoped to find a trail through the jungle, one made by black natives or Arab traders—even one made by the wild peccaries supposed to inhabit the region—but he could locate none. Still, the undergrowth was only moderately dense and he was able to progress through it without the assistance of a machete.

  It came at him like a swinging pendulum in a tale of terror by the American Mr. Poe, but it was far more terrifying than a razor-edged blade, for it was animated and malicious.

  It had rows of eyes that glittered like rubies in the subdued light of the jungle.

  It had fangs that dripped venom.

  In some obscure part of Clive Folliot's mind he was aware that it must be suspended from a long cable of sticky silk. But Clive had not the time to analyze his thoughts. He could only act by reflex, and it was his reflexes that saved him, though just barely.

  He managed to raise his walking stick, the remnant of the tree limb that he had used in crossing the Wami River, before the huge spider reached him.

  As it was, the arachnid collided with the stick. Folliot swung the stick almost like a cricket bat. It struck the spider glancingly, not directly enough or with sufficient force to send it aside. But instead of colliding head-on with Folliot, the beast brushed against his cheek.

  Folliot felt his pith helmet knocked, from his head. A streak of fire raced along the side of his face, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his ear. He whirled in his tracks and saw that the spider had reached the apogee of its course and was swinging back at him.

  The spider's swing was precisely like that of Mr. Poe's pendulum!

  Clive raised his wa
lking stick and swung again at the spider. It was a gigantic beast—a monster the size of an overfed house cat; its silken line must be as thick as a hawser!

  Before the moment of impact the monster managed to disconnect itself from its silken line. Its course, previously a graceful arc, straightened.

  Folliot missed the spider with his stick, but the beast's scrabbling legs gained a tenuous purchase on the wood, and it scrambled along the piece of tree limb, onto Folliot's arm, then onto his shoulder.

  Clive was knocked to the ground. He could see the monster's rows of ruby-red eyes glaring maliciously into his own. The spider was squatting on Clive's half-naked chest. Its fangs ran with glistening venom.

  Something whizzed above Clive Folliot's head and the spider was gone from his chest. Gone in an instant. Folliot struggled to his feet. His head ached and his vision was cloudy. His mind told him dimly that the venom he had received in the spider's first attack was taking its toll.

  He leaned against the bole of a tree and looked for the spider. It lay on its back, a six-foot spear impaling its body. There was still life in the creature, and it struggled frantically to regain its feet. Clive watched fascinated as the spider kicked and scrabbled on the jungle floor. At last it succeeded in righting itself.

  The native spear still embedded in its flesh, the spider dragged its body forward. Its eyes were fixed on Clive.

  Folliot backed away from the spider. Some part of his mind, remote and objective, remembered that he had long ago been told that spiders do not attack enemies larger than themselves. He was larger by far than this spider, huge though it was. Could some professor of natural history not inform the beast that its conduct was abnormal, and persuade it to cease and desist?

  With each step Clive felt himself growing weaker, dizzier.

  With each step the monstrous spider seemed to grow stronger.