The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories
"You've made this observatory in a pretty mess," said Thaddy.
The Dyak boy was beating up an egg in brandy. Woodhouse took this and sat
up. He felt a sharp twinge of pain. His ankle was tied up, so were his
arm and the side of his face. The smashed glass, red-stained, lay about
the floor, the telescope seat was overturned, and by the opposite wall was
a dark pool. The door was open, and he saw the grey summit of the mountain
against a brilliant background of blue sky.
"Pah!" said Woodhouse. "Who's been killing calves here? Take me out of
it."
Then he remembered the Thing, and the fight he had had with it.
"What _was_ it?" he said to Thaddy--"the Thing I fought with?".
"_You_ know that best," said Thaddy. "But, anyhow, don't worry
yourself now about it. Have some more to drink."
Thaddy, however, was curious enough, and it was a hard struggle between
duty and inclination to keep Woodhouse quiet until he was decently put
away in bed, and had slept upon the copious dose of meat extract Thaddy
considered advisable. They then talked it over together.
"It was," said Woodhouse, "more like a big bat than anything else in the
world. It had sharp, short ears, and soft fur, and its wings were
leathery. Its teeth were little but devilish sharp, and its jaw could not
have been very strong or else it would have bitten through my ankle."
"It has pretty nearly," said Thaddy.
"It seemed to me to hit out with its claws pretty freely. That is about as
much as I know about the beast. Our conversation was intimate, so to
speak, and yet not confidential."
"The Dyak chaps talk about a Big Colugo, a Klang-utang--whatever that may
be. It does not often attack man, but I suppose you made it nervous. They
say there is a Big Colugo and a Little Colugo, and a something else that
sounds like gobble. They all fly about at night. For my own part, I know
there are flying foxes and flying lemurs about here, but they are none of
them very big beasts."
"There are more things in heaven and earth," said Woodhouse--and Thaddy
groaned at the quotation--"and more particularly in the forests of Borneo,
than are dreamt of in our philosophies. On the whole, if the Borneo fauna
is going to disgorge any more of its novelties upon me, I should prefer
that it did so when I was not occupied in the observatory at night and
alone."
VI.
AEPYORNIS ISLAND.
The man with the scarred face leant over the table and looked at my
bundle.
"Orchids?" he asked.
"A few," I said.
"Cypripediums," he said.
"Chiefly," said I.
"Anything new? I thought not. _I_ did these islands twenty-five--
twenty-seven years ago. If you find anything new here--well, it's brand
new. I didn't leave much."
"I'm not a collector," said I.
"I was young then," he went on. "Lord! how I used to fly round." He seemed
to take my measure. "I was in the East Indies two years, and in Brazil
seven. Then I went to Madagascar."
"I know a few explorers by name," I said, anticipating a yarn. "Whom did
you collect for?"
"Dawson's. I wonder if you've heard the name of Butcher ever?"
"Butcher--Butcher?" The name seemed vaguely present in my memory;
then I recalled _Butcher_ v. _Dawson_. "Why!" said I, "you are the
man who sued them for four years' salary--got cast away on a desert
island..."
"Your servant," said the man with the scar, bowing. "Funny case, wasn't
it? Here was me, making a little fortune on that island, doing nothing
for it neither, and them quite unable to give me notice. It often used
to amuse me thinking over it while I was there. I did calculations of
it--big--all over the blessed atoll in ornamental figuring."
"How did it happen?" said I. "I don't rightly remember the case."
"Well... You've heard of the AEpyornis?"
"Rather. Andrews was telling me of a new species he was working on only a
month or so ago. Just before I sailed. They've got a thigh bone, it seems,
nearly a yard long. Monster the thing must have been!"
"I believe you," said the man with the scar. "It _was_ a monster.
Sindbad's roc was just a legend of 'em. But when did they find these
bones?"
"Three or four years ago--'91, I fancy. Why?"
"Why? Because _I_ found them--Lord!--it's nearly twenty years ago. If
Dawson's hadn't been silly about that salary they might have made a
perfect ring in 'em... _I_ couldn't help the infernal boat going
adrift."
He paused. "I suppose it's the same place. A kind of swamp about ninety
miles north of Antananarivo. Do you happen to know? You have to go to it
along the coast by boats. You don't happen to remember, perhaps?"
"I don't. I fancy Andrews said something about a swamp."
"It must be the same. It's on the east coast. And somehow there's
something in the water that keeps things from decaying. Like creosote it
smells. It reminded me of Trinidad. Did they get any more eggs? Some of
the eggs I found were a foot-and-a-half long. The swamp goes circling
round, you know, and cuts off this bit. It's mostly salt, too. Well...
What a time I had of it! I found the things quite by accident. We went for
eggs, me and two native chaps, in one of those rum canoes all tied
together, and found the bones at the same time. We had a tent and
provisions for four days, and we pitched on one of the firmer places. To
think of it brings that odd tarry smell back even now. It's funny work.
You go probing into the mud with iron rods, you know. Usually the egg gets
smashed. I wonder how long it is since these AEpyornises really lived. The
missionaries say the natives have legends about when they were alive, but
I never heard any such stories myself.[*] But certainly those eggs we got
were as fresh as if they had been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down to
the boat one of my nigger chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. How
I lammed into the beggar! But sweet it was, as if it was new laid, not
even smelly, and its mother dead these four hundred years, perhaps. Said a
centipede had bit him. However, I'm getting off the straight with the
story. It had taken us all day to dig into the slush and get these eggs
out unbroken, and we were all covered with beastly black mud, and
naturally I was cross. So far as I knew they were the only eggs that have
ever been got out not even cracked. I went afterwards to see the ones they
have at the Natural History Museum in London; all of them were cracked and
just stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing. Mine were perfect,
and I meant to blow them when I got back. Naturally I was annoyed at the
silly duffer dropping three hours' work just on account of a centipede. I
hit him about rather."
[Footnote *: No European is known to have seen a live AEpyornis, with the
doubtful exception of MacAndrew, who visited Madagascar in 1745.--H.G.W.]
The man with the scar took out a clay pipe. I placed my pouch before him.
He filled up absent-mindedly.
"How about the others? Did you get those home? I don't remember--"
"That's the queer part of the story. I had three others. Perfectly fresh
eggs. Well, we put 'em in the boat, and then I went up to the tent to make
some coffee, leaving my two heathens down by the beach--the one fooling
about with his sting and the other helping him. It never occurred to me
that the beggars would take advantage of the peculiar position I was in to
pick a quarrel. But I suppose the centipede poison and the kicking I had
given him had upset the one--he was always a cantankerous sort--and he
persuaded the other.
"I remember I was sitting and smoking and boiling up the water over a
spirit-lamp business I used to take on these expeditions. Incidentally I
was admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and blood-red it was,
in streaks--a beautiful sight. And up beyond the land rose grey and hazy
to the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnace mouth. And fifty
yards behind the back of me was these blessed heathen--quite regardless of
the tranquil air of things--plotting to cut off with the boat and leave me
all alone with three days' provisions and a canvas tent, and nothing to
drink whatsoever beyond a little keg of water. I heard a kind of yelp
behind me, and there they were in this canoe affair--it wasn't properly a
boat--and, perhaps, twenty yards from land. I realised what was up in a
moment. My gun was in the tent, and, besides, I had no bullets--only duck
shot. They knew that. But I had a little revolver in my pocket, and I
pulled that out as I ran down to the beach.
"'Come back!' says I, flourishing it.
"They jabbered something at me, and the man that broke the egg jeered. I
aimed at the other--because he was unwounded and had the paddle, and I
missed. They laughed. However, I wasn't beat. I knew I had to keep cool,
and I tried him again and made him jump with the whang of it. He didn't
laugh that time. The third time I got his head, and over he went, and the
paddle with him. It was a precious lucky shot for a revolver. I reckon it
was fifty yards. He went right under. I don't know if he was shot, or
simply stunned and drowned. Then I began to shout to the other chap to
come back, but he huddled up in the canoe and refused to answer. So I
fired out my revolver at him and never got near him.
"I felt a precious fool, I can tell you. There I was on this rotten, black
beach, flat swamp all behind me, and the flat sea, cold after the sun set,
and just this black canoe drifting steadily out to sea. I tell you I
damned Dawson's and Jamrach's and Museums and all the rest of it just to
rights. I bawled to this nigger to come back, until my voice went up into
a scream.
"There was nothing for it but to swim after him and take my luck with the
sharks. So I opened my clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, and took off
my clothes and waded in. As soon as I was in the water I lost sight of
the canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to head it off. I hoped the man in it
was too bad to navigate it, and that it would keep on drifting in the
same direction. Presently it came up over the horizon again to the
south-westward about. The afterglow of sunset was well over now and the
dim of night creeping up. The stars were coming through the blue. I swum
like a champion, though my legs and arms were soon aching.
"However, I came up to him by the time the stars were fairly out. As it
got darker I began to see all manner of glowing things in the water--
phosphorescence, you know. At times it made me giddy. I hardly knew which
was stars and which was phosphorescence, and whether I was swimming on my
head or my heels. The canoe was as black as sin, and the ripple under the
bows like liquid fire. I was naturally chary of clambering up into it. I
was anxious to see what he was up to first. He seemed to be lying cuddled
up in a lump in the bows, and the stern was all out of water. The thing
kept turning round slowly as it drifted---kind of waltzing, don't you
know. I went to the stern and pulled it down, expecting him to wake up.
Then I began to clamber in with my knife in my hand, and ready for a rush.
But he never stirred. So there I sat in the stern of the little canoe,
drifting away over the calm phosphorescent sea, and with all the host of
the stars above me, waiting for something to happen.
"After a long time I called him by name, but he never answered. I was too
tired to take any risks by going along to him. So we sat there. I fancy I
dozed once or twice. When the dawn came I saw he was as dead as a doornail
and all puffed up and purple. My three eggs and the bones were lying in
the middle of the canoe, and the keg of water and some coffee and biscuits
wrapped in a Cape _Argus_ by his feet, and a tin of methylated spirit
underneath him. There was no paddle, nor, in fact, anything except the
spirit-tin that I could use as one, so I settled to drift until I was