The Red Derelict

by Bertram Mitford

For answer they uttered a clucking sound, and grinned; but the grin was not a genial one—it was hideous, ghastly, showing rows of filed teeth. It reminded him of the shark which had risen to seize him, and had seized the deck-chair instead. As they stood over him, watching him, he took them in—their appearance, their demeanour, their stature. The latter was tall and muscular. For the rest, they looked a pair of about the most ferocious and bloodthirsty savages the imagination could by any possibility conjure up. And yet—they had just been engaged in a distinct work of mercy.

Wagram’s brain power began to return. How he had got off—or been got off—the derelict he had not the faintest conception; but obviously he had, since here he was. Then came back to him the captain’s pronouncement as to what would happen to anybody unfortunate enough to be stranded on the coast they were then off. “We’d very likely be eaten,” had been the dictum. So this “work of mercy” was, in reality, nothing of the sort. It was equivalent to that of doctoring an ailing ox or sheep. He was being brought back into fitting condition for butchery. He was to supply the material for a cannibal feast. And these two ruffians looked the part—every inch.

They had squatted down on the floor, and were watching him, keeping up the while a subdued conversation in a kind of guttural hum. One carried a formidable-looking native axe, and both had big, broad-bladed knives, with a curious crook inward, on the edge side, towards the point. The demoniacal aspect of the pair—the hungry expression of their revolting countenances, as they sat like a pair of evil beasts watching their expected prey—was too much for Wagram’s nerves, all defenceless as he was, and absolutely in their power. He tried asking them questions, but, of course, they did not understand one word he said. They did not even shake their heads, but sat staring at him as before. So he gave it up, and made signs that he wanted to go to sleep. This seemed intelligible, and they rose, and with an evil, snarling chuckle left the place.

This was a relief at any rate. Where was he? speculated the castaway. Where was he, and how far from the sea-coast? What would be his fate—alone, unarmed, helpless, in the power of such as these? Even if he were not to be butchered immediately—all sorts of visions rose before his mind, of lifelong slavery in the interior, or figuring prominently in some ghastly and hideous human sacrifice on a gigantic scale. Heaven help him! And then Heaven did help him to this extent. Whether due to the effects of the potion that had been administered to him, or to the weakness following upon all that he had gone through, a lassitude came over him, and, forgetful of surroundings—of present or future peril—he fell fast asleep.

While he slept, in another part of the native town things were happening. The two who had entered the hut were haranguing others of their kind—all of similarly hideous aspect; but, on the other hand, it might have been observed that this race, whatever it was, Nature had exceptionally favoured in thews and stature. Low howls, and beast-like, of savage delight greeted the words, echoed more shrilly by women hanging on to the outskirts of the gathering. These began to produce knives and examine the edges; then the whole rout moved with one consent towards a hut rather larger and more important-looking than the rest on the outskirts of the town. Into this one of the number entered—one of the two, it may be remarked, who had just come away from “tending” Wagram on his awaking to consciousness.

But if he entered he could not have remained there long, and his method of egress must have been artificially hastened, for in a moment he shot forth again, half stumbling, half running. Behind him, beneath the low verandah, now appeared another man.

From this man’s lips there rolled forth thick and fast a very torrent of imprecation, and that in about six of the different dialects understood in those parts. Anyhow, it was intelligible to these, for they shrank back for the moment quiet and abashed. And, in truth, this was not without justification, for there was something in the man’s aspect that was absolutely terrific as he stood there confronting the savage mob with the aspect of a slave-master, whip in hand, standing over a mob of cowering slaves. Yet these were not cowering, far from it. He was very tall and athletic. His face, strong and hawk-like, half covered by a heavy beard, was working with passion; but it was in his eyes, bright and piercing beneath the shaggy brows, that the charm seemed to lie. They were absolutely snake-like in their flash of demoniacal cruelty—eyes of one who delighted to look upon all that against which human nature revolts; eyes that, when moved to wrath, blasted; eyes of a very fiend, in short. Yet among those who crowded before him were eyes every whit as cruel, among those before him were frames every whit as sinewy and athletic—and all these were armed, and he to all appearance was not. But—he was a white man.

They stood sullenly while he invoked every mysterious and terrible imprecation of sorcery upon themselves and their fathers and mothers, upon their children unto the third and fourth generations—dooming them to awful and mysterious forms of dissolution for daring to invade his privacy and disturb his rest. They waited through it all; for quite a new and unwonted form of hideous enjoyment lay now before them. Then their clamour broke forth afresh.

This white stranger they had taken from the water, whom they had borne carefully over this weary distance in order to bring to life again. He was alive again, and could see and hear and talk. Him now they must have. The feast to which they had been looking forward must now begin.

And the ghastly proposal was confirmed with a roar, whose vibrating savagery was sufficient to have appalled the most iron-nerved who should set himself to withstand this clamouring of fiends.