Short Fiction · The Red Fetish (2/2)

Once the horrible gray back of the fish showed above the surface, and glittered lethally in the sun, and Bill knew that Van Wyck was done for. Van Wyck was almost near enough to the rocks to climb them, and he might reasonably have pushed the shark off with his foot, but Bill knew that he wouldn’t. Bill knew that Van Wyck was as good as eaten, and he thought: “That shark will hardly be content with Van Wyck alone!”

A dozen fins intersected on the surface and occasionally one of the ravenous monsters would jump clear of the water in its eagerness to taste satisfying human flesh.

The sight got in under Bill’s skin and hurt. He closed his eyes, and endeavored to think of the grinning, leering savages on the rocks. The sharks made frantic dashes at Van Wyck and came away with something in their mouths. They would rush forward, their great jaws would snap⁠—and there would be less and less of Van Wyck.

Bill was unable to keep his eyes shut. He tried to cover them with his hands, but then he would go under and get an extra mouthful of salt water. He came up gasping, and saw that the sea was streaked with crimson.

As the sharks darted away from Van Wyck they left dark red trails behind them. Bill heard Van Wyck’s screams distinctly, although the latter had reached a point where screams seemed futile. They became less and less coherent. Perhaps Van Wyck realized the absurdity of protest. Perhaps he realized that all things eventually work together for the best. Certainly the cannibals would have treated him worse. It is not pleasant to be boiled in oil or hacked to pieces with little knives.

Bill saw the last of Van Wyck disappear in the maw of an enormous shark. The water turned a deeper red, and for a moment the sky and sea and even the naked, gesticulating savages seemed bathed in a crimson aura. It may have been an optical illusion, since Bill’s eyes had ceased to function with clarity. Bill knew that the sharks would look about a bit after finishing Van Wyck, and the thought gave him no satisfaction. “You’re next on the list,” he told himself.

But somehow the sharks seemed satisfied with poor Van Wyck. Perhaps they found Van Wyck so unsavory that they did not care to risk tackling another of the same breed. They circled about for a few minutes after the last of Van Wyck had disappeared, and then they passed solemnly eastward, their fins glistening in the brilliant sunlight.

Meanwhile Bill trod water and shuddered when he thought of Van Wyck. But he didn’t let himself think of Van Wyck much after that. Van Wyck, he argued, was no longer in need of sympathy. “It is the living who have to suffer,” he thought. It was patent that he could enjoy no security in waters infested with man-eating sharks.

He shouted with delight when he discovered that the cannibals had disappeared from the rocks. He was forcefully tempted to swim in and take advantage of his amazing good fortune. But he thought better of that when he calmly considered the nature of cannibals. They were probably waiting behind the rocks for him to swim in, and he didn’t care to be boiled in oil when there were sharks to make a quicker, cleaner job of it.

He decided to attempt to round the island. His ability to keep afloat amazed and frightened him. He had evidently drawn upon some reserve strength that nature had hitherto wilfully concealed. Destiny had played him a new hand. He secretly congratulated himself, although he continued to curse fate for the cannibals.

He got around the island somehow. The current set to at the northern end and he had some difficulty in surmounting the backwash of black tidal water; but he finally reached a beach so clean and white and refreshing that he shouted with boyish eagerness and gratification. He swam in without reckoning consequences, for in his exultation he had forgotten or overlooked the cannibals.

He would build a fire and warm himself, and he would eat nothing but fruit. It needed but a momentary inspection to convince him that the island contained an excess of fruit. And there was water! A tiny streamlet came out from the woods, between the boles of fabulously ancient trees, and ran down the smooth white beach.

Bill swam in and clambered up the beach. He sat down under a hotoo tree, an absurd horror of bones and wet, clinging sand. He was a living scarecrow come out of the sea with the wisdom and weariness of ancient ocean upon him. He could scarcely open and close his thick, black lips. His sunbaked skin was drawn painfully taut over his protruding ribs.

A steady surf was crashing on the beach, and he paused while he listened to the roar of the breakers. He reposed for a time; then he got up, and a peal of wild laughter came from between his swollen lips. He had won out! He had hoodwinked the cannibals and sharks! In that blazing crystal world of sunlight and water he came to life again.

The sun dried him. He gulped up gallons of water from the tiny streamlet. It was fresh and clear. He was genuinely elated. The wind swept in from the sea in great, steady gusts, and the flaffing breeze whistled through his hair and under his armpits. He shouted and danced in sheer joy. The cannibals, he assured himself, were on the other side of the island. It was a large island, and he could hide. The chances against him, he thought, were negligible.

He decided to look about for a hiding-place. He knew that in the vast forest of tangled vegetation he would have no difficulty in achieving utter concealment. He could hoard up fruits and coconuts and live unmolested for days.

But when he turned he saw something peering from between the boles of the distorted, antique trees that made him change his mind. He stood still in the center of the beach, and stared, and presently he saw black, hideous figures come forward into the clearing. Others appeared crawling toward him on their hands and knees. He realized then the absurdity of attempting any sort of concealment.

He stood stark still while the cannibals advanced toward him across the smooth, white sands. He began to envy Van Wyck. He knew too much about savages. He had that and his imagination to blame for the little hell that he endured. How could he guess that they did not want revenge? A savage considers everything an insult. He knew that he should not have landed upon their infernal island. He wanted to apologize to them, and to make them understand. He had no desire to lord it over them, and he admitted to himself that he had deliberately injured their sense of dignity.

At first he thought that they intended to make short work of him. They looked sinister. There were three dozen of them in the guard of honor that advanced toward him across the beach and he did not like their faces. Their faces were black and swollen and ugly and incredibly tattooed, and their cheeks were smeared with green and blue paint. One of them paraded a discarded panama hat. Bill could not imagine where he had obtained the hat. The wretch had probably repaid the owner by boiling him in oil. It was quite the thing twenty years ago to burn traders and missionaries in oil, although the custom has been outgrown among respectable savages. But the hat looked at least twenty years old. And one of the devils smoked a corncob pipe! They were tall, solemn-looking cusses, and Bill did not pretend to like them.

But when they got close to him they formed a circle, shutting him off from the sea, and he felt then that everything was worse than he had anticipated. When cannibals begin forming into rings it is customary to give up hope. They were grinning hideously and Bill could count the number of teeth in the rings which they wore about their necks.

Some of the leanest and tallest wore thirty or forty teeth. And Bill knew that a savage never wears more than one tooth from a single head. It is not considered decent. And each tooth means⁠—but Bill never wept over spilt milk. He felt that his own head was in imminent danger, and the knowledge annoyed and frightened him. But he did not dare let on that he feared them, and he stood up very stiff and straight, and scowled into their narrow, bloodshot eyes.

They seemed to resent his hostility. It seemed to hurt them, and Bill was amazed at the hint of reproach in their glances. A cannibal is something of a gentleman, and he would not deliberately hurt a man’s feelings for the world. And Bill’s resentment somehow seemed an insult to their hospitality. Bill understood how they felt, and he realized that he had behaved like a boor. But his teeth were knocking together like billiard balls, and a stern front was necessary.

But he could not look his captors in the face. They came close to him, and then one of them stepped forward and patted him on the back. He spoke and Bill understood him. Bill knew nearly all of the Bantu languages, and the savage spoke a corruption of several.

“We thank our brother for the very fine gift,” he said. “We are indeed grateful!”

Although Bill could understand what the black devil said a reply was utterly beyond him. The grammatical construction of Bantu overwhelmed him. Bill kept his mouth shut and stared, pretending not to understand.

The spokesman turned and beckoned. A tall, lean youth with protruding yellow teeth came quickly forward. Save for a slight hint of pity in his small eyes his face bore no expression. He held in his right hand a large, round object which Bill did not immediately recognize. The spokesman nodded and took the object by its hair. He stroked it effusively, calling upon it to protect and succor him in war and in peace. He begged that the object’s pity and benevolence would extend to the whole tribe. He praised the object in terms that would have embarrassed any living man. Then he turned to Bill and made a very low bow. “It came ashore before you,” he said. “And we are most grateful!”

Bill opened his eyes wide with horror. He sought to express his agony in words, but no sound came from between his black, swollen lips. A sudden shriek would perhaps have saved him, and Bill tried hard to make a sound in his throat. But his horror lay too heavily upon him. He made a wild, horrid gesture with his right arm and collapsed in a heap upon the sand.

Three months later Bill was taken off by a trading-sloop. He blabbered idiotically about the right of a head to decent burial and made uncomplimentary allusions to the wearing of teeth. He evidently sought to stir up anger against the cannibals, but the traders ignored his insinuations, since he was obviously mad and since the cannibals had worshiped him and given him the run of the island. The memory of Van Wyck’s encrimsoned head had addled his wits.