Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

es HE VALLEY = ee I had read—Milton’ s, I think it-was _ S=sbout “the chaos of old night. eee _ After a time the sounds seemed to divide _ into two groups, one calling, oné answering, A fighting rhythm became faster and faster in the music. I say music for want of an- other term that lurks in the abyss of my memory; a word that I have spoken perhaps in another tongue. When I call it hellish I mean the insinuating evil of it. By the rismg of the moon my mind had run an entire gamut of emotions and they were all evil; murder, rage, lust; one by one they swept over me. It was with difficulty that Keith re- strained the crazed search party from pour- ing into the darkness after the two absent ones. He instinctively knew it would be hopeless. The blacks were maddened by the sounds. A great muscular one leaped to his feet and bellowed his challenge. The others echoed it. They were like berserk vikings peering through the darkness at an unknown shore, the blood lust in their eyes. They swayed with the music and before long were danc- ing, Stamping on the packed earth until it boomed. Keith tried to quiet them, but he might as well have tried to stop the rush of fright- ened elephants. Faster came the music, al- ways with that dull rumbling undertone we had heard two marches away in those strange night stillnesses when, for some un- known reason, all the june folk are silent, for moments at a time, and sounds carry incredible distances. 3 After we were all deafened by the pull of that infernal music, the wildness of it died away. and in its place came the most weird minor melody I have ever heard. It seemed to be played on harps and oboes—at least, it had those qualities; the haunting languor and the eerie mystery ef the strings and reeds, It was queer to see us react. We had all been under the spell of those malignant sounds so long that it was with difficulty that we brought our minds back from the bloody witches’ Sabbath where they reveled. _ Then one by one we were overcome again— - blacks and whites. - subordinated to something primal, and my I felt myself being OF SOUNDS. white man’s pride rebelled, but not for long. | The new sounds called alluringly; held soit white arms to us; painted red, laughing lips on the jungle wall; tossed filmy veils from the hanging lianas, under which fleet- ed white bodies, and careSsed- us so tenderly _that with the enervation of opium users we closed our eyes and dreamed the dreams the music bade us see. Music that was _ nothing but a little strain repeated over and over again with infinite modulations; but it — compelled us, called us, commanded us to Our first hint of danger was when the big black who had. first answered the music rose and walked into the jungle. entered the music swelled in poignant sweet- ness. Another bearer followed, screaming as he ran forward with that frenzied sense of immolation seen in savages the world over when they run amuck. Then the twelve white men of the party, dreams broken, took _ up their “ white man’s burden ” and fell up- -on the milling negroes with brutal ferocity. Before the fight was decided the music’ stopped, and with it we all dropped our hands and listened. ‘The stillness was ab- solute. Only our hoarse breathing could be heard. We were devilishly frightened, and sat up the remainder of the night, hardly speaking to one another. The _ blacks crouched clese to us for comfort. With the morning we gathered for consul- tation. Some were for cutting directly through the valley, but the cooler heads prevailed, as they knew the danger of spend-_ ing another night in the midst of that music. lt was finally decided to cache the greater part of our stuff, draw lots to decide who — of us would stay with it, and take a forced -march through the swamp lands that lay to the west. At the mention of drawing lots, Jan Nord- vek sprang to his feet and turned to the mouth of the valley, his face filled with a 597 As he’ wildness that at first I took toe be fear. — : Then uncanny lights flickered and burned far back in his eyes and his arms stretched ~ out in appeal as though to call to himself the ghost terror of the jungle night that still walked by day. Then I remembered, with a peculiar = oO co Eomircbooks: