Chapter 14

Those Were the Real Conquests

We had imagined that our chasers, the ape-men, knew nothing of our hiding-place, but we were soon to find out our mistake. There was no sound in the woods, all was peace around us… but we should have been warned by our first experience how cunningly and how patiently these creatures can watch and wait until their chance comes. I am very sure that I shall never be nearer death than I was that morning. But I will tell you the thing in its order.

We all awoke exhausted after the terrific emotions of yesterday. Summerlee was still so weak that it was an effort for him to stand; but the old man was full of courage which would never admit defeat. It was agreed that we should wait quietly for an hour or two where we were, have our breakfast, and then make our way across the plateau and round the central lake to the caves where the Indians lived. We relied on the fact that we could receive a warm welcome from the Indians’ fellows. Then, with our mission accomplished, we should turn our thoughts to the vital problem of our return. Even Challenger was ready to admit that.

We were able now to take a better look at the Indians whom we had rescued. They were small men, wiry, active, and well-built, with black hair tied up in a bunch. Their faces were hairless, well formed and good-humoured. Their speech, though unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed to each other and uttered the word “Accala” many times over, we gathered that this was the name of the nation. Sometimes, with faces which were convulsed with fear and hatred, they shook their clenched hands at the woods round and cried: “Doda! Doda!” which was surely their term for their enemies.

“What do you make of them, Challenger?” asked Lord John. “One thing is very clear to me, and that is that the little man with the front of his head shaved is a chief among them.”

It was indeed evident that this man stood apart from the others, and that they never addressed him without every sign of deep respect. He seemed to be the youngest of them all, and yet, so proud and high was his spirit that, when Challenger lay his great hand on his head, he shuddered and, with a quick flash of his dark eyes, moved away from the Professor. Then the Professor seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture on him as if he were a specimen in a classroom.

“The type of these people,” he said, “we must place as considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution of such a race in this place. A great gap separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived on this plateau that it is inadmissible to think that they could have developed where we find them.”

“Then where did they drop from?” asked Lord John.

“That is a question which will, no doubt, be discussed in every scientific society in Europe and America,” the Professor answered. “My own reading of the situation for what it is that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this country, the old types surviving and living on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures as the tapir, the great deer, and the ant-eater with the reptilian forms of jurassic type. And now come the ape-men and the Indians. I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. As to the Indians I cannot doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here. Faced by terrible creatures which they had never seen before, they took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described. They have had a bitter fight against wild beasts and especially against the ape-men who would regard them as intruders. Hence the fact that their numbers appear to be limited.”

There I made the remark that one of the Indians was missing.

“He has gone to fetch some water,” said Lord Roxton.

“To the old camp?” I asked.

“No, to the brook. It’s among the trees there.”

“I’ll go and look after him,” said I. I picked up my rifle and walked in the direction of the brook. I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it. As I approached it, I was shocked to see the dead body of the missing Indian. He lay on his side, his head screwed round at a most unnatural angle. I gave a cry to warn my friends that something was amiss. Suddenly I looked upwards and saw two long muscular arms covered with reddish hair that were slowly descending. Another moment and the great stealthy hands were round my throat. I saw a frightful face with cold light blue eyes looking down into mine. There was something hypnotic in those terrible eyes. Dully and far off I heard the crack of a rifle and I was dropped to the earth, where I lay without sense or motion.

I awoke to find myself on my back on the grass. Lord John was sprinkling my head with water, while Challenger and Summerlee were propping me up, with concern in their faces. For a moment I had a glimpse of the human spirits behind their scientific masks. It was really shock, rather than any injury, so in a moment I was sitting up and ready for anything.

“My friend,” said Lord Roxton. “When I heard your cry and ran forward, and saw your head twisted half-off, I thought you were done. By George! I wish I had fifty men with rifles. I’d clear out the place of them and leave this country a bit cleaner than we found it.”

It was clear now that we were watched on every side. We had not so much to fear from them during the day, but they would be very likely to attack us by night; so the sooner we got away from their neighborhood the better.

One great regret we had, and that was to leave our old camp behind us, not only for the sake of the stores which remained there, but even more because we were losing touch with Zambo, our link with the outside world. However, we had a fair supply of cartridges and all our guns, so we could look after ourselves, and we hoped soon to have a chance of returning.

It was in the early afternoon that we started on our journey. The young chief walked at our head as our guide. Behind him came the two surviving Indians with our possessions on their backs. We, four white men, walked with our rifles loaded and ready. We saw no sign of chasing, however, and soon we had got into more open country.

As I walked along, I could not help smiling at the appearance of my three companions in front. We had, it is true, been a week or so on the top of the plateau. My three friends had all lost their hats, and had now bound handkerchiefs round their heads, their clothes were torn, and their unshaven grimy faces were hardly to be recognized. We were indeed a sorry crew, and I did not wonder to see our Indian companions glance back at us occasionally with horror and amazement on their faces.

In the late afternoon we reached the lake, and our native friends gave a cry of joy and pointed eagerly in front of them. It was indeed a wonderful sight which lay before us. Sweeping over the glassy surface was a great flotilla of canoes coming straight for the shore upon which we stood. We saw the Indians rise from their seats, waving their paddles and spears madly in the air, with loud cries of greeting before the young chief. Finally one of them, an elderly man, with a necklace and bracelet of great lustrous glass embraced most tenderly the youth whom we had saved. He then looked at us and asked some questions, after which he stepped up with much dignity and embraced us also each in turn. Then, at his order, the whole tribe lay down on the ground before us in homage. Personally I felt shy and uncomfortable at this adoration, and I read the same feeling in the faces of Roxton and Summerlee, but Challenger expanded like a flower in the sun.

“They may be undeveloped types,” said he, stroking his beard and looking round at them, “but their attitude towards their superiors might be a lesson to some of our more advanced Europeans. Strange how correct are the instincts of the natural man!”

It was clear that the natives had come out upon the war-path, for every man carried his spear, his bow and arrows, and some sort of stick or a stone-axe. Their dark, angry glances at the woods from which we had come, and the frequent repetition of the word “Doda,” made it clear enough that this was a rescue party who had set forth to save or revenge the old chief’s son. Finally our young friend made a spirited speech using such expressive gestures that we could understand it all as clearly as if we had known his language.

“What is the use of returning?” he said. “Sooner or later the thing must be done. Your comrades have been murdered. There is no safety for any of us. We are assembled now and ready.”

Then he pointed to us.

“These strange men are our friends. They are great fighters, and they hate the ape-men as we do. They command,” here he pointed up to heaven, “the thunder and the lightning. When shall we have such a chance again? Let us go forward, and either die now or live for the future in safety. How else shall we go back unashamed to our women?”

When he had finished the little red warriors burst into a roar of applause, waving their weapons in the air. The old chief stepped forward to us, and asked us some questions, pointing at the same time to the woods. Lord John made a sign to him that he should wait a bit and then he turned to us.

“Well, it’s up to you,” said he; “as for me I have to settle a score with these monkey-folk. I’m going with our little red friends. What do you say, young fellah?”

“Of course I will come.”

“And you, Challenger?”

“I will undoubtedly cooperate.”

“And you, Summerlee?”

“If you are all going, I go with you.”

“Then it is settled,” said Lord John, and turning to the chief he nodded and slapped his rifle.

The old fellow clasped our hands, each in turn, while his men cheered very loudly. It was too late to advance that night, so the Indians organized the camp. There we learned that iguanodons were their sort of private property as a herd of cattle, and that these stains of asphalt which had so bewildered us were nothing more than the marks of the owner. Helpless and vegetarian, with great limbs but a small brain, they could be driven by a child. In a few minutes one of the huge beasts had been cut up and pieces of him were fried over camp fires, together with great fish out of the lake.

Summerlee had lain down and slept on the sand, but we others walked round the edge of the water, willing to learn something more of this strange country. Twice we found pits of blue clay, such as we had already seen in the swamp of the pterodactyls. These were old volcanic vents which for some reason excited the greatest interest in Lord John. What attracted Challenger was attracted by bubbling mud geyser, where some strange gas formed great bursting bubbles upon the surface.

There was nothing which seemed to me so wonderful as the great sheet of water before us. Our noise had frightened all living creatures away, all was still around the camp. But it was different out upon the rose-tinted waters of the central lake. It boiled and heaved with strange life. Great slate-coloured backs and high fins showed up, and then rolled down into the depths again. Here and there high serpent heads projected out of the water. Finally some of them wriggled on to a sand-bank within a few hundred yards of us, and exposed a barrel-shaped body and huge flippers behind the long serpent neck, that Challenger, and Summerlee, who had joined us, broke out into their duet of wonder and admiration.

“Plesiosaurus! A fresh-water plesiosaurus!” cried Summerlee. “That I should have lived to see such a sight! We are blessed, my dear Challenger, above all zoologists since the world began!”

At earliest dawn our camp was awaken and an hour later we had started on our memorable expedition. Our numbers had been reinforced during the night by the Indians, and we had four or five hundred people. Roxton and Summerlee took their position upon the right flank, while Challenger and I were on the left.

We didn’t wait long for our enemy. A wild uproar rose from the edge of the wood and suddenly ape-men rushed out with sticks and stones, and made for the centre of the Indian line. It was a brave move but a foolish one, because our friends were as active as cats. It was horrible to see the fierce brutes with open mouths and glaring eyes, rushing, while arrow after arrow buried itself in their bodies. One great fellow ran past me roaring with pain, with a dozen darts sticking from his chest and ribs. In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell. But this was the only shot fired. The attack had been on the centre of the line, and the Indians there had needed no help of ours.

But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. The ape-men jumped out from the trees so quickly that the Indians often didn’t have time to spear them. One of the ape-men broke Summerlee’s gun into pieces and was going to attack Professor again. An Indian speared him into the heart. Other ape-men in the trees above us dropped down stones and wood. Summerlee was weaponless, but I was emptying my magazine as quick as I could fire, and on the further flank we heard the continuous cracking of our companion’s rifles.

At last man was to be supreme and the man-beast to find forever his place. The Indians followed them step my step and from every side in the woods we heard the yells, as ape-men were brought down from their hiding-places in the trees.

I was following the others, when I found that Lord John and Challenger had come across to join us.

“It’s over,” said Lord John. “I think we can leave the tidying up to them. Perhaps the less we see of it the better we shall sleep.”

“We have been privileged,” cried Challenger, “to be present at one of the typical decisive battles of history, the battles which have determined the fate of the world. From now on this plateau the future must ever be for man.”

As we walked together through the woods we found the ape-men’s bodies. Always in front of us we heard the yelling and roaring which showed the direction of the chasing. The ape-men had been driven back to their city, they had been broken, and now we were in time to see the final fearful scene of all. Some eighty or a hundred males, the last survivors, had been driven to the edge of the cliff. A semicircle of spearmen had closed in on them, and in a minute it was over. Thirty or forty died where they stood. The others, screaming and clawing, were thrown over the chasm. It was as Challenger had said, and the reign of man was assured forever in Maple White Land. The males were killed, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long war had reached its bloody end.

For us the victory brought much advantage. Once again we were able to visit our camp and get at our stores. Once more also we were able to communicate with Zambo, who had been terrified by the spectacle of apes falling from the edge of the cliff.

“Come away, Massas, come away!” he cried, his eyes starting from his head. “The devil get you sure if you stay up there.”

“It is the voice of sanity!” said Summerlee. “We have had adventures enough and they are neither suitable to our character or our position. I hold you to your word, Challenger. From now onwards you devote your time to getting us out of this horrible country and back once more to civilization.”