Little God Ben Page 20

  His mouth opened. His eyes dilated. He turned to the High Priest as one amazed, and then repeated the performance to the Chief. Then he stared at the Priest’s door, and then he did a forbidden thing. He sped to the door and disappeared beyond it into hallowed territory.

  But he was back again before the Priest could make his indignation coherent.

  ‘Zoozo!’ he cried. ‘Zoozo! Choom! Zoozo!’

  The effect was instantaneous. Everybody stiffened, and the Chief leapt into the air.

  ‘Oomoo poopoo! Oomoo Hoohaa! Oomoo Hoohaa zoozo! Owlah!’

  At the last cry every spear was raised high, and the Chief darted towards the door. But Oakley jumped in his path exclaiming, ‘Nyaya! Sweeze!’ and pointed to Ben again.

  Once more, Oomoo gesticulated. This time his gesticulations were in the opposite direction. He waved towards the gate to the outer chamber, while Oakley watched him intently, as before. When he thought he had done enough, Ben stopped, but Oakley wanted a little more. He pointed to the prisoners. Ben swept his arm towards the Priest’s door.

  ‘Hya, hya, Oomoo,’ muttered Oakley. ‘Hyaya!’

  He interpreted the order. Only one man hesitated to obey. It was the High Priest.

  He stood without moving, while the natives crowded into the outer chamber. Before following them, the Chief darted an inquiring glance at him, but he paid no attention. His eyes were on the prisoners, who were being marched by Oakley into his private preserves.

  As the last one passed through—the last one was Cooling—Oakley paused. A vital moment had come, and all might depend upon it.

  ‘Oomoo!’ murmured Oakley.

  It was an inquiry. An invitation for him to move. Oomoo remained as motionless as the High Priest.

  ‘Oomoo!’ repeated Oakley.

  The little god still made no response. The three were alone in the Temple, and now that the natives had gone the only light was a faint grey glimmer that entered grudgingly through the Priest’s open door.

  The Priest moved suddenly. He slipped to the pot and touched it with his fingers. The side was lukewarm. It should have been hot. The next instant he had darted, out after the prisoners, and something gleamed as he went.

  ‘Damn!’ thought Oakley. ‘I didn’t think it could last!’

  He followed him. Ben heard the door being bolted. He found himself alone.

  28

  Ben Plays the Joker

  Then, in the dim loneliness of the Temple, the worst happened. Ben had a brainstorm.

  He never knew what produced it—whether it was the diabolical intention written on the High Priest’s face as he had slipped out of the door, or the sound of the door being bolted after Oakley had slipped out after him, or the sudden deathly silence and solitude that followed, with unseen slayers on either side, and the Temple as their intended battleground. Or was it just the snapping of a simple mind torn between two personalities? Whatever the cause, the result was shattering. With a sensation that he had been deserted both spiritually and materially, Ben fell from his perch with a bump and became the frightened stoker once more.

  No longer was he ‘benumb like.’ Reality came sweeping back, bringing its shocks and its agonies. He felt as though he had been walking stiffly through a dream which had suddenly dissolved and left him protectionless.

  How had he duped all these savages? How had he faced them without swooning? How had Oomoo’s spirit entered into him, if it had, or how had he imagined that it had if it hadn’t? The questions were unanswerable. He had no idea. He had been shoved off his pedestal—out of his illusory sanctuary—and he couldn’t find his way back again. Literally he had been shoved off, because when he emerged from the first convulsions of the brainstorm he discovered, to his astonishment, that he was on the floor.

  ‘’Ow did I git ’ere?’ he wondered.

  He had got there in one leap.

  He clasped his stomach to diminish its wobbling—the effect, was merely to communicate the wobbling to his hands—and crept to the Priest’s door. He just dodged the hanging skull in time to avoid kissing it. Unnerving things lay on the other side of the door, but Oakley was among the things, and he wanted Oakley. He wanted him very badly. The door however was barred.

  To smash it was as impossible as ungodlike. To shout would be definitely human. He might give the skull a tug. Yes—what about giving the skull a tug? Would it bring anybody? If so, whom? He was trying to work out whom, with his hand preparing to make a sudden grab at the skull, when his ear caught a sound. It was a faint cry.

  Ben had heard many cries in his uneasy life, and not all of them faint, but he thought this was quite the nastiest of the lot. All one could be thankful for was the faintness.

  Another sound followed it. A distant crash. Then other sounds. Swift—confused—undecipherable. ’Orrerble!

  They were so ’orrerble that Ben retreated from the door. He wondered whether they had been heard by those who were waiting behind the other door, and as he turned his eye was attracted by something glinting from the ground. It gave him another little start, because he was convinced it had not been on the ground all along. It looked like a silver optic.

  But when he drew cautiously closer he found that it was nothing more harmful than the silver lighter. He had dropped it during his leap from the throne. Yes, and he had dropped the cigarette, too. Where was the cigarette? He must find it. The lighter was useless to him alone. He began groping around for the cigarette.

  He found it in the shadow of the great pot. It had rolled there, almost prophetically.

  He crept to it, stooped, regained it, rose, and bumped his head. He stared at the pot. He touched its cooling side, to find out what protuberance had struck him, and his hand came against a knob. At the pressure, the great lid swung slowly open.

  ‘Crikey!’ he gasped leaping back.

  When he had slightly recovered from the shock he advanced again, cautiously mounted four steps that led up the side of the pot, and peered over the rim. The curved interior yawned up at him like a hungry mouth. At the bottom gleamed a little dark water.

  ‘Wot’s left o’ the gargle!’ thought Ben.

  He toyed with the notion of climbing into the pot, curling up in it, and trying to go to sleep till he died. He resisted the doubtful temptation. He hadn’t finished his job yet, and even without Oomoo’s assistance he supposed he would have to finish it. ‘Arter orl, why not?’ he queried, lugubriously. ‘Everythink’s ekerlly ’orrerble!’ His decision not to enter the pot was reinforced by the open lid. Uncovered, the pot would make a feeble funk-hole!

  ‘Yus, but there must be some way ter close it,’ he reflected. ‘Let’s find it.’

  He brought his inquiring head out of the pot, climbed down, and pressed the knob again. In response, the lid swung slowly back into place.

  The next moment he forgot the pot. Fresh noises were sounding outside the Priest’s door.

  His heart stood still, but his legs carried on. They carried him back to the throne. If he had left it like a rocket, he returned like a meteor, and almost before he knew it he was on his seat once more, listening to the creeping feet. He knew they were creeping feet. He had spent half his life among creeping feet, and he could recognise the sound upside down. Once he had actually done so, when he had sought sudden shelter by diving into a cupboard the wrong way up.

  ‘Wot I carn’t mike aht,’ he thought, while the creeping feet grew closer, ‘is why they don’t give us the vote if we wants ter be born or not? I knows which way I’d ’ave voted. It’d ’ave bin narpoo! Funny ’ow it works—yer don’t wanter be born, but yer don’t wanter die. Wot do yer want?’

  He had never found out.

  Now the creeping feet reached the Priest’s door. The front ones stopped, but others crept up behind, whispering their way forward.

  ‘Give me boots hevery time,’ muttered Ben trying to quell his ungodlike shivers. ‘I ’ites feet niked!’

  He heard the wooden bar being softly shifted. He fe
lt like the very small contents of a large dark sandwich. The sandwich was now in process of manufacture, and in a few moments Fate would clap the two black slabs together, with himself in the middle, and take a munch …

  ‘Wot I ses is this,’ was Ben’s last reflection before the door opened. ‘When yer dead yer dead. Well, I mean, aincher?’

  The Red Squares came in like a shower of rustling leaves propelled suddenly by a strong wind. They blew without pause half-way across the Temple floor. In the dim dawn admitted by the open door and beginning to percolate through the slit windows they resembled fierce phantoms with gleaming eyes …

  But although their spears were raised to attack, they found no foe. All they found was a small yellow god who sat and stared ahead of him with a frozen smile.

  They stopped abruptly. Swung round. Gazed at the unexpected sight. One warrior poised his spear to throw, but before the spear could be released it was struck down by another warrior, who issued a swiftly muttered order. The second warrior was the tallest man Ben had ever seen. He was well over seven feet; and as, while the rest waited in obedience to his command, he wheeled towards the raised throne on which Ben squatted, the red square on his chest was on a level with Ben’s eyes and the polished head towered above him. Encircling the giant’s neck was a necklace of human bones.

  Ben kept his eyes unwinkingly on the red square. Possibly his yellow paint saved him from immediate extermination. If he did not feel like Oomoo any longer, his appearance remained unique even in the annals of the Pacific, and the leader of the Red Squares could not dismiss this unusual spectacle without preliminary examination. Commencing at a distance, the examination got uncomfortably closer, and an old man with a long beard and a longer pole joined in warily. On the top of the pole was a small carved effigy, adding its evidence to the theory that, in cannibalistic conception, ugliness is next to godliness.

  Ben concentrated desperately on his effort not to wink. He was convinced that gods did not wink—not, anyhow, at a first interview—and that his time on earth would end as soon as his strained eyelids met. It was amazing how they longed to meet. They positively ached for the encounter. He denied them as long as he could, but when the giant, having now reached the throne, bent his great head forward and downward so that it almost touched Ben’s, the situation became too unbearable, and Ben ended it in a way that surprised both the giant and himself. Responding to a sudden inspiration, he bent his own head forward and upward till his nose touched that of the giant.

  The giant was too astonished to move. It was Ben who caused the separation. He withdrew his head, raised his right hand, and then applied his nose a second time, waggling it up and down at the renewed contact. This, he recalled, was Oakley’s formula for undying friendship.

  Now the giant fell back. His eyes rolled in incredulous wonder. He appeared overwhelmed, and he turned to the old man with the long beard. The old man seemed equally astounded.

  There was a whispered consultation. The upshot was a decision that the old man should try his luck, and the veteran approached none too willingly. He was, in fact, a very careful old man, and he held his pole in front of him as he advanced so that it should stand between him and any tricks. Thus the effigy reached Ben first.

  Again the yellow god bent forward, treating the effigy as the giant had been treated. He rubbed his nose against the protuberance in the centre of the carved face, withdrew, raised his right hand, repeated the nasal salutation, and sat back once more.

  The effect of this meeting of gods on the company was so engrossing that no one noticed that the door to the outer chamber had been quietly opened, and that the salutation had been witnessed by a second audience—an audience no less impressed. Ben was the first to see the island Chief standing in the doorway. The Chief gripped a huge spear, but he seemed in no hurry to use it, while behind him crowded his army waiting for the delayed order to fall upon the foe.

  ‘Lumme!’ thought Ben, his brain reeling. ‘’Ave I done it?’

  Suddenly the leader of the invading party leapt round. He saw the Chief, with the massed spears behind him, and while the two enemies stared at each other they were obviously baffled by their inaction. They should have been at each other’s throats. Their war-like instincts were in a fog.

  But after a few seconds they began advancing towards each other, watched tensely by their respective followers. They held their weapons firmly clenched, to imply that, although they were postponing battle, they were taking no chances. They did not stop until they were face to face, their bodies almost touching. Then they halted, and stood regarding each other like a couple of huge fighting-cocks, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

  Suddenly the leader of the invaders made a move. It appeared to Ben to form the culmination of some silent communication that had been passing between the two. The giant sprang back, and pointed an accusing finger towards the pot.

  His gesture was approved by a low, ominous murmur from his men.

  ‘Lumme, I don’t believe I ’ave done it!’ thought Ben.

  The Chief also drew back, and his eyes became less passive. He uttered a word which seemed to carry its own accusation, and now his followers took it up, repeating it menacingly.

  Spears became restless. The giant again pointed to the pot, and his expression grew more forbidding. He raised his spear and shook it. The island Chief raised his spear and shook it. All the spears were raised and shaken, and fierce mutterings from both sides began to rumble through the Temple, like war-drums.

  ‘I ’aven’t done it!’ thought Ben.

  A spear flashed through the air, embedding itself in the Priest’s door. In another moment the Temple would be transformed into a hideous charnel house and not even a god would be able to divert attention from the frenzied business of slaughter. Ben acted just in the nick of time. He had played all the cards he possessed but one; he rose now to play the joker.

  Only a movement from Oomoo could have stayed the attackers’ murderous rush. Poised for it, they held back while Oomoo left his throne and descended to the floor with slow, dignified steps. They watched him advance to the island Chief, who himself watched as hard as any.

  Reaching the Chief, Ben waved towards the pot, as though inviting him to enter. The Chief’s mouth opened, while a shout of savage triumph came from the thick lips of the giant. This was retribution! But the Chief, for once, was disobedient, and as he retreated Ben turned to the giant and repeated his gesture to him. Now the giant’s triumph evaporated, and his mouth opened. Like the Chief, he refused the invitation. Then Oomoo walked to the pot himself, pressed the knob, and mounted the steps while the lid swung open.

  From the steps he beckoned to the Chief. The Chief, after a moment of hesitation, crept forward as one mesmerised. Taking the Chief’s hand, Oomoo directed it towards the knob.

  ‘Hya, hyaya!’ mumbled the Chief.

  Satisfied that he had been understood, Ben climbed into the pot, and a moment later the lid swung back above him.

  Once more all thoughts of battle were suspended while astonished eyes fastened on the lid. No sound came from the voluntary inmate. No gasp or shriek or wail. A miracle was occurring. It held the company spellbound.

  Soon, from the hole in the top of the lid, a thin grey wisp emerged. It ascended, spread a little, vanished. Another wisp followed. Thicker. Like the first, it ascended and melted away. Then came another, thicker still, and coiling. Then a ring. A low murmur greeted the ring. The ring was succeeded by more rings, curling after each other to the roof. Then a steady column … divine breath belching upwards from the surface of boiling water.

  For five minutes the strange spectacle was watched with trance-like attention. Then, suddenly, the Chief gave a great, booming shout.

  ‘Oomoo! Oomoo Mumba! Oomoo! Oi!’

  He fell flat. His army fell flat. What a chance for the foe! The giant looked at the old man with the beard, and the old man fell flat. The giant fell flat, and his warriors followed suit.
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  Into this strange scene, from the Priest’s doorway, entered a white-robed man. The white-robed man did not fall flat. He stared at the prostrate figures, and over them to the pot with its steadily ascending vapour. Turning his head, he looked at the empty throne. He appeared to endure a moment of dizziness, but he quickly conquered it, and he made his way to the pot, treading quickly but carefully so that he would not disturb the network of humanity that carpeted the ground. Reaching the pot he hesitated, then pressed the knob.

  Ben, staring upwards, saw the lid slide open, and he sent the last puff of his cigarette into the face that peered down at him over the rim. It was the face of Oakley.

  ‘’Allo,’ whispered Ben. ‘I’m goin’ ter fint!’

  ‘Not before you show yourself, old dear,’ Oakley whispered back.

  He lifted Ben out. As he did so, the giant raised his head. Oakley pressed the knob hastily, and while the lid closed the giant rose. The Chief, sensing happenings, rose also.

  Oomoo just managed to remain erect. His stifled mind was struggling to remember something. Some last job he must perform before he gave way … It had been pretty bad in that pot …

  ‘Oh—corse!’ he suddenly recollected. ‘Nosey-posey.’

  He beckoned solemnly. The two men approached him, awed. They stood before him, side by side. They bent their heads cautiously to examine him, and when their heads were within reach of Oomoo he raised his hands, placed one behind each head, twisted the heads towards each other, and brought them together. The warring generals found themselves rubbing noses.

  They sprang apart, in amazement not unmixed with embarrassment. Oomoo raised his right hand. After a moment’s hesitation, they followed suit. Then they sprang together again, and this time their noses met voluntarily.

  ‘Owlah!’ roared the island Chief. ‘Owlah! Owlah!’