City in the Sahara - Barsac Mission 02 Page 5

  That word again. He disfigures it.

  "That will depend on you," he continues, addressing himself first and foremost to M. Barsac, whom he certainly regards as our leader. "You can either be my hostages or.. .."

  He strikes an attitude. M. Barsac looks at him with an astonishment which I share. What else can we be, then?

  "Or my collaborators," Harry Killer ends coldly. To say that this proposal surprises us would be an understatement. We are absolutely thunderstruck.

  However, he goes on just as coldly: "You mustn't think I'm under any illusion about the progress of the French Forces. If they don't yet know about my existence, they'll learn of it very forcibly some day. Then I'll have either to fight or to bargain. Don't think I'm afraid to fight. I'm quite able to defend myself. But war isn't the only possible solution. To colonize the Niger Bend will keep France busy for a long while. What good would it do them to risk a defeat simply to push on further eastwards in spite of me across an ocean of sand which I'm converting into fertile fields? Properly conducted, our negotiations might end in an alliance."

  He takes a lot for granted, this fellow! He's oozing vanity from every pore. Can anyone see the French Republic entering into an alliance with this loathsome tyranny?

  "With you?" the amazed exclamation of M. Barsac expresses the thought of us all.

  It takes no more than this to unchain the tempest. Indeed, the calm has already lasted too long. It was beginning to get monotonous.

  "Perhaps you don't think I'm worth it?" roars Harry Killer, his eyes blazing, as he hammers anew on his unoffending table. "Or perhaps you're hoping to escape? That's because you don't realize my power."

  He gets up, and adds in threatening tones: "You'll know better soon!"

  The guards enter at his call. They grab hold of us, they drag us off. We go up endless stairways, then they make us promenade along a great terrace, followed by more staircases. We emerge at last on the platform of a tower, where Harry Killer is not slow to join us.

  The man fluctuates like a wave. No half-measures with him. He passes without transition from a mad fury to an icy calm, and back again. For the time being there's not a vestige of his last outbreak.

  "You're forty yards high here," he says, the tone of a guide explaining a view. "So the horizon is about fifteen miles away. You can understand that, so far as your eyes can see, the desert which surrounds us has been replaced by a fertile countryside. The empire I rule covers more than six hundred square miles at least. Really it is about twelve hundred. That's the work we've carried out over ten years."

  Harry Killer interrupts himself for a moment. When he has preened himself enough )certainly not without reason this time) he goes on: "If anyone tried to enter these twelve hundred square miles, I should get immediate warning from a triple line of outposts set up in the desert, and connected to the Palace by telephone. . . ."

  So that's the explanation of the oases and the telegraph poles which I saw the other day. But let's listen to Harry Killer, who is showing us a sort of glass lantern, something like that of a lighthouse but far larger, raised in the midst of the platform.

  He continues in the same tone. "If that isn't enough, nobody could enter without my permission; he could not cross a protective zone half a mile wide, placed five furlongs outside the walls of Blackland, because it is swept all night by rays from powerful projectors. Thanks to its optical structure, this instrument, which I call the cycloscope, looks directly downwards on that circle of territory so that the lookout at its centre am keep every detail under his eyes )and enormously enlarged, too. Come into the cycloscope, I give you permission and judge for yourselves."

  Our curiosity much aroused, we profit by this permission, and enter the lantern through a door consisting of an enormous lens swinging on hinges under our eyes. No sooner do we enter than the outside world changes. To whatever side we turn, we can see at first nothing but an upright wall, divided into a number of separate squares by a grille of black lines.

  This wall, whose base is separated from us by a gulf of shadows, and whose top seems to tower above us to a prodigious height, apparendy consists of a sort of milky light. Then we begin to realize that its colour, far from being uniform, is compounded from countless patches of different shades with rather vague outlines. A little attention shows us that some of these patches are trees, others are fields or roads, and others again people working on the land, all enlarged so much we can recognize them easily.

  "You see those Negroes," asks Harry Killer, pointing to two widely separated stains. "Suppose they took it into their heads to escape. They wouldn't get farl"

  While speaking, he has picked up the telephone transmitter. "Hundred and eleven circle. Radius fifteen hundred and twenty-eight"

  Then, picking up another transmitter, he adds: "Fourteen circle. Radius fifteen hundred and two."

  Then, turning towards us, "Look carefully at this," he tells us.

  After a few minutes wait, during which nothing special happens, one of the patches is obscured by a cloud of smoke. When this has cleared, the patch has vanished.

  "What's happened to the man working there?" asks Mlle Momas in a voice trembling with emotion.

  "He's dead," Harry killer replies coldly.

  "Dead! . . ." We exclaim. You've killed that poor fellow for no reason at all?"

  "Don't worry, he's only a Negro," Hany Killer explains with perfect simplicity. "Mere trash. When there aren't any of them left we can get more. That one was wiped out by an aerial torpedo. It's a sort of rocket which carries up to fifteen miles, and you've seen its accuracy and speed."

  While we were listening to his explanations, so far at least as the distress aroused by his abominable cruelty allows us, something has entered into our field of view. It sped rapidly along the milky wall, and the second patch has also vanished.

  "What about that man?" asks Mlle Mornas, hardly able to speak, "Is he dead, too?"

  "No," replied Harry Killer, "that one's still alive. You're going to see him in a moment."

  He goes out, followed by our guard, who thrust us outside. Now we are once again on the platform of the tower. We look around, and some distance away we see coming towards us, with the speed of a shooting-star, an apparatus like that which brought us here. Suspended beneath its lower surface we can see something swinging.

  "Here's the heliplane," Harry Killer thus tells us the name of the flying-machine. "In less than a minute you'll understand whether anyone can get in or out of this place against my wishes."

  The heliplane indeed approaches us quickly. It looms larger in our sight. We suddenly tremble: the object swinging below it, it is a Negro, whom a sort of giant pincers has seized in the middle of his body.

  The heliplane comes nearer still. It passes above the tower. . . . Horrible! The pincers have opened, and the wretched Negro has just smashed at our feet. From his shattered head the brains have spurted in every direction, and we are spattered with blood.

  A cry of indignation escapes us. But Mlle Mornas is not satisfied with a cry, she acts. Her eyes flashing, pale, her hps bloodless, she thrust aside the startled warder and hurls herself upon Harry Killer.

  "You coward! . . . You wretched murderer! . . she cries to his face, while her small hands knot themselves around the villain's neck.

  He frees himself effortlessly, and we tremble for the foolhardy girl. Alas! We can do nothing to aid her. The guards have seized us and hold us helpless.

  Fortunately the dictator does not seem to have, for the time at any rate, any intention of punishing our brave companion, whom two men have dragged back. If his mouth is set in a cruel grimace, something like a look of pleasure comes into his eyes; he fixes them on the young girl who is still trembling.

  "Well, well," he says, in a fairly good-humoured tone, "she's got spirit, the filly."

  Then thrusting his foot against the remains of the wretched Negro he adds, "you shouldn't worry about trifles, little girl."

  He goes dow
n, we are hustled after him, and we are taken back into that room, so well furnished with a table and one solitary chair, which I shall accordingly speak of in future as the Throne Room. Harry Killer takes his place on the said throne and looks at us.

  When I say he's looking at us. . . . To tell the truth, he's only paying attention to Mlle Mornas. He fixes her with his menacing eyes, into which there gradually comes an evil light.

  "You'll realize my power now," he says at last, "and I've shown you that my offers are not to be sneezed at. I renew them for the last time. I'm told that among you are a politician, a doctor, a journalist, and two halfwits. . .."

  For M. Poncin, agreedl But for poor St. Berain, what an injustice!

  "If need be, the politician can negotiate with France, I shall build a hospital for the doctor, the journalist can work on the Blackland Thunderbolt, and I'll find a way of using the two others. There remains the child. I like her ... I'll marry her."

  Our consternation may well be imagined to hear so unexpected a conclusion. But, with a madman! . . .

  "None of that will happen," M. Barsac replies firmly. "The aborninable crimes of which you've made us the witnesses haven't shaken us. We shall submit to force because we have to, but never shall we consent to be anything more than your prisoners or your victims. As for Mlle Mornas. . . ."

  "Oh, it's Mornas that my future wife is called, is it?" Harry Killer interrupts him.

  "Whether I call myself Mornas or not," cries our comrade, absolutely wild with anger, "understand that I regard you as a wild beast, as contemptible as you are disgusting, and I regard your proposal as an insult, the vilest, the most shameful, the most.. .."

  The voice chokes in her throat. As for Hany Killer, he merely laughs. The wind's certainly blowing towards mercy.

  "That's fine . . . that's fine . . ." he says. "No hurry. You can all have a month to consider it."

  But the barometer has fallen, and the good weather is over. He gets up and turns towards his guards. "Take them away!" he cries in a voice of thunder.

  For a moment M. Barsac resists the guards who are hustling him. He turns to Harry Killer. "And, in a month's time, what are you going to do with us?" he asks.

  But the wind has changed already. The dictator is no longer thinking about us, and his trembling hand lifts to his mouth a glass of alcohol which he's going to drink. At M. Barsac's question, he takes the glass from his lips, then, without any signs of anger, he says in indecisive tones, and raising his eyes towards the ceiling: "I don't quite know, perhaps I shall have you hanged."

  CHAPTER IV

  FROM 28th MARCH TO 8th APRIL

  As Amedee Florence explained in his notes, after their interview with Harry Killer the six prisoners emerged in consternation. The death of those two wretched Negroes, and especially the frightful end of the second, had distressed them greatly. How could such beings exist, so fierce that they inflicted so much suffering for no reason, for a mere whim, simply to demonstrate their detestable power?

  None the less an agreeable surprise awaited them. Harry Killer, who had just allowed them a month to consider their position, no doubt sought to win them over by considerate treatment. Whatever the reason, the doors of their cells were no longer locked as before, and they were now free to move at will about the gallery. This became their common room, where they could meet as often as they liked.

  From one end of the gallery rose a staircase which opened, at the floor immediately above, on to the top of the bastion which contained their cells. They were similarly allowed to enjoy the freedom of this platform. If, during the hours of tropical sunshine, they did not wish to take advantage of this, they very much appreciated the pleasure of spending their evenings in the open air; there they could stay as long as they wished, without anyone's commenting on it.

  In such conditions life was on the whole not too irksome, and they were as happy as the loss of their freedom and as their anxiety about the future would allow. The group of cells, the gallery, and the terrace formed a real self-contained apartment, except for the closed door at the far end of the gallery. Behind that door were stationed their jailors. The voices of these, the clashing of their arms, reminded the prisoners that this boundary was not to be crossed.

  Domestic service was seen to by Tchoumouki, who showed the greatest zeal. Nevertheless, they saw him only when he was waiting on them. Outside the hours devoted to the cleaning of their cells and to their meals he was never there, and they did not have to endure the presence of that rascal to whom, in part at any rate, they owed their unfortunate circumstances.

  During the day they visited one another, or prowled up and down along the gallery; then, at sunset, they ascended to the platform, where Tchoumouki would sometimes serve dinner.

  The square-shaped bastion in which they were incarcerated formed the western angle of the Palace, and on two sides it dominated the broad terrace. It was separated from this by a series of interior yards, which they had crossed to reach the central tower where they had seen the cycloscope. Of its two other facades, one rose above the Esplanade between the Palace and the Factory; this Esplanade was bounded towards the Red River by an immense wall, to winch the other facade formed an extension, towering above the river to a height of about ninety feet.

  Hence they had to regard any idea of escape as impossible. Not to mention the difficulty of evading the surveillance whose efficacy Harry Killer had so cruelly demonstrated, they could not so much as dream of leaving the Palace. To get from the bastion to the terrace, which was continually traversed by the Counsellors and the Merry Fellows on duty and by the Negroes of the domestic staff and the Black Guard, would have availed them nothing, even if such a feat were possible. Nor would much be gained by escaping from the Esplanade, bounded on all sides by insurmountable walls. The Red River offered the only hope of escape, but the prisoners possessed neither a boat nor any method of descending the ninety feet drop into it.

  From the height of the platform they could follow with their eyes the course of the Red River. Up and down stream, this vanished between rows of trees, already of respectable height although they had not yet been planted ten years. Except for the public Garden, hidden by the Palace, the whole of Blackland was spread out before their eyes. They could see the three sections bounded by their lofty walls, the concentric semicircular streets, the western and eastern quarters, with their sparse population of whites, and the centre where there swarmed, at dawn, an immense crowd before it went out to spread over the surrounding countryside.

  Their view extended into part of the Factory, but what they could see gave them very little light on that second town, enclosed within the first, and seeming to have no communication with this.

  What was the purpose of these workshops, surmounted by a chimney which emitted not even a vestige of smoke, and by a tower like that of the Palace, but lengthened to a height of over a hundred yards, by that inexplicable pylon which Amedee Florence had noticed the moment he arrived? What was the meaning of those immense buildings, towering in the expanse beside the Red River, and many clothed in a thick layer of grass covered earth? What needs did that other tract answer, the largest of all, which contained market and fruit gardens? Why that metallic revetment above the high wall which bounded in it? Why, at its base, that wide deep trench? Why, indeed, that wall, for its two sides gave neither on to the River nor on to the Esplanade with its outer wall, beyond which began the open country? Somebody had apparently meant to give that tiny city its own special defences, and to bar it from any communication with the outer world. The whole thing was inexplicable.

  When questioned, Tchoumouki had not been able to supply the name of this inner city. "Work House," was all he said, mangling the words terribly as though he had a superstitious fear of them. Indeed, as one of Harry Killer's latest recruits, he did not understand very much, and he himself could not have given any reason for the terror he showed, which indeed was only the reflection of the general feeling in the town. Plainly some power
must be hidden behind that unbroken wall which faced the Palace. What was its nature? Could they ever succeed in understanding it, and could they possibly use it for their own ends?

  The freedom of Jane Blazon had been extended even more widely. By order of Harry Killer, Tchoumouki had told her that she could come and go unhindered, and without any fear for her safety, either in the Palace or on the Esplanade. She was merely forbidden to cross the Red River, and she could not have done this anyhow, as a post of the Merry Fellows was always on guard at the Castle Bridge.

  Needless to say, she had not taken advantage of the privilege. Whatever happened, she would share the same fate as her companions in misfortune. She remained as much a prisoner as they. This greatly astonished Tchoumouki, who thought magnificent the plans made for his former employer.

  "You not good stay prison," he told her. "When you marry Master, it be good. He give you toubabs."

  But Jane Blazon only turned a deaf ear to this Negroid advocacy, and Tchoumouki got nothing for his feats of eloquence.

  When they were not together in the gallery or on the bastion, the prisoners occupied their leisure each according to his own taste.

  Barsac was weak enough to pride himself beyond all bounds on the firmness of his attitude towards Harry Killer. The well deserved compliments it brought him had inflated his vanity, and he was prepared, regardless of consequences, to seek for more. As with him every impulse took an oratorical form, he had never stopped working, since then, on the speech which he would hurl at the tyrant on the first opportunity, and he polished and repolished the vengeful tirade which he would improvise and throw in his face the moment he dared repeat his dishonourable offers.

  Dr. Chatonnay and St. Berain, now freed from his lumbago, were both somewhat at a loss, the one because he had no patients, the other because circumstances made it impossible for him to carry on his favourite sport; they usually spent their time with Jane Blazon and tried to console her. The memory of her father, left solitary in Glenor Castle, still distressed the girl, although she now felt herself in a position to lessen the old man s inconsolable despair. How could she take liim the proof, still incomplete but certainly cogent, of George Blazon's innocence?