第 二十一 章 · THE DEATH OF THE CURATE.

. THE DEATH OF THE CURATE.

It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last

time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me

and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the

scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back quickly and

quietly into the scullery. In the darkness I heard the curate drinking.

I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a bottle of burgundy.

For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and

broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening each

other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told

him of my determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in

the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let him eat

any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort to get at

the food. I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake. All day and

all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and

complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and a day,

but to me it seemed—it seems now—an interminable length of time.

And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict. For

two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There

were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and

persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of

burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could get water.

But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed beyond reason. He

would neither desist from his attacks on the food nor from his noisy

babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our

imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I began to realise

the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole

companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane.

From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered

at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds

paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity

of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man.

On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and

nothing I could do would moderate his speech.

“It is just, O God!” he would say, over and over again. “It is just. On

me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen

short. There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in the dust,

and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly—my God, what

folly!—when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and called

upon them to repent—repent! . . . Oppressors of the poor and needy! . .

. The wine press of God!”

Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld from

him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to raise

his voice—I prayed him not to. He perceived a hold on me—he threatened

he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time that scared

me; but any concession would have shortened our chance of escape beyond

estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance that he might

not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked

with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part of the eighth

and ninth days—threats, entreaties, mingled with a torrent of half-sane

and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham of God’s service, such

as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and began again with renewed

strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist.

“Be still!” I implored.

He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near the

copper.

“I have been still too long,” he said, in a tone that must have reached

the pit, “and now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful

city! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! To the inhabitants of the earth by

reason of the other voices of the trumpet——”

“Shut up!” I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the Martians

should hear us. “For God’s sake——”

“Nay,” shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing likewise

and extending his arms. “Speak! The word of the Lord is upon me!”

In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen.

“I must bear my witness! I go! It has already been too long delayed.”

I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall. In a

flash I was after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was halfway

across the kitchen I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity

I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He went headlong

forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled over him and stood

panting. He lay still.

Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping

plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I looked

up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming slowly across

the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris; another

limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood

petrified, staring. Then I saw through a sort of glass plate near the

edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large dark eyes

of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of tentacle came

feeling slowly through the hole.

I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the

scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in the

room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this way

and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance.

Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery. I

trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door

of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness staring at the

faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening. Had the Martian

seen me? What was it doing now?

Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and then

it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a faint

metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a split-ring. Then a

heavy body—I knew too well what—was dragged across the floor of the

kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted, I crept to the

door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright outer

sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handling-machine,

scrutinizing the curate’s head. I thought at once that it would infer

my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him.

I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover

myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the

darkness, among the firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I

paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through

the opening again.

Then the faint metallic jingle returned. I traced it slowly feeling

over the kitchen. Presently I heard it nearer—in the scullery, as I

judged. I thought that its length might be insufficient to reach me. I

prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly across the cellar door.

An age of almost intolerable suspense intervened; then I heard it

fumbling at the latch! It had found the door! The Martians understood

doors!

It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door

opened.

In the darkness I could just see the thing—like an elephant’s trunk

more than anything else—waving towards me and touching and examining

the wall, coals, wood and ceiling. It was like a black worm swaying its

blind head to and fro.

Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of

screaming; I bit my hand. For a time the tentacle was silent. I could

have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click, it

gripped something—I thought it had me!—and seemed to go out of the

cellar again. For a minute I was not sure. Apparently it had taken a

lump of coal to examine.

I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which had

become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate prayers for

safety.

Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again.

Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping

the furniture.

While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar door

and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuit-tins

rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against the

cellar door. Then silence that passed into an infinity of suspense.

Had it gone?

At last I decided that it had.

It came into the scullery no more; but I lay all the tenth day in the

close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even to

crawl out for the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day

before I ventured so far from my security.