The Pendulum of the Skull by J Read online

  Short Stories, August 25, 1923

  The swinging skull was a sign of danger; but danger comes to any man who invades an island of the savage seas, and matches his wits against the despots of the tropic outlands UD BARRETT peered through the ground vine, completely hidden.

  stiltlike stems of the pandanus grove

  He was not going back. He had slipped

  B that covered the ledge above the away just as he intended doing when he waterfall, and saw the weft of canvas flying at learned he was to be in the shore party, He had the maintop. He was sailor enough to know

  never been a willing member of the crew of

  that this was a signal of recall, to guess that a the Flying Cloud, and now the skipper, or the sudden change in the barometer, prophesying

  owners, could take the wages due him, and

  a shift of wind, had decided the skipper of the welcome.

  Flying Cloud to get out to searoom and deep He was through with a bully mate

  water, away from the shallows and coral whose head he ached to punch—believing he ledges through which they had worked up to

  could do it successfully—but who fought with

  the island in search of fresh water.

  kicks and belaying pins, backed by a gun and

  The casks were not yet filled. He saw

  official authority. He was sick of the stench of that, by squinting down at the stream where

  the fo’c’sle, of the wrecks of humanity with

  the men labored under the urge of the first

  whom he was quartered and rated—though he

  mate. But the signal was imperative. In a few

  admitted several of them were better seamen

  minutes they would go.

  than he was—tired of the badly cooked food.

  The first mate shouted his name, It would have been different if he had cursed it volubly, but Bud lay doggo, deliberately selected his berth. Then he would wriggling back under the broad leaves of a

  have gone through with and swallowed his

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  medicine, bitter as it might be, but——

  wild beasts—if there were any. He didn’t

  The two boats were leaving. There had

  believe the tribesmen would bother him before

  come a strong and sudden wind from seaward,

  he had got to the station. And he had heard the against the prevailing trades. The reef-set second mate talking to the doctor—as the coast had been suddenly transformed from a

  cook was called—saying that the island was

  weather to a treacherous lee shore. James quite a point of call for whalers watering north Barrett, not yet accepted as Able Seaman,

  and south, and for other ships. He could get

  meant little in the face of that danger. They

  away, if the trader wouldn’t use him—any

  would not care if he were marooned on the

  ship was better than the Flying Cloud, built island for the rest of his life, eaten by the

  like a barrel, wallowing and pitching and

  natives. He was not the first sailor who had

  rancid as an ancient lard keg.

  deserted.

  He stretched out luxuriantly in the

  Barrett hugged himself. There was not

  warmth, shaded from the sun that filtered

  much danger from cannibals, he fancied down through the leaves. It made him drowsy though the bush tribes were said to be wild

  and, before he knew it, he was napping.

  and dangerous savages. But there was a

  When he woke, the sun had shifted

  trading station along the coast, beyond the

  several degrees, the seawind was wrestling

  lava cape. The creek there was only a shallow

  heavily with the tropic growth, fronded

  one, and the skipper had sailed past, intent

  boughs thrashing, ripe fruit plumping down.

  only upon replenishing the water that had The Flying Cloud was clawing into the gale, staled on him and sailing on down south to the working out through a wide channel among

  whaling grounds. As soon as the Flying Cloud the reefs that now showed white with foam.

  was well clear of the land, Bud meant to work

  Bud came down from the cliff, crossed

  his way along the shore to the station.

  the stream on smooth boulders, took a drink

  His plans were hazy. He thought he

  on the far side, stuffed his stomach with

  might be able to get some sort of a job, orange-skinned bananas that tasted curiously splitting coconuts, keeping tally, anything—or like Baldwin apples, and, skirting the

  playing Crusoe. He had acted on an impulse

  mangrove belt that masked the exit of the

  that was based on weeks of ill treatment. The

  creek, started to work down to the shore where mates were bad enough, the skipper was a hell

  the traveling should be easier and less

  driver, and what was bad now would become

  hazardous than an attempt to strike through

  intolerable once they got to whaling.

  the thick bush.

  He had noticed food enough since he

  It was harder than he imagined, the

  had come ashore—fish in the stream, fruit of

  belt of mangroves far wider, while the fury of all sorts, cocoanuts, wild bananas, shaddocks, the gale was astounding. Blue sky and sun had

  guavas, breadfruit, even orange trees. And disappeared, the clouds were slate colored and freedom. Freedom from dirty weather, and a

  lowering, and out of them blew the strenuous

  howling mate cursing him on to unfamiliar

  wind, that bowed the tops of the biggest trees tasks, setting him to all the dirty work aboard, and sent the palms lashing like whips.

  making a mark of him, calling him “Dude”

  Whenever he got into the open it drove him

  while the cringing men laughed at the feeble

  staggering at a tangent back to shelter again, joke. Freedom from the cockroach ridden and came roaring through the bush after him.

  bunk, and its moldy mattress of sodden, The barrier reef was a white and smoking wall insufficient straw.

  of spume, the ordinarily placid lagoon was

  He had his knife for defense against

  sudded with windblown foam, washed up,

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  3

  flung up in spongy masses.

  hard to breathe. It was charged with unleashed Bud didn’t know it, but it was getting

  statics, that he felt crackling in his hair, that close to the rainy season, to the monsoon

  tingled at his shrunken fingertips. Half an hour changes with swift shifts of wind and furious

  ago and he had been proudly confident of his

  storms. All the wonder of gold and green and

  own cleverness, his own ability, now he felt

  azure had turned into moaning gale, struggling like the least of mites, the most helpless of

  vegetation that had lost its luster, while the atoms, an ant at the mercy of a whirlpool or

  light was flat and hard and cold.

  crawling over a trench top with a battle at its Again the sky appeared to close in. A

  most awful height—powerless— afraid.

  javelin of lavender flame rent it, flooded

  Then—suddenly as it had come—the

  turbulent sea and tossing forest with its weird gale passed. First the rain, sweeping on like a lev
in. He caught a glimpse of the Flying

  gray regiment, the wind driving after-it, the

  Cloud fighting out under eased sail—thankful thunder lunging in sullen retreat, the darkness that he was not punching at the stiff canvas,

  lifting—lifting, and the sun flinging flashing yelled and sworn at for his clumsiness—and

  lances of victory under its blue banner.

  then, as if the bottom had fallen from a mighty Color and warmth coming out.

  cistern, the tropical downpour burst, hissing

  Sparkling, dripping leaves of emerald, ragged

  into the lagoon, thudding on the beach, banana pennons lifting again, cockatoos bulleting the leaves, cutting off light, all sense screeching, birds calling, the seas slowly

  of location, blinding him as effectually as if he subsiding, the pounding breakers on the reef

  stood in the tumbling spray back of the falls at still flinging spray that was now haloed with

  Niagara.

  rainbows.

  The wind did not cease. Its force was

  Bud came out of the banian to find

  so tremendous that it angled the streams of

  himself on a narrow trail, less than three feet water, and sent them with a rush and a roar

  wide, its floor of dirt packed solid by

  that blotted out every thing, and rendered him generations of naked horny feet, the bush on

  in a moment sodden, beaten; until he felt

  either side wattled with undergrowth, vines,

  bruised, floundering about in the edge of the

  close-set trees. The air blew fresh from the

  bush, tripped, stumbling, flung headlong by

  sea, and carried on it the peculiar fragrance of writhing lianas. He found himself at last in the the bush mingled with the salty tang—odors

  midst of the root stems of a great fig-banian, of ripe fruit and heavy scented flowers. He

  whose mighty thatch resisted even such a rain

  pushed on shorewards, thankful for the path,

  as this. Penetrating its dark maze until he

  not recognizing it for a bushtrail until he came touched the main trunk, he stood cowering,

  to where it ended on a strip of shingle. Here he cold, shivering, though the temperature was

  saw, aswing from a bamboo like a grisly

  close to ninety, watching the eerie flickering pendulum, a human skull, sign of tabu,

  of the lightning checkering the tangle of the

  warning that the trail was trapped with pits

  bush, listening to the frightful clamor of the and poisoned stakes, with ambushed spears

  long peals of thunder that went rolling and arrows triggered for the unwary.

  overhead.

  Luck had been with him. The lower

  It was a nightmare of darkness, of end of the path that he had traversed was dread, marked by the crash of some great tree, harmless. He lost no time in leaving the grim

  the furious, unceasing battery of the booming

  vicinity, though he went with the feel between surf booming a deep bass to the wild orchestra his shoulder-blades of an ever threatening

  of wind and rain and thunder. The air was

  spear flung from cover.

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  The tide was going out, and he left the

  There was a long wharf running out

  bush alone, though his thirst, grew as the hot into the lagoon, two small boats alongside, a

  sun warmed him, dried him, and then gracefully lined schooner with furled sails at threatened to sap his vitality.

  anchor, palms with slender silver trunks and

  Globular bush-fruit tempted him, plumes of tender green above clusters of hanging golden and enticing but, to Bud, they

  coconuts marching in stately rows down to a

  were but apples of Sodom, filled with the

  narrow strip of beach. Here was civilization

  ashes of death.

  and Bud’s spirit resumed its mastery. Fear fell Wading, evading quicksand, making from his shoulders like a released bundle at swift traverse over beaches of crushed and

  the end of a long trail. He marched almost

  tiny shells, clambering over flinty lava blithely through the palms, grateful for their promontories, he hurried on, with but one shade, looking longingly up at the nuts. He thought—to reach the trading station. The could not climb those slim boles, nor could he swinging skull was in his mind’s eye, that

  even open the nuts with his knife. But he

  inhospitable signboard of the tropical jungle

  looked hopefully forward to the trader

  he had looked upon as an inn where food was

  offering him a green nut with the top lopped

  for the plucking, and sleep a delight. His off, filled with cool, slightly effervescent imagination, stimulated by all that he had contents. He had heard the sailors raving heard and read of the savage isles of the South about the joy of a fresh coconut.

  Seas, began to ride him like an evil hag upon

  He was in bad shape after his long trip

  his shoulders, bringing only one comfort, a

  in the sun, scorched for all his sea tan, his feet remembrance that the trading stations were

  rock-bruised, weary after the rough going that said to be comparatively safe these days—for

  had taken him since noon to travel.

  fear of reprisal—and that so long as one kept

  A rocky gully cut through the trees as

  to the beach in their immediate neighborhood

  he neared the house. It looked like a petrified there was not much to fear.

  cascade with the water turned to gray, porous

  The mates in charge of the two stone. It was an ancient lava flow. In little watering boats had been armed, and they had

  earthen pockets guavas grew, with a sort of

  brought along some rifles in the boats. At the Spanish bayonet. Screw pine made clumps of

  time Bud had thought these precautions cover. He saw a faint path that led from the perfunctory, though it had been because of the plantation he was in, and doubtless offered the mates’ watchfulness against any hostile best crossing of the ravine. Following it, natives that he had been enabled to slip away

  voices stopped him on the edge of the gully.

  as he did. Now he realized that he had been

  One was a girl’s in evident protest, the

  running a far greater risk than he dreamed of, other’s—rough and domineering with a sort of

  and the mere fact that he had come so far

  bullying insolence to it—was that of a man.

  unscathed seemed to triple the odds against his Instantly—like dog to wolf—imaginary

  getting through.

  hackles seemed to lift on Bud’s neck. The

  But at last he came to the horn of a

  girl’s voice was sweet, the man’s harshly

  bay, and looked gladly across its blue and

  dominant and masterful.

  green crescent to where buildings showed

  With the approaching sunset all wind

  among verdure, their iron unpainted roofs had gone. Words came clearly to him as he looking like brass in the sun—now westering,

  halted, uncertain where to look for the

  losing power, but gaining glory, slowly speakers, since they were not visible on the gathering nightrobes of purple for its bed.

  little path.

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  5

  “He can’t last out the night, I tell you,”

  tumbling down far below her shoulders. The

  said the man. “Then what you goin’ to do?

  beauty of it, the sheer, slender loveliness of You can’t stay here alone. You got to come

  her vital youth, held him more than her shaken with me. It ain’t as if I warn’t w
illin’ to marry head, her arm outstretched as if to actually

  you, soon’s we git to Suva. I can’t do it

  arrest him, her whispered.

  before, can I? Don’t be a fool, Thelma. You

  “Stop. He’ll kill you! He’ll shoot.”

  know what ’ud happen to a woman alone here

  Bud remembered now the swing of a

  on a tradin’ station. The bushmen’ll know

  bolstered gun low on the man’s hip. It would

  when he dies inside of an hour—know if

  not have held him back—it would not now.

  you’re alone. The place’ll have to go till we

  Something else held them both entangled—

  git another agent. Lucky the copra’s aboard.

  sea magic perhaps. Magic beyond doubt. Gray

  Now you go git yore things together, an’ be

  eyes looking into blue ones. Gazing with a

  sensible. I’m goin’ to look round a bit.”

  dawning recognition. It was the call of youth

  “No!” cried the girl. “Go with you?

  to youth.

  Trust you? Marry you? No! ”

  Bud looked like a beach-hobo, but

  There came an exclamation from the

  manhood showed in his height, in a well knit

  man, another from the girl, stopped almost

  symmetry, the shape of his head, his jaw, his

  immediately, a rustling in the bushes, an oath nose, his eyes looking now with frank

  from the man. Then Bud saw them, as the man

  admiration.

  came out of the cover where they had been

  The girl’s color rose till both cheeks

  talking carrying in his arms a slender matched the one she had rubbed so furiously struggling figure in blue. The figure writhed

  to wipe out that bearded, ravished kiss. Her

  and fought, struck and clawed at his bearded

  young breast rose and fell with her quickened

  face, while he laughed, and forced her higher