Free Appleby on Ararat by Michael Innes Page B

such a sweat to float poor Ponto out to the sharks? There’s a – a–”
    “Discrepancy,” offered Appleby. He too was staring at the fire, but with narrowed lids. And his voice was that of an abstracted man as he went on. “But there is very little reason to suppose that Miss Curricle has been put in a pot. Even if she has fallen into the hands of savages they need not be cannibals. Perhaps they have floated her out to sea too. Or, again, it is possible that they might not harm her. Unumunu was a black man and perhaps more likely to be taken as an enemy and less likely to be received as a wonder. He was also an anthropologist and, having discovered natives, may have poked indiscreetly into some particularly private rite. Perhaps he was disposed of so summarily because of something like that. As for Miss Curricle, for all we know they may now be worshipping her as a goddess. It is to be hoped that a robe or two has been supplied.” He continued, unsmiling, to stare into the fire. “I believe I should have done better,” he added enigmatically, “if my education had consisted in taking out classes too.” He paced up and down, and the movement was not in harmony with the fluent string of possibilities he had been propounding. “And now there is the question of immediate policy. We can’t very confidently reckon on all being taken for divinities–”
    “Not even Mrs Kittery.” Hoppo beamed at his own sudden and outlandish gallantry; then his glance went to the jungle and the beam faded. “It may have been imagination,” he said, “but I thought I discerned–” He stopped. From somewhere startlingly close at hand there came the dull slow pulse of a drum.
    Glover reached for his cudgel; the others stayed very still. The sound was an abrupt declaration of danger, short-circuiting speculation, removing doubt. But it was also something inside. Each beat was like a potent capsule of fear dissolving in the blood, and if the poisoned stream reached the heart perhaps the heart would stop… And now, from across the glade, there came the pulse of an answering drum, faster, like some rapid beast of prey coming down a long tunnel and edging past a lumbering mate. There was a moment of confusion in the tunnel – the tunnel that was deep inside the listening self – and then the rhythms joined and the creatures became one; there was one rushing monster intent to drive them far down the tunnel, to drive them down a tunnel which would sink them aeons deep in a primitive past. One had to grab at the sides – and Appleby grabbed. It was true, then, what was said about the power of drums…in The Plumed Serpent , for instance. And based on such overpowering experiences as this were the attenuated thrills of poetry and the dance. Appleby, grabbing thus at the civilised consciousness, was enabled to speak in the most briskly unemotional way.
    “Colonel, I don’t think we’ll prepare for a fight. It’s almost certain that the odds would be hopeless. We must beat our own drums.”
    Glover put down the cudgel. “What d’you mean?”
    “The drums are magic being brought against us. Remember how strange we may be. Nothing but the bare report of white men may ever have reached these people before. We must keep our own magic going and not let it be disturbed by theirs. Diana, would you please pass the salt?” Appleby sat down again at the table they had improvised for meals. “Hoppo, may I help you to half a pigeon?”
    Hoppo, who had been peering apprehensively into the darkness, turned round. To be let in on the pigeon was more than he had hoped. “Please. And I believe you are right. A display of le sang froid. ” He giggled uncertainly. “To keep us from joining Miss Curricle in l’eau chaud .”
    As ceremoniously as the gleanings of a sun-deck café would permit, they continued to dine. The drums, though again nearer, were not so terrifying after all; sophisticate the rhythm ever so slightly and there would result