CHAPTER FOUR
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.