Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930.

by Various.

Slaves of the Dust

_By Sophie Wenzel Ellis_

Fate's retribution was adequate. There emerged a rat with a man's head and face.

_It's a poor science that would hide from us the great, deep, sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as mere superficial film._

--_Carlyle_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sir Basil showed his teeth in his ugly smile. "A creator is never merciful."_]

The two _batales_ turned from the open waters of the lower Tapajos River into the _igarape_, the lily-smothered shallows that often mark an Indian settlement in the jungles of Brazil. One of the two half-breed rubber-gatherers suddenly stopped his _batale_ by thrusting a paddle against a giant clump of lilies. In a corruption of the Tupi dialect, he called over to the white man occupying the other frail craft.

"We dare go no farther, master. The country of the Ungapuks is bewitched. It is too dangerous."

Fearfully he stared over his shoulder toward a spot in the slimy water where a dim bulk moved, which was only an alligator hunting for his breakfast.

Hale Oakham, as long and lanky and level-eyed as Charles Lindbergh, ran despairing fingers through his damp hair and groaned.

"But how can I find this jungle village without a guide?"

The _caboclo_ shrugged. "The village will find you. It is bewitched, master. But you will soon see the path through the _matto_."

"Can't you stay by me until time to land? I don't like the looks of these alligators."

"It is better for a white man to face an alligator than for a _caboclo_ to face an Ungapuk. Once they used to kill and eat us for our strength.

Now--" Again his shrug was eloquent.

"Now?" Hale prompted impatiently.

"The white G.o.d who put a spell on these one-time cannibals will bewitch us and make us wash and rejoice when it is time to die."

He shuddered and spat at a cayman that was lumbering away from his _batale._

Hale Oakham laughed, a hearty boyish laugh for a rather learned young professor.

"Is that all they do to you?" he asked.

"No. All who enter this magic _matto_ die soon, rejoicing. Before the last breath comes, it is said their bodies turn into a handful of silver dust--poof!--like that." He snapped his dirty fingers. "Then the life that leaves them goes into rocks that walk."

Hale sighed resignedly. There wasn't any use to argue.

"Unload your _batale_," he ordered testily, "and get your filthy carca.s.ses away."

The half-breeds obeyed readily. As the departing _batale_ turned from the _igarape_ into the open water of the river, the young man repressed a sudden lifting of his scalp. He was in for it now!

His long body sprawled out in the _batale_, he paddled about aimlessly for several minutes until he found an aisle through the jungle--the path that led to the jungle village which he was visiting in the name of science, and for a certain award.

Before plunging into that waiting tangle where life and death carried on a visible, unceasing struggle, he hesitated. Instinctively he shrank from losing himself in that mad green world.

He had first heard of the Ungapuks at the convention of the Nescience Club in New York, that body of scientists, near-scientists and adventurers linked together for the purpose of awarding the yearly Woolman prizes for the most spectacular addition of empiric facts to various branches of science. One of the members of the club, an explorer, had told a wild yarn about a tribe of Brazilian Indians, headed by Sir Basil Addington, an English scientist, who was conducting secret experiments in biochemistry in his jungle laboratory. The explorer had said that the scientist, half-crazed by a powerful narcotic, had seemingly discovered some secret of life which enabled him to produce monsters in his laboratory and to change the physical characteristics of the Ungapuk Indians, who, in five years, had been transformed from cannibals into cultured men and women.

And now Hale Oakham, hoping to win one of the Woolman prizes, was here in the country of the Ungapuks, entering the jungle path that lead to the unknown.

Fifty feet from the _igarape_, the path curved sharply away from a giant tree. Hale approached the bend with his hand on his gun. Just before he reached it, he stopped suddenly to listen.

A woman's voice had suddenly broken forth in a wild, incredibly sweet song. Hale stood entranced, drinking in the heady sounds that stirred his emotions like _masata_, the jungle intoxicant. The singer approached the bend in the path, while the young man waited eagerly.

The first sight of her made him gasp. He had expected to see an Indian girl. No sane traveler would imagine a white woman in the Amazon jungle, with skin as amazingly pale as the great, fleshy victoria regia lilies in the _igarape_.

When she saw Hale, she stopped instantly. With a quick, practiced twist, she reached for the bow flung across her shoulders and fitted a barbed arrow to the string.

She was a beautiful barbarian, standing quivering before him. In the thick dull gold braids hanging over her bare shoulders flamed two enormous scarlet flowers, no redder than her own lips pouted in alarm.

There was a savage brevity to her clothing, which consisted only of a short skirt of rough native gra.s.s and breastplates of beaten gold, held in place by strings of colored seeds.

The girl held out an imperious hand and, in perfect English, said:

"Go back!"

Hale drew his long body up to its slim height, folded his arms, and gave her his most winning smile. His insolence added to his wholesome good looks.

"Why?" he exclaimed. "I've come a couple of thousand miles to call on you."

He saw that the eyes which held his levelly were pure and limpid, and of an astonishing orchid-blue.

"Who are you?" Her throaty, vibrant voice was a thing of the flesh, whipping Hale's senses to sudden madness.

"I'm Hale Oakham," he said, a little tremulously, "a lone, would-be scientist knocking about the jungle. Won't you tell me your name?"

She nodded gravely. "I am Ana. I, too, am white." Her rich voice was quietly proud. "Come; I'll see if Aimu will receive you."

With surprising, childlike trust, she held out her little hand to him.

The gesture was so delightfully natural that Hale, grinning boyishly, took her hand and held it as they walked down the jungle path.

"Sing for me," he demanded abruptly. "Sing the song you sang just now."