{"collection":"ritual-magic","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_77603/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_77603","id":"gutenberg_77603","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77603","summary":null,"tags":["British -- Africa -- Fiction","Horror tales","Kane, Solomon (Fictitious character) -- Fiction","Occultism -- Fiction","Puritans -- Fiction","Short stories","Vampires -- Fiction"],"text":"The HILLS of the DEAD\n\n                          By ROBERT E HOWARD\n\n           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n                       Weird Tales August 1930.]\n\n\n\n\n                              _1. Voodoo_\n\n\nThe twigs which N'Longa flung on the fire broke and crackled. The\nupleaping flames lighted the countenances of the two men. N'Longa,\nvoodoo man of the Slave Coast, was very old. His wizened and gnarled\nframe was stooped and brittle, his face creased by hundreds of\nwrinkles. The red firelight glinted on the human finger-bones which\ncomposed his necklace.\n\nThe other was a white man and his name was Solomon Kane. He was tall\nand broad-shouldered, clad in black close garments, the garb of the\nPuritan. His featherless slouch hat was drawn low over his heavy brows,\nshadowing his darkly pallid face. His cold deep eyes brooded in the\nfirelight.\n\n\"You come again, brother,\" droned the fetish-man, speaking in the\njargon which passed for a common language of black man and white on the\nWest Coast. \"Many moons burn and die since we make blood-palaver. You\ngo to the setting sun, but you come back!\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Kane's voice was deep and almost ghostly. \"Yours is a grim land,\nN'Longa, a red land barred with the black darkness of horror and the\nbloody shadows of death. Yet I have returned----\"\n\nN'Longa stirred the fire, saying nothing, and after a pause Kane\ncontinued.\n\n\"Yonder in the unknown vastness\"--his long finger stabbed at the black\nsilent jungle which brooded beyond the firelight--\"yonder lie mystery\nand adventure and nameless terror. Once I dared the jungle--once she\nnearly claimed my bones. Something entered into my blood, something\nstole into my soul like a whisper of unnamed sin. The jungle! Dark\nand brooding--over leagues of the blue salt sea she has drawn me and\nwith the dawn I go to seek the heart of her. Mayhap I shall find\ncurious adventure--mayhap my doom awaits me. But better death than the\nceaseless and everlasting urge, the fire that has burned my veins with\nbitter longing.\"\n\n\"She call,\" muttered N'Longa. \"At night she coil like serpent about\nmy hut and whisper strange things to me. _Ai ya!_ The jungle call. We\nbe blood-brothers, you and I. Me, N'Longa, mighty worker of nameless\nmagic. You go to the jungle as all men go who hear her call. Maybe you\nlive, more like you die. You believe in my fetish work?\"\n\n\"I understand it not,\" said Kane grimly, \"but I have seen you send your\nsoul forth from your body to animate a lifeless corpse.\"\n\n\"Aye! Me N'Longa, priest of the Black God! Now watch, I make magic.\"\n\nKane gazed at the black man who bent over the fire, making even motions\nwith his hands and mumbling incantations. Kane watched and he seemed to\ngrow sleepy. A mist wavered in front of him, through which he saw dimly\nthe form of N'Longa, etched black against the flames. Then all faded\nout.\n\nKane awoke with a start, hand shooting to the pistol in his belt.\nN'Longa grinned at him across the flame and there was a scent of early\ndawn in the air. The fetish-man held a long stave of curious black wood\nin his hands. This stave was carved in a strange manner, and one end\ntapered to a sharp point.\n\n\"This voodoo staff,\" said N'Longa, putting it in the Englishman's hand.\n\"Where your guns and long knife fail, this save you. When you want me,\nlay this on your breast, fold your hands on it and sleep. I come to you\nin your dreams.\"\n\nKane weighed the thing in his hand, highly suspicious of witchcraft.\nIt was not heavy, but seemed hard as iron. A good weapon at least, he\ndecided. Dawn was just beginning to steal over the jungle and the river.\n\n\n\n\n                             _2. Red Eyes_\n\n\nSolomon Kane shifted his musket from his shoulder and let the stock\nfall to the earth. Silence lay about him like a fog. Kane's lined face\nand tattered garments showed the effect of long bush travel. He looked\nabout him.\n\nSome distance behind him loomed the green, rank jungle, thinning out\nto low shrubs, stunted trees and tall grass. Some distance in front\nof him rose the first of a chain of bare, somber hills, littered with\nboulders, shimmering in the merciless heat of the sun. Between the\nhills and the jungle lay a broad expanse of rough, uneven grasslands,\ndotted here and there by clumps of thorn-trees.\n\nAn utter silence hung over the country. The only sign of life was a few\nvultures flapping heavily across the distant hills. For the last few\ndays Kane had noticed the increasing number of these unsavory birds.\nThe sun was rocking westward but its heat was in no way abated.\n\nTrailing his musket he started forward slowly. He had no objective\nin view. This was all unknown country and one direction was as good\nas another. Many weeks ago he had plunged into the jungle with the\nassurance born of courage and ignorance. Having by some miracle\nsurvived the first few weeks, he was becoming hard and toughened, able\nto hold his own with any of the grim denizens of the fastness he dared.\n\nAs he progressed he noted an occasional lion spoor but there seemed\nto be no animals in the grasslands--none that left tracks, at any\nrate. Vultures sat like black, brooding images in some of the stunted\ntrees, and suddenly he saw an activity among them some distance beyond.\nSeveral of the dusky birds circled about a clump of high grass,\ndipping, then rising again. Some beast of prey was defending his kill\nagainst them, Kane decided, and wondered at the lack of snarling and\nroaring which usually accompanied such scenes. His curiosity was roused\nand he turned his steps in that direction.\n\nAt last, pushing through the grass which rose about his shoulders,\nhe saw, as through a corridor walled with the rank waving blades, a\nghastly sight. The corpse of a black man lay, face down, and as the\nEnglishman looked, a great dark snake rose and slid away into the\ngrass, moving so quickly that Kane was unable to decide its nature. But\nit had a weird human-like suggestion about it.\n\nKane stood over the body, noting that while the limbs lay awry as if\nbroken, the flesh was not torn as a lion or leopard would have torn it.\nHe glanced up at the whirling vultures and was amazed to see several of\nthem skimming along close to the earth, following a waving of the grass\nwhich marked the flight of the thing which had presumably slain the\nblack man. Kane wondered what thing the carrion birds, which eat only\nthe dead, were hunting through the grasslands. But Africa is full of\nnever-explained mysteries.\n\nKane shrugged his shoulders and lifted his musket again. Adventures\nhe had had in plenty since he parted from N'Longa some moons agone,\nbut still that nameless paranoid urge had driven him on and on, deeper\nand deeper into those trackless ways. Kane could not have analyzed\nthis call; he would have attributed it to Satan, who lures men to\ntheir destruction. But it was but the restless turbulent spirit of the\nadventurer, the wanderer--the same urge which sends the gipsy caravans\nabout the world, which drove the Viking galleys over unknown seas and\nwhich guides the flights of the wild geese.\n\nKane sighed. Here in this barren land seemed neither food nor water,\nbut he had wearied unto death of the dank, rank venom of the thick\njungle. Even a wilderness of bare hills was preferable, for a time at\nleast. He glanced at them, where they lay brooding in the sun, and\nstarted forward again.\n\nHe held N'Longa's fetish stave in his left hand, and though his\nconscience still troubled him for keeping a thing so apparently\ndiabolic in nature, he had never been able to bring himself to throw it\naway.\n\nNow as he went toward the hills, a sudden commotion broke out in the\ntall grass in front of him, which was, in places, taller than a man.\nA thin, high-pitched scream sounded and on its heels an earth-shaking\nroar. The grass parted and a slim figure came flying toward him like a\nwisp of straw blown on the wind--a brown-skinned girl, clad only in a\nskirt-like garment. Behind her, some yards away but gaining swiftly,\ncame a huge lion.\n\n[Illustration: \"First a shriek, followed by a roar.\"]\n\nThe girl fell at Kane's feet with a wail and a sob, and lay clutching\nat his ankles. The Englishman dropped the voodoo stave, raised his\nmusket to his shoulder and sighted coolly at the ferocious feline face\nwhich neared him every instant. Crash! The girl screamed once and\nslumped on her face. The huge cat leaped high and wildly, to fall and\nlie motionless.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nKane reloaded hastily before he spared a glance at the form at his\nfeet. The girl lay as still as the lion he had just slain, but a quick\nexamination showed that she had only fainted.\n\nHe bathed her face with water from his canteen and presently she opened\nher eyes and sat up. Fear flooded her face as she looked at her rescuer\nand she made to rise.\n\nKane held out a restraining hand and she cowered down, trembling. The\nroar of his heavy musket was enough to frighten any native who had\nnever before seen a white man, Kane reflected.\n\nThe girl was a much higher type than the thick-lipped, bestial West\nCoast negroes to whom Kane had been used. She was slim and finely\nformed, of a deep brown hue rather than ebony; her nose was straight\nand thin-bridged, her lips were not too thick. Somewhere in her blood\nthere was a strong Berber strain.\n\nKane spoke to her in a river dialect, a simple language he had learned\nduring his wandering, and she replied haltingly. The inland tribes\ntraded slaves and ivory to the river people and were familiar with\ntheir jargon.\n\n\"My village is there,\" she answered Kane's question, pointing to the\nsouthern jungle with a slim, rounded arm. \"My name is Zunna. My mother\nwhipped me for breaking a cooking-kettle and I ran away because I was\nangry. I am afraid; let me go back to my mother!\"\n\n\"You may go,\" said Kane, \"but I will take you, child. Suppose another\nlion came along? You were very foolish to run away.\"\n\nShe whimpered a little. \"Are you not a god?\"\n\n\"No, Zunna. I am only a man, though the color of my skin is not as\nyours. Lead me now to your village.\"\n\nShe rose hesitantly, eyeing him apprehensively through the wild tangle\nof her hair. To Kane she seemed like some frightened young animal.\nShe led the way and Kane followed. She indicated that her village lay\nto the southeast, and their route brought them nearer to the hills.\nThe sun began to sink and the roaring of lions reverberated over the\ngrasslands. Kane glanced at the western sky; this open country was no\nplace in which to be caught by night. He glanced toward the hills and\nsaw that they were within a few hundred yards of the nearest. He saw\nwhat seemed to be a cave.\n\n\"Zunna,\" said he haltingly, \"we can never reach your village before\nnightfall and if we bide here the lions will take us. Yonder is a\ncavern where we may spend the night----\"\n\nShe shrank and trembled.\n\n\"Not in the hills, master!\" she whimpered. \"Better the lions!\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" His tone was impatient; he had had enough of native\nsuperstition. \"We will spend the night in yonder cave.\"\n\nShe argued no further, but followed him. They went up a short slope and\nstood at the mouth of the cavern, a small affair, with sides of solid\nrock and a floor of deep sand.\n\n\"Gather some dry grass, Zunna,\" commanded Kane, standing his musket\nagainst the wall at the mouth of the cave, \"but go not far away, and\nlisten for lions. I will build here a fire which shall keep us safe\nfrom beasts tonight. Bring some grass and any twigs you may find, like\na good child, and we will sup. I have dried meat in my pouch and water\nalso.\"\n\nShe gave him a strange, long glance, then turned away without a word.\nKane tore up grass near at hand, noting how it was seared and crisp\nfrom the sun, and heaping it up, struck flint and steel. Flame leaped\nup and devoured the heap in an instant. He was wondering how he could\ngather enough grass to keep a fire going all night, when he was aware\nthat he had visitors.\n\nKane was used to grotesque sights, but at first glance he started and\na slight coldness traveled down his spine. Two black men stood before\nhim in silence. They were tall and gaunt and entirely naked. Their\nskins were a dusty black, tinged with a gray, ashy hue, as of death.\nTheir faces were different from any negroes he had seen. The brows were\nhigh and narrow, the noses huge and snout-like; the eyes were inhumanly\nlarge and inhumanly red. As the two stood there it seemed to Kane that\nonly their burning eyes lived.\n\nHe spoke to them, but they did not answer. He invited them to eat with\na motion of his hand, and they silently squatted down near the cave\nmouth, as far from the dying embers of the fire as they could get.\n\nKane turned to his pouch and began taking out the strips of dried meat\nwhich he carried. Once he glanced at his silent guests; it seemed to\nhim that they were watching the glowing ashes of his fire, rather than\nhim.\n\nThe sun was about to sink behind the western horizon. A red, fierce\nglow spread over the grasslands, so that all seemed like a waving sea\nof blood. Kane knelt over his pouch, and glancing up, saw Zunna come\naround the shoulder of the hill with her arms full of grass and dry\nbranches.\n\nAs he looked, her eyes flared wide; the branches dropped from her arms\nand her scream knifed the silence, fraught with terrible warning. Kane\nwhirled on his knee. Two great black forms loomed over him as he came\nup with the lithe motion of a springing leopard. The fetish stave was\nin his hand and he drove it through the body of the nearest foe with\na force which sent its sharp point out between the negro's shoulders.\nThen the long, lean arms of the other locked about him, and white man\nand black man went down together.\n\nThe talon-like nails of the black were tearing at his face, the hideous\nred eyes staring into his with a terrible threat, as Kane writhed\nabout and, fending off the clawing hands with one arm, drew a pistol.\nHe pressed the muzzle close against the black's side and pulled\nthe trigger. At the muffled report, the negro's body jerked to the\nconcussion of the bullet, but the thick lips merely gaped in a horrid\ngrin.\n\nOne long arm slid under Kane's shoulders, the other hand gripped his\nhair. The Englishman felt his head being forced back irresistibly. He\nclutched at the other's wrist with both hands, but the flesh under his\nfrantic fingers was as hard as wood. Kane's brain was reeling; his\nneck seemed ready to break with a little more pressure. He threw his\nbody backward with one volcanic effort, breaking the deathly hold. The\nblack was on him and the talons were clutching again. Kane found and\nraised the empty pistol, and he felt the black man's skull cave in like\na shell as he brought down the long barrel with all his strength. And\nonce again the writhing lips parted in fearful mockery.\n\nAnd now a near panic clutched Kane. What sort of man was this, who\nstill menaced his life with tearing fingers, after having been shot and\nmortally bludgeoned? No man, surely, but one of the sons of Satan! At\nthe thought Kane wrenched and heaved explosively, and the close-locked\ncombatants tumbled across the earth to come to a rest in the smoldering\nashes before the cave mouth. Kane barely felt the heat, but the mouth\nof his foe gaped, this time in seeming agony. The frightful fingers\nloosened their hold and Kane sprang clear.\n\nThe black man with his shattered skull was rising on one hand and one\nknee when Kane struck, returning to the attack as a gaunt wolf returns\nto a wounded bison. From the side he leaped, landing full on the black\ngiant's back, his steely arms seeking and finding a deadly wrestling\nhold; and as they went to the earth together he broke the negro's neck,\nso that the hideous dead face looked back over one shoulder. The black\nman lay still but to Kane it seemed that he was not dead even then, for\nthe red eyes still burned with their grisly light.\n\nThe Englishman turned, to see the girl crouching against the cave wall.\nHe looked for his stave; it lay in a heap of dust, among which were a\nfew moldering bones. He stared, his brain reeling. Then with one stride\nhe caught up the voodoo staff and turned to the fallen negro. His face\nset in grim lines as he raised it; then he drove it through the black\nbreast. And before his eyes, the giant body crumbled, dissolving to\ndust as he watched horror-struck, even as had crumbled he through whom\nKane had first thrust the stave.\n\n\n\n\n                           _3. Dream Magic_\n\n\n\"Great God!\" whispered Kane; \"these men were dead! Vampires! This is\nSatan's handiwork manifested.\"\n\nZunna crawled to his knees and clung there.\n\n\"These be walking dead men, master,\" she whimpered. \"I should have\nwarned you.\"\n\n\"Why did they not leap on my back when they first came?\" asked he.\n\n\"They feared the fire. They were waiting for the embers to die\nentirely.\"\n\n\"Whence came they?\"\n\n\"From the hills. Hundreds of their kind swarm among the boulders and\ncaverns of these hills, and they live on human life, for a man they\nwill slay, devouring his ghost as it leaves his quivering body. Aye,\nthey are suckers of souls!\n\n\"Master, among the greater of these hills there is a silent city of\nstone, and in the old times, in the days of my ancestors, these people\nlived there. They were human, but they were not as we, for they had\nruled this land for ages and ages. The ancestors of my people made war\non them and slew many, and their magicians made all the dead men as\nthese were. At last all died.\n\n\"And for ages have they preyed on the tribes of the jungle, stalking\ndown from the hills at midnight and at sunset to haunt the jungle-ways\nand slay and slay. Men and beasts flee them and only fire will destroy\nthem.\"\n\n\"Here is that which will destroy them,\" said Kane grimly, raising the\nvoodoo stave. \"Black magic must fight black magic, and I know not what\nspell N'Longa put hereon, but----\"\n\n\"You are a god,\" said Zunna decidedly. \"No man could overcome two of\nthe walking dead men. Master, can you not lift this curse from my\ntribe? There is nowhere for us to flee and the monsters slay us at\nwill, catching wayfarers outside the village wall. Death is on this\nland and we die helpless!\"\n\nDeep in Kane stirred the spirit of the crusader, the fire of the\nzealot--the fanatic who devotes his life to battling the powers of\ndarkness.\n\n\"Let us eat,\" said he; \"then we will build a great fire at the cave\nmouth. The fire which keeps away beasts shall also keep away fiends.\"\n\nLater Kane sat just inside the cave, chin rested on clenched fist, eyes\ngazing unseeingly into the fire. Behind in the shadows, Zunna watched\nhim, awed.\n\n\"God of Hosts,\" Kane muttered, \"grant me aid! My hand it is which must\nlift the ancient curse from this dark land. How am I to fight these\ndead fiends, who yield not to mortal weapons? Fire will destroy them--a\nbroken neck renders them helpless--the voodoo stave thrust through them\ncrumbles them to dust--but of what avail? How may I prevail against\nthe hundreds who haunt these hills, and to whom human life-essence is\nLife? Have not--as Zunna says--warriors come against them in the past,\nonly to find them fled to their high-walled city where no man can come\nagainst them?\"\n\nThe night wore on. Zunna slept, her cheek pillowed on her round,\ngirlish arm. The roaring of the lions shook the hills and still Kane\nsat and gazed broodingly into the fire. Outside, the night was alive\nwith whispers and rustlings and stealthily soft footfalls. And at times\nKane, glancing up from his meditations, seemed to catch the gleam of\ngreat red eyes beyond the flickering light of the fire.\n\nGray dawn was stealing over the grasslands when Kane shook Zunna into\nwakefulness.\n\n\"God have mercy on my soul for delving in barbaric magic,\" said he,\n\"but demonry must be fought with demonry, mayhap. Tend ye the fire and\nawake me if aught untoward occur.\"\n\nKane lay down on his back on the sand floor and laid the voodoo staff\non his breast, folding his hands upon it. He fell asleep instantly.\nAnd sleeping, he dreamed. To his slumbering self it seemed that he\nwalked through a thick fog and in this fog he met N'Longa, true to\nlife. N'Longa spoke, and the words were clear and vivid, impressing\nthemselves on his consciousness so deeply as to span the gap between\nsleeping and waking.\n\n\"Send this girl to her village soon after sun-up when the lions have\ngone to their lairs,\" said N'Longa, \"and bid her bring her lover to you\nat this cave. There make him lie down as if to slumber, holding the\nvoodoo stave.\"\n\nThe dream faded and Kane awoke suddenly, wondering. How strange and\nvivid had been the vision, and how strange to hear N'Longa talking in\nEnglish, without the jargon! Kane shrugged his shoulders. He knew that\nN'Longa claimed to possess the power of sending his spirit through\nspace, and he himself had seen the voodoo man animate a dead man's\nbody. Still----\n\n\"Zunna,\" said Kane, giving the problem up, \"I will go with you as far\nas the edge of the jungle and you must go on to your village and return\nhere to this cave with your lover.\"\n\n\"Kran?\" she asked na\u251c\u00bbvely.\n\n\"Whatever his name is. Eat and we will go.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAgain the sun slanted toward the west. Kane sat in the cave, waiting.\nHe had seen the girl safely to the place where the jungle thinned to\nthe grasslands, and though his conscience stung him at the thought\nof the dangers which might confront her, he sent her on alone and\nreturned to the cave. He sat now, wondering if he would not be damned\nto everlasting flames for tinkering with the magic of a black sorcerer,\nblood-brother or not.\n\nLight footfalls sounded, and as Kane reached for his musket, Zunna\nentered, accompanied by a tall, splendidly proportioned youth whose\nbrown skin showed that he was of the same race as the girl. His soft\ndreamy eyes were fixed on Kane in a sort of awesome worship. Evidently\nthe girl had not minimized the white god's glory in her telling.\n\nHe bade the youth lie down as he directed and placed the voodoo stave\nin his hands. Zunna crouched at one side, wide-eyed. Kane stepped back,\nhalf ashamed of this mummery and wondering what, if anything, would\ncome of it. Then to his horror, the youth gave one gasp and stiffened!\n\nZunna screamed, bounding erect.\n\n\"You have killed Kran!\" she shrieked, flying at the Englishman who\nstood struck speechless.\n\nThen she halted suddenly, wavered, drew a hand languidly across her\nbrow--she slid down to lie with her arms about the motionless body of\nher lover.\n\nAnd this body moved suddenly, made aimless motions with hands and feet,\nthen sat up, disengaging itself from the clinging arms of the still\nsenseless girl.\n\nKran looked up at Kane and grinned, a sly, knowing grin which seemed\nout of place on his face somehow. Kane started. Those soft eyes\nhad changed in expression and were now hard and glittering and\nsnaky--N'Longa's eyes!\n\n\"_Ai ya_,\" said Kran in a grotesquely familiar voice. \"Blood-brother,\nyou got no greeting for N'Longa?\"\n\nKane was silent. His flesh crawled in spite of himself. Kran rose and\nstretched his arms in an unfamiliar sort of way, as if his limbs were\nnew to him. He slapped his breast approvingly.\n\n\"Me N'Longa!\" said he in the old boastful manner. \"Mighty ju-ju man!\nBlood-brother, not you know me, eh?\"\n\n\"You are Satan,\" said Kane sincerely. \"Are you Kran or are you N'Longa?\"\n\n\"Me N'Longa,\" assured the other. \"My body sleep in ju-ju hut on Coast\nmany treks from here. I borrow Kran's body for while. My ghost travel\nten days march in one breath; twenty days march in same time. My ghost\ngo out from my body and drive out Kran's.\"\n\n\"And Kran is dead?\"\n\n\"No, he no dead. I send his ghost to shadowland for a while--send the\ngirl's ghost too, to keep him company; bimeby come back.\"\n\n\"This is the work of the Devil,\" said Kane frankly, \"but I have seen\nyou do even fouler magic--shall I call you N'Longa or Kran?\"\n\n\"Kran--_kah!_ Me N'Longa--bodies like clothes! Me N'Longa, in here\nnow!\" he rapped his breast. \"Bimeby Kran live along here--then he\nbe Kran and I be N'Longa, same like before. Kran no live along now;\nN'Longa live along this one fellow body. Blood-brother, I am N'Longa!\"\n\nKane nodded. This was in truth a land of horror and enchantment;\nanything was possible, even that the thin voice of N'Longa should speak\nto him from the great chest of Kran, and the snaky eyes of N'Longa\nshould blink at him from the handsome young face of Kran.\n\n\"This land I know long time,\" said N'Longa, getting down to business.\n\"Mighty ju-ju, these dead people! No, no need to waste one fellow\ntime--I know--I talk to you in sleep. My blood-brother want to kill out\nthese dead black fellows, eh?\"\n\n\"'Tis a thing opposed to nature,\" said Kane somberly. \"They are known\nin my land as vampires--I never expected to come upon a whole nation of\nthem.\"\n\n\n\n\n                         _4. The Silent City_\n\n\n\"Now we find this stone city,\" said N'Longa.\n\n\"Yes? Why not send your ghost out to kill these vampires?\" Kane asked\nidly.\n\n\"Ghost got to have one fellow body to work in,\" N'Longa answered.\n\"Sleep now. Tomorrow we start.\"\n\nThe sun had set; the fire glowed and flickered in the cave mouth. Kane\nglanced at the still form of the girl, who lay where she had fallen,\nand prepared himself for slumber.\n\n\"Awake me at midnight,\" he admonished, \"and I will watch from then\nuntil dawn.\"\n\nBut when N'Longa finally shook his arm, Kane awoke to see the first\nlight of dawn reddening the land.\n\n\"Time we start,\" said the fetish-man.\n\n\"But the girl--are you sure she lives?\"\n\n\"She live, blood-brother.\"\n\n\"Then in God's name, we can not leave her here at the mercy of any\nprowling fiend who might chance upon her. Or some lion might----\"\n\n\"No lion come. Vampire scent still linger, mixed with man scent. One\nfellow lion he no like man scent and he fear the walking dead men. No\nbeast come; and\"--lifting the voodoo stave and laying it across the\ncave entrance--\"no dead man come now.\"\n\nKane watched him somberly and without enthusiasm.\n\n\"How will that rod safeguard her?\"\n\n\"That mighty ju-ju,\" said N'Longa. \"You see how one fellow vampire go\nalong dust alongside that stave! No vampire dare touch or come near\nit. I gave it to you, because outside Vampire Hills one fellow man\nsometimes meet a corpse walking in jungle when shadows be black. Not\nall walking dead men be here. And all must suck Life from men--if not,\nthey rot like dead wood.\"\n\n\"Then make many of these rods and arm the people with them.\"\n\n\"No can do!\" N'Longa's skull shook violently. \"That ju-ju rod be mighty\nmagic! Old, old! No man live today can tell how old that fellow ju-ju\nstave be. I make my blood-brother sleep and do magic with it to guard\nhim, that time we make palaver in Coast village. Today we scout and\nrun; no need it. Leave it here to guard girl.\"\n\nKane shrugged his shoulders and followed the fetish-man, after glancing\nback at the still shape which lay in the cave. He would never have\nagreed to leave her so casually, had he not believed in his heart that\nshe was dead. He had touched her, and her flesh was cold.\n\nThey went up among the barren hills as the sun was rising. Higher\nthey climbed, up steep clay slopes, winding their way through ravines\nand between great boulders. The hills were honey-combed with dark,\nforbidding caves, and these they passed warily, and Kane's flesh\ncrawled as he thought of the grisly occupants therein. For N'Longa\nsaid:\n\n\"Them vampires, he sleep in caves most all day till sunset. Them caves,\nhe be full of one fellow dead man.\"\n\nThe sun rose higher, baking down on the bare slopes with an intolerable\nheat. Silence brooded like an evil monster over the land. They had seen\nnothing, but Kane could have sworn at times that a black shadow drifted\nbehind a boulder at their approach.\n\n\"Them vampires, they stay hid in day-time,\" said N'Longa with a low\nlaugh. \"They be afraid of one fellow vulture! No fool vulture! He know\ndeath when he see it! He pounce on one fellow dead man and tear and eat\nif he be lying or walking!\"\n\nA strong shudder shook his companion.\n\n\"Great God!\" Kane cried, striking his thigh with his hat; \"is there no\nend to the horror of this hideous land? Truly this land is dedicated to\nthe powers of darkness!\"\n\nKane's eyes burned with a dangerous light. The terrible heat, the\nsolitude and the knowledge of the horrors lurking on either hand were\nshaking even his steely nerves.\n\n\"Keep on one fellow hat, blood-brother,\" admonished N'Longa with a low\ngurgle of amusement. \"That fellow sun, he knock you dead, suppose you\nno look out.\"\n\nKane shifted the musket he had insisted on bringing and made no reply.\nThey mounted an eminence at last and looked down on a sort of plateau.\nAnd in the center of this plateau was a silent city of gray and\ncrumbling stone. Kane was smitten by a sense of incredible age as he\nlooked. The walls and houses were of great stone blocks, yet they were\nfalling into ruin. Grass grew on the plateau, and high in the streets\nof that dead city. Kane saw no movement among the ruins.\n\n\"That is their city--why do they choose to sleep in caves?\"\n\n\"Maybe-so one fellow stone fall on them from roof and crush. Them\nstone huts, he fall down bimeby. Maybe-so they no like to stay\ntogether--maybe-so they eat each other, too.\"\n\n\"Silence!\" whispered Kane; \"how it hangs over all!\"\n\n\"Them vampires no talk nor yell; they dead. They sleep in caves, wander\nat sunset and at night. Maybe-so them black fellow bush tribes come\nwith spears, them vampires go to stone kraal and fight behind walls.\"\n\nKane nodded. The crumbling walls which surrounded that dead\ncity were still high and solid enough to resist the attack of\nspearmen--especially when defended by these snout-nosed fiends.\n\n\"Blood-brother,\" said N'Longa solemnly, \"I have mighty magic thought!\nBe silent a little while.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nKane seated himself on a boulder and gazed broodingly at the bare\ncrags and slopes which surrounded them. Far away to the south he saw\nthe leafy green ocean that was the jungle. Distance lent a certain\nenchantment to the scene. Closer at hand loomed the dark blotches that\nwere the mouths of the caves of horror.\n\nN'Longa was squatting, tracing some strange pattern in the clay with\na dagger point. Kane watched him, thinking how easily they might fall\nvictim to the vampires if even three or four of the fiends should come\nout of their caverns. And even as he thought it, a black and horrific\nshadow fell across the crouching fetish-man.\n\nKane acted without conscious thought. He shot from the boulder where\nhe sat like a stone hurled from a catapult, and his musket stock\nshattered the face of the hideous black thing who had stolen upon them.\nBack and back Kane drove his inhuman foe staggering, never giving him\ntime to halt or launch an offensive, battering him with the onslaught\nof a frenzied tiger.\n\nAt the very edge of the cliff the vampire wavered, then pitched back\nover, to fall for a hundred feet and lie writhing on the rocks of the\nplateau below. N'Longa was on his feet pointing; the hills were giving\nup their dead.\n\nOut of the caves they were swarming, the terrible black silent shapes;\nup the slopes they came charging and over the boulders they came\nclambering, and their red eyes were all turned toward the two humans\nwho stood above the silent city. The caves belched them forth in an\nunholy judgment day.\n\nN'Longa pointed to a crag some distance away and with a shout started\nrunning fleetly toward it. Kane followed. From behind boulders\nblack-taloned hands clawed at them, tearing their garments. They\nraced past caves, and mummied monsters came lurching out of the dark,\ngibbering silently, to join in the pursuit.\n\nThe dead hands were close at their back when they scrambled up the last\nslope and stood on a ledge which was the top of the crag. The fiends\nhalted silently a moment, then came clambering after them. Kane clubbed\nhis musket and smashed down into the red-eyed faces, knocking aside the\nupleaping hands. They surged up like a black wave; he swung his musket\nin a silent fury that matched theirs. The black wave broke and wavered\nback; came on again.\n\nHe--could--not--kill--them! These words beat on his brain like a sledge\non an anvil as he shattered wood-like flesh and dead bone with his\nsmashing swings. He knocked them down, hurled them back, but they rose\nand came on again. This could not last--what in God's name was N'Longa\ndoing? Kane spared one swift, tortured glance over his shoulder. The\nfetish-man stood on the highest part of the ledge, head thrown back,\narms lifted as if in invocation.\n\nKane's vision blurred to the sweep of hideous black faces with red,\nstaring eyes. Those in front were horrible to see now, for their skulls\nwere shattered, their faces caved in and their limbs broken. But still\nthey came on and those behind reached across their shoulders to clutch\nat the man who defied them.\n\nKane was red but the blood was all his. From the long-withered veins\nof those monsters no single drop of warm red blood trickled. Suddenly\nfrom behind him came a long piercing wail--N'Longa! Over the crash of\nthe flying musket-stock and the shattering of bones it sounded high and\nclear--the only voice lifted in that hideous fight.\n\nThe black wave washed about Kane's feet, dragging him down. Keen talons\ntore at him, flaccid lips sucked at his wounds. He reeled up again,\ndisheveled and bloody, clearing a space with a shattering sweep of his\nsplintered musket. Then they closed in again and he went down.\n\n\"This is the end!\" he thought, but even at that instant the press\nslackened and the sky was suddenly filled with the beat of great wings.\n\nThen he was free and staggered up, blindly and dizzily, ready to renew\nthe strife. He halted, frozen. Down the slope the black horde was\nfleeing and over their heads and close at their shoulders flew huge\nvultures, tearing and rending avidly, sinking their beaks in the dead\nblack flesh, devouring the vampires as they fled.\n\nKane laughed, almost insanely.\n\n\"Defy man and God, but you may not deceive the vultures, sons of Satan!\nThey know whether a man be alive or dead!\"\n\nN'Longa stood like a prophet on the pinnacle and the great black birds\nsoared and wheeled about him. His arms still waved and his voice still\nwailed out across the hills. And over the skylines they came, hordes\non endless hordes--vultures, vultures, vultures! come to the feast so\nlong denied them. They blackened the sky with their numbers, blotted\nout the sun; a strange darkness fell on the land. They settled in long\ndusky lines, diving into the caverns with a whir of wings and a clash\nof beaks. Their talons tore at the black horrors which these caves\ndisgorged.\n\nNow all the vampires were fleeing to their city. The vengeance held\nback for ages had come down on them and their last hope was the heavy\nwalls which had kept back the desperate human foes. Under those\ncrumbling roofs they might find shelter. And N'Longa watched them\nstream into the city, and he laughed until the crags re-echoed.\n\nNow all were in and the birds settled like a cloud over the doomed\ncity, perching in solid rows along the walls, sharpening their beaks\nand claws on the towers.\n\nAnd N'Longa struck flint and steel to a bundle of dry leaves he\nhad brought with him. The bundle leaped into instant flame and he\nstraightened and flung the blazing thing far out over the cliffs. It\nfell like a meteor to the plateau beneath, showering sparks. The tall\ngrass of the plateau leaped aflame.\n\nFrom the silent city beneath them Fear flowed in unseen waves, like a\nwhite fog. Kane smiled grimly.\n\n\"The grass is sere and brittle from the drouth,\" he said; \"there has\nbeen even less rain than usual this season; it will burn swiftly.\"\n\nLike a crimson serpent the fire ran through the high dead grass. It\nspread and it spread and Kane, standing high above, yet felt the\nfearful intensity of the hundreds of red eyes which watched from the\nstone city.\n\nNow the scarlet snake had reached the walls and was rearing as if to\ncoil and writhe over them. The vultures rose on heavily flapping wings\nand soared reluctantly. A vagrant gust of wind whipped the blaze about\nand drove it in a long red sheet around the wall. Now the city was\nhemmed in on all sides by a solid barricade of flame. The roar came up\nto the two men on the high crag.\n\nSparks flew across the wall, lighting in the high grass in the streets.\nA score of flames leaped up and grew with terrifying speed. A veil of\nred cloaked streets and buildings, and through this crimson, whirling\nmist Kane and N'Longa saw hundreds of black shapes scamper and writhe,\nto vanish suddenly in red bursts of flame. There rose an intolerable\nscent of decayed flesh burning.\n\nKane gazed, awed. This was truly a hell on earth. As in a nightmare he\nlooked into the roaring red cauldron where black insects fought against\ntheir doom and perished. The flames leaped a hundred feet in air, and\nsuddenly above their roar sounded one bestial, inhuman scream like a\nshriek from across nameless gulfs of cosmic space, as one vampire,\ndying, broke the chains of silence which had held him for untold\ncenturies. High and haunting it rose, the death cry of a vanishing race.\n\nThen the flames dropped suddenly. The conflagration had been a typical\ngrass fire, short and fierce. Now the plateau showed a blackened\nexpanse and the city a charred and smoking mass of crumbling stone. Not\none corpse lay in view, not even a charred bone. Above all whirled the\ndark swarms of the vultures, but they, too, were beginning to scatter.\n\nKane gazed hungrily at the clean blue sky. Like a strong sea wind\nclearing a fog of horror was the sight to him. From somewhere sounded\nthe faint and far-off roaring of a distant lion. The vultures were\nflapping away in black, straggling lines.\n\n\n\n\n                           _5. Palaver Set!_\n\n\nKane sat in the mouth of the cave where Zunna lay, submitting to the\nfetish-man's bandaging.\n\nThe Puritan's garments hung in tatters about his frame; his limbs and\nbreast were deeply gashed and darkly bruised, but he had had no mortal\nwound in that deathly fight on the cliff.\n\n\"Mighty men, we be!\" declared N'Longa with deep approval. \"Vampire city\nbe silent now, sure 'nough! No walking dead man live along these hills.\"\n\n\"I do not understand,\" said Kane, resting chin on hand. \"Tell me,\nN'Longa, how have you done things? How talked you with me in my dreams;\nhow came you into the body of Kran; and how summoned you the vultures?\"\n\n\"My blood-brother,\" said N'Longa, discarding his pride in his pidgin\nEnglish, to drop into the river language understood by Kane, \"I am so\nold that you would call me a liar if I told you my age. All my life I\nhave worked magic, sitting first at the feet of mighty ju-ju men of\nthe south and the east; then I was a slave to the Buckra--the white\nman--and learned more. My brother, shall I span all these years in a\nmoment and make you understand with a word, what has taken me so long\nto learn? I could not even make you understand how these vampires have\nkept their bodies from decay by drinking the lives of men.\n\n\"I sleep and my spirit goes out over the jungle and the rivers to talk\nwith the sleeping spirits of my friends. There is a mighty magic on the\nvoodoo staff I gave you--a magic out of the Old Land which draws my\nghost to it as a white man's magnet draws metal.\"\n\nKane listened unspeaking, seeing for the first time in N'Longa's\nglittering eyes something stronger and deeper than the avid gleam of\nthe worker in black magic. To Kane it seemed almost as if he looked\ninto the far-seeing and mystic eyes of a prophet of old.\n\n\"I spoke to you in dreams,\" N'Longa went on, \"and I made a deep sleep\ncome over the souls of Kran and of Zunna, and remove them to a far dim\nland, whence they shall soon return, unremembering. All things bow to\nmagic, blood-brother, and beasts and birds obey the master words. I\nworked strong voodoo, vulture-magic, and the flying people of the air\ngathered at my call.\n\n\"These things I know and am a part of, but how shall I tell you of\nthem? Blood-brother, you are a mighty warrior, but in the ways of magic\nyou are as a little child lost. And what has taken me long dark years\nto know, I may not divulge to you so you would understand. My friend,\nyou think only of bad spirits, but were my magic always bad, should I\nnot take this fine young body in place of my old wrinkled one and keep\nit? But Kran shall have his body back safely.\n\n\"Keep the voodoo staff, blood-brother. It has mighty power against all\nsorcerers and serpents and evil things. Now I return to the village on\nthe Coast where my true body sleeps. And what of you, my blood-brother?\"\n\nKane pointed silently eastward.\n\n\"The call grows no weaker. I go.\"\n\nN'Longa nodded, held out his hand. Kane grasped it. The mystical\nexpression had gone from the dusky face and the eyes twinkled snakily\nwith a sort of reptilian mirth.\n\n\"Me go now, blood-brother,\" said the fetish-man, returning to his\nbeloved jargon, of which knowledge he was prouder than all his\nconjuring tricks. \"You take care--that one fellow jungle, she pluck\nyour bones yet! Remember that voodoo stave, brother. _Ai ya_, palaver\nset!\"\n\nHe fell back on the sand, and Kane saw the keen sly expression of\nN'Longa fading from the face of Kran. His flesh crawled again.\nSomewhere back on the Slave Coast, the body of N'Longa, withered and\nwrinkled, was stirring in the ju-ju hut, was rising as if from a deep\nsleep. Kane shuddered.\n\nKran sat up, yawned, stretched and smiled. Beside him the girl Zunna\nrose, rubbing her eyes.\n\n\"Master,\" said Kran apologetically, \"we must have slumbered.\"","title":"The hills of the dead","tradition":"ritual-magic","translated_text":null,"word_count":7433}