Chris Speyer Devil's Rock (v5.0) (epub)

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.Then, quick as a cat, as all the drums roared into life, he spun round and leapt towards us, his face hideously disfigured by the Yakka mask.As we watched, terrified, the mask was no longer a thing carved in wood, but alive and moving, a devil incarnate.The Edura had become the Yakka and he was about to devour us!Shaking and screaming, we clung to each other on the ground as the monster descended.Saliva poured from its jaws.Its eyes flashed and flamed.Clawed hands plunged through our flesh and tore dark, smoking forms from each of our bodies.We lay twitching in the dirt, emptied like gutted fish, as the drums pounded and the battle of the demons raged above us in the resin-filled, smoky torchlight.Then it was over.The demons fled.The drummers vanished.All was silent except for the sputtering of the dying torches.We sat up and looked at each other.The fever had gone.The warm night air enfolded us.The smoke cleared and the stars glittered.A little breeze sprang up and rattled the palm fronds.And then our mother was helping us to our feet, supporting us, guiding us home and repeating over and over, ‘Thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God,’ as the tears streamed down her face.Of course, after that, my father’s mission could not continue – the local gods and demons had triumphed.All knew that the missionary’s wife had begged the help of the Edura.All could see that the Edura had succeeded where my father had failed.What could my father do but pack up his family and return to Wales?In the days before we left, my sister and I were forbidden to visit the Edura, but we could think of doing nothing else; it was as if an invisible cord tugged at something deep within us, drawing us towards his hut.We fidgeted through our morning lessons, sulked on the veranda in the sweltering heat of the afternoons or plucked peevishly at the luxuriant plants that grew in the garden.But when we were certain no one was observing us we scuttled to that forbidden place.Furtively, we crept to the rear of the building, where a hole in the thatched wall afforded us a view of the Edura bent over his crucible, into which he was dropping small fragments of copper and other metals.He turned and lifted something small, wrapped in a piece of cloth, from the low table by the wall.He carefully unwrapped the little parcel and lifted up a fine silver chain from which dangled the simple silver cross that always hung around our mother’s neck.We both gasped and then, fearful that he would detect us, held our breaths.What was he doing with our mother’s precious cross? Had he stolen it? Had she given it to him? If she had, what could this possibly mean? Gently, he lowered the cross and then the chain into the molten metal in the crucible.We pressed our faces closer to the hole, eager to see what would happen next, but we were suddenly seized from behind by two strong hands that dragged us from the wall.We found ourselves, in the next instant, confronting our father, whose face was purple with rage.We were only to see the Edura one more time and that was on the day that we departed for the coast.Our father had gone ahead and we were preparing to follow with our mother on the ox cart with all our possessions.As the cart began to move, the Edura emerged from the shadows and pressed something into our mother’s hands with an instruction that I could not overhear.She quickly hid whatever he had given her in a bag that she kept with her for the rest of the journey.Five days later we boarded the barque Persephone and set sail for England.As the palm-fringed shores dropped away, I felt as Eve must have felt when the angel of the Lord drove her from the garden of Eden; I was losing my paradise, but I was not to know that this ill-omened ship was carrying us into Hell!For us children, the passage home was long, the monotony of the many weeks at sea only broken occasionally by the sight of dolphins that came to leap and play about our ship.Some sixth sense seemed to tell my sister, Una, when the dolphins were coming and she would hurry us all on deck to watch them.The weather was, on the whole, fair and, although we encountered large seas when rounding the Cape of Good Hope, there were no serious storms until we had crossed the Bay of Biscay.Then, as we approached the English coast, the skies darkened, the seas rose and the ship was struck by a sudden and violent squall.Our first sight of England was just before nightfall when a headland, that the ship’s master took to be Lizard Point, was briefly visible through the driving rain.As the sun set, the storm increased in ferocity.Now each black wave that rushed upon our ship was crowned with a crest of foaming white and towered like a toppling mountain above the deck.Each wave seemed certain to overwhelm us.The motion of the ship grew ever more extreme and the sound of the storm rose to a deafening crescendo.Now the waves swept across the decks.The longboat was carried away into the blackness of the night together with the unfortunate crewmen who bravely threw themselves in its path in a desperate attempt to save it.With a terrible splintering crash a hatch cover was breached and a dark, freezing torrent cascaded into the cabin where we two girls clung to our mother, believing that every moment would be our last.All hands above ran to man the pumps while our father exalted us to fall to our knees and pray to the Lord for our deliverance.It was clear to all that if we could not reach shelter soon the ship would surely founder.A shout went up, ‘Lights! Lights ashore! Lights off the port bow!’‘God be praised!’ my father cried.‘Salvation is at hand!’Despite the ever-present danger of being washed overboard, all who were not too sick to stand clambered on deck.Only those who have been in such mortal peril could understand the comfort that we gained from those glimmers of light.To know that safety, warmth and comfort were within our reach; surely these lights were lit to guide poor mariners home!‘’Tis Plymouth,’ the boatswain yelled, ‘’Tis Plymouth! I know the lights!’ And all believed him because that is what we all wished to believe – safe harbour and an easy entrance.How cruelly we were deceived! Too late we heard the roar of breakers on the rocks.Too late we saw the plumes of spray that burst against the cliffs and leapt a hundred feet into the air.Too late the master saw the trap that had been set.In a panic he ordered the ship about and four seamen threw themselves upon the wheel, but she would not come round.The seas drove us on; the wind drove us on; the sails were blown to rags and tatters but still we were driven on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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