All these impressions had taken only a few seconds. I should have liked to think about these discoveries, to analyze them; I had no time to do so. Lying beside me, Arthur Levain, numb with terror, was incapable of giving me the slightest help. The danger was increasing at every second. The beaters were approaching from behind. The din they made was now deafening. We were at bay like wild beasts, like those wretched creatures whom I could still see flitting all around us. The size of the colony must have been bigger than I had suspected, for many men were still rushing along the track, to meet there a ghastly death.
Not all, however. Forcing myself to recover a little composure, from the top of my hillock I studied the behavior of the fugitives. Some of them, completely panic-stricken, rushed along snapping the undergrowth in their flight, thus alerting the apes, who easily shot them down. But others gave evidence of more cunning, like old boars who have been hunted several times and have learned a number of tricks. These crept forward on all fours, paused for a moment on the edge of the clearing, studied the nearest hunter through the leaves, and waited for the moment when his attention was drawn in another direction. Then, in one bound and at full speed, they crossed the deadly alley. Several of them thus succeeded in reaching the opposite side unhurt, and disappeared into the forest.
Therein perhaps lay a chance of safety. I motioned to Levain to follow me and slipped soundlessly forward as far as the last thicket in front of the path. There I was overwhelmed by a ridiculous scruple. Should I, a man, really resort to such tricks merely to get the better of an ape? Surely the only behavior worthy of my condition was to rise to my feet, advance on the animal, and give it a good beating? The ever-increasing hullabaloo behind me reduced this mad inclination to nought.
The hunt was ending in an infernal din. The beaters were at our heels. I saw one of them emerge from the foliage. It was an enormous gorilla, laying about him at random with a club and screeching fit to burst his lungs. He made an even more terrifying impression on me than the hunter with the gun. Levain started chattering with fear and trembling from head to foot, while I kept my eye on the newcomer in front of me and waited for an opportune moment.
My wretched companion unconsciously saved my life by his imprudence. He had gone completely out of his mind. He got up without taking any precaution, started running off at random, and came out into the alley in full view of the hunter’s field of fire. He went no farther. The shot seemed to snap him in two and he collapsed, adding his body to all those that already lay there. I wasted no time in mourning him—what could I do for him?—but waited feverishly for the moment when the gorilla would hand his gun to his servant. As soon as he did so, I sprang out and raced across the alley. I saw the hunter, as though in a dream, hasten to seize his weapon, but I was already under cover by the time he could lift it to his shoulder. I heard an exclamation that sounded like an oath, but had no time for thought about this latest oddity.
I had got the best of him. I felt a strange joy, which was balm to my humiliation. I went on running at full speed, leaving the carnage behind me, until I could no longer hear the noise of the beaters. I was saved.
Saved! I was underestimating the maliciousness of the apes on the planet Soror. Hardly had I gone a hundred yards when I stumbled headfirst into an obstacle concealed in the foliage. It was a wide-meshed net stretched above the ground and equipped with large pockets, in one of which I was now entangled. I was not the only captive. The net ran across a large section of the forest, and a crowd of fugitives who had escaped being shot had let themselves be caught as I had. To my right and left frenzied jerks accompanied by furious whines bore witness to their efforts to break free.
A wild rage overcame me when I felt myself thus imprisoned, a rage stronger than terror, leaving me utterly incapable of thought. I did exactly what my reason advised me not to do—I struggled in an utterly insane manner, with the result that the net became even more tightly wound around me. I was eventually so closely bound that I could not move at all and was at the mercy of the apes I heard approaching.
CHAPTER TEN
I was seized by a deadly terror when I saw their troop advancing. After witnessing their cruelty, I thought they were going to engage in wholesale massacre.
The hunters, all of them gorillas, led the advance. I noticed that they had abandoned their weapons, which gave me a little hope. Behind them came the loaders and beaters, among whom there was a more or less equal number of gorillas and chimpanzees. The hunters seemed to be the masters and their manner was that of aristocrats. They did not appear to be ill-disposed, and chatted among themselves as cheerfully as one could wish. . . .
In fact, I am now so accustomed to the paradoxes of this planet that I wrote the preceding sentence without thinking of the absurdity it represents. And yet it’s the truth! The gorillas had the manner of aristocrats. They chatted together happily in an articulate language, and each moment their faces expressed human sentiments, not a trace of which I had found in Nova. Alas! What had become of Nova? I shuddered as I recalled the bloodstained alley. I now understood her emotion at the sight of our chimpanzee. There existed a fierce hatred between the two races. To realize this one only had to see the attitude of the captive men at the apes’ approach. They struggled frenziedly, thrashing out with hands and feet, ground their teeth, foamed at the mouth, and gnawed furiously at the strings of the net.
Without paying attention to this hubbub, the hunter gorillas —I caught myself calling them the nobility—gave some orders to their servants. Some big carts, rather low-lying and completely caged in, were lined up on a track on the other side of the net. Into these we were bundled, ten or so to a vehicle: a fairly lengthy operation, for the prisoners struggled desperately. Two servant gorillas, their hands encased in leather gloves to protect them from bites, took hold of the prisoners one by one, freed them from the trap, and flung them into the cages, the doors of which were then shut fast, white the nobles directed the operation leaning negligently on their walking sticks.
When it came to my turn, I tried to draw attention to myself by talking. But no sooner had I opened my mouth than one of the apes, no doubt mistaking my action for a menace, brutally stuffed his enormous glove into my face. I was forcibly silenced and thrown like a bundle into a cage together with a dozen men and women who were still too agitated to pay any attention to me.
When we were all loaded inside, one of the servants checked the lock on each cage and went to report to his master. The latter gave a signal, and a roar of engines echoed through the forest. The carts started to move forward, each one towed by a sort of tractor driven by an ape. I could distinctly see the driver of the vehicle behind mine. He was a chimpanzee. From time to time he made sarcastic remarks at us, and when the engines slowed down I could hear him humming a rather melancholy little tune not altogether lacking in harmony.
This first stage was so short that I scarcely had time to recover my senses. After driving for a quarter of an hour along a rough track, the convoy came to a halt on a stretch of open ground in front of a house built of stone. It was the edge of the forest; beyond it I could see a plain covered with crops that l
ooked like cereals.
The house, with its red tiled roof, green shutters, and an inscription on a panel at the entrance, looked like an inn. I realized at once it was a meeting place for the hunt. The she-apes had come here to wait for their lords and masters, who presently arrived in private cars along the same track we had taken. The lady gorillas sat around in armchairs chatting together in the shade of some big trees that looked like palms. One of them was sipping a drink through a straw.
As soon as the vehicles were parked, the females drew nearer, curious to see the results of the hunt and especially the game that had been shot, which some gorillas, protected by aprons, were extracting from two big vans to display in the shade of the trees.
It was a classical hunting scene. Here again the apes worked methodically. They placed the bleeding bodies on their backs, side by side, in a long row as though along a chalk line. Then, while the she-apes uttered little cries of admiration, they applied themselves to making the game attractive. They stretched the arms down along the sides of the bodies and opened the hands with the palms facing upward. They straightened the legs, arranging the joints so as to give each body a less corpselike appearance, corrected a clumsily twisted limb, and reduced the contraction of a neck. Then they carefully smoothed down the hair, particularly the women’s, as some hunters smooth down the coat or feathers of an animal they have just shot.
I am afraid I am unable to convey the grotesque and diabolical quality this scene had for me. Have I adequately stressed the absolutely and totally simian appearance of these monkeys, apart from the expression in their eyes? Have I described how these she-gorillas, also dressed in sports clothes but with great elegance, jostled one another to view the best specimens and point them out while congratulating their lords and masters? Have I said that one of them, taking a little pair of scissors out of her bag, leaned over a body, cut off a lock of brown hair, curled it around her finger, and then, with the others soon following her example, pinned it onto her hat?
The exhibition of the game was soon completed: three rows of bodies carefully laid out, men and women alternately, the latter displaying a line of golden breasts to the monstrous sphere blazing in the sky. Looking away in horror, I noticed a new figure, carrying an oblong box fastened to a tripod. It was a chimpanzee. I quickly recognized in him the photographer making a pictorial record of these trophies for simian posterity. The session lasted more than a quarter of an hour, the gorillas having themselves photographed first individually, in good poses, some of them placing one foot on one of their victims with a triumphant air; then as a compact group, each of them putting an arm around his neighbor’s shoulder. The she-gorillas in turn were then photographed and assumed graceful postures in front of the slaughter, with their decorated hats well to the fore.
This scene was imbued with a horror incomprehensible to the normal mind. My blood boiled, but I succeeded for some time in restraining myself. However, when I noticed the body on which one of these females had sat down to take a more sensational picture, when I recognized on the face of the corpse stretched out among the others the boyish, almost childish features of my luckless companion, Arthur Levain, it was no longer possible to contain myself.
My emotion exploded in an outlandish manner, in keeping with the grotesque aspect of this macabre scene. I gave way to a fit of wild hilarity, bursting out in hysterical laughter.
I had not thought of my companions in the cage. I was utterly incapable of thinking! The tumult unleashed by my laughter reminded me of their proximity, which was no doubt as dangerous for me as that of the apes. Menacing hands were stretched in my direction. I realized the peril and stifled my laughter by burying my head in my arms. I am not sure, however, that I should have avoided being strangled and torn to bits if some of the apes, alarmed by the din, had not re-established order with a few thrusts of their pikes. Moreover, another incident soon diverted the general attention. The gorillas made their way in small groups toward the house, chatting merrily together, while the photographer gathered up his equipment after taking a few shots of our cages.
We men, however, had not been forgotten. I had no idea of the fate the monkeys had in store for us, but it was clearly their policy to look after us. Before disappearing into the inn, one of the nobles gave some instructions to a gorilla who appeared to be a team leader. The latter came over to us, assembled his subordinates, and presently the servants brought us something to eat in basins and some buckets of water to drink. The food consisted of a sort of porridge. I was not hungry but was determined to eat in order to keep up my strength. I approached one of the receptacles around which several prisoners were squatting. I did as they did and stretched out a timid hand. They gave me a surly look but, the food being ample, did not try to stop me. It was a thick mash with a cereal base that did not taste bad. I swallowed several handfuls without displeasure. Our menu was, moreover, enriched by the good will of our guards. Now that the hunt was over, these beaters, who had so frightened me, proved to be less unpleasant so long as we behaved ourselves. They walked up and down in front of the cages and threw us some fruit from time to time, deriving great amusement from the stampede these offerings never failed to provoke.
I even witnessed a scene that gave me food for thought. A little girl had caught a piece of fruit in the air, when her neighbor rushed at her to snatch it away. One of the gorillas then brandished his pike, poked it through the bars, and pushed the man back as hard as he could; then he put another bit of fruit inthe same child’s hand. I thus realized that these creatures were capable of pity.
When the meal was over, the team leader and his assistants set about rearranging the convoy by transferring some of the captives from one cage to another. They seemed to be making some sort of selection, but on what basis I could not tell. Finding myself placed in a group of extremely handsome men and women, I tried to persuade myself that this was because we were the most remarkable subjects, deriving a bitter consolation from the thought that the apes, at first glance, had judged me worthy of being included in an elite.
I was surprised and overjoyed to see Nova among my new companions. She had escaped the massacre and I gave thanks to the heaven of Betelgeuse. It was with her, above all, in mind that I had scrutinized the victims at great length, fearful of seeing at any moment her lovely body among the pile of corpses. I felt as though I had recovered a being that was dear to me and, losing my head once more, I rushed over to her, opening my arms wide. It was utter madness; my gesture terrified her. Had she forgotten, then, our intimacy of the night before? Was such a marvelous physique not animated by any sort of mind? I felt downcast to see her shrink away at my approach, her hands extended like claws as though to throttle me, which she probably would have done had I persisted.
Yet when I checked myself she calmed down fairly quickly. She lay down in a corner of the cage and I followed her example with a sigh. All the other captives had done likewise. They now looked listless, prostrate, and resigned to their fate.