The Sky and the Forest (1948) by C. S. Forester

Author:C. S. Forester [Forester, C. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

For four or five days more they followed the course of the stream. The water surface of it was wider than before; here and there it even widened into marshy pools a hundred feet across, so wide that the trees did not meet over them and they could see the sky overhead, and with reeds and weeds growing thickly in them, wherein lived a myriad birds and a myriad mosquitoes. On one occasion Loa found Lanu crouching intent and anxiously on a bit of firm ground beside one of these pools. Lanu gesticulated for silence and Loa crouched beside him obediently. A big grey parrot came flapping across the lake, and settled on a branch within range, and Lanu trained his arrow round upon it inch by inch, the motion almost imperceptible. At last he released the arrow, and with a sharp hum of the cord it sped true and straight at the parrot, which dropped stunned into the still water of the pool. Lanu gave a cry of triumph, and started towards the bird; his feet were actually in the muddy water at the edge when there was a surge upon the surface. A huge evil head emerged with gaping jaws, the jaws armed with large conical teeth -- the most frightening, the most horrible sight they had ever seen. The jaws engulfed the floating parrot, and the head disappeared, to be replaced momentarily by a long tail that swept the water and then vanished in a flurry; the ripples broke against Lanu's legs as he stood petrified in the shallows. He fled back terrified to cling to Loa, and Loa embraced him to comfort him, although he was terrified as well. No transmitted memory of hairy devils could equal that sight, and the unexpectedness of it added to the horror.

“What was it? What was it, Father?” asked Lanu, his frightened hands clutching at Loa's bare skin.

“Some snake or other, without a doubt,” said Loa, with all the calm he could muster; he was preventing himself from shuddering at the memory only by the strongest exertion of will. It was his love for Lanu that made him exert this self-control when he had never tried to control himself in his life.

“Let us go away from here, Father,” said Lanu. “Let us go quickly.”

“We shall go,” said Loa, as soothingly as he could; he still made himself retain his calm in the face of the infection of panic. “First pick up your bow and your arrows and your axe. We need not leave those for the snake.”

The matter-of-fact words went far towards calming Lanu. He obediently picked up his weapons with one hand while he wiped his beslobbered face with the other. He was in no panic as he led the way from that fatal pool, so that Loa walking in his footsteps felt that they were not walking fast enough, although he refrained from saying so. That water-dwelling devil had turned a cold, horrible eye upon them as

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