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Title: The Octopus Cycle
Date of first publication: 1928
Author: Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956)
Date first posted: Feb. 17, 2022
Date last updated: Feb. 17, 2022
Faded Page eBook #20220246

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines

This file was produced from images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries.




[Source: Amazing Stories, May 1928]




_The_ OCTOPUS CYCLE


_By Irvin Lester and Fletcher Pratt_



    _Here, again, is a different story, a thriller that you will
    remember for many years to come.  And that you may not shout at
    once "impossible," we are printing in this issue an actual
    photograph of one of these sea creatures, which comes pretty
    close to what our authors have in mind, except that they do not
    roam on land, but keep strictly to the sea.  As Curator Dr.
    Ditmars, of the Bronx Zoological Gardens, pointed out recently,
    nature is always far more surprising than fiction.  For instance,
    there are really fish that climb trees, impossible as this
    sounds, and they do exist now in India; also there are snakes
    that can fly from one tree to another.  These things may sound
    impossible and fictional, but they are facts._



There was a long, uneasy swell on the surface of the Indian Ocean as
though someone were gently rocking the floor beneath it, and a hot,
moist wind blew against the face of Walter Weyl, A.B., A.M., B.Sc.,
as he stood against the rail of the pudgy little Messagéres Maritimes
steamer, wondering whether he would dare to chance a spell of
seasickness by lighting a well-cured pipe for the fourth time that
afternoon.

It was hot--and off to the west, Tamatave's houses gleamed white and
blistering against the green background of the Madagascar jungle,
blued by the distance.  Away to the north the coastline stretched
illimitable.  It would be another day at least before the steamer
arrived at Andovorata, and Walter Weyl, A.B., A.M., B.Sc., would be
able to get at the heart of the mysterious occurrences that had
brought him there.

His mind traveled back to the letter from his friend of college days,
Raoul Duperret, now on French government service in that mysterious
land--Madagascar.  He saw it again before him, the characteristic
French handwriting, the precise French phrasing:

"... alas, we cannot pursue these investigations, through lack of
money.  To you, then, my friend, I appeal.  To you belongs, permit me
to say; that combination so rare of the talent for and the means to
pursue it.  To you also will appertain the credit for any discovery.

"Let me, in detail, tell you of what we know.  Diouma-Mbobo is a
chieftain of the blacks in the southern part of the island who have
never been rescued from cannibal practices.  He is, as far as we
know, a man who rules by law and is of a truthfulness.  Thus, when he
accused the Tanósy, who are the next tribe to him, of stealing people
and eating them, took measures and did not too much believe the
denials of the Tanósy.  But Diouma-Mbobo's people continue to
disappear, and when the commandant sent a whole company of Senegalese
to preserve order, they still disappeared.  What is still more
distressing, is that some of the Senegalese also disappeared, and
save but a solitary rifle or two found in the jungle, no trace of
them remains.

"There is some fear in the island and we are in danger of losing our
grip on the natives, for we cannot at all explain these
disappearances nor prevent them.  The commandant says, 'Send a
battalion of chasseurs,' but it is my belief that a battalion of
chausseurs would likewise fail, and I send for you, for I believe the
agency that destroys men thus is not human.  No human would neglect
the rifles.

"As you know, Madagascar is a country apart.  We have here the giant
spiders, large as bats; the lizards, large as sheep, and no, not a
single snake.  All our animals are _outré_, impossible even, and what
if one more impossible than all...?  And thus it is to you, my rich
American friend, I appeal for myself and my country."

It had offered precious little real information, that letter, but
enough to have caused Walter Weyl to drop a learned monograph on the
ammonites of the Upper Cretaceous and hurry across ten thousand miles
of ocean with microscopes, rifles and all the equipment of the modern
scientist, to the aid of his friend.

The sun went down suddenly, as it does in the tropics, and the sea
was purple darkness all at once.  The lights of Tamatave twinkled
away behind and were blotted out; off to the west was only the
menacing blot if the huge island, forbidding and dangerous in the
gloom.  Weyl sat musing by the rail, listening to the hushed voices
of a couple of men in the bows.

Forgetting his dinner below, he fell into a half-doze, from which he
was suddenly awakened by a sense of approaching evil, definite, yet
which could not be located.  He looked about lazily.  The Southern
Cross hung brilliant in the sky; there was no other light but the
flare of portholes on the water, and no sound but the slap of waves
against the bows.  Yet the night had suddenly become dreadful.  He
struggled lazily to put a name to the sense of impending doom, and as
he struggled there was a sudden and terrible scream from the bow--the
cry of a man in mortal anguish and fear.

"Oh--o--o--u--" it went, running off into a strangled sob, and
through it cut the shout of the other sailor, "Secours!  Secours!
Ferent..." and the sound of a blow on soft flesh.

Weyl leaped to his feet and ran forward; there was the sound of a
slamming door, and a quick patter of feet behind him.  In front was
the blackness of the bows, out of which emerged a panic-stricken man
who charged against him, babbling incoherent French, and bore him to
the deck.  As he went down he caught a glimpse of two waving
prehensile arms, like lengths of fire-hose, silhouetted against the
sky.

Somebody ran past him, the deck leaped into illumination as lights
were switched on, and he picked himself up to see--nothing.  The bows
were empty.  There was a babble of conversation:

"Where is Ferentini?"

"What is the trouble?"

"Who is there?"

There was confusion, stifled by the appearance of the captain, a
eupeptic little man in a blue coat and a tremendous moustache which
swept his shoulders.  "This uproar--what does it mean?" he said.
"Let the sailor Dugasse come forward."

A big Basque, obviously panic-stricken and with rolling eyes, was
shoved into the light.  "Tell us the reason for this," demanded the
captain.

"Ferentini and I," he gasped, "we were talking, so, in the bow.  One,
two big arms, like a gorilla, seize him by the neck, the chest, and
zut! he is gone.  I strike at them, but he is gone."

"Assassin!" said the captain briefly.  "Confess that you quarreled
and you threw him over."

"No, no.  He was taken.  I swear it.  By the Holy Virgin, I swear it."

"Put this man in the lazarette, you Marulaz, and you Noyon.  There
will be an investigation.  Take his knife away from him."

"His knife is gone, monsieur," said one of the sea-men who had
stepped forward to take charge of the sailor Dugasse.

"Without doubt, he stabbed the other.  Put him in irons," was the
captain's succinct reply, as he turned toward the cabin and his
interrupted dinner.

Walter Weyl stepped forward.  "I think the man's story is true," he
offered.  "I think I saw something myself."

"Permit me to inform you, monsieur, that I am the commandant of the
vessel," remarked the eupeptic captain, with the utmost courtesy.
"There will be an investigation.  If the man is innocent it will do
him no harm to spend a night in the lazarette."  And again he turned
away.

Dissatisfied, but realizing that he could do nothing, Weyl walked
toward the bows, to see if he could find any trace of the strange
encounter.  There was nothing, but as he was about to return and go
below, his foot struck something, which on investigation with a
flashlight, proved to be the knife of the sailor Dugasse.

The blade was wet, and as he picked the weapon up there dripped
slowly from it a pale, greenish oleaginous liquid, totally unlike
human blood.  With this bit of evidence in his hand, he started
thoughtfully for his cabin.




CHAPTER II

Two days later the friends sat under the giant mimosa, in whose shade
Raoul Duperret had built a little cottage on the height overlooking
Andananarivo.  A table had been dragged outdoors and was now piled
with a miscellaneous collection of instruments, papers and microscope
slides.

Weyl leaned back in his chair with a sigh and lit his pipe.

"Let us see what we have, after all this study," he said.  "Check me
if I go wrong.  Diouma-Mbobo's people and about a dozen of the
Senegalese have disappeared mysteriously.  So did the sailor
Ferentini on the boat that brought me here.  In no case was any trace
found of the man after he disappeared, and in the cases on the island
when anything was found it was always a knife or a rifle.

"This report," he ruffled the papers, "from one of the Senegalese,
says that he saw his companion jerked up into a tree by a huge black
rope, but when he rushed to the tree he could see nothing.  It was
late in the evening.  Now this account agrees singularly with that of
the sailor Dugasse--and moreover, if natives were responsible for the
disappearances, they would at least have taken the knives, if not the
guns.

"Therefore, I consider that the disappearance of Ferentini, the
Senegalese and the natives was due to the same agency, and that the
agency was not human; and, therefore, I think the Tanósy and the
sailor Dugasse, although he is still in jail, should be acquitted."

Duperret nodded a grave assent.

"But I am sure it was nothing supernatural.  I saw something on that
boat, Duperret, and the Senegalese saw something.  Moreover, there is
Dugasse's knife.  I have analyzed that liquid which dripped from it;
it is blood, indubitably, but blood different from any I have ever
seen.  It contains a tremendous number of corpuscles of a new
character, not red, but greenish yellow, and the liquid in which they
float is similar to that of all other bloods.  More than anything, it
resembles the blood of an oyster, which is impossible, as oysters do
not lift men into trees.  Therefore, I accuse some hitherto unknown
animal of these deaths.

"But what kind of an animal are we dealing with?"  Weyl went on
without paying any attention to an interruption from Duperret.
"Evidently a very swift and formidable one.  It killed Ferentini in a
few seconds.  It dragged a powerful Senegalese, who was provided with
a rifle, off with equal swiftness," and the stabs of Dugasse were as
futile against it as the rifle of the other black boy.

"In both cases, the attack came from above, and I am inclined to
think, since we were attacked some distance off the coast and the
natives some distance inland, that the animal possesses extraordinary
mobility--probably wings.  This would make a bird of it; which is
impossible because of the blood; therefore, making the whole thing
absurd...  But in any case, the hunt for this animal, or animals, for
there may be more than one, will be a dangerous business."

"All is decided then?" asked Duperret.  "Very well, let us depart.  I
am eager for action, my friend."  And he stood up, stretching his
muscular frame toward the towering tree.

"Done," said Weyl.

He rose.  "You have some influence with the military authorities, you
of the civil arm?  If the matter were put to the commandant in the
proper way, do you suppose we could get an escort?  I need not
conceal from you that this big-game hunt is likely to be a serious
business.  Any animal that devours live men..."

"The commandant and I were at St. Cyr together," replied Duperret.
"He will doubtless appoint a lieutenant and a demi-company of African
chasseurs to assist us."




CHAPTER III

A week later found them with a dapper French lieutenant, Dubosc by
name, making the best of insufficient pup tents and canned French
sausage by a dank, slow stream a few miles out of Fort Dauphin.
Around them lay or squatted a perspiring group of black soldiers in
the uniform of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, while round them again,
further from the sun of the white men's presence, were as many
natives, equally sable of hue, and with no uniforms at all.  These
were the guides lent by Diouma-Mbobo, silent and somewhat scared men,
for that portion of the jungle had earned a bad reputation from the
repeated disappearances.

Weyl was annoyed.  "If we only knew what we were looking for and
where to find it," he said to Duperret that evening, "but here we are
three days out, with our labor for our pains.  Hunting for one animal
in this jungle is like the old needle and haystack saying."

"Yes, and I'm afraid for the guides," the Frenchman had answered.
"They'll desert unless they are given something to do."

Night found them as restless as the guides.  Weyl woke to a sense of
something impending, looked out and saw only the calm sentries
speaking in low tones as they encountered each other at the end of
their rounds.  He felt reassured, and dropped off into another hour
or two of slumber punctuated by fierce dreams, woke again and saw a
moonlit shadow on the flap of his tent.  "Raoul!" he called softly.

The Frenchman bent and entered.

He was fully dressed.

"Nerves keep you awake, too?" said Weyl.  "I've been awake before,
but everything's quiet.  But why are you dressed?"

"I have a premonition.  Also, I hear something unusual.  You hear
that strange whistling?  No, you would not.  You are not used to
jungle noises.  To me it is very much to notice.  Something..." and
he looked at his friend, who, though in a strictly unofficial manner,
was recognized as commander of the expedition.  "Shall we rouse the
soldiers?" he questioned.

"They'll need sleep if we're to march all day," Weyl answered.

"But I am thinking we will not need to march.  However--"  Raoul was
about to dismiss his feeling as a fancy and threw another glance over
his shoulder through the open tent flap.

In an instant he was on his feet, almost tearing the tent from its
pegs, a half cry escaping his lips that caused Weyl to leap up beside
him, seizing the revolver that lay by his hand.

Three, four, half a dozen snakelike arms, mysterious in the
moonlight, hovered for an instant, over the heads of two sentries who
had met at the edge of the trees, and before they had comprehended
their danger, before they could be warned, they were gripped, lifted
from their feet and their cries stifled before they reached the gloom
of the branches fully ten feet above.

Weyl, with a horror such as he had never felt before, seemed to
clutch at his throat, fired rapidly into the tree.  Something dropped
with a crash of leaves; a veritable chorus of whistlings and
swishings rose around the camp, and in the tents and along the sentry
line there were sudden lights and activity, shouts of "_Qui vive?_"
"_Aux armes!_" and the thick note of a hastily blown bugle as its
owner was roused from sleep.

Men ran from their tents to stand gazing.  "Raoul!" shouted the
American.  "It's here!  The machine gun!" and, pistol in hand, in his
sleeping garments, he dashed for the tree.

He glanced up.  A subdued rustling gave no clue to its source,
nothing to shoot at, but out of the tail of his eye he caught a
glimpse of motion among the giant ferns, and the peculiar whistling
again became audible.

He turned, and was suddenly conscious of an insane disbelief in his
senses.  What he saw resembled nothing so much as an enormous
umbrella, standing ten feet high on stiltlike, but prehensile arms,
while at the point where they gathered, a huge, bulbous head rose and
fell rhythmically as the thing emitted that singular, high-pitched
whistle.  There was something unspeakably loathsome, some touch
reminiscent of putrefaction and decay about it.

An arm, like a huge snake, lifted from the ground and swung aimlessly
about under the leaves.  Abruptly, another animal, the duplicate of
the first in all respects, came from behind a tree to join it, and
the two, despite their clumsy form and lurching uneven movement,
began to advance toward him with a rapidity that was astonishing.

Weyl awoke to the necessity of flight.  He raced back toward the
camp, where Lieutenant Dubosc, aroused by the shots and cries, and
aware that something was impending, had formed the Senegalese in a
rough, slanting angle of a line, the men facing the jungle, while
behind them Diouma-Mbobo's natives crouched in frightened curiosity.

The American turned as he reached the line.  Behind him, into the
clearing, with an odd semblance of order, came a half-dozen, a dozen,
twenty of those terrible umbrella-like shapes, moving deliberately,
but covering the ground as fast as a man runs.

A shot was followed by an order, a bugle note, and the irritating
crash of the volley, which shaded into the rattling drum of the
machine guns.  When his eyes again became used to the dark after the
flame of the rifles, Weyl saw that the giant, shapeless beasts were
moving forward as swiftly and imperturbably as before.  Had all the
shots missed?

Another volley collapsed into a frantic and spasmodic burst of
firing, as no effect was visible on the hideous shapes that came on
swiftly.

Weyl aimed his revolver carefully at one bobbing head, and the shot
was drowned in a crashing chorus of fire; the beast came right on.
He was dimly conscious of shooting again and again in a kind of
frenzy at those horrible bulby umbrellas that kept coming closer, dim
figures of horror in the green moonlight, huge and impregnable,
towering over the little group of humans who shouted and cursed and
fired impotently.

One man, half maddened, even ran forward, waving his bayonet, and was
gathered gently up by two of those big arms as a child might be
picked up by its parent.

A thrill of wavering ran down the line; one or two men threw away
their rifles, when suddenly, right at their feet, one of the monsters
collapsed.  There was a chorus--of whistling and they moved backward,
apparently without turning, as rapidly and silently as they had
come...

A feeble cheer rose from the Senegalese, a cheer that was silenced
instantly, for a glance revealed that half the hastily formed line
was missing, the men gone as completely as though they had never been.

Weyl was aware that he had been clicking an empty pistol, that his
throat was dry, that Duperret sat at his feet, his face in his hands,
seemingly without power of motion.  Senegalese and natives,
frightened to the verge of madness, babbled like children all around
him.  The iron voice of Dubosc rose:

"Silence, my children!"

Out in the clearing before them was no sign that men had battled for
their lives, save one ugly, loathsome shape, that sprawled on the
ground and twitched feebly in the gloom.




CHAPTER IV

The survivors of that unbelievable, one-sided battle dragged
themselves back into Fort Dauphin five days later.  One man was
violently insane, tightly bound, and as for the rest, it seemed that
only remnants of sanity remained.  The emotional blacks had almost
collapsed under the strain, and nothing but incoherent gibberings
could be extracted from them by the soldiers who cared for the
exhausted, weaponless, starving and almost naked remainder of the
trim company of Chasseurs who marched out with drum and bugle only a
fortnight before.

Weyl begged off from an immediate report to the commandant, and went
to bed, where he slept the sleep of exhaustion for twenty hours on
end, and Duperret did likewise.

Weyl woke vastly refreshed, and with the horror that had been
dragging at his mind relieved, though with such a feeling of
weariness as he had not known since college football days.  The black
boy at the door obligingly brought him the latest newspapers, now not
quite a month old, and he re-established his touch with the world of
men by reading them over the tiny breakfast of coffee and rolls which
was all the fort physician would allow him.

An item in one of them caught his eye, and caused him to sit up in
his chair with a whoop of joy, that brought a scandalized glance from
Major Larivet, the white-moustached old Alsatian who was in command
of the fort, and a grin from Duperret, the first since that dreadful
night of the attack.

The item, in bad French, was a translation from the bad English of a
New York newspaper telling of Weyl's departure for Madagascar.  It
was filled with the exalted pseudo-science of which newspapers are
fond and contained much ingeniously sketchy biographical and
geographical data, but its appeal was obvious.

The American leaned forward over the cups.

"Does your fort boast a typist?" he asked.  "Lieutenant Dubosc has
probably already told you of the terrible experience we have had.  I
am anxious to make my report on it through the newspapers."

"Monsieur," said Major Larivet, gravely, "he died an hour ago by my
side.  I know nothing but that I have lost many men from my command."

"So..." said Weyl, "All the more reason I should make my report in
writing.  I need not conceal from you the fact that we are facing a
danger which threatens not merely Fort Dauphin and Madagascar, but
the entire world."

There was incredulity on the major's face, but he replied
courteously, "My means are entirely at your service, gentlemen."

Beginning his report with scientific exactitude, Weyl included
Duperret's letter, noted the sudden midnight attack on the steamer
and went on to the details of the expedition:

".... For hours after the attack," he wrote, "we were unable to get
anything like control out of the chaos in the camp.  I think another
attack of these unspeakably loathsome 'Umbrella Beasts' would have
brought complete panic; certainly hardly any rifles but Duperret's
and my own would have met them.

"We could not hope to escape by an immediate dash for the fort,
though it was less than thirty hours' march away.  The beasts seemed,
to be on every side, and they would have every advantage in that
jungle, where we would have been instantly swept into the trees by
their swinging tentacles.

"Fortunately, these hideous monsters appeared to have gathered their
fill of human food for the time being, and meanwhile the idea of fire
occurred to us.  All the wood we could gather without too closely
approaching the trees was collected and heaped in piles about five
feet apart in a complete circle.  These were set alight, and we
huddled in the center of the blazing ring, almost roasted by the
heat, but feeling infinitely safer.  With the coming of day, the heat
was almost intolerable, but we gained confidence as it became
apparent that the beasts would not dare the fire, though we could
hear them whistling in the trees.

"Our situation was bad.  The supply of wood was not inexhaustible,
and that of water was already used up.  I am convinced that these
beasts are possessed of a comparatively high intelligence.  The
manner of their attack, the character of the one killed in the
battle, led to this conclusion; and they were evidently deliberately
laying siege to us with the intention of starving us out of our
refuge.

"Our rifles were useless, and to make a sudden dash through the lines
would certainly involve the sacrifice of most of those
present--perhaps all.  So we sat down to plan a way out.  Obviously,
we had to find a means to make ourselves immune to their attacks.

"I thought I had it when I remembered that no barbarian, beast or
insect, would tolerate castor oil.  Desperate as was our situation,
the idea of escaping a deadly and horrible death by means of that
homely remedy made me want to laugh hysterically.  I remember
Duperret watching me trying to smother the urge, looking queerly at
me, quite obviously doubtful of my mental balance.  His speculative
and startled glance added to the absurdity of the thing, and I almost
lost my self-control.  I realized we were all on the edge of madness.

"The idea had, of course, to be discarded.  We had castor oil among
our medical supplies, but barely enough to discourage the insects of
the tropical jungle; certainly not enough to smear ourselves from
head to foot to keep off those giant monstrosities menacing us from
all sides.

"The solution we hit upon finally may not have been the best, but it
was simple, and like many another, did not occur to us till we were
ready to give up in despair.  Duperret, Dubosc and I had spent the
entire first day of our siege discussing and rejecting ways and
means, and we had just about decided that the only thing to do was to
make a concerted dash into the jungle, firing into the trees, and
trusting to luck and mobility to carry us through, when the
lieutenant startled us with a sudden leap, and shouted something
wild, something we did not understand.

"We feared for his sanity as mutely we watched him dashing about
furiously from spot to spot in the clearing, tearing up handful after
handful of liana grass and throwing them on the fire.

"When, however, a dense cloud of thick, choking, black smoke rolled
up, and when Dubosc turned to us with a triumphant light in his face,
we understood dimly what his idea was, and in a frenzy of relief
several of us danced foolishly in a circle about the fire and its
column of smoke.

"In a council that followed, we decided that our attempt to escape
had better be made during the day, since we had all noticed that
there was less activity among our besiegers during the hours when the
heat was most intense.  We kept our fires burning, then, throughout
the night until dawn.  Nobody slept; we were too apprehensive, and
too busy improvising torches for our protection during the march.
The beasts, evidently fearful of the fire, remained in their trees
all that night, and though they continued to whistle about us (this
seems their sole mode of communication) there seemed to be less
whistling from the side to which our smoke drifted.  This assured us
that our lieutenant's plan would work.

"At dawn, bearing our smoking flambeaux, we set out.  Arms and
equipment were useless; they were discarded.  To prevent the panic
that appeared imminent among the men, Dubosc threatened to shoot down
any man who left the formation, and to insure obedience, only
Duperret, he and myself were allowed to retain revolvers.

"As we neared the trees, there was crowding among the men, but a few
sharp words brought them to their senses.  We halted just at the edge
of the clearing, and Duperret and I leading the shivering company,
threw our branches down under the trees and piled more wood on to
make a little blaze.  There was a discernible commotion in the
foliage above us, but we could see nothing.  When the noises
subsided, we ventured in a hundred yards or so, and built another
fire.

"This scheme was resorted to at intervals all along our march.
Progress was necessarily slow.  At some dark spots, where the jungle
was thick, it was necessary to proceed in narrow files, and these
were the most dangerous, not only because of the 'Umbrella Beasts'
but also because of the fright and impatience of the men.

"It was in one of these places that a casualty occurred.  One of the
chasseurs suddenly broke from the line and ran, shouting madly, to
wave his torch at a vinous growth hanging from a tree, which he must
have taken for a tentacle of one of the beasts.  He stumbled, his
torch flying from his hand as he fell.  His danger then evidently
deprived him of what senses he had remaining, for, regaining his
feet, he ran, not back into the line but deeper into the jungle.  We
heard a strangled cry in a few moments.  That was all.  None of us
dared to leave the company to bring him back.

"Another time, a man went raving mad, and made a violent attack on
Dubosc.  Before he could be caught, he stabbed that brave man twice
in the breast.

"Now, as to the animals which attacked us.  I had one before me for
some sixty hours, though with little opportunity to examine and none
at all to dissect it.  My observations, though somewhat scanty, lead
me to the conclusion that we are dealing with a hitherto unknown
member of the great mollusk family.  The family includes the octopus
and oyster, neither with red blood, and it was the nearly colorless
fluid that puzzled me about the blood of the beast that attacked the
ship.

"The beast that was killed at the camp had a larger body than any
known member of the family, and tentacles at least fifteen feet in
length and correspondingly powerful.  A protective covering of chitin
appears to have been developed, and due to the lack of any internal
skeleton and the fact that the muscles must base on it, this
protective covering to its body is of a thickness and strength
sufficient to be quite impervious to rifle bullets.  The one we
killed had received a bullet full in the eye, which passed through
into its brain.

"It is this brain that offers the most remarkable feature of these
creatures.  A brief investigation shows me that their brains are
certainly larger than those of any animals except the big apes, and
probably as large as those of the lower races of man.  This argues an
intelligence extremely high, and makes them more than ever dangerous,
since they can evidently plan acts and execute them in concert.

"They have eight tentacular arms, covered on the lower side with the
usual cephalopod type of suckers, the center of each sucker being
occupied, as in some species of octopus, by a small, sharp claw.  The
thickness, and therefore the muscular strength of these arms, is
enormous.  It is no wonder men proved utterly powerless against them.

"I am unable to say anything about either their method of breeding or
what device they have arrived at for breathing air; probably some
protective covering keeps the gill-plumes moist, as in the crayfish,
making access to water at times necessary.

"In the face are two very large eyes, capable of seeing well in the
dark and located directly in front of the large brain.  The mouth
consists of a huge beak, razor-edged.  There are no teeth.  Add this
formidable beak to their extraordinary powers of swimming, their
swift progress on land, their giant strength and their great
intelligence, and it becomes evident that the human race is faced
with a great peril.

"There is nothing whatever to prevent these animals from swimming the
ocean or attacking the greatest city.  One of these beasts could kill
a hundred people in an hour and hardly any weapon we possess would be
of the slightest use..."

As he wrote, Weyl's mind was again filled with the terror of that mad
march through the jungle with the "Umbrella Beasts" whistling on
every side, and his imagination shuddered at the picture of London or
New York under an invasion from those grim Madagascar jungles; all
business stopped, every door barred, the octopuses triumphantly
parading the streets, breaking in here and there and strangling the
last resistance of families cowering in corners, powerless against
the invulnerable and irresistible animals.  Here and there some squad
armed with dynamite or some other weapon more powerful than rifles,
would offer a brief resistance, but they too would go down in time.
Civilization throttled, and in its place a ghastly reign of
animalism....




CHAPTER V

Major Larivet was inclined to skepticism over Weyl's report.  In a
brusque, but kindly way, he had suggested that it be delayed, "...
till you have had time to think it over.  Perhaps, when the effect of
your experience has--ah--worn off--"

Weyl gazed at him in astonishment at this suggestion, but he was to
remember it forty days later.

Meanwhile, there was nothing to do but wait till the report reached
the outer world, and some echo of it in the form of men, aeroplanes,
scientists with their instruments and death dealing concoctions
arrived to wipe out that terrible blot.  And during the waiting, even
Major Larivet's skepticism vanished under the pressure of events.

The octopuses, as Weyl called them, had confined their raids to
isolated districts up to the time of his expedition, but now, acting
apparently upon a well-formed plan, they became bolder and began a
systematic extermination of every native in this part of the island.

Three days after the return of the expedition, a native runner dashed
in half-crazed with fright to report a twilight raid on a whole
village, from which hardly a soul escaped.  As the days drew on, this
ominous news was followed by such demonstrations of the power and
intelligence of the octopuses as confirmed Weyl's darkest fears.

A village on the coast was attacked, and the natives, taking to their
clumsy boats to escape the terror by land, found themselves no less
helpless on the water, the only news of the dreadful event coming
from some native who had gone there and found only a circle of empty
huts.

Alarm of panic proportions spread like wildfire among the Malagasy,
and in a stream that became a torrent they poured into Fort Dauphin
for protection.

Daily the reports of depredations showed that the octopus terror was
spreading and coming nearer, and Major Larivet found himself faced
with the problem of feeding several hundred hungry and frightened
natives with means wholly inadequate.

The climax came with the arrival of four men, or rather, shadows of
men, who babbled that they were the last of the great tribe of the
Tanósy.  Fighters to the core, instead of flying, they had stood out
in battle array against their antagonists.  The result had been
unspeakably horrible--they had seen their comrades torn to pieces
before their eyes, and the women and children hunted down.

It was while things were in this state that the little tin-pot mail
boat arrived with its cargo of supplies and European newspapers.

Weyl's heart rose as he marched off to his quarters eagerly with the
papers under his arm, but it sank like lead when he and Duperret
opened journal after journal, in quick, disappointed perusals.

Not one, they perceived, took the matter seriously.  Weyl's phrase,
"Umbrella Beasts," had been seized upon by humorous commentators with
gusto, rolled on their tongues and spun off their pens to tickle the
ribs of readers.  Of serious acceptance there was not a sign.  The
general tone of the papers was one of howling derision.  It was
suggested that Weyl had gone crazy.  that he was a publicity-mad
mountebank.  But the more usual spirit of the papers was that of the
French wit who blared: "Weyl's Umbrella Beasts; Inseparable
companions for that rainy-day walk.  No one acquainted with the
dictates of fashion can afford to dispense with this novel
combination of household pet and Protective Implement!"

And the cartoons...!

Weyl looked up from the papers to meet Duperret's glance.  There were
actual tears in the Frenchman's eyes.

"It seems to be up to us," said Weyl, after a moment.  "Well--I am
not a rich man, as it is reckoned in America, but I can command a
considerable amount of money, and can borrow more.  I will write a
cablegram to be sent off immediately, and have every cent spent for
materials to fight this thing."

Together they composed the carefully worded message to Weyl's
assistant in the laboratory in New York, and together they took it to
the dock and delivered it to the captain of the boat with the most
urgent instructions to send it the moment he arrived at Andovoranbo.




CHAPTER VI

Not long after daybreak the American was roused from his sleep by a
confused shouting under the window.  Hurrying into his clothes, he
dashed out to see the little mail boat wallowing crazily off the
jagged rocks that guarded the entrance to the harbor, her funnels
silent and smokeless.  Within ten minutes she was right among the
breakers, pounding in the surf, but there was no sign of officers,
crew, or lifeboats.

It was late in the afternoon before he could secure a native dhow to
get out to the wreck.  When he stepped on the slanting deck of the
wrecked boat, Weyl found what he had feared.  There was no one on
board--only a blood-stain here and there.

Every man in the settlement was quite capable of visualizing what had
happened.  Writhing, black-grey tentacles reaching up out of the
midnight sea, the swarming of hideous bodies over the ship,
relentless groping arms searching out the screaming seamen, the
fatally prehensive embrace of repulsive flesh...

That very night Fort Dauphin received notice that it was under close
siege.  A mile out on the northeast beach two natives were taken by
an octopus that came unexpectedly out of the water on them, and on
the opposite side of town a soldier was pursued along the sand right
up to the walls of the fort.  Later the report ran in that one of the
sentinels on the west side had disappeared.

But neither Weyl nor Major Larivet was quite prepared for the bold
attack on the fort two days later.

Twilight was just blueing the edges of the jungle a quarter mile from
the bastions of the fort, and the three white men were smoking
gloomily over their coffee, when a shot and a shout from the sentry
brought them to their feet.

They hastened to the bastion.  Out of the jungle in the same regular,
military order they had preserved on that fatal night of the first
attack, came the octopuses, huge ugly heads bobbing above, undulating
tentacles below.

Larivet, with a gleam in his eyes at being at last able to come to
grips with the enemy, snapped sharp orders as the artillerymen swung
the two "seventy-fives" into position.  Duperret and Weyl watched
breathlessly, heedless of the wild cries of alarm that issued from
the natives who had seen the octopuses.

The mouth of the gun swung down slowly.  An order.  Brief motions,
the crash of the discharge, and right in the center of the advancing
line a terrific burst of flame and dust.

An octopus staggered, stumbled with wildly flailing arms and flopped
inertly to the ground.

Crash!  The bright flames from the two guns mingled, and in the flare
of the explosions three more of the monsters went to oblivion.  They
were not invulnerable, then!  There was a ray of hope!

Weyl found himself cheering frantically.  He felt a pressure at his
shoulder and saw a couple of natives beside him, their courage
revived.  The black artillerymen worked like mad.  They could not
miss at that point-blank range.

All down the octopus line were gaps, and the wounded beasts strove to
right themselves.  They wavered, broke, and in disorderly flight
headed back into the jungle, pursued by the avenging shells of the
seventy-fives till they had passed from sight.

The natives were crowding about, shouting with emotion and hurling
epithets after the retreating monsters.  They were saved--at least
for the time being.

But the conference of the three white men that night was grave.

"We have not really accomplished very much," said Weyl, "except to
show them that we have weapons against which they are not
invulnerable.  I don't think they will attempt to rush the fort
again, but they are terribly intelligent.  They may try a surprise
attack at night or from the sea, or may even give us a regular
starvation siege."

"No, they will not soon approach your guns again," agreed Duperret,
"but what are we to do if they attack the town from the other side.
The fort surely cannot hold all the people you have here."

"Gentlemen," said Larivet gravely, "in that case we can only do our
duty.  I shall have one of the guns moved to the other side of town.
Meanwhile we can do nothing but wait till someone comes to help us."

"Or until we go to them," from Weyl.

Duperret paled slightly, and stood up.  "I offer myself as a
messenger," he said.  "I will take a dhow out.  If I am attacked,
well, I know where to shoot them--in the eyes.  I--"

"No, Raoul, no," said Weyl, "let me try it.  It would be simply--"

He was interrupted.  A native servant entered excitedly.

"Him one piece boat in town," said the black.  "White man comes."

"Boat?  White man?" queried Larivet, puzzled.  A cheery voice in the
doorway answered him, "I say, is anybody here?" it said, and in
marched an extraordinary figure of a man.

A large sign saying "Englishman" could not have stamped his race more
effectively than his expression of cheerful vapidity.  His clothes
were white, scrupulously clean, and meticulously pressed, and in one
hand he bore what looked like a small fire-extinguisher.  He extended
the other toward Weyl.

"You're Weyl, aren't you?" he said.  "Mulgrave's my name; Henry
Seaton Mulgrave.  Earl of Mulgrave and Pembroke, and all that rot.
At your service."

"Of course I remember," said Weyl cordially.  "You gave that
extraordinary paper on the Myxinidae before the British Association.
Ah, that paper!  Allow me," he said, and translated into rapid French
for the benefit of Larivet, "to present the Earl of Mulgrave, one of
the most distinguished of living scientists."

There were bows, a drink offered and accepted, and the visitor,
carefully placing his fire-extinguisher in the corner, curled his
lanky frame up in a chair.




CHAPTER VII

"Seriously, though, y'know," Mulgrave said after finishing his whisky
and soda, "if it hadn't been that I was a bit in the doldrums at the
time your report came out, I believe I would have joined the rest of
the world in thinking you somewhat--er--balmy, despite your excellent
reputation.  But I needed a cruise anyway, and came on the chance
there was something in it; sort of a sporting venture, d'y'see?  It
did seem quite a bally cooked-up sort of mess, the way those journals
played it up, y'know."

Weyl's nod of understanding was followed by an inquiring look at the
queer contrivance the Englishman had placed in the corner.

"Flammenwerfer," Mulgrave answered the silent query.  "Germans used
'em in the war.  Superior bit of frightfulness.  Shoots out fire.
And really quite effective, even against your bally octopuses, I
assure you."

"But," Weyl exclaimed, "you can't possibly--"

"Oh, yes, I have."  Mulgrave smiled.  "The ruddy animals hadn't the
decency to wait for a proper introduction, and paid us a visit on the
Morgana--my yacht, y'know--just outside the harbor.  I fancy when we
got through with them they were rather scorched.  Morgana was
war-built, and has steel decks, so we didn't mind putting the
Flammenwerfer to work against them.  We've got what's left of one
stretched out on the deck.  Others got away."

Weyl breathed a sigh of relief and thankfulness that this casual
Englishman had come prepared.  How easily the mail boat disaster
might have been duplicated!  He shuddered.

"Well then, part of our horrible problem seems to be solved, thanks
to your foresight, Mulgrave.  At least we have a means of wiping them
out.  But here's the difficulty.  It will take years, killing them
off one by one, as we'll have to do with your pump gun.  I tell you,
they infest the whole island, thousands of 'em.  They're increasing
and multiplying faster than we could possibly kill them off.  That's
the only way I can explain this recent outbreak.  They were few
enough in number, before this, to remain in obscurity except in
isolated districts, and known only to ignorant and superstitious
natives."  Weyl's forehead creased in perplexity and worry.  "If they
keep on--well, they'll need the whole globe.  And that means only one
thing; man will have to get off it to make room for them.  They're
powerful enough, and intelligent enough, to have their own way about
it, too.  Don't doubt it.  Unless--"

Mulgrave evidently did not share Weyl's anxiety, though he did not
seem to underestimate the danger.  "I'll finish that last sentence of
yours, Weyl, although I'll admit things are a bit worse than I had
thought.  But meanwhile, let's look over our resources, and try to
find out a bit more about the nature of the beast we're up against.
The post-mortem of that lamentably deceased visitor on the Morgana's
deck ought to tell us something of his weak points.  Do you want to
go out there now?"

With chairs tilted back against the cabin of the Morgana, the three
men regarded the sundown sky in a moody and depressed silence.  Their
dissection of the octopus killed by Mulgrave's pump-gun had added
little to their knowledge of the anatomy of the menacing brutes, save
a confirmation of Weyl's hypothesis that their breathing, while on
land, was conducted by means of the same gills which supplied them
with oxygen in the water, protected, like the lobster's, by a
covering of chitin.

Mulgrave's chair scraped on the deck.  "Well, let's get back ashore,"
he said.  "Can't do any more now I fancy, unless they decide to stage
a party for us this evening."

"It comes down to this, then," said Weyl, continuing the conversation
which had been abandoned with the end of their anatomical researches.
"Fire, or some kind of guns heavier than the ordinary service rifle,
are the only things that will do any particular good."

"Have you thought of gas, my friend?" asked Duperret.

"Huh," answered Weyl shortly.  "Airplanes?  Chemicals?  And what
about all the men on the island--for we should have to cover it all
with gas to be of any use."

"The time is rather short, too, I fancy," chirped Mulgrave.  "How
long will provisions last?"

"Not long," agreed Duperret, moodily.  "A week, or perhaps a little
more."

"Then, within seven days, or at the most ten, we must concoct a plan
and put it into force--a plan that will wipe out God knows how many
of these unearthly enemies of the earth.  It must be extermination,
too, for if one pair were left to breed...  I'm more than half
convinced that the thing is hopeless.  Yet I don't like to show the
white flag.  These are, after all, only beasts.  Super-beasts, it is
true, but the equals and heirs of man?  I hate to believe it."

"But, my friend, you forget the force of mere numbers," said
Duperret.  "So many rats could easily overpower us, guns and all,
from mere lack of time to kill them as fast as they came on.
Comparative values, as of man and beast, are insignificant."

Weyl nodded a pessimistic agreement.

"There's only one chance," he said.  "If we could find some way to
attack them in the water--they must go there to breed at least, and I
fancy they must make periodic visits to the water to wet their gill
plumes in addition."




CHAPTER VIII

It was three days later.

Another octopus attack on the little fort had met with a bloody
repulse, and a score of the great bodies lay at the edge of the
jungle in varying stages of decomposition, where they had been blown
to extinction by the swift shells of the seventy-fives.  A conference
was in progress on Major Larivet's verandah; a conference of beaten
men.

"As a last resort," Duperret was saying, "there is the open sea and
Mulgrave's yacht."

"Why, as for that," Weyl answered, "it wouldn't hold a tenth of us,
even crowded to the rails.  Besides, leave those natives behind?
Damn it, they trust us."

"It would hardly be cricket," said Mulgrave.  "What of the mail
steamer?  Aren't they apt to send someone to look us up when she does
not appear?"

"Not even yet is the boat due at Andovoranto," said Major Larivet,
"and there is the time for the news to reach Andananarivo...  The
lack of news to them will be but a token that we have pacified the
Tanósy and are in need of nothing."

"Yes," Duperret agreed, "I know these officials.  They are aware of
something unusual only when they have seventeen dossiers, each neatly
tied in red tape and endorsed by the proper department head.  My
friends, we are alone."

"Which means," Weyl continued, "that we have about a week more to
live before the food runs out or they overwhelm us.  And
then--good-by world of men!"

There was a little silence, broken only by the sound of Mulgrave
puffing at his pipe.  It was ended by a shot and a shout from one of
the sentries at the western side of the fort: the signal of another
attack.

During that night the great octopuses twice fought their way down to
the fort, and twice were repulsed, though the second effort, longer
and more violently sustained than the first, only ended when
Mulgrave, called in the crew of his yacht and their flammenwerfer.

As the following day drew on, the unrest in the jungle about the army
post became more pronounced.  Major Larivet, Duperret, and Weyl, worn
with lack of sleep, kept vigil by the little counterscarp, listening
to the innumerable whistlings and rustlings so near to them, while
the soldiers and natives, visibly shaken, were difficult to keep in
line.

When evening came, it seemed as though the octopuses had concentrated
their forces for a great drive.  The whistlings had increased to such
a volume that sleep was nearly impossible, and as soon as the sun
went down, the movements of dark forms could be observed where the
animals were silhouetted against the sky along the beach.

The first attack came half an hour later.  It was a sporadic
outburst, apparently, consisting of only three or four individuals,
and these were quickly dispersed or slain by a few bursts from the
seventy-fives.  But it was followed by another, and another, the
numbers of the attackers ranging all the way from three to fifteen or
twenty.  Unlike the previous attempts on the fort they were frenzied
and unorganized as though the directing intelligence behind them had
suddenly failed.  Immune to fear, the living octopuses came right on,
through the hail of fire and died at the foot of the rampart, or
dashed over it even, to be wounded to death by bayonets fixed on long
poles with which the black soldiers reached and stabbed frenziedly at
eyes and softer parts.

Once, during a lull in the combat, the commandant and Weyl were
called to witness a monstrous duel, at the very edge of the fort
between two of the hideous beasts.  The ungainly creatures locked in
each others' tentacles, rolled hideously together, tearing at each
other with their great beaks, till a Senegalese reached over with one
of those improvised bayonet pikes and dealt first one and then the
other mortal stabs.  Weyl felt a singular sensation of nausea.

Toward dawn it became evident to the exhausted artillerymen and their
wearied leaders that the octopuses were now aiming not so much at
conquest, as at escape.  They no longer blundered into the fires that
had been built about the fort and village; no longer hurled
themselves upon Mulgrave's crew of flame-throwers and the shells of
the seventy-fives.  They seemed to be heading for the beach, to be
striving to reach the water.

And when dawn broke, the men in the enclosure saw a few stragglers
from the hideous army at the edge of the jungle, making their way,
like the others, with ungainly flappings and swishings, always toward
the beach.  It was impossible to watch them without feeling an almost
physical sensation of illness, of sinking.  But what did it mean?  No
one among the harassed defenders of Fort Dauphin was prepared to say.




CHAPTER IX

Mulgrave's wearied crew had gone aboard their ship, and the white
men, refreshed by a few hours' sleep and a bath, were discussing the
question.  "I am of the opinion," Weyl was declaring, "that they have
certain periods when they must wet their gill-plumes again, and last
night's disturbance represents one of those periods.  If we could
only attack them at such a time--"

He was interrupted by the arrival of an excited Senagalese, who
addressed Major Larivet:

"The boat she is smoke.  She go."

"How?" "What?" cried the four, leaping to their feet and starting
down the road in the direction of the pier.

It was too true.  The Morgana, out beyond the reef line, was marked
by a tiny plume of smoke from her funnel, and as they gazed, she
seemed to move a bit.

"Quick!" shouted Weyl, "let's push off a dhow."

Followed by the Englishman, and at a longer distance by Duperret, he
raced for the pier and leaped into the little craft.  "Grab a sweep,"
he called to Larivet.

Propelled by sail and oar, the little craft began to swing out from
the pier, and then catching the land breeze in its full strength,
heeled over.  Duperret drew in his sweep, useless at that speed.  He
shaded his eyes and looked toward the Morgana.  Suddenly he turned
with a short bitter laugh.

"Look," he said, pointing.  A few hundred yards ahead of the dhow,
Weyl and Mulgrave saw a globular grey shape among the waves.  From
it, lying flush with the water, radiated--tentacles.  Weyl put the
tiller over to avoid it, and as the craft swung saw another, and then
another.  It was the end.

But even as he prepared to wear the little ship round and run back
for the pier, if indeed they could make that temporary safety, they
saw out beyond the loathsome globular head and spreading arms a
triangular fin-shape that cut the water with hardly a ripple.

It was charging straight at the octopus, and as they watched, there
was a swift turmoil in the water, the flash of a sleek, wet, black
body, a vision of dazzling teeth, and the globular head of the
octopus disappeared into a boil of water from which rose two
tentacles, waving vainly.  Off to the right, another of those
knife-like fins was coming, followed by more--a half-dozen, a dozen,
a score; and suddenly around each of them there gathered the whirl
and flush of a combat.

The dhow drew ahead, right toward the center of one of those
tumultuous whirlpools.  Out of it dissolved an octopus that was only
half an octopus, its tentacles torn and a huge gash across that
inhuman parody of a face--an octopus that was striving vainly to
escape from a flashing fate that ran behind it.

Weyl shouted--Duperret began to weep; the unaffected tears of joy of
the emotional Frenchman and Mulgrave, stirred from his
imperturbability, was shouting, "Killer whales!" to an audience that
had eyes and ears only for the savage battles all about them.

Everywhere, they could see through the clear tropical water that the
killers, stronger and swifter, if less intelligent, were the victors.
The octopuses, routed, were trying to get away--as vainly as the
natives had tried to escape from them.

"Let the bally yacht go," shouted Mulgrave to Weyl.  "I want to enjoy
this."

For fifteen, twenty minutes, they watched, until they saw the
vanishing fin of a killer moving off to northward, signal that that
part of the battle was over, and that the killers were departing for
new fields of triumph.  Three men, with hearts lighter than they had
known them for weeks, manoeuvred the boat back to the pier.




CHAPTER X

"They seem to be gone, sure enough," said Weyl, tossing down on the
table a brace of the native pheasants.  It was only two days later,
but he had returned from a four hours' trip into the jungle.

"I didn't even come across the traces of a single one of them--unless
you can call a trace the fact that they seem to have cleaned out
about all the animals in this district.  Even the monkeys are gone."

"Do you think they will come back?" asked Major Larivet.

"I am sure they will not," said Weyl.  "There seem to be perfect
shoals of killer whales off the coast, attracted no doubt by the
octopuses, which are their favorite food.  You may be sure they would
hunt down every one, as the killers are very voracious."

"But what made them appear in the first place?"

"God knows.  It is, or was, since they are now gone, some phenomenon
allied to that which produces the lemming migration every
twenty-eight years.  You, Mulgrave, are a biologist.  You know how,
once in twenty-eight years, these little rat-like animals breed in
such numbers that they overrun whole districts, and then migrate into
the ocean where they are drowned by the thousand.

"These octopuses would have plenty of opportunity to develop their
extraordinary size and intelligence, as well as their quality of
breathing air by life in the shallow, deserted lagoons all around
Madagascar, and if they were actuated by a life-cycle similar to that
of the lemmings, they would breed in the vast numbers which we saw.
It seems the only logical hypothesis.

"In any case, there is nothing for the rest of the world to fear.  A
sort of wireless telegraphy seems to exist among animals with regard
to neighborhoods where food can be obtained in quantities, and just
as you will see the condors of the Andes flock to where food is, the
killer whales gathered around this visitation of giant cuttle fish.

"It is one of Nature's numerous provisions to right the balance of
things on the earth when they threaten to get out of joint in any
direction.  If any other enemy of man were to multiply as these
octopuses did, you may be sure he would find an animal ally.

"We were merely panic-stricken and foolish to think we could
accomplish anything.  We should have waited."

"And now, my friend," said Duperret, "I suppose I must bid you
farewell."

"Yes.  I am anxious to get back to my monograph on the Ammonites of
the Upper Cretaceous.  It will astonish the scientific world, I
think."



THE END


[The end of _The Octopus Cycle_ by Fletcher Pratt]