Fear by Guie de Mopison. We went up on deck after dinner. Before
us, the Mediterranean lay without a ripple and shimmered in the moonlight. The
great ship glided on, casting upward to the star studded sky, A long
serpent of black smoke behind us. The dazzling white water, stirred by the
rapid progress of the heavy bark and beaten by the propeller, foamed, seemed
to Writhe gave off so much brilliancy that one could have called it boiling moonlight.
There were six or eight of us, silent with admiration, and gazing
toward far away Africa, whither we were going. The commandant, who was
smoking a cigar with us, brusquely resumed the conversation begun at dinner. Yes,
I was afraid. Then my ship remained for six hours on that rock,
beaten by the wind and with a great hole in the side. Luckily
we were picked up toward even by an English color which sighted us. Then
a tall man of sunburnt face and grave demeanor, one of those men who
have evidently traveled unknown and far away lands, whose calm eyes seems to preserve
in its depths something of the foreign scenes. It is observed a man that
you are sure is impregnated with courage, spoke for the first time. You
say, Commandant, that you are afraid. I beg to disagree with you.
You are in error as to the meaning of the word and the nature
of the sensation that you experienced. An energetic man is never afraid in the
presence of urgent danger. He has excited, aroused, full of anxiety.
But fear is something quite different. The commandant laughed and answered, bah,
I assure you that I was afraid. Then the man of the tanned countenance
addressed us deliberately as follows. Permit me to explain fear and the hot men
may feel. Fear is something horrible, an atrocious sensation, a sort of
decomposition of the soul, a terrible spasm of brain and heart, the very
memory of which brings a shudder of anguish. But when one is brave he
feels it neither under fire, nor in the presence of sure death, nor
in the face of any well known danger. It springs up under certain abnormal
conditions, under certain mysterious influences, in the presence of vague peril. Real
fear is a sort of reminiscence of fantastic terror of the past. A man
who believes in ghosts and imagines he sees a specter in the darkness must feel
terror in all its horror. As for me, I was overwhelmed with fear
in broad daylight about ten years ago, and again one December night last winter.
Nevertheless, I have gone through many dangers, many adventures which seem to
promise death. I have often been battle I have been left for dead by
thieves in America. I was condemned as an insurgent to be hanged and off
the coast of China, have been thrown into the sea from the deck of
a ship. Each time I thought I was lost, I at once decided
upon my course of action, without regret or weakness. That is not fear.
I have felt it in Africa, and yet it is a child of
the North. The sunlight vanishes it like the mist. Consider this fact,
gentleman. Among the Orientals, life has no value. Resignation is natural.
The nights are clear and empty of the somber spirit of unrest which haunts the
brain in cooler lands. In the Orient, panic is known, but not
fear. Well, then here is the incident that befell Me in Africa.
I was crossing the great Sands to the south of Onargla. It is one
of the most curious districts in the world. You have seen the solid,
tenuous sand of the endless ocean strands. Will imagine the ocean itself turn to
sand in the midst of a storm. Imagine a silent tempest with motionless billows
of yellow dust. They are high as mountains, these uneven varied surges,
rising exactly like unchained billows, but still larger and stratified like watered silk.
On this wild, silent and motionless sea, the consuming rays of the tropical
sun are poured piteously and directly. You have to climb these streaks of red
hot ash, descend again on the other side. Climb again, climb,
climb, without halt, without repose, without shade. The horses cough sink
to their knees, and slide down the sides of these remarkable hills. We
were a couple of friends, followed by eight Spahis and four camels with their
drivers. We were no longer talking, overcome by heat, fatigue, and
a thirst such as had produced this burning desert. Suddenly one of our men
uttered a cry. We all halted, surprised by the unsolved phenomenon known only
to travelers in these trackless wastes. Somewhere near us, in an indeterminable direction,
a drum was rolling, the mysterious drum of the sands. It was
beating distinctly, now with greater residence and again feebler, ceasing than resuming its
uncanny roll. The Arabs, terrified, stared at one another, and one
said in his language, death is upon us. As he spoke, my
companion, my friend, almost my brother, dropped from his horse, falling
face downward on the sand, overcome by a sunstroke. And for two hours,
while I tried in vain to save him, this weird drum filled my
ears with its monotonous, intermittent and incomprehensible tone, and I felt a hold
of my bones fear, real fear, hideous fear, in the presence of
this beloved corpse, in this hole, scorched by the sun, surrounded by
four mountains of sand, and two hundred leagues from any French settlement, while
echo assailed our ears with this furious drum beat. On that day I realized
what fear was. But since then I have had another and still more vivid
experience. The commandant interrupted the speaker. I beg your pardon, But what
was the drum? The traveler applied, I cannot say. No one knows.
Our officers are often surprised by this singular noise, and attribute it generally
to the echo produced by a hail of grains of sand blown by the winds
against the dry and brittle leaves of weeds. For it has always been noticed
that the phenomenon occurs in proximity to little plants burned by the sun and hardest
parchment. This sound seems to have been magnified, multiplied, and swelled beyond
measure in its progress through the valleys of sand, and the drum therefore might
be considered a sort of sound of mirage, nothing more. But I did
not know that until later. I shall proceed to my second instance. It
was last winter in a forest of the northeast of France. The sky was
so overcast that night came two hours earlier than usual. My guide was a
peasant who walked beside me along the narrow road under the vault of fir trees,
through which the wind and its fury howled between the tree tops. I
saw the fleeting clouds, which seemed to hasten as if to escape some object
of terror. Sometimes, in a fierce gust of wind, the whole forest
bowed in the same direction with a groan of pain, and a chill laid
hold of me to spite my rapid pace and heavy clothing. We were to
sup and sleep at an old gamekeeper's house not much farther on. I had
come out for hunting. My guide sometimes raised his eyes and murmured ugly weather.
Then he told me about the people among whom we were to spend the
night. The father had killed a poacher two years before, and since then
had been gloomy and behaved as though haunted by a memory. His two sons
were married and lived with him. The darkness was profound. I could see
nothing before me nor around me, and the mass of overhanging interlaced trees rubbed
together, filling the night with an incessant whispering. Finally I saw a light,
and soon my companion was knocking upon a door. Sharp woman's voices answered
us. Then a man's voice, a choking voice, asked, who goes
there? My guide gave his name. We entered and beheld a memorable picture.
An old man with white hair, wild eyes, and a loaded gun
in his hands, stood waiting for us in the middle of the kitchen,
while two stalwart youths armed with axes guarded the door. In the somber corners,
I distinguished two women kneeling with faces to the wall. Matters were explained,
and the old man stood his gun against the wall at the same time,
ordering at a room be prepared for me. Then, as the women
did not stir, looked you, Monsieur said he two years ago this night
I killed a man, and last year he came back to haunt me.
I expect him again to night. Then he added, in a tone that
made me smile. And so we are somewhat excited. I reassured him as
best I could. Happy to have arrived on that particular evening and to witness
this superstitious terror. I told stories and almost succeeded in calming the whole household.
Near the fireplace slept an old dog, mustached and almost blind, with
his head between his paws, such a dog as reminds you of people you
have known. Outside, the raging storm was beating against the little house,
and suddenly, through a s small pane of glass, a sort of peep
window, placed near the door. I saw, in a brilliant flash of
lightning a whole mass of trees thrashed by the wind. In spite of my
efforts, I realized that terror was laying hold of these people, and each
time that I ceased to speak, all ears listened for distant sounds annointed these
foolish fears. I was about to retire to my bed when the old gamekeeper
suddenly leaped from his chair, seized his gun, and stammered wildly, there
he is, there he is, I hear him. The two women again
sank upon their knees in the corner and hid their faces, while the suns
took up the axes. I was going to try to pacify them once more,
when the sleeping dog awakened suddenly, and raising his head and stretching his
neck, looked the fire with his dim eyes, and uttered one of those
mournful howls which made travelers shudder in the darkness and solitude of the country.
All eyes were focused upon him now as he rose upon his front feet,
as though haunted by a vision, and began to howl at something invisible,
unknown, and doubtless horrible, for he was bristling all over. The gamekeeper,
with livid face, cried, he scents him, he scents him.
He was there when I killed him. The two women, terrified, began
to wail in concert with a dog. In spite of myself, cold chills
ran down my spine. This vision of the animal at such a time and
place, in the midst of these startled people, was something frightful to witness.
Then for an hour the dog howled without stirring. He howled as though
in the anguish of a nightmare, and fear, horrible fear came over me.
Fear of what How can I say? It was fear, and that
is all I know. We remained motionless and pale, expecting something awful to
happen. Our ears were strained, and our hearts beat loudly, while the
slightest noise startled us. Then the beast began to walk around the room,
sniffing at the walls and growling constantly. His maneuvers were driving us mad.
Then the countryman who brought me thither, in a paroxysm of rage, seized
the dog and carrying him to a door which opened into a small court.
Thrust him forth. The noise was suppressed, and we were left plunged into
silence, still more terrible. Then suddenly we all started. Someone was gliding
along the outside wall toward the forest. Then he seemed to be feeling of
the door with a trembling hand. Then for two minutes nothing was heard,
and we almost lost our minds. Then he returned, still feeling along the
wall, and scratched lightly upon the door, as a child might do with
his fingernails. Suddenly a face appeared behind the glass of the peep window,
a white face with eyes shining like those of the cat tribe. Sound was
heard, an indistinct, plaintive murmur. Then there was a formidable burst of
noise in the kitchen. The old gamekeeper had fired, and the two suns
at once rushed forward and barricaded the window with a great table, reinforcing it
with the buffet. I swear to you that at the shock of the gun's
discharge, which I did not expect, such an anguish laid hold of my
heart, my soul, and my very body that I felt myself about to
fall, about to die from fear. We remained there until dawn, unable
to move in short, seized by an indescribable numbness of the brain. No
one dared to remove the barricade until a thin ray of sunlight appeared through a
crack in the back room. At the base of the wall and under the
window, we found the old dog lying dead, his skull shattered by a
ball. He had escaped from the little court by digging a hole under a
fence. The dark visaged man became silent, then he added, and yet
on that night I incurred no danger. But I should rather again pass through
all the hours in which I have confronted the most terrible perils than the one
minute when that gun was discharged at the bearded head in the window.