Speaker 1: Unsolved mysteries. Out of deference to people who may still
Speaker 1: be living. Character names in some of these true unsolved
Speaker 1: mysteries have been changed. I could a tale unfold whose
Speaker 1: lightest word would hallow up thy soul, praise thy young blood,
Speaker 1: make thy two eyes, like stars start from their spheres,
Speaker 1: thine noted incombined locks to part, and each particular hair
Speaker 1: stand on. In So spoke the ghost of Hamlet's father.
Speaker 1: But the words might well have been applied to the
Speaker 1: horror of Benadebone, a group of up. The scene is
Speaker 1: the heart of darkest Africa, a tiny, nameless village not
Speaker 1: far from Benadevene. The village but a small clearing fighting
Speaker 1: off the ever engulfing jungle. The jungle dark, mysterious, full
Speaker 1: of fearful sounds, and fuller yet of fearsome shadows. Overhead,
Speaker 1: the sky is lost beyond the locked and twisted branches
Speaker 1: of pal trees, and below the black of knight is
Speaker 1: pierced by the kil call of the lion, the sharpestical
Speaker 1: laugh of the hyena, shuddering whimpering of a group of
Speaker 1: natives shivering about the campfire. Three white men, their rifles
Speaker 1: across their knees, stare out into the surrounding blackness. If
Speaker 1: you want to know what I think, I think you
Speaker 1: fellows are back given out here too long. You've let
Speaker 1: a lot of native gossip get on your hide. Now
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Jack, I haven't seen this thing.
Speaker 2: Natives who have seen it say it's a black leopard.
Speaker 2: I've only seen its tracks. I'm very enormous because than
Speaker 2: any lions spore I've ever seen. I set a trap
Speaker 2: for the brute last night, it didn't go off, and
Speaker 2: this morning I went to take a look at it.
Speaker 1: It had been set off by hand. One of the
Speaker 1: natives probably set it off.
Speaker 2: Do you think any one of the natives would come
Speaker 2: out here after dark with almost a dozen of their
Speaker 2: brothers lying back their mangles so that you can't tell
Speaker 2: they were of our human beings. Not on your life.
Speaker 1: Irrespective of what it is, we've got to kill it
Speaker 1: for the natives will pack up and leave the village.
Speaker 1: You can't convince them that it is known to cop
Speaker 1: of the witch Doctor. But it's so silly, the idea
Speaker 1: that just because they expelled the witch doctor, that he
Speaker 1: should turn himself into a black leopard and come back
Speaker 1: to kill them one by I it's silly.
Speaker 2: Maybe it is silly, but look at it from their standpoint.
Speaker 2: Old Na Kappa, who's seventy if he's a day, wants
Speaker 2: to marry the village bell asks a spell on her.
Speaker 1: In a week, she's dead. Jack will say that's coincidence.
Speaker 2: Yes, because he hasn't been out here as long as
Speaker 2: we have. In any case, the villagers drive Old Na
Speaker 2: Kappa out of the village. He curses them and the
Speaker 2: village and tells them that he'll return in the form
Speaker 2: of a wild beast and kill them one by one.
Speaker 1: And the next night one of them is mauled by
Speaker 1: a black panther, And the night after that, and after that,
Speaker 1: and after that kill ten of them have been killed.
Speaker 1: Laugh that off. Will you coincidence?
Speaker 2: Listen? I'm willing to accept one or two as coincidence,
Speaker 2: but ten, that's different.
Speaker 1: Why not ten? If the root's got a taste for
Speaker 1: human flesh, why not the whole village? If he's a
Speaker 1: man eating panther, there's a subtle distinction between a panther
Speaker 1: and a leopard. Leopards are not man eater.
Speaker 2: And why only the men, since even the wild animal
Speaker 2: those up the women are easier to get.
Speaker 1: You're jittery, that's all. What you're not jittery?
Speaker 2: Well, that's probably a wild pirate.
Speaker 1: That's a pirate rot. Then you name it. Go on,
Speaker 1: you've heard it twice. Name it. I can't. I never
Speaker 1: heard anything like that. He come, not no copper? You
Speaker 1: hear him a copper? Give which doctor? Call of death?
Speaker 1: For that? That scream we heard with the witch doctor?
Speaker 1: Heard what? Then she said, come on, come on time,
Speaker 1: we're getting wait from fire. Yes, let hell boy, who
Speaker 1: are played?
Speaker 2: Follow me?
Speaker 1: Quiet by fire, No move, no speak, only lie quiet,
Speaker 1: sign may tell you no more. All right, follow follow me.
Speaker 1: We'll get onto the trail. Forcing their way through the
Speaker 1: dense underbrush, the three white men, followed closely by their
Speaker 1: gun bearers, work their way to the animal trail. The
Speaker 1: jungle has become strangely still at the horrifying shrieks of
Speaker 1: the witch doctor, almost as though brute beasts. Though they were,
Speaker 1: they voiced silent disapproval of anything so brutish. The party
Speaker 1: pushes on their general direction toward Bennetteberne, suddenly holding up
Speaker 1: his hand for silence. Frank stops then points to a
Speaker 1: yawning black hole in the already black jungle, A pair
Speaker 1: of gleaming eyes, a streak of glistening white below the
Speaker 1: foam flecked jaws of a maddened animal. He half a lame.
Speaker 1: You bill after me, and you jack take the brute
Speaker 1: if he lives to right right? Okay again, it's gone,
Speaker 1: and I know I did. I Come on, let's horry.
Speaker 1: Look here the tracks coming here quick? What is it?
Speaker 1: We did hit it? Look somebody's shot took effect? Why
Speaker 1: that shot part of its jo away? Why come on?
Speaker 1: It's up the village even the big snow there's something
Speaker 1: not quite right. Beats me how the brute came at all?
Speaker 1: And must before the hat dead. If it gets into
Speaker 1: the compound, we'll have no difficulty finding, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: be apt to comebound in a moment, asked nitche Here
Speaker 1: here is time again? My gosh, he's right. Look head
Speaker 1: of this way? What tune does the half dead animal
Speaker 1: want to come this way? For? It has to cross
Speaker 1: the whole link of the compound before it can reach
Speaker 1: jungle again.
Speaker 2: Make it easy enough, fellows. We're at the end of
Speaker 2: the trail.
Speaker 1: Bleeding pretty badly. Now the spoor is soaking. All right,
Speaker 1: I'll go first, and no fool hardiness, no hasty shooting. Right. Look,
Speaker 1: the trail leads right to your bungalow. I know it.
Speaker 1: Stand back, I'm going first. He went into the living room.
Speaker 1: Look out, when you go to the opening, this is
Speaker 1: the Jack stops dead. His eyes start from his head.
Speaker 1: The bloody paw marks crossed the barewood floor and end
Speaker 1: before a huge oake chest. He points in stunner. It
Speaker 1: isn't here, Yes, it is, got your forty five, breddy bill, Yes,
Speaker 1: fasht tile on the left side of the chest. You
Speaker 1: Jack in front, on tiptoe, and in silence. The three
Speaker 1: men take their places, and these boys crouch in the
Speaker 1: open doorway, taking his forty five in his left hand.
Speaker 1: Frank slowly opens the heavy lid of the chest. A
Speaker 1: gasp of horror escapes them incredulously. Jack leans farther forward
Speaker 1: and stares into the chest, sprawled like some nightmarish monster,
Speaker 1: half his jaw shot away, lies in the copper. The
Speaker 1: witch doctor, the horror of Benadeble Dead. Just a moment,
Speaker 1: we'll hear a solution to the mystery of the horror
Speaker 1: of Benadeable Ladies and gentlemen. Inasmuch as any solution must
Speaker 1: have necessity be supposition. Liberties of time, place, and character
Speaker 1: have been taken with the solution for which you have
Speaker 1: in waiting. The scene is Frank Hilton's bungalow. One hour later,
Speaker 1: the natives have disposed of the horror, and the three
Speaker 1: white men are seated at the table while Nietzsche the
Speaker 1: native boy, served them something to steady their nerves. Well, Jack,
Speaker 1: what have you to say now? Nothing. I want to
Speaker 1: forget it, and you'll want not as long as you'll
Speaker 1: live what it's impossible. I expect to wake up any
Speaker 1: minute and find it's all a nightmare. Yes, and every
Speaker 1: time you think of it, you'll do the same thing.
Speaker 1: In spite of the fact that I was here, I
Speaker 1: still don't below it's true, all.
Speaker 2: Right, This isn't my first experience with one of the things. No,
Speaker 2: we'll not bills either. You'll get used to it if
Speaker 2: you'll live here long enough.
Speaker 1: Not me. I'll take my chances elsewhere. What would you
Speaker 1: call it? Never mind what I call it. Science calls
Speaker 1: it my tanpape hience? Does science recognize what we just saw? Yes?
Speaker 2: My canterpee is first in folklore. The liability of a
Speaker 2: person to turn into an animal. And secondly in topology,
Speaker 2: the belief of a person that he or she is
Speaker 2: some sort of an animal.
Speaker 1: Sort of insanity.
Speaker 2: Yes, the idea is this that the person who, through
Speaker 2: mental maladjustment begins to think like an animal, will, when
Speaker 2: removed from the company of human beings, actually turn into
Speaker 2: an animal. What is impossible, humanly impossible, biologically impossible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how you look at this?
Speaker 1: I've had the Encyclopedia Britannica, Yes, I had it copied.
Speaker 1: As a pathological state, it is characterized by the patients
Speaker 1: believe that he has been metamorphosed into an animal, and
Speaker 1: is often accompanied by craving for strange articles of food,
Speaker 1: including the flesh of human beings or corpses. But when
Speaker 1: he leaves the neighborhood of a man, real metamorphosis may
Speaker 1: be asserted by some sort of ideas. Isn't it ghastly?
Speaker 2: My common name is werewolves, but wolves are by no
Speaker 2: means the only animal, The Britannica states further, in Java,
Speaker 2: we meet with a word tiger. In South America, the
Speaker 2: word jaguar in Abyssinia generally a woman and in the
Speaker 2: form of hyena or leopard.
Speaker 1: And this is the world in which we live.
Speaker 2: Yes, Shakespeare expressed it admirably when he wrote, there are
Speaker 2: more things in heaven wander for ratio than are dreamed
Speaker 2: of in our philosophy. I.
Speaker 1: SA