The Mystery of Devil's Forest
Adapted from THE HAUNTED FOREST by Anon. Amalgamated Press, 1926.
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Sacrifice at Dawn!
Nearly an hour's march. Then they came to a part of the forest where the trees thinned suddenly, revealing a grassy hill before them. A winding path led to the summit.
And on the summit, outlined black against the sky like jagged, hungry teeth, stood a circle of huge stones, roughly hewn.
A cold thrill ran down Tinker's spine as his eyes fell upon that grim circle. He knew well enough the story of that other circle of stones erected in the dim past by men, that we now call Stonehenge; knew that sacrificial rites were held within it.
What if this circle served the same purpose for these primitives?
Around the base of the hill there nestled a village of huts, constructed from tree branches and conical in form; reminiscent of indian teepees. The procession marched through this village, along the path and up the hill, around the stones and back down again. The detectives were then carried to one of the huts and unceremoniously pushed inside. They were left, bound, thirsty and uncomfortable, laying on the flattened earth floor.
Some minutes passed before either of them spoke. Then Sexton Blake quietly muttered, "Mission accomplished, though not the way I'd have liked, young 'un."
"Accomplished, guv'nor?" said Tinker, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"See if you can push yourself over here, lad. Look through the door from where I am."
Using the heels of his feet, Tinker heaved himself across the earth until he was laying at Blake's side. From this vantage he looked through the opening in the side of the hut and saw two of the short, thick-set tribesmen standing guard outside. Beyond them, more of the strange villagers were milling around, obviously excited by the arrival of the hunting party and its captives. Past them, there were more huts and, towering above those, the dark forest trees. It was an object in one of these that caught the youngster's eye. It appeared to be a platform of some sort, constructed from branches lashed together and affixed high off the ground amidst the top-most boughs of a tall tree. Though he could not see what was on it, the presence of a great many crows, cawing and fighting among themselves, made the muscles of his jaw tighten. He had travelled in many of the remotest regions of the world; had encountered primitive tribes and seen the ages-old customs of Indians and other non-civilised races — and he had seen before constructions exactly like this.
It was a funeral platform, upon which lay the mortal remains of a human being, left for the scavanger birds to dispose of.
"D-do you mean to say — " gulped Tinker.
"Yes," answered Blake. "It's my unhappy opinion that we're looking at the last resting place of Lord Bridgestock."
"But couldn't it be one of these weird man-creatures? Maybe one who died of old age or disease or in an accident?" Tinker suggested.
"Possibly," answered Sexton Blake. "But as we were carried through the village I noticed that one of the creatures wore a riding jacket which, undoubtedly, had belonged to Bridgestock. Another was wearing his hat. But there is something else — something which convinces me that the poor man's remains are up on that platform."
"What, guv'nor?"
"Look at the soil here, by the wall."
Tinker strained his neck and managed to turn his head in the direction Blake had indicated. There, scratched into the hard earth, was a message:
ESCAPED. SENT SMOKE SIGNAL. RECAPTURED. IF YOU SAW AND CAME FOR ME, I AM SORRY. MAY GOD SAVE YOU.
"And," added Blake, "the stone altar at the center of the circle up there; it was stained with blood. Fresh blood."
Tinker gasped. "Good Lord! You mean they sacrificed him?"
"I rather think that's what the chanting was this morning. You can see from the excitement of those birds that the body has been put up there very recently — probably within the last couple of hours. In which case the sacrifice coincided with the sunrise, so I think it's fair to make the supposition that we find ourselves among sun worshippers, whose god prefers human offerings."
There was a short silence as Tinker considered this shocking revelation. Then he said, in a low voice: "Thus seven o'clock."
"Exactly," answered Blake. "If this is anything like other sun-worshipping cultures, the sacrifices are only made while the sun is rising. By avoiding capture until the bottom edge of the orb was well above the horizon, we bought ourselves another day. Sunrise is early at this time of year, about five-thirty, so we had a wide margin ... but better safe than sorry."
"Phew, well that's something!" said Tinker. "But hold on a minute, guv'nor, how in blue blazes did you know we were going to encounter sun worshippers?"
"I didn't know, Tinker. However, in light of all those flint spearheads, I suspected that some sort of primitive tribe might exist in these woods, and if it did and it really was at such a low level of civilisation, then there was a high probability that it would be a tribe of sun-worshippers."
Tinker nodded. Then he frowned and said, "What I don't understand, though, is why — if that chanting was part of the sacrifice — they waited until this morning? Lord Bridgestock vanished four days ago. Why didn't they kill him straight away?"
"The various disappearances in this part of the world all have something in common, Tinker."
"They do?"
"Yes. They all occurred around this time of year."
"You mean in the summer?"
"I mean, young 'un, in the days leading up to the solstice!"
Tinker shifted his weight to one side, trying to bring some relief to his tightly bound arms.
"And today is the solstice!" he reasoned.
"Precisely!" answered Blake.
"Does that mean we're safe? After all, we've managed to miss the main event! The sun has risen!"
"True. But they can't let us go, since we'd reveal their presence, and they can't keep us prisoner until next summer — too impractical — so they probably intend to make of us a belated offering."
"So we have until the morning to escape!" exclaimed Tinker. "How are your bonds?"
"Fiendishly tight," answered Blake.
"Mine too. We're in it up to our necks this time, guv'nor!"
Blake gave a grim smile and, as he did so, Tinker was astonished to see a twinkle in his master's eye. To the youngster, this was a sure sign that the great detective had something up his sleeve — but what that something could be, the lad couldn't fathom!
* * *
They dozed fitfully and the day seemed interminable. Brief respite came halfway through the afternoon when a hideous female entered the hut and poured water down their throats from a carved wooden bowl before then pushing some poorly cooked meat into their mouths. They chewed and swallowed but it did little to abate their hunger.
They spoke little, knowing that it was important to conserve their energy.
And the day wore on, darkened, and drained into night.
* * *
Neither of them had slept and they both noted that the sky was growing lighter and the village was astir. It was, therefore, no surprise when the men-things came for them.
Blake and Tinker were dragged out of the hut and hoisted aloft. A procession carried them through the village and up the hill towards the stone circle that crowned it.
"Have courage, young 'un!" called Blake.
"Don't worry about me, sir!" cried Tinker. "I just hope they free my hands long enough for me to thump a few of the blighters on the nose!"
A large crowd of the primitives — the whole village, it seemed — had gathered around the stones. They began chanting: "Thoo loo faa tang, thoo loo faa tang ... ".
Through them and into the circle the procession passed, under a high stone arch made from three blocks of granite, one laid across the great posts formed by the others. The prisoners were borne in and placed side by side upon a great block of granite in the center; the altar stone. Their bonds were cut and their limbs held down; each man at full stretch with two of the primitives grasping each limb.
A gnarled figure, wearing Lord Bridgestock's riding jacket and grotesquely ornamented with flowers and chains of leaves, advanced through a little group of men who seemed to be priests. He held in his hand a long flint knife; smoothed and polished. He halted beside the sacrificial stone where the two prisoners lay helpless. He was staring out through one of the square arches towards the east.
Already a grey light was flooding up into the sky.
The night was almost over. Soon the first golden ray of the sun would come striking through the arch on to the sacrificial stone.
That, Tinker realised, would be the signal. He had read all about Stonehenge, and the ancient, horrible rites once practised there. When the sun's first ray touched the stone in the center of the great circle, it would be the signal for the human sacrifice.
The watching throng sang its slow, rhythmic dirge: "Thoo loo faa tang ... Thoo loo faa tang ... Thoo loo faa tang ... "
It was all so fantastic, so unreal, that Tinker, half delirious with thirst and discomfort, could barely grasp that this was actually happening, that when the sun rose the end would come.
All around the grassy hill the trees began swaying softly as a dawn breeze arose — the British trees he had always known, oak and ash and beech! Was it possible that among those British trees he could meet death at the hands of men who were unchanged since the dawn of time?
"Stonehenge was years and years ago — hundreds and thousands of years ago!" he told himself, almost wonderingly. "It can't all be happening today as it used to happen then!"
But as he breathed the words he remembered what Sexton Blake had said:
"The more one learns of this rum old world, the more one realises that there is a mighty lot in it that one never even dreams of!"
He heard Blake's voice again now: "Keep your chin up, young 'un! We're not dead yet!"
Tinker twisted his head round until he could see the prone, bound figure of his master. He smiled faintly. "This is too much, guv'nor," he muttered. “Give me the likes of Zenith the Albino any day of the week! But this!”
"It does seem too weird to be true!" muttered Blake. "A modern Stonehenge, hidden away for centuries in these lonely wilds! Amazing — but apparently true enough."
"There's one thing, guv'nor — we've at least got the satisfaction of knowing we did our job! We tracked Lord Bridgestock down all right, didn't we? The poor fellow. I wish we could have saved him!"
Sexton Blake pursed his lips and there was something in his expression that Tinker recognised; a look his master often got after a criminal had been hoisted by his own petard.
A rosy light was flushing the clouds above them. Dew sparkled on the grass. The wind could be heard whispering in the trees of Morfran Forest, and Tinker could see the tree-tops stretching away like the waves of the sea for mile on mile, as far as the eye could reach. These men who had them in their power lived in solitude utter and complete.
No wonder they had lived their lives, shunning the rest of mankind, without more than an occasional glimpse being caught of them, when they ventured to the farthest fringes of their forest domain!
And those glimpses had always been put down as being the superstitious imaginings of credulous villagers!
The outside world had scoffed, in its superior way — even Tinker himself had been inclined to scoff, he remembered now, and a bitter smile curled his lips for a moment.
The swarm of little misshapen figures, each one staring towards the east, seemed to have entered an almost trance-like state. Lit by the coming dawn, they were immensely strange to look upon. And gazing at them, it was still that numbed sense of bewildered curiosity that took the place of fear in Tinker's heart.
The group of priests, with their garlands of flowers and leaves, were silent. While beside the great sacrificial stone, the high-priest with the knife was glaring with a fanatical light in his eyes at the brightening glory of the dawn.
And then, above the far horizon, the rim of the sun came rising like a thread of burnished gold.
The chanting suddenly ceased and a sigh seemed to whisper through the watching throng. Then every man flung himself face down, prostrate. Only the priests remained standing.
The hand of the high-priest rose, clutching the slim knife of polished flint. He stepped forward until it hovered over the prone form of Tinker — then flashed down!
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