The Mystery of Devil's Forest
Adapted from THE HAUNTED FOREST by Anon. Amalgamated Press, 1926.
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The Darkening Sun!
Instantly a loud, weird cry broke from Blake. It was a horrible, uncanny sound that he had uttered, and instinctively the high-priest started back, still holding his knife, its suddenly deflected descent causing the sharp tip to merely scrape across Tinker's chest rather than plunging deeply into it. The youngster gave a gasp.
Blake had got one hand free, and now he flung it out, pointing at the rising sun. Strange sounds were coming from the detective's lips — a crooning, wailing chant: "Faah tang! Faah tang! Faah tang!"
Tinker watched the detective with startled eyes.
"Guv'nor!"
Blake took no notice, but went on with his strange, wild chant. He was gesticulating now, twisting his fingers, writhing his arm, eyes fixed, wide and staring, at the sun's disc.
The group of priests had hurried towards the center stone, and stared in consternation at their strange prisoner. The high-priest raised his knife again, uncertain, then let it fall. He shot a questioning glance at his companions.
And from one of them broke a shrill scream of fear as he pointed at the sun.
The flaming disc was half in sight now. And at one corner of it, a black segment was slowly encroaching.
Blake continued his chant, more wild and weirder than ever. He had forced himself up into a sitting posture, and still his eyes glared at the sun's disc. He was waving his free arm like a madman. Slowly the black segment grew, sliding deeper and deeper with ever passing minute across the flaming gold.
A wail of terror rose from the priests as a strange gloom swept across Morfran. The knife dropped from the nerveless fingers of the man beside the great stone.
And from Tinker there broke a bubbling laugh.
An eclipse of the sun! — and Sexton Blake had known all along that it was coming! Now it all made sense! Why the detective had consulted the ephemeris! Why he had delayed their capture yesterday morning!
Now, in the eyes of their captors, it seemed as though Blake had cast a magic spell over the rising sun, and panic seized them.
The detective's chant went on in the stillness, unceasing. He glanced around, saw the prostrate figures of the priests and for a moment his eyes met Tinker's.
Solemnly, he winked at his assistant. For the first time he paused in his crooning, to mutter: "Mighty magic, eh, young 'un? It's not a total eclipse, but it's enough to scare the beggars!"
The grovelling priests were still pressing their faces into the turf. But a loud, imperious cry from Blake caused them to glance up fearfully.
He made a motion of command. His meaning was plain enough.
Teeth chattering with terror, the high priest staggered to his feet. He was trembling in every limb. He cried out something and his fellow priests crawled backwards away from Blake and his assistant.
Blake swung himself off the stone and touched Tinker on the arm.
"Come on! We'll exit stage left while the going is good! I don't fancy we shall be molested. They think I'm the most powerful magician on earth, I'll bet!"
They crossed slowly from the centre of the stone circle, and passed out under one of the rough arches. No one attempted to stop them. The little cowering figures all lay with their faces pressed into the damp grass, moaning and wailing.
Down the hillside towards the shelter of the trees the detectives went.
"Mustn't hurry; it would look bad!" chuckled Sexton Blake.
They passed into the shadows of the leaft canopy. Tinker glanced back.
Looming blackly against the eldritch twilight, the great jagged teeth of the sacrificial circle rose grimly to the sky. He saw the squat figures of the men at the base of the stones; the 'devils' of Morfran Forest.
"Stone Age men!" he muttered below his breath.
But as it later turned out, he was wrong.
* * *
A day and a night passed. Then, shortly after dawn on the day following, a man and a youth came riding out of the fringe of Morfran Forest.
Sexton Blake and Tinker!
Blake and the youngster had lost their packs when they were captured by the forest-dwellers, and now their faces were drawn and hungry-looking, their clothes ragged, their limbs and faces scratched. Across Tinker's forehead a huge bruise was yellowing.
But they had come back. They had found their horses where they had been left tethered — for some reason their captors hadn't touched the animals.
They had come back. Back out of the secret heart of Morfran.
At first, no one would believe their incredible story. But when Blake stuck to it, even after he and Tinker had returned to the civilised normalcy of London, and it was seen that it was not some elaborate 'leg-pull' on his part, the entire country was soon afire with it. When the story was subsequently proven, when Morfran Forest was scoured from end to end and the strange dwellers were driven out into the open, then too came other truths; hitherto hidden facts now exposed by the tireless investigator of Baker Street.
Sexton Blake discovered that Lord Bridgestock had, as a young man, stumbled upon a vein of gold in a rocky outcrop deep within Morfran. Believing that there were large quantities of the precious metal in the forest, and being unable to purchase the land from the Government, since it was the property of the nation, he had adopted an amazing plan.
The young peer had imported secretly a band of primitive savages from Karadjhem Island, north of Lapland. With these wretched slaves and the help of a few unscrupulous white men, he had attempted to mine the gold he had discovered — only to find that the streak soon exhausted and was worthless.
He had given up the project but, heartlessly, had not returned the savages to their homes.
They had lived on in the secret depths of the Welsh hills, in terror of the white men they had learnt to hate, hiding from the eyes of the outside world, living their own, primitive life in utter solitude.
The indignation aroused when the truth came out was so intense that the public donated money to finance the return of the savages to their Northern home. Missionaries went with them to 'discourage' their sacrificial rites and to educate them in the worship of not the sun, but the Son. However, this was not an entirely successful undertaking; two of the zealous missionaries were never seen again!
Some weeks after their narrow escape in Wales, Tinker and Blake, together with Pedro, the great bloodhound, made a point of visiting Stonehenge.
As he stood by the sacrificial stone in the center, Tinker drew a deep breath.
"They used that thousands of years ago, guv'nor! Amazing isn't it? Thousands of years — think of it! That's a long time — but I know jolly well just how those chaps felt who were trussed up and laid on here to wait for the sun to rise!"
Blake grunted.
"When I first visited this place, years ago," he murmured, "I never thought that one day I should find myself prone on an altar stone just like this one!"
"We certainly have a knack for getting into bizarre situations!" exclaimed Tinker. "But as you told me in the train that day, guv'nor, there's a mighty lot in this world that one never even dreams of!"
He paused.
"On the other hand, there are some very important things that I, for one, certainly do dream about!"
"Oh?" said Sexton Blake, raising an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Like Mrs Bardell's scrambled eggs!" laughed Tinker. "Let's get back to Baker Street!"
The End
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