As they came around a sharp bend in the river, Merewether Gladstone knew his days exploring Africa were over. One moment, the water beneath the dugout canoe was a vivid bright blue, and then next it was a churning, intense white. The cataract had seemingly appeared from nowhere - there wasn't even a roar to give them warning.

As they went over edge, he only wished that he had been able to save his travelling companion, Miss Chastity Edmunds, from such a terrible fate.

The first moments of the fall were exhilarating. Miss Edmunds screamed, not with terror, but with elation as the canoe shot out of the water and they felt they were almost floating in the foaming air around them. In that suspended moment he looked up and saw a rainbow forming a perfect circle about the sun. Then they began to fall. Miss Edmunds tumbled out of the bow, and the last thing Merewether saw of her was the deep, passionate pink of her bonnet as she plunged into the abyss. He was struck in the head by something . . . a paddle? He knew not, as he was insensible.

In a purgatory of darkness, Merewether had brief moments of consciousness in which he sensed the cool green of a deep forest. . . purple flowers opening to spread a delectable scent . . . the sound of playful laughter and screams of . . .

Was he dead? Was he in heaven or hell?

He opened his eyes and knew it was heaven. He lay in an open hammock under a verdant canopy and felt joy. His clothes had been taken from him, as had his service revolver. Surprisingly, neither worried him overmuch. Whomever had taken the gun had also saved him from the river. Doubtless they were natives of this region; perhaps if he could recruit some there was still a chance that he could complete his map for the Royal Geographical Society. Ever since he was a child, Merewether's feet had been made for wandering, for exploring. And his ambition was to be the first to map the mysterious interior of this virgin continent. Had fortune given his dream a reprieve?

Another hope lingered in his breast. Could Chastity have survived as well?

Instead of trousers, he was wrapped in some kind of light cloth that made a makeshift kilt. He got up and took in his surroundings. He was in what looked like a sal forest; of course the trees were different from those in India. They had the same dispersed pattern, but seemed much more leafy, and the undergrowth was more lush.

There was nobody else there. He could hear the thunder of the waterfall nearby, but otherwise the forest was quiet. It seemed otherworldly, and not for the first time since leaving England, Merewether was glad the Society had funded his research. Objectively, the expedition had been a disaster - all of his guides and porters were dead and he'd lost all his surveying instruments - but the wonders he had seen!

If not for this adventure, he would never have met Miss Edmunds. The young woman was a delight, though she had no right being in Africa. Her father had been a missionary; he was dead, but Merewether and his expedition had managed to rescue the daughter before she too perished.

A scream pierced the background roar of the falls. It was Miss Edmunds! He ran towards the sound.

As he came into a clearing, he realized he had been wrong: This was not heaven. Before him was a massive stone pillar to which a naked Chastity was tied. Underneath the pillar a throng of natives milled, but they looked unlike any aboriginals Merewether had ever seen.

They were about four feet in height, and were clearly bipedal, but apart from those facts, they bore no similarity to human beings. Their skin was dark, but not the luminescent black nor the dusty chocolate he had seen with other Africans. No, their skin seemed almost grey. They had no noses that Merewether could discern, nor ears, nor hair; their cat-like eyes were huge and reflective yellow. The strange natives were an astonishing discovery!

But there seemed little chance he would survive to tell of it. The throng of creatures was busy tearing one of their number limb from limb. It howled piteously from its slash-like mouth, but did not try to defend itself. Now, Chastity was laughing with an edge of cruelty that surprised Merewether. The howls stopped; the creatures had opened up the pathetic thing's chest. Instead of red, the blood was a visceral purple. Several tiny squalling replicas of the creature were withdrawn from the cavity. He felt ill.

"Merewether!" Chastity shouted as she noticed him. "What do you think of my newest children?"

"What?" he said, appalled.

"The newborns. They are mine. This is the sixth litter since we got here!"

"That can't be."

"Nevertheless."

He would have liked to think that he fainted because of his head injury.

When he awoke, he was back in his hammock, and for a moment, Merewether fervently hoped that he had been having a nightmare. Then he saw the grey-skinned creature watching him. It shrieked a warning, and several other creatures appeared.

One of them stepped forward, and to Merewether's astonishment, it said in broken English: "you are as yellow-hair?"

"If you mean, am I English," the explorer replied, "then yes."

The creature cocked its head to the side, as if curious. "What English?"

"Our homeland. . . the place from whence we came."

"Come from? Ah. We come from," he then made a noise that sounded to Merewether like a Norwegian name "Frigheim" and pointed to the sky.

"From the trees?" Merewether asked, confused.

"No. Sky. You both English. You have power of our," he used another word for which Merewether had no translation at all, Norse or otherwise.

"I do not know what you mean."

"Our craft. Dies."

"I insist that you take me to see Miss Edmunds."

"We see. First our -" the creature used another one of its own words, which Merewether thought sounded like "scotar" - "our scotar touch you." It motioned to another creature, which was restrained by others.

With no noses, mouths that were hardly more than slashes, and glittering eyes, it seemed astonishing to Merewether that he could tell the creature was terrified. But it was. They held its arms, and forced its hands down to touch Merewether's toes. It squealed in protest, yet they did not stop. The creature's hands were leathery, with four long digits and no opposable thumb. As the fingertips touched his left foot, Merewether felt a jolt up his spine - was it pain or pleasure?

"I say, what is this all about?" the Englishman shouted.

"We see you have yellow-hair power. You help us," the alien searched for the English word, but could not find it. "You help us notarg!"

Merewether was pretty sure he didn't like the sound of notarging.

"Does notarg have anything to do with the one you killed?"

The alien either did not understand the question, or did not want to answer. Then the "scotar" said something, and the others nodded knowingly.

"You no good for notarg," the alien said.

Merewether felt deucedly odd. "I feel deucedly odd," he said, and then a most excruciating pain wracked his body. A dozen leathery hands grabbed him and dragged him to the clearing. His head swam with pain and what must be a high fever. All was a whirl of colours - the green of the forest, the yellow alien eyes, flashes of azure sky he could see through the canopy of trees. He was laid down underneath the spectacularly naked Chastity.

"You are most delightful, Miss Edmunds. Most. . . delicious. . . "

"What have you done to him?" Chastity cried to the others.

"We see if he notarg."

"No!"

"He not. Scotar said no. Can't," the alien searched for a word again, and Chastity supplied it.

"Conceive. You beastly thing."

"Con-seev!" the alien shouted with pleasure. "Con-seev!"

Merewether managed to get out one last question, before a tremendous throbbing began in his left foot. "Miss Edmunds, what is going on?"

"There is something about my chemistry that allows the beastly creatures to reproduce. From what I have been able to piece together, they were stranded here when their craft ceased operating. They reproduce asexually, but they require an outside activating chemical that apparently only I can provide."

Merewether did not follow all of it, as his left foot - the one the "scotar" had touched - split open. The flat of it just ripped down the middle. It was agony, and from the bloody foot slid a perfect, tiny replica of the creature who had touched him.

The beasts saw and shouted with excitement.

"Oh no," Chastity said.

The pain was subsiding somewhat, though his sense of horror was not. "What? What is it Miss Edmunds?"

"You can bear their young. Only one, but you do not have to die to do so."

"Oh, that's rather awful. But what does it mean?" As Merewether said this, the creatures gathered around Chastity.

"They will not need me any more. . ."

Chastity had just finished her sentence as the creatures attacked her. She died bravely, a look of scorn on her face. The creatures dismembered her and . . . Merewether could not watch any more. Though his foot was a bloody mess, he ran for the river.

They gave chase, some of them still clutching pieces of the divine Chastity Edmunds.

"I did not save her!" Merewether said with anguish. "I'll remember you in my report to the Royal Geographical Society," he promised, as if this would make up for her death and consumption by asexual aliens.

But he stumbled and fell. The creatures caught him, gathered around him, and Merewether screamed in dismay as several touched his feet at once.

There would be no triumphant return to London. No report to the Society. His wandering feet were no longer made for walking.

The End

Biographical Note:
"The Feet Feelers of Frigheim Nine" is one of Emily Chesley's original and (until now) unpublished short works. Interestingly, she wrote the piece in Paris, 1905, while staying with the noted fauvist Henri Matisse. Though unpublished as a short story, the work was adapted into one of six "exotic and speculative" novels she published in the early 1920s.

Emily Chesley (1856-1948)

Emily Chesley was a Victorian speculative fiction writer who lived for some time in the region of London, Ontario in Canada, who, though largely unnoticed in her own time, wrote prescient (and sometimes provocative) fiction that challenged the imaginations of 19th century readers. You can learn more about Emily Chesley in The Meanderings of the Emily Chesley Reading Circle, available at: http://emilychesley.com