Three Thieves

In the overgrown stillness of the jungle night
Lit by the light of the Moon,

Three crooked faces wait for a fourth
They hope that he will be there soon.

Sinister schemes and unhatched plans
Patience meets its limit,

And the night time waits for no-one
As it ticks through it’s midnight minutes…

Sam turns to Jimmy,
Jimmy turns to Bill,
“C’mon then boys,
There’s no time left to kill.
Down there is the village
With all the silver and gold
And if the fourth man can’t make it
Then that’s the way it has to go.
Besides he knows to meet us
Where the meeting point’s to be,
Underneath the branches
Of the Banyan tree
And I’ll tell you this for nothing
I ain’t wasting no more time,
I’m gonna rob all of those villagers,
And make their gold mine!”.
The three crooked faces grinned
And slipped away unseen,
Into the overgrown night-time
Of jungle blue and green.

Down in the village
Three shadows creep,
Into all the houses
Where the villagers sleep.
With empty sacks under their arms
The Thieves would enter in,
And come out minutes later
With their sacks filled to the brim.
They cast sinister shadows
Treading softly on the ground,
The silver moon upon them
They never make a sound.
And when all the sacks are full
And all their pockets bulge,
They head back to the jungle
To tally what they stole.
Underneath the quiet
Of the moon’s astonished face,
The Thieves desert the village;
They never leave a trace…

Billy turns to Sam,
Sam turns to Jimmy,
“Let’s head for the seclusion
Of the Banyan tree.
By the time we get there
The fourth man should be waiting,
We’ll stash the loot inside the tree
And make off in the morning”.
But clambering through the jungle,
As they were soon to find,
takes an awful lot of effort,
Cutting through the vines.
Jimmy’s legs were getting tired
Sam’s brow dripped with sweat,
And Billy saw a sight
That he never will forget –
For as they stepped into the clearing
They all looked up to see,
Nature’s greatest magificence;
The gnarled old Banyan tree.
With no time left to waste
They stashed away the loot,
Between the trunks and branches
And the Banyan’s winding roots.

Jimmy turns to Billy,
Billy turns to Sam,
“Wonder what happened
To that missing fourth man?
Well if he can’t be bothered to make it
He sees nothing of the gold,
We’ll cut him out completely
We’ll show him how it goes
Besides…”, a mighty ‘CRACK!’
Reduced this chat to silence,
A cracking, snapping, ripping, tearing
Loud with angry violence!
A noise so chill That Sam felt ill,
And young Jimmy turned grey and old,
And Billy sat still, he couldn’t move
Till all his blood ran cold.
The Banyan roots around them,
Began to writhe and scream!
Then a thunderous voice began to speak
From deep within the tree;

“WHO DARES TO HIDE THEIR STOLEN LOOT
DEEP INSIDE OF ME?!
WHO DARES TO POISON THE VERY ROOTS
OF THE BANYAN TREE?!
YOUR SIGHTLESS ACT WILL OFFER YOU
AS THE PUNISHMENT IN THIS CRIME.
SO NOW YOU’LL JOIN ME PERMANENTLY
A TESTAMENT FOR ALL TIME!”

Billy felt the writhing roots
Absorb his hands then arms,
His blood began to turn to sap
His skin turned into bark.
Sam gave out a screaming shriek
Until his throat ran dry,
His twig-like fingers grew then froze
Reaching for the sky.
Jimmy’s limbs grew solid and thick
Rooting him to the ground,
His arms stretched up
Contorted and thin
And with the tree they blended in
The Banyan’s curse complete with him…

The jungle returned
To the calm of night,
The chirruping cicadas,
The quiet moonlight.

But the fourth man
Had almost made it,
But when he heard
The screams of pain,
He almost ran into the night
Never to be seen again.
But the curiosity of fate,
Made him head back to the scene,
And what he saw before him
Was a Hellish tortured dream.
For what seemed to appear
Within the roots
And underneath the leaves,
Were three contorted screaming faces…
The faces of Three Thieves.