We showed him the silencers set on the rifles and tried to explain them, but he shook his head; his physics wasn"t up to such juggling with sound.
The shadows were over everything when we stopped beside a brook to rest and make a meal. Carlos found wood that burned with little smoke, and we soon had a bird apiece, broiling. Out of a bag Carlos poured farine.
With water he made a paste. Then came macadam--codfish stewed with rice.
We topped off with bananas, and water from the stream.
The scene was like to have been the last to my eyes on this earth. A high peak towered some seven miles to the east. We could see the blue sea below, many miles to the north, with the golden-yellow horizon.
Great tracts of forest were everywhere between, with bits of glades, and palm groves.
While we looked, the coast line darkened, the valleys blackened; the gloom crept up the slopes; swiftly it enveloped the three of us. Then for several minutes the mountain peaks glowed at the tops as if afire, and then they, too, went out, and it was night. The world was changed.
The trees seemed like personalities now, come awake like the owls, with the going out of the light. Tree-ferns below us seemed to whisper with their greater neighbors--mysterious gossip. Night birds piped their solemn dirge, insects tweeked; tree toads shrilled in compet.i.tion with the bellowing bull-frogs; owls hoa.r.s.ely laughed, and called their "what-what-what."
A strange oppression crept over me and I yearned for the deck of the _Pearl_.
Suddenly Carlos sat erect--listening. I c.o.c.ked my ear, but there was nothing but the usual night sounds. A minute pa.s.sed. Then, ever so faintly I discerned the peculiar low rumble. It was something I had heard before. It rose and fell in waves of sound; and wave upon wave it swelled in volume.
"It"s the voodoo drum!" I whispered Robert.
"That"s over a mile away," he observed, listening.
"Seex mile!--maybe seven mile!" corrected Carlos.
We collected our belongings and were off in the direction of the sound.
When we entered the forest, we no longer heard the sound. But after stumbling among the slimy roots, and b.u.mping our noses on the swinging lianas, for half an hour, we came again out in the open, and again we heard the drumming. Carlos ofttimes avoided the jungles by detours. At the end of an hour the rolling of the drum seemed only a few hundred yards away.
"T"ree more mile, I guess," said Carlos.
On and on we stumbled in the dark. The moon was not due till near morning, and so distinct was the drumming that we did not seem any longer to be approaching the place, but were already arrived.
Then at last the sound seemed more distant.
"Now we ver" close," said Carlos.
Something or other was contradictory.
A quarter of a mile or so through the dense forest, and a bright light showed in front.
Now cautiously we moved forward till we came to the edge of an open s.p.a.ce. The place appeared to have been partly cleared by hand, for many tree-stumps presented.
We climbed into the low branches of a great tree. The great fire blazed but a hundred yards from our perch. The drummer sat astride his instrument (a cylinder of wood) the fingers of both hands playing on the skin stretched over the one end. The dancers were very many. Here was a repet.i.tion of the things I saw in the company of Jules Sevier.
To the right of the fire there was the raised platform, on which stood the snake-box. Back of all was some form of shelter, out from which in time came a figure cloaked in red, and wearing a red kerchief wound about the head. This was the _papaloi_ (voodoo king). This appearance was the signal for a hush, and a halting of the dance. All grouped round. There were the usual requests for favors and the listening at the box for the answers.
Then came the slaughter of the fowls; and the mixing of the rum.
I had begun to breath more freely on my perch. But then Robert touched me on the arm.
"What"s that thing on the ground?" he whispered.
I strained my eyes. The figures of the blacks obscured the view. But at last--what I saw froze my blood.
"We must save it," I said. "It"s little Marie Cambon."
As I look back on the experience of the hours following, it is as if I were recalling a horrid dream.
"Robert," I whispered, "the rifles!"
We slipped to the ground, seized our little guns, and got back to our places.
The red-robed _papaloi_ was fumbling with a rope that hung from a liana.
An attendant was kneeling on the ground holding a cup to the lips of the child.
In another moment the child was swinging in the air by the rope, its head just clearing the ground. I heard it whimper in fright. The _papaloi_ took up a knife.
"Give it to him in the hand," I said in Robert"s ear.
We leveled our guns together. There was no sound of the explosions. The _papaloi_ dropped the knife, seized his right hand with his left, and he bent over in pain. I had given my shot to the rope. After my second squeeze of the trigger it hung by a strand; a third lead missile, and the child went gently to the ground.
The voodoo worshipers began to scatter in panic of this strange visitation.
We in the tree slipped to the ground. I thrust my rifle into the hands of Carlos and, intent on making the most of the panic, rushed forward.
The _papaloi_ saw me coming, and called on the nearest of his followers.
But I had up the child before any could interfere, and I sprinted back and thrust it into the arms of Robert.
"Run! both of you!" I cried. And I sought to delay pursuit, hurling piece after piece of dead-wood at the nearest blacks, who were already at the chase, urged on by the wounded _papaloi_.
I meant to run for it, and elude the voodoos in the thick forest, so soon as the laden Robert and Carlos should have a good start. My missiles danced about the shins of the foremost blacks, and they held up.
I was backing toward the edge of the jungle, and in the way of readily making my escape; but some wily black with a club must have taken a thought worth two of that, and got on the wrong side of me. I was just in the thought it was about time to make my break, when I got a crack on the back of my head that put me to sleep.
CHAPTER VII
A DISTRESS CALL GOES TO THE PEARL
I do not know how long I was unconscious, but when I opened my eyes I could see the bright stars, and I made out two black heads of negroes, who bore me in some kind of a litter to which I was bound, wrists and ankles.
I could hear the voices of others ahead, so I knew that there were more in the party. My head felt big, and a dizziness, and a sore spot, reminded me of the whack I"d got. We soon came to a stand, and there sounded a call. A turn of my litter gave me a view of a structure towering near by. Something in the contour was familiar. It was the great palace we were now come to.
I have to make mention of a matter of importance. It was not little Marie Cambon we had saved from the voodoos. This I saw when I grabbed the little one from the ground. It was a young mulatto. So little Marie, then, must still be immured in this old ruin. Perhaps, after all, I should find a way to save her and myself. Some unreasoning blind faith seemed to hold me up, in spite of my desperate situation.
My litter was soon in motion again, and we pa.s.sed through some kind of portal. A lantern illumined the way, and we went up a broad stairway. In the dim light I made out richly carved pillars; mahogany shone red in the wood work, if I were not dreaming, and marble figures looked down on me.
Again we came to a stand, this time in a great hall, and my litter was let down to the floor. One came out and stood over me. It was the voodoo great-priest--the _papaloi_--as I could see by the red bandanna he still wore on his head, and his hand bound in a blood-stained rag. I noted this black"s features were as regular as a white man"s; and now there was a sneering smile on them.
"So you think you very wise and can defy the Great Power," he said. He turned and spoke something to an attendant, who stooped and tore open my shirt, while another held the lantern. It was to lay bare my skin where it was unstained and still white.