by Sax Rohmer
The drinks, I was unable to judge of their character, were quickly despatched; the man squeezed the girl’s hand and lolled upon the counter. The girl walked quickly along left, and I saw the second attendant open a door and close it again as the Negress made her departure.
“Exactly what does that mean?” I murmured.
“It means,” said Smith, “that, still speaking Arabic, we go to the counter and order drinks. Do nothing further until I give the word, and leave the talking to me.”
We crossed.
There was something hellish, something of a Witch’s Sabbath, in the behaviour of those around us. To a man, to a woman, they were now swaying in time with the beating of the drums; eyes were rolling and in some cases teeth were gnashing. I did not know what to expect, but presently I found myself at the bar, and with affected nonchalance leaned upon it.
One of the women attendants, who had been chatting in quite a natural way with the pock-marked man, broke off her conversation and approached us: she had feverishly bright eyes.
“Giblîê… ismu eh” said Smith imperiously, indicating a bottle of Black and White whisky.
The woman spoke rapidly in Haitian, then in English:
“You want some whisky Black and White?”
“Aîwa, aîwa!”
The woman poured out two liberal portions and set before us a bottle of some kind of mineral water. Smith put down a dollar bill and she gave him change. At first, she had seemed somewhat suspicious, and the pockmarked man had looked at us with jaundiced eyes; now, however, she seemed to have accepted us. Someone else came up to the bar and her attention was diverted. The newcomer was a full-blooded Negro and a magnificent specimen. He nodded casually to the pockmarked man who returned the salutation and then turned his back upon him. Smith touched my arm.
I watched intently. The newcomer ordered a packet of cigarettes; they were placed before him and he set several coins on the counter. Smith bent to my ear:
“Look!” he breathed.
Held in the Negro’s palm as he had opened it to drop the coins, I had a momentary glimpse of a green object… It was the coiled snake of Damballa!
The signal exchanged between the woman who had served him and the other at the further end of the counter must have been imperceptible to one not anticipating it. The Negro walked along, nodded to the second woman, the door was opened, and he went out.
“That’s our way!” murmured Smith.
An evil spiritual excitement, a force that could be physically felt, was throbbing about the room. Out in front of the verandah drums began to beat softly, and starting as a whisper, but ever increasing in volume, came that hymn of Satan, the Song of Damballa.
Damballa gouhamba
Kinga do ke la
As I looked, men and women, singly and in pairs, sprang up and began to dance. They appeared to be entirely oblivious of their surroundings, to be, in the evil sense, possessed; one after another they threw themselves with utter abandonment into the rhythmical but incomprehensible dance. They moved out to the verandah, across it and out into the torch-speckled dusk of the clearing beyond. The atmosphere was foul with human exhalation. Treating us to a further and comprehensively suspicious glance, the pock-marked man also walked out.
“Now for it,” muttered Smith. “Don’t touch this stuff!”
Surreptitiously he emptied his glass on to the floor. I followed suit.
“When I call the woman, show her the green snake. Leave the rest to me.” He turned in her direction. “Ta ‘alia hîna!” he rapped.
She started, stared for a moment then drew near.
Opening my palm, I exhibited the green serpent.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, and seemed taken aback.
Smith held the seven-pointed star before her eyes.
“Ahu hûna Damballa!” he muttered, and concealed the jewel.
For a moment, extraordinarily penetrating eyes had surveyed us, but at sight of the star the woman pressed her hands to her breast and bowed her head. Smith confidently strode towards the left and I followed him. The other woman opened the door and stood in that same attitude of subjection as we walked out — to find ourselves in a lean-to porch, almost right up to which the forest grew.
From here it seemed that pines climbed unbroken to the mountain ridge, and at first it was so dark that I found it bewildering. But as we stood there taking our bearings, I presently noticed, in what little moonlight filtered through from above, that a track, a mere bridle-path, led from the door onward and upward amongst the pines.
No living thing was in sight. From before that strange house of entertainment which we had left, singing and drumming grew even louder. Beyond, very far beyond it seemed, deep in the forest, other drums were beating, deep-toned, mysterious drums, and I thought that they were calling to us.
“Clearly this is our way,” said Smith, in a low voice. “I am evidently a person of some consequence, as Father Ambrose assured us, and one presumes that initiates are supposed to know the path. Come on.”
We set out. The track climbed up and up through the trees, and although I was keeping a tight hold upon myself, one obsession there was which I could not conquer. It seemed to be fostered by those distant drums. It was not fear of those who worshipped the serpent, bloodthirsty though their rites may be — indeed, according to some accounts cannibalistic — nor tremors that we had been betrayed. It was a fear which constantly made me mistake some odd-shaped bush, some low-growing branch, for the gaunt figure of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Amid all the other horrors of the night I found it impossible to forget the fact that the great and sinister Chinese doctor was somewhere near.
Large nocturnal insects flew into our faces; other, unseen creatures rustled in the undergrowth. The sound of the deep-toned drums grew even nearer, so that that of the saturnalia we had left behind was rarely audible at all. More and more stars gleamed into view, until the darkness beneath the pines became a sort of twilight; we had glimpses of the disc of the moon. We were nearing a crest beyond which it was evident that there lay another plateau or perhaps a high valley. The going was very heavy. We had been steadily climbing for close upon an hour, and my condition was not too good. Suddenly Smith pulled up.
“Do you know, Kerrigan,” he said, breathing rapidly, “except for the fact that we are nearing the place at which the drums are beating, I should have begun to doubt if we had taken the right route.”
“Why?”
“Unless the pace of everyone using that path is more or less attuned to ours, how is it (a) that we have overtaken no one, and (b) that no one has overtaken us?”
It was a curious point, the force of which struck me at once. Smith took out his flask, and I was not sorry to resort to mine.
“I am inclined to believe,” I replied, “that all, or nearly all, the chosen few preceded us. In other words, we are late—”
“Ssh!” he checked me: “do you hear it?”
And during a momentary diminuendo in the passionate throbbing of the drums, I heard it — a faint, but unmistakable disturbance of the pine needles which formed a carpet upon most of the path below. Someone followed in our footsteps.
“Just time to take cover,” snapped Smith, “if we are quick!” On the right of the path at this point a ravine yawned darkly: only the crests of the tallest trees rose above it. On the left the ground sloped gently upward. Some kind of flowering shrub abounded, and here the pines were scanty. Smith scrambled up this slope and dived into its sheltering darkness. His voice reached me in a whisper:
“Down here, Kerrigan! There’s a perfect view of the path and we can’t be seen. Also, it may be dangerous to go further. There may be unsuspected chasms.”
I groped my way until he seized my hand. He was lying prone near the corner of a flowering bush. Wearily I threw myself down beside him. The throbbing of the drums was producing an effect wholly dissimilar to that which it seemed to exercise upon the black devotees: a sort of stupefaction. It was bemusing me, drugging me. I
found it difficult to think connectedly.
“I am glad we are not alone on the path,” I said in a low voice. “Evidently it is the right one, after all.”
“Quiet!” said Smith. “Someone is near.”
As he spoke, I realized the fact that from where we lay concealed, owing to the position of the moon and the falling away of the forest on the right of the path, a considerable expanse, perhaps twenty yards, was clearly visible, illuminated by a bluish haze of light. The stirring of the pine cones continued. The sound grew nearer.
Who was approaching?
As to whom I expected it would be difficult to speculate. But what I saw was this: — The tall Negro who had preceded us from the rest house, and the Negress who had come earlier and separated from her pock-marked companion.
Clearly the girl had waited for the man and we must have passed them at some point on the route. In response to that hereditary instinct which the drums stir up in the African heart, they had reverted to nature. The man’s arm was around the girl’s waist, her head rested upon his breast, as with a uniform step in time with the drums they paced upward through the pines. Utterly aloof from the world of today, the last shackle which bound them to the chariot of the white man was cast aside with the garments of civilization. She had woven a chaplet of flowers into her hair, and watching them as they passed and were lost to view, I knew that although a woman missionary might have been shocked, there was nothing bestial and nothing vile and nothing of shame in the strange reversion to primitive type.
The ancient gods had called them, and, simply, they had obeyed.
The rustling of the pine cones died away. I could hear no sound of other approaching footsteps, and the throb of the drums seemed to have increased again in volume.
“You see,” said Smith in a low voice, “there is power in Voodoo. One wonders what proportion of the inhabitants of Haiti have come under its spell. A great primitive force, Kerrigan, a force we must now assume to be directed by Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
“Presumably women are admitted to the higher mysteries.”
“Certainly,” Smith replied. “This I knew. Remember it is the Queen Mamaloi they go to meet, and I strongly suspect—”
He paused.
“What?”
“That there will be some further comb-out before we are admitted to the holy of holies.”
“Since we are ignorant of the routine,” I said, “this comb-out may mean our finish.”
“I have been considering the point, Kerrigan.” He stood up and walked down to the path. “I have been considering it since the moment that we started. I think if we follow the black lovers, who will be unlikely to pay any attention to us, and observe what occurs, it may be to our advantage.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. QUEEN MAMALOI
We passed the crest and looked down into a tiny sheltered valley. Mountain trees fringed it in thinly, and set amid those on the opposite slope I saw a one-storey building surrounded by a high stockade. Lanterns and torches competed with the moonlight pouring down upon the stockade, and in silhouette, an ebony god and goddess of Voodoo, the pair ahead of us stood for a moment on the lip of the declivity outlined against the tropical sky. They began to descend.
Recollections of our distance from the caravanserai which was the first gate to the mysteries at this moment stampeded in my brain. Assuming that we succeeded in surviving whatever test might lie before us, how were we to return? Together, Smith and I watched the receding figures until they were lost amongst the scattered trees which grew upon the lower slopes.
“We must not lose sight of them,” he said rapidly. “Short of stripping, I am prepared to follow whatever routine they may adopt.”
I laughed, perhaps not very mirthfully.
“Have you any idea, Smith,” I asked, “how we are going to get back?”
“Whatever the purpose of this meeting may be, and whether we escape or are discovered, I have arranged, Kerrigan, as you know, that in roughly one hour from now, three planes suitably armed will land on the plateau from which we have come. I am convinced that no opposition will be met with. Barton will lead them here. In other words” — he glanced at the illuminated dial of his wrist-watch— “if we can survive for two hours, we shall not be unsupported.”
We began very slowly to descend in turn.
It seemed to me that under the moon there was nothing in the world but drums. I began to understand the symptoms of the rhythm-drunk people I had known, people who when they were not dancing, or listening to swing music, had swing echoes in their brains. This was the apogee, the culmination of that hypnosis which is created by beats. Although we approached the clearing, there were dark patches in the path; and once as I stumbled Smith caught my arm.
“The drums,” he said; “it’s a kind of dope, you know.”
“I know,” I groaned.
“Try to deafen your ears to it. I mean, concentrate on the idea. This is what gets them. Their primitive intelligence can’t battle against it. The music of the Pied Piper. Cover up, Kerrigan. I know it is making you stupid. Our real fight is ahead.”
His cold, incisive words acted as they had done so often before, as a swift sedative. Yes, it was the drums. They filled the night with their throbbing, and in some way that throbbing had got into my brain. I adopted a violent method of repelling this insidious intrusion.
I thought hard of Dr. Fu-Manchu; and when I had succeeded in conjuring up a vision of that Shakespearean brow, that satanically brilliant face, those cat-like emerald eyes, I believe I returned to sanity, and to a new fear — the fear of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Smith, I am sure, understood the internal struggle that was going on, for he walked beside me in silence, until:
“Look!” he rapped suddenly. ‘There is the second gate — the second test. Can we pass it?”
I looked down. We were quite near to the level space before the stockade which, at closer view, clearly surrounded a temple of sorts. The path we were following had become a ravine. Long since, the Negro and Negress ahead had become lost to view, and now we proceeded cautiously.
Twenty or thirty paces brought us round a sudden bend and into full view of the stockade. A huddled group of perhaps a dozen pilgrims was gathered before a great gateway. A murmur of voices became audible above the throbbing of the drums.
Even in the bluish shadow of the gully, I could see Smith looking about him and then:
“There is no other way,” he muttered. “It’s in or back.”
Could we ever get back?
* * * *
The group ahead before the gateway was explained by the presence of a pine log thrown like a barrier across the opening. Right and left of it, backed by semi-naked Negroes holding torches aloft, were two men. One, he on the right, was a pure and obese Negro who continued to wear the uniform of western slavery; the other, on the left, was the fierce-eyed mulatto who had stared into the car as we had driven to the house of Father Ambrose, who had passed us on the mountain path!
Smith recognized him as swiftly as I.
“It is known that we are here,” he muttered. “That mulatto is posted to intercept us. But, even if he sees us, there is still hope.”
“What hope?”
“He is certainly not familiar with our appearance, for he was deceived on the road. He cannot know that we carry the seven-pointed star. Glance over the gang now undergoing inspection. The gateway is in shadow, but you can see them in the torchlight. Some of them look whiter than you or I. They are from over the border. This thing goes very deep.”
“Let us join the group waiting to be passed by the fat Negro.”
“I disagree,” said Smith; “if ever I saw a eunuch, he is one. Think of our Arabic! No, I prefer the mulatto.”
“But, Smith, it’s madness!”
“In an emergency, Kerrigan, madness is sometimes sanity.”
I resigned myself. We entered the gateway and moved to the left of the barrier. Glancing back I saw that a few stragglers, all Hai
tians, were coming down the slope. As we approached the mulatto I saw directly in front of us the black lovers. Six or seven others preceded them. Smith bent to my ear:
“You see, Kerrigan,” he whispered, “it is unnecessary to strip!”
But I had seen, and the sight had afforded me a momentary relief. Two figures at least, at right and left, were those of men dressed much as we were dressed. Others were there who had thrown off the yoke and gleamed black beneath the moon. But we were not alone.
“Watch closely,” Smith whispered. “All turns on the man not identifying us. Next, stick to Arabic. Finally, if challenged, shoot him.”
I watched those who had been allowed to pass the banner. They had all exhibited some token which they held in their hands. An interrogatory seemed to follow; then, making an odd gesture to the forehead, they were allowed to pass.
“Note that salute!” muttered Smith.
When the Negro and Negress approached the mulatto we were close behind them.
He concentrated his fierce gaze upon them, ignoring us. The man opened his hand: the girl touched an amulet which hung upon her breast. The mulatto spoke rapidly in the strange patois which I had been unable to learn, but Smith was listening intently. He pressed his lips almost against my ear:
“Stick to Arabic,” he reiterated.
And as the Negro and Negress went through, we followed.
Those fierce eyes were fixed upon me. They glittered fierily in the light of surrounding torches, and I confess that my heart sank. Silently I held out the serpent amulet. The mulatto glanced at it; then his evil gaze returned to my face, and suddenly he addressed me in English!
“What is your name and number?” he demanded. “From what place do you come?”
Thrown temporarily off my guard, I believe I was about to answer him in the same language, when Smith kicked my ankle so hard that I stifled a cry. But he saved the situation.
“Uskût!” I hissed. “Daraga âwala!’’
And as I spoke, Smith threw his left arm about my shoulders and held out in his right palm the seven-pointed star.