Strange Conflict

by Dennis Wheatley

  In spite of the applications of the Doctor’s liniment and some soothing poultices that he had sent along to them by one of the houseboys, their foreheads, noses, ears and necks had now gone a dull red and were a mass of tiny, painful blotches. Marie Lou had done her best to disguise the disfiguring effects but the Duke had told her that she must on no account put any of her scented powder on the raw places, for fear it might poison them, so she had been unable to do very much except hide her burnt forehead under a clean white handkerchief which she had tied across it pirate-fashion.

  The Doctor drove them off in his car, up the hill this time, for about a mile, until they entered a considerable village and, passing through it, came to the Hounfort. It was a big enclosure containing several one-storeyed buildings and a number of open thatches of banana-palm fronds laid one on top of the other in a network which was supported by a few dozen poles of all sizes and leaning at all angles.

  The Houngan, a bald-headed, bespectacled, intelligent-looking Negro, dressed in a long, white, cotton garment, welcomed the Doctor and his companions. He spoke a little very bad French but enough for the Duke and Marie Lou to converse with him in simple sentences.

  In the town that morning ugly looks had been cast at the two visitors and some of the men lounging about the markets had hissed after them, ‘Blanc’, since Whites are not popular in Port-au-Prince; but here their reception was very different and seemed full of the kindness which goes with the genuine Negro character. The men, women and children of the Houngan’s family—which numbered the best part of a hundred—all crowded about them with wide-mouthed grins.

  Soon after their arrival the people from the village began to crowd in, as it was a Wednesday afternoon and the weekly service to Dambala was just about to begin.

  As they stood apart, so that the Priest could proceed with his ritual, Doctor Saturday explained that Dambala, the chief of the beneficent Rada gods, was thought by many people to be Moses. Why the great Jewish prophet should have been deified by the Negroes of the West African coast no student of folklore had ever been able to explain, but the two definitely had much in common. For example, the green snake which was Dambala’s symbol had also been that of Moses. It is recognised that certain African Witch Doctors have the power to hypnotise a snake into rigidity so that they can use it as a walking-stick, but at their will it wakes and becomes live again in the hand. It is more than probable that Moses’s rod was a hypnotised snake of a special variety which by habit attacked and ate another variety of snake; so that when he threw down his rod before Pharaoh he knew that it would become alive and devour the snake-rods of the Egyptian priests which were of the second variety. The snake which they saw beside the pool, near the Voodoo altar, was, the Doctor said, regarded not as the actual god but only as his servant or handmaiden.

  Actually there were a number of altars, each dedicated to one of the principal Voodoo gods, both Rada’s and Petro’s. All the altars had an extraordinarily heterogeneous collection of objects piled on them in a jumble: pictures and cheap plaster figures of the Catholic saints who were associated with the various gods, bottles of rum, little bells, and innumerable crude pottery dishes containing offerings of food and beads. Each altar was canopied with an elaborate arrangement of palm fronds, the leaves of which had been frayed out by hand, until they looked like huge green feathers, and in and out among them were woven hundreds of streamers of coloured paper. The whole effect was far from impressive as they looked more like a row of dirty junk-shops than anything else.

  The Houngan took the centre of the stage, sitting down in a low chair, and the Mambo, or Priestess, huge old Negro woman, stood behind him, while on either side, on cane-seated chairs, sat the Hounci, Voodoo adepts who had passed the first degree of initiation, and the Canzos, who had passed the second degree of initiation. Among them were the drummers, each of the great drums which they clasped between their knees being dedicated to a particular god. Also near the Houngan was the Sabreur, or sword-bearer, and the Drapeaux who held above their heads two silk flags embroidered and fringed with silver. But only the most rudimentary order was maintained, as the Priest’s assistants jostled one another for places, laughed, argued and cracked jokes with each other. The congregation, too, moved freely about the great compound, which was like that of an African chieftain; sometimes appearing to pay attention to what was being done, and at others disputing among themselves or going up to talk to the Houngan and his entourage.

  ‘There will be four ceremonies,’ said the Doctor. The first to Papa Legba, the God of the Gate, who lives in that great great silk-cotton tree outside the gate there. He must be propitiated before the way is open to any of the other gods. Next they will make a sacrifice to Papa Loco, the God of Wisdom, lest he become jealous and afflict them with some ill. The third sacrifice will be for Mah-Lah-Sah, the Guardian of the Door Sill. And finally there will be the sacrifice to Dambala himself.’

  Seated in his low chair before the altar the Houngan covered his head with a ceremonial handkerchief and began a monotonous litany to which the whole congregation made the responses. It was a longish business and the visitors would have found it extremely wearisome had it not been for the sweetness of the Negroes’ singing.

  After a time the chanting stopped and they crowded into a big room, where spread on a wide table were all sorts of foods and drinks which were being offered to the gods. The Priest came out again, drew on the ground a design in corn-meal and poured a little of each of the dedicated drinks upon it. He then took pieces of all the offered foods and piled them up in a small heap in the middle of the design.

  Two speckled chickens were now handed to him. He elevated them to the east, to the west, to the north and to the south, calling upon the Grand Master, while his assistants knelt down and he waved the squirming chickens over their heads. He next presented the birds at the altar dedicated to Legba, took both birds in one hand and a firebrand in the other, with which he set off three heaps of gunpowder which had been placed round the cornmeal design. Kneeling, he kissed the earth three times and the whole congregation did likewise. Suddenly the drums began to beat and some of the adepts began to dance. The Priest broke the wings of one of the chickens, then its legs, holding the throat so that the bird could not cry out in its pain.

  Marie Lou turned away from the sickening sight. When she looked again she saw that the second bird had suffered a similar mutilation and that both had been placed on the altar, where, in spite of their broken limbs, the poor brutes were fluttering and squirming.

  The Priest kissed the ground again and wrung both the birds’ necks, putting them out of their agony; after which the corpulent Mambo took them from him and roasted them over a slow fire. When they were done they were put in a sack and to the accompaniment of a great deal of drum beating, chanting and stamping of feet the sack was carried outside and tied to Legba’s tree.

  To the uninitiated visitors the ceremonies that followed differed little except that grey roosters were sacrificed to Papa Loco and a white cock and hen to Dambala, while in all cases but the first the heads of the birds were bent back and their throats cut so that when held by the feet the blood could be drained out into a crock. To Marie Lou’s disgust, the Houngan each time drank deeply of the hot blood, allowed each of the drummers a taste, then flung the bowl as far from him as he could, whereupon the assistants raced after it and milled about it like a rugby-scrum, fighting to secure a finger-lick of the wonder-working blood.

  As the ceremonies proceeded the Negroes became more and more excited. From time to time one of them appeared to become possessed and, foaming at the mouth, danced until he dropped. At intervals the leading dancers stopped and demanded rum. The Houngan make a pretence of refusing them but on each occasion went inside and fetched a bottle. After each tot of the fiery spirit the dancing became more frenzied than ever, but there was nothing mysterious or frightening about the services as they were being conducted in the strong afternoon sunlight.

  Jus
t before the sacrifice to Dambala there was one untoward episode. Two women in black had sneaked into the compound and were standing quite near the visitors. One of the Houncis spotted them and told the Priest; upon which he rushed at them and drove them away with threats and curses. When he had quietened down a little, seeing that everybody spoke to him quite freely in the middle of his rituals, de Richleau asked him what the women had done. He replied in his broken French that they were in mourning and therefore had no right to attend a Dambala ceremony, which was for the living. Their association with recent death caused them to carry with them, wherever they went, the presence of the dreaded Baron Samedi.

  ‘Lord Saturday,’ whispered Marie Lou to the Duke. ‘What a unusual name for a god!’ But the Doctor caught what she had said and turned to smile at her.

  ‘It is another name that they use for Baron Cimeterre. You see, his Holy Day is Saturday. And it is a sort of joke, of which the people never get tired, that my name, too, is Saturday.’

  Had the scene not been so animated, and the rituals so interesting, in spite of their cruel and disgusting side, Marie Lou and the Duke would have found it almost impossible not to fall asleep where they sat, in the shade of a tall fence, and with their backs propped against it, but the beating drums and wild chanting acted as a tonic to their tired nerves.

  Almost unperceived by them, dusk fell, and to light the compound the Priest’s assistants ignited torches of freshly cut pinewood. The scene now savoured of an orgy, as although the rituals were still going on, with the Priest kissing the sword and the flags and waving aloft his ascon, the Voodoo symbol of power, which is a sacred gourd decorated with beads and snake vertebrae, the whole congregation had given themselves up to the wildest extravagances.

  The rum had made most of the Houncis and Canzos three-parts drunk and the drums had completed their intoxication. The women ‘cramped’ and shook themselves before the ‘shuckers’ until they fell quivering upon the ground, but they were not allowed to lie there. The men grabbed them up to continue their insane whirling. Now and then one of the congregation became possessed, raved, foamed at the mouth and collapsed in a fit, but their faces were bathed in rum to revive them. Clothes were torn away until many of the dancers were stark naked. Hot, sweaty bodies collided and limbs became locked in rhythmical ecstasy. The dancing grew more and more abandoned until the Doctor whispered to the Duke that as they had Madame with them he thought that they had better go; so they went out to the car and returned, through the soft, velvety darkness, by the winding track that led down the hill.

  It was just on eight when they reached the house and Marie Lou and de Richleau were both hoping desperately that they would find Richard and Rex waiting for them in the living-room. If the plane had got in by sundown they should have had ample time to come up to the house. But they were not there. With bitter disappointment the Duke realised that his worst forebodings had been fulfilled. The others had not been able to secure a plane in time to leave Kingston before five o’clock, so there was now no hope of their arriving before dawn. Another whole night of sleepless watching would have to be endured.

  Dinner was served almost immediately they got in, but during it de Richleau and Marie Lou could hardly keep awake sufficiently to make intelligent conversation. They had spent nearly five hours watching the Voodoo rituals and although the sight had kept them awake through a bad period of the afternoon the noise and clamour had also added to their exhaustion. After the meal both felt that they would scream if they had to continue small-talk with their genial host so they pleaded extreme fatigue after their long day in the heat to which they were not accustomed, and excused themselves.

  As soon as they were in the Duke’s room they looked at each other in dismay. They had now been awake for some thirty-eight hours yet there was not the slightest prospect of help reaching them for another ten at least, and how they were to face the second night neither of them knew.

  Grimly the Duke set about charging another carafe of fresh water. Just as he had finished, Marie Lou burst out in a hoarse whisper:

  ‘I can’t go on—I can’t—I can’t!’

  ‘You must,’ said the Duke firmly. ‘Another few hours and we’ll win through.’

  ‘I can’t!’ she moaned, and suddenly gave way to a fit of heartrending sobbing.

  He let her be for a few moments then put his hands on her head and, concentrating all his remaining strength, began to charge her. In his exhausted state it was now very difficult for him to call down power and he could do little more than pass on to her some portion of the resistance which still animated his own consciousness. Yet this ancient ceremony of the laying-on of hands took effect. Her hysterical weeping ceased. She felt soothed and comforted. She was still unutterably weary but the danger of an immediate collapse had receded.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, mopping her reddened, half-closed eyes. ‘I’ll manage somehow. But we haven’t got to settle down in the pentacle yet—have we? It’s only just after nine, and the shorter the period we have to remain sitting there the less strain it will be.’

  ‘That’s true,’ the Duke agreed. ‘We’re now both so tired that it would prove fatal to relax, but I don’t think that we shall actually need protective barriers for another hour or so.’

  ‘Then let’s go for a walk,’ Marie Lou suggested. ‘It’s the sitting still for hour after hour which is such a ghastly strain.’

  De Richleau had given her much of his own remaining strength. He was sitting, bowed and limp, on the end of the bed, and he shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not up to it at the moment, Princess. I must remain absolutely still for a while to conserve my energies against the coming ordeal, and if you don’t mind we won’t even talk for the next half-hour.’

  ‘Would it be asking for trouble if I went for a stroll on my own?’ she inquired. ‘I must occupy myself somehow and I’m far too tired to read. If I stretch my legs now I’ll be better able to endure our long session once we get down to it.’

  He hesitated for a moment. ‘It’s unwise for us to separate for any length of time, but if you don’t go far …’

  She smiled. ‘I’m much too weary to want to walk any distance. I only thought of taking a turn round the garden.’

  ‘Very well,’ muttered the Duke; ‘as long as you remain within call. It would really be better if you took your stroll up and down the verandah, where there’s a certain amount of light from the windows.’

  She touched his cheek for a second with her finger-tips, as she said: ‘I won’t be long.’ Then she walked out through the wire-gauzed swing door of the room into the stillness of the tropic night.

  At first she strolled slowly up and down outside the row of guest-rooms; then she increased her beat until it took her as far as the big living-room in the centre of the low house. Its doors were open, the lights were still on, and the Doctor was sitting reading, with his back towards her, at the far end of the room. He did not turn at the sound of her soft footfalls, probably imagining it to be one of the house-boys who was passing.

  She went a little further. The next room was the dining-room; then came the Doctor’s bedroom. There was another big room beyond it; then the servants’ quarters, which occupied the end of the house that was nearest the road to Port-au-Prince.

  There was a single light burning in the room beyond the Doctor’s bedroom and she paused to look through the window.

  Evidently it was the Doctor’s study. In it were many books, a long horsehair couch, some rows of test-tubes in a rack along one wall, and a number of instruments. There was nothing there at all to differentiate it from the working-room of any man engaged in medical or scientific studies—with one exception—a huge map which covered the whole of one wall. It was a large-scale Admiralty chart of the North Atlantic.

  Marie Lou stared at it, then she gently pushed open the wire swing door and tiptoed into the room. Her mind was working furiously. She was recalling a number of things that had occurred in the past two day
s and which had seemed quite natural at the time.

  The Doctor had been out in his launch fishing when their plane had been wrecked. For hours he had not come to their assistance; yet he must have seen it crash. He had rescued them only when they had already been sighted and were about to be picked up by the native fishing-boat. Yet now, it seemed inconceivable that he had not been aware that they were there, less than half a mile away from him, in imminent danger of drowning.

  Then his name—Doctor Saturday. Lord Saturday was one of the aliases of the dread Lord of the Cemetery, the chief of the evil Petro gods. Why was the Doctor, too, called Saturday? Many of the natives and Mulattoes in the island had a whole string of names which they had received when baptised by the Catholic Church to which they paid a purely nominal allegiance; but others bore only a single name, from having been dedicated to one of the Voodoo gods at birth. Perhaps the appellation had started as a nickname, given to him years ago when his fellow-islanders had realised that he was devoting himself to strange and horrid practices.

  And now this large-scale chart of the North Atlantic. The fact that it had a number of little flags stuck in it, marking places right out in the open ocean, clinched the matter in her mind beyond all doubt. The Doctor had come out in his launch to make certain that they were all dead, but since his attack upon them had failed he had taken them to his home in order that he might have them under his physical eye and be ready to seize the first suitable opportunity to strike them down.

  He had not commented upon their exhausted condition but he knew of it and was biding his time. Their genial host was none other than the enemy whom they had come so far to seek, and he was sitting only two rooms away from her now, like a spider in his web, waiting until sleep should overcome them.

  With a sudden surge of terror she realised that he might come in at any moment and find her there. She must get out—at once—and warn the Duke. At the very instant she was about to turn she heard steps approaching and the wire door swing open behind her.