Latitude 19 degree Part 44

"Dream, I suppose," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Skipper.

I nodded my head. The Minion was standing near, and heard the last part of our conversation. He jumped up and down with rage, he rolled on the ground, he bit the earth. We stood laughing at him for a few moments, and then went about some of the business that every camp has for workers at any moment.

The Minion was constantly stealing our lights, or flint and steel, our candles, which we had had in use for some time, a few of which we found among the pirates' stores. Cynthia thought that there was some good in the boy, and insisted that if we were all of us somewhat kinder to the little wretch that he would respond to our teachings. She, with her unselfish generosity, began to teach the lad an hour each day, but I never saw that it improved him in the very least. On the contrary, it taught him a little more of the ways of people and things, and showed him how he could annoy us more frequently than before.

Thus we lived for some weeks. Nothing unforeseen happened, and we were fairly comfortable. Lacelle and Zalee also were beginning to pick up a few words of English, and thus we could learn much from them that we found it impossible to know before. They seemed to have attached themselves to us permanently. But we had the best of the bargain. They ate little or nothing of our food, subsisting, as far as I could discover, upon the wild fruits, which Zalee brought to us in abundance.

Added to this, they performed most of the menial services, so that the Bo's'n said that he felt "like a gentleman onct more."

When you were a little boy, Adoniah, I remember that you asked your mother if she used thorns for pins when she was a little girl. Children usually look upon their parents as having lived in past ages, and being of the antediluvian period. When you asked the question, I remember that I laughed heartily, if a little sadly, for it reminded me of the morning that I came down the hill to the brook and saw Cynthia pinning up her gown.

"I thought," said I, "that I heard a young woman complaining last evening that she had not one pin to her name."

"That is very true," said Cynthia, "but the Bo's'n has kindly cut these for me from that young palm up there on the hill. It stands just by the smaller palm that I intend to take to Aunt Mary 'Zekel."

"Oh, you intend to take her a present of a plant, do you?"

"Yes," said Cynthia. "I wonder where I could get a pot."

This conversation shows two things--one being the readiness with which Cynthia fitted her wants to her circ.u.mstances, and the other the confidence she had in our soon being able to return to Belleville.

There came a night when we started out to lay snares for the cooing dove. These are a delicacy, and, cooked as Lacelle could cook them, were always a delightful surprise for Cynthia. We left her with Lacelle, Zalee, and the Minion behind, and started, three of us, at about eleven o'clock at night. We struck to the eastward, hitherto a region unexplored by us. We did not fear to lose our way, as the sh.o.r.e line was always a guide, and when once we found the cave we could naturally find the new house. How sweet was the dying trade wind as it fanned our faces, for it was nearly on the turn. Soon the land breeze would arise and blow gently all night from sh.o.r.e out to sea, until the boisterous trade of the morning rea.s.serted its supremacy. We walked a long way without seeing or hearing anything, setting our snares in what seemed the most likely spots for capture, and then going ahead again. After we had been gone about an hour from camp, and as we sat resting under a tree, I thought that I heard a faint wail. I listened, and again it came.

"Do you hear it?" I whispered to the Skipper. "What is that?"

The Skipper put one hand to his ear, as was his fas.h.i.+on, and turned as my finger pointed.

"Yes," he said, "I do hear something."

The Bo's'n seemed much perturbed.

"Perhaps it's a night owl, Mr. Jones, sir."

"No," said I, "I should say it was a cooing dove, but they do not coo at this time of the night, rather toward morning."

We sat there, listening breathlessly. One grows cautious in the forest of an inhospitable land, and we did not speak above our breath. What if it were some murderous natives calling thus to lure us on under cover of the night? Perhaps they had discovered our whereabouts, and while we were drawing near them some of the party would skirt the forest and capture those we had left behind. My heart stood still at the thought, for, though Cynthia and I exchanged no more than the merest commonplaces, still she was then, as she has ever been, the one woman in the world for me. Again that wail, but louder than before.

"It is a human being in distress," whispered the Skipper. I nodded. The Bo's'n's eyes were starting out of his head.

We arose and crept cautiously in the direction of the sound, and, after walking a minute or so, a dark structure loomed up before us. It seemed a rude copy of a church. It had doors larger than those of an ordinary dwelling, and in front there were some hieroglyphics cut roughly in the wood and painted in various fantastic colours. Upon the top of the roof, which was a few feet above our heads, there was an attempt at a cross.

It looked altogether like a savage copy of a Catholic church; and that it was, for the French brought the Catholic religion to the island with them, and the Africans had compounded it with their own savage wors.h.i.+p.

As we approached the edifice--if I may dignify it by a word used for much grander buildings--the wailing grew more distinct. Just here I heard a stealthy step in the bushes, and, cautioning the others by a jerk of the sleeve and a "Hist!" we stood silent. I saw a form emerging from the underbrush. My heart thumped loudly, for I recognised Zalee; but as now he could speak a little in a very broken way, we found from him that all was quiet at the camp, and that he had only come to make sure that we had not lost our way.

"What is that?" whispered the Skipper, as the wail broke again upon his ear.

Zalee raised his hand, commanding silence. Then he stooped and laid his lips to the crack between the palm board uprights. He called something in a sweet, low voice. It sounded like "Kala?" The Bo's'n a.s.serted that it was intended for "Qui est la?" We listened intently for an answer.

There was a long, sobbing sigh and a thick muttering in answer.

Zalee gave a subdued and joyful cry and ran around to the back of the building. We followed him. Here he found a place where some of the boards seemed loose. In fact, they had been purposely loosened, and, the building being so remote from all habitation, it had not been thought necessary to replace them. He pulled away the boards and crawled quietly through. I followed him, the Skipper came next, and finally the Bo's'n.

We found ourselves in a sort of church. There was a fairly well-constructed desk on one side of the chamber, and an altar on the other. There were some rude seats behind the altar, some metal crosses standing about, with one or two wooden cages which looked like an attempted reproduction of the places where the Catholics keep the holy sacrament. Ma.s.ses of red and yellow flowers festooned the pillars, and gave a barbaric strangeness to the scene. Upon the walls was reproduced at small intervals a sort of copy of the ring which Cynthia had found on the beach. Sometimes it was the serpent, sometimes the goat's head, sometimes they were combined, the serpent body coiling round to meet the head of the goat, in so strange and natural though rude a resemblance to the symbol, that I could not but feel that the owner of the ring had had something more than a little to do with these barbarous people. Zalee had produced and lighted the end of a candle. He h.o.a.rded these candle ends, and as I know that he got them from the great hall of the cave, so I have always suspected that he knew where the pirates kept their secret store. Zalee seemed never to be without one when emergency demanded a permanent light. Again that wailing cry and a restless movement somewhere in the interior.

Zalee was not at a loss. He at once approached the altar and raised a sort of hanging lid at the bottom. From thence he drew forth a boy of about eight years. The child had been so crushed and pushed into the receptacle that it was with difficulty that Zalee pulled him from the place. The boy could not stand. His knees gave way, and he fell to the ground. His face was bathed with tears, and he moaned as if in pain. He clutched with his fingers at his rescuer, saying over and over, "Zalee!

Zalee! Sui bo," which the Bo's'n told us that he thought was intended for "Je suis bon," though how he knew I can not tell. The words seemed so unlike.

Zalee took the little one up in his arms. He was also decked with ribbons and flowers, the latter not fresh, which was proof that he had been there for some time.

The Bo's'n had fallen on his face upon the palm board flooring at the first sight of the child, and he muttered as before, "_The goat without horns!_"

"That young one's trussed just like the baby we found," said the Captain.

Trussed! The word brought before my mind's eye the times immemorial that I had watched the young ducks and turkeys bound in this way and ready for the spit, and I turned away sick and faint.

Zalee quickly cut the ribbons which bound the child and took him up in his arms. The boy clung to him with every sign of affection, which proved to the onlookers that the two were not strangers to each other.

Probably, I thought, he is some child who lives in the neighbourhood of Zalee and whose family he knows well. Zalee picked up all the ribbons and flowers that he had stripped from the child, and, going to the altar, he laid them upon it. Then Zalee lifted the boy in his arms. At that moment there was a pounding at the great doors which gave upon the forest glade.

"Le Papaloi!" whispered the Hatien in a terrified voice, and rushed to the opening at the back of the building. Through this he began to squeeze, holding the child in his arms. The sounds outside grew louder, there were shouts and howls and continued knockings. The child clung to Zalee in terror, and Zalee, no less terrified, hurriedly got himself through the opening.

"We can't all get through," said the Skipper. "Look to your priming."

I had heard queer tales of these people, and I feared what would befall us; but, knowing the weakness of the Bo's'n, I pushed him through the open s.p.a.ce. At that moment the door was burst asunder, and the Skipper and I turned to confront an angry mob of about twenty men.

CHAPTER XV.

WE MEET SOME STRANGE ACQUAINTANCES, ARE MADE PRISONERS, AND LOSE OUR ONLY MEANS OF RESCUE.

The newcomers devoured us with a gaze of no less astonishment than that which we fixed on them. They carried torches, whose unsteady orange-black flare gave to their faces a fierce and savage appearance.

Their bodies were nearly naked, but their heads were bound with cloths of a strange shade of red. I hated to look at it, its colour was so suggestive.

These men were very black. Their eyes had the wild unreasoning stare of the gypsy eye. They surrounded us at once, waved their torches, and shouted something in concert. I took it to mean "What are you doing here?" Each man carried, besides his torch, a weapon of some kind; either a knife or the machete of the Spaniard, which had been in common use in the island for many years. They crowded close to us, and I recognised at once the fact that escape would be impossible. In front we should rush into the arms of the Papaloi and his followers, and escape by the back it was hopeless to think of, for the Bo's'n, I saw by a hurried glance, had had the decency to push the board back against the opening, and while we were thinking of even pulling those boards away we should be cut down. I had always heard that it was death to one who crept in unannounced and unaccredited to witness any of the h.e.l.lish ceremonies of this sect, and I looked at the Skipper and gave one despairing shake of the head. He said in a low voice:

"It looks as if our number was made, Jones, but I've been in tighter places than this down in the South Seas." His reminiscences were drowned by the shouts of "Papaloi! Papaloi!"

These words were uttered loudly in hoa.r.s.e and discordant unison, and repeated again and again, "Papaloi! Papaloi!"

The excitement was contagious. It thrilled me, and I found myself, utterly forgetful of our danger, standing on tiptoe and craning my neck to see this Papaloi who awakened such enthusiasm. We looked for him as we would for some superior being.

And now I perceived that in the distance, lights were beginning to dance among the trees. In a moment more there emerged from the gloom of the ground-sweeping branches, a procession of strange-looking beings. As they came they chanted a low minor song, which struck terror to my heart. No words can describe this chant. It was like the dread song of fate.

All at once there was carried to us on the night wind the distant sound of a drum. Its tum-tum-tuming was at first faint and subdued, but soon it grew louder and more loud, until its bu-r-r and roar rolled in thunder notes up among the trees.

"Le Papaloi! Le Papaloi!" shouted the mult.i.tude.

They waved their arms in the air and joined in with the drum. They sang their weird chant slowly, and with a sort of solemnity which impressed me with a horrid fascination. Later I learned that the words of the song were:

"We will beat the little drum.