Latitude 19 degree Part 46

I raised my eyes to the occupants of the throne. I have commented upon the looks of the Papaloi, but I was surprised to see that the woman at his side was of a much lighter shade, and was almost pretty. She was slight and, as I found afterward, for a woman very tall and exceedingly graceful. She gave one pa.s.sing glance at the Skipper, and then her gaze rested upon me. As she gazed I heard a hissing sound, and I looked down and around me to discover its source. The Mamanloi looked upon me long, with a sort of trembling of the eyelids, which made me feel as if she were a species of serpent ready to spring upon me. At the same time her flickering, caressing glance did not make me afraid, rather it fascinated and disgusted me at the same moment.

The lids of the Mamanloi were long and narrow, and sleepy and nearly closed. The upper lid lay flat across the eyeball, which did not seem to protrude, as is usual. When she sleepily raised the eyelid, a sort of opaque green appeared, pale, but with a yellow light, that made one feel that this weird creature did indeed partake of the nature of the serpent which she wors.h.i.+pped. Those oblong green eyes seemed to send forth a gleam which came to you, as the ray of a street lamp does at times, direct to your eye, and apparently to that of no one else. Her lips were red, a vivid shade, and when she opened them her tongue, which outvied the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs that she wore, played back and forth and licked and caressed them as a serpent's might have done. I wondered, as I gazed spellbound at this baleful creature, whether she were woman, serpent, devil, or all three in one.

The Papaloi spoke hurriedly to the men who stood as guards for us. One of them shook his head, but the one next to me answered in a subdued tone, at the same time nodding his head. He did not look at me as he spoke. The Papaloi again addressed him, and he then turned to me.

"The old blackguard wants to know where you come from and where you are going. Hadn't I better tell him that you are friends of Christophe's?

Sooner or later he must reckon with Christophe, and it's just as well to frighten him a little now."

I looked up in astonishment. Here was a man as black as any one present, speaking my dear native tongue, and, though it had a strange foreign burr as it fell from his lips, it was my own language, after all.

"Tell him what you like," said I. "You know best what to say. Tell him anything at all. Tell him I'm a king myself when I'm at home."

"I don't believe that will have much effect, but I'll try it," said my black angel. He then bowed low to the Papaloi.

"This is a young prince, O great Papaloi, of a very powerful country called Amerique. It lies to the north of us. When he was sailing by our island he was wrecked upon the coast, and he and his old servant are trying to reach the citadel of Christophe, to whom he is accredited."

"Aaaah?" drawled the Papaloi, with an incredulous look at me.

"He belongs to the northern order of the vaudoux," added the guard.

"Now he's stuck us," said the Skipper, when our interpreter told me what he had said; but the old man nodded his head violently toward the throne notwithstanding, and said, "He does, honest Ingun!"

"They swear by all their G.o.ds, the Inguns whom they wors.h.i.+p, that they do belong to the most secret order of the vaudoux," said our interpreter, looking toward the throne.

The Mamanloi now opened her lips and spoke. Her eyes rested on me with a look that I can describe in no other way than to call it a hungry look.

This, I know, puts a ridiculous face on the matter when one is conversant with the methods of this dreadful sect, but I do not intend to have my meaning taken in a physical sense. I have never had a very exalted idea of my own powers of fascination. Had I possessed such, I am confident that Cynthia's treatment of me would have taken out of me any conceit of which I had ever been guilty. But I felt suddenly that, to use the common expression, this woman had taken a fancy to me, and, disgusting as the idea was to me, I intended to use the knowledge, as far as I could, to aid myself and the s.h.i.+pper.

"If he is a prince, why do not his friends send for him, that he may return to his country Amerique?"

"They can not have heard the news yet, O! gracious Mamanloi! His vessel came ash.o.r.e only a very short time ago. Since then he has been wandering, he tells me, trying to find the way to his friend, King Christophe."

It seems incredible that the natives of Hati should have known so little of our country as to imagine that we were still under the sway of kings and princes from whom we fought to free ourselves in '76. But when you reflect how little they know of us at the present day, and how less than little we know of them, you will not think it strange that in the year 1820 the blacks of the country districts had heard nothing of our ways, customs, manners, or even where our continent was situated. Their only communication was with France. They were half French and half African, generally speaking, though there were modifications in the mixture of races. They were utterly ignorant, as what you will hear later will prove to you, and it is not a matter of wonder to me that they could be so easily gulled by my black friend.

"Have they anything to show that they are of our order?"

Suddenly a bright thought came to me. I looked at the interpreter.

"If the gracious Papaloi will allow us to retire to another apartment for a moment, I will prove to him that we are all that we say."

I was to try an experiment. It might succeed, it might not, but there was a chance for us.

The Mamanloi had arisen. She stood tall and straight upon the step of the throne, her slim foot, just protruding through the opening at the side of her robe of white, covered in open beauty with a sandal of exquisite make. This creature's taste was, to the outward view, refined.

I noticed some strange barbaric jewels upon her arms and neck. A blue and red girdle confined her slender waist, and about her head a red band was but a background to some flaming stones. She waved her graceful arm and pointed to the red part.i.tion behind the throne.

She spoke in a soft, sweet voice. It gives me a chill even to think of it. She looked at me as she spoke with those sickeningly sweet glances.

They made me feel that I might save myself, although in such case I should have to own her for a protector and a friend.

"See that the doors are barred," she said, "and then escort the prisoners to the secret banquet hall."

Two men who stood near the throne disappeared at her command. They drew the red curtain a little way aside. We waited in suspense for their return.

"I suppose the chopping block's in there," whispered the Skipper to me.

"I wonder what poor little Cynthy 'll do!"

This thought nearly unmanned me.

"For Heaven's sake, do try to keep up your courage some other way than by jesting, Captain," said I. "This matter is really serious."

"G.o.d knows it is!" said he.

"Of what are the prisoners talking?" demanded the Senior Papaloi, frowning angrily.

"The young prince was admiring the jewels of the gracious Mamanloi,"

answered our mysterious friend with much readiness.

This answer had a good effect upon the Mamanloi, for she sent to me from the throne one of those dreadful looks which gave me a nausea as I stood there.

"I hope you've got something," said my friend. "Some credentials or something. There'll be the devil to pay if you haven't. You are being treated with the greatest consideration. I never knew 'em to wait so----"

And then turning to the throne:

"I tell the prince, O! gracious Papaloi, that the great Christophe would have sent an escort to meet so honoured a guest long before this, had he known that the prince had been wrecked upon the island. They were sailing for Le Cap, O! gracious Papaloi!"

And now the men sent to unbar the doors of the interior department returned and signified to the Papaloi that the chamber was in readiness.

You may think that I started toward this room with anything but pleasurable feelings. How could I tell what these half savages intended doing; what violence they might commit? How did I not know that my interpreter was perhaps only amusing himself with us as he seemed to be amusing himself with the Papaloi? How did I not know that he was in league with that horrid sect, and that if we left the open hall for the mysterious chamber we might be leaving all hope behind? But even while these thoughts were coursing through my brain I put on a bold front and said:

"Come along, Captain." For an idea had come to me some moments since.

Seeing the serpent and the goat rudely but persistently hieroglyphed upon the walls, and finding in them a strong resemblance to the ring which Cynthia had found upon the beach, and remembering the wonderful and curious workmans.h.i.+p of the strange bauble and its effect upon even well-balanced minds when they viewed it, a determination had come to me.

The symbol was the thing that I could "conjure with." The mysterious circle was the credential with which I should win my way to favour and to safety.

We stepped out boldly toward the opening between the folds of the red curtain.

"You can't die but once, you know," said the Skipper, ungrammatically forcible. "I told you you'd be a short time living and a long time dead, and I guess, Jones, the long time's about to begin."

With such cheerful prognostications did we proceed toward the opening.

The red curtain was drawn but a little way, that the apartment into which we pa.s.sed might not be exposed to the vulgar view. The fact only of our being allowed to pa.s.s into its secret precincts argued well, I thought, for the confidence placed in our statements, and yet as I entered the doorway I remember wondering whether there were not perhaps a swinging axe overhead which might descend upon us, one after the other, and leave us dead in the horrid interior.

I shall never forget the appearance of that dreadful banqueting hall.

But even before I thought of its appearance the odour which it retained, and which was forced upon my notice by my keen sense of smell, made me faint. I perceived now that the structure had been built against the side of the hill and that the rock had been hollowed out, or else that a natural cavern existed, for there were fireplaces cut in here and there against the hillside, and in them piles of wood were laid. In some of them were strong cranes, upon which hung enormous cauldrons. In others I noticed heavy iron spits. In two of the fireplaces I saw that the wood was blazing. In the great iron receptacles above the flame the water was boiling madly and suggestively.

"That's where they cook long pig," whispered the Skipper to me. I reeled and put my hand to my head. I had heard some tales of these people, but that I should ever get so near to taking part in their orgies I had never dreamed. I saw that there were rough tables standing along the wall between the fireplaces, and on them stood great bowls and tubs.

Just then I heard a crowing. It seemed to come from a corner of the apartment. The home-y sound gave me a little courage. All that I noticed flashed upon me in the short moment that I was whispering my ideas of procedure to the Skipper. I took from my pocket my handkerchief, which Lacelle had freshly washed that very day. The Skipper's, fortunately, was also clean.

"Captain," said I, "do you notice there are snakes and the heads of goats everywhere about these buildings? I really believe that the Bo's'n was right. There is something mysterious about that ring. I think that I can, as this black fellow says, conjure with it. Come, now, let me have it. We will go out with a great flourish of trumpets, and declare that we are past masters in the arts of vaudoux."

"I was never a dancer," said the Skipper, "but I s'pose I could even dance to save my life."

"I guess you'll have to try," I returned. "You've got to do your share, Captain. I can't do this thing alone. Bind your handkerchief round your head as I do," said I. "We belong to the white sect. Don't forget that!