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 die 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 byDr. 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 XXXI
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
“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 ofDr. 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
“Let us join the group waiting to be passed by the fat Negro.”
