I was making a tour of the island with a half-breed guide; and we had
to stop for one night in a small leeward-coast settlement, where we
found accommodation at a sort of lodging-house kept by an aged widow.
There were seven persons only in the house that night,--the old lady,
her two daughters, two colored female-servants, myself and my guide. We
were given a single-windowed room upstairs, rather small,--otherwise a
typical, Creole bedroom, with bare clean floor, some heavy furniture
of antique pattern, and a few rocking-chairs. There was in one corner
a bracket supporting a sort of household shrine--what the Creoles call
a _chapelle_. The shrine contained a white image of the Virgin before
which a tiny light was floating in a cup of oil. By colonial custom
your servant, while travelling with you, sleeps either in the same room,
or before the threshold; and my man simply lay down on a mat beside the
huge four-pillared couch assigned to me, and almost immediately began
to snore. Before getting into bed, I satisfied myself that the door was
securely fastened.
* * * * *
The night stifled;--the air seemed to be coagulating. The single large
window, overlooking a garden, had been left open,--but there was no
movement in that atmosphere. Bats--very large bats,--flew soundlessly
in and out;--one actually fanning my face with its wings as it circled
over the bed. Heavy scents of ripe fruit--nauseously sweet--rose
from the garden, where palms and plantains stood still as if made of
metal. From the woods above the town stormed the usual night-chorus of
tree-frogs, insects, and nocturnal birds,--a tumult not to be accurately
described by any simile, but suggesting, through numberless sharp
tinkling tones, the fancy of a wide slow cataract of broken glass. I
tossed and turned on the hot hard bed, vainly trying to find one spot
a little cooler than the rest. Then I rose, drew a rocking-chair to
the window and lighted a cigar. The smoke hung motionless; after each
puff, I had to blow it away. My man had ceased to snore. The bronze of
his naked breast--shining with moisture under the faint light of the
shrine-lamp,--showed no movement of respiration. He might have been a
corpse. The heavy heat seemed always to become heavier. At last, utterly
exhausted, I went back to bed, and slept.
* * * * *
It must have been well after midnight when I felt the first vague
uneasiness,--_the suspicion_,--that precedes a nightmare. I was
half-conscious, dream-conscious of the actual,--knew myself in that
very room,--wanted to get up. Immediately the uneasiness grew into
terror, because I found that I could not move. Something unutterable in
the air was mastering will. I tried to cry out, and my utmost effort
resulted only in a whisper too low for any one to hear. Simultaneously
I became aware of a Step ascending the stair,--a muffled heaviness; and
the real nightmare began,--the horror of the ghastly magnetism that
held voice and limb,--the hopeless will-struggle against dumbness and
impotence. The stealthy Step approached, but with lentor malevolently
measured,--slowly, slowly, as if the stairs were miles deep. It
gained the threshold,--waited. Gradually then, and without sound, the
locked door opened; and the Thing entered, bending as it came,--a
thing robed,--feminine,--reaching to the roof,--not to be looked at!
A floor-plank creaked as It neared the bed;--and then--with a frantic
effort--I woke, bathed in sweat; my heart beating as if it were going
to burst. The shrine-light had died: in the blackness I could see
nothing; but I thought I heard that Step retreating. I certainly heard
the plank creak again. With the panic still upon me, I was actually
unable to stir. The wisdom of striking a match occurred to me, but I
dared not yet rise. Presently, as I held my breath to listen, a new
wave of black fear passed through me; for I heard moanings,--long
nightmare moanings,--moanings that seemed to be answering each other
from two different rooms below. And then, close to me, my guide began to
moan,--hoarsely, hideously. I cried to him:--
“Louis!--Louis!”
We both sat up at once. I heard him panting, and I knew that he was
fumbling for his cutlass in the dark. Then, in a voice husky with fear,
he asked:--
“_Missié, ess ou tanne?_” [Monsieur, est-ce que vous entendez?]
The moaners continued to moan,--always in crescendo: then there were
sudden screams,--“_Madame!_”--“_Manzell!_”--and running of bare feet,
and sounds of lamps being lighted, and, at last, a general clamor of
frightened voices. I rose, and groped for the matches. The moans and the
clamor ceased.
“_Missié_,” my man asked again, “_ess ou tè oué y?_” [Monsieur, est-ce
que vous l’avez vue?]
--“_Ça ou le di?_” [Qu’est-ce que vous voulez dire?] I responded in
bewilderment, as my fingers closed on the match-box.
--“_Fenm-là?_” he answered.... THAT WOMAN?
The question shocked me into absolute immobility. Then I wondered if I
could have understood. But he went on in his patois, as if talking to
himself:--
--“Tall, tall--high like this room, that Zombi. When She came the floor
cracked. I heard--I saw.”
After a moment, I succeeded in lighting a candle, and I went to the
door. It was still locked,--double-locked. No human being could have
entered through the high window.
--“Louis!” I said, without believing what I said,--“you have been only
dreaming.”
--“Missié,” he answered, “it was no dream. _She has been in all the
rooms, touching people!_”