THE VOODOO STRONGHOLD
How long I had been dozing the last spell, I don't know, but when my
eyes opened, daylight was showing through that little slit high up in
the cell wall. It wasn't much light that came in, but it was enough to
show me some kind of decorative affair on the otherwise plain walls of
the dungeon.
I moved close to the thing; and I set the tray against the wall, below
it, and got me up closer. Then I was able to make out it was a kind of
shrine, built into the wall. There was a crucifix back in the niche, and
kneeling figures at the foot.
Then suddenly I felt a queer sense of creeping in my flesh--a thought,
like a revelation, had flashed in my mind. Here was just the sort of
thing I had heard that taciturn black fellow, Amos, tell about; a
dungeon, in the wall a shrine--Christ on the cross, and figures at the
foot! Could this be the very cell and shrine Amos had told of? It seemed
too good to be true. And yet there was eloquent argument. For wasn't
there that mysterious interest of Amos in Mordaunt, alias Duran, at
Kingston? And was it not reasonably certain that Amos had lost his life
at the hands of this Duran? And now had we not traced Duran to this very
place? Trembling with eagerness and suspense, I sought, and got my hand
on, the figure of the Virgin. I shook it gently, ashamed to so manhandle
a holy thing. It held fast. I put on greater and greater violence; and
finally I felt it give a little. Compunction was all gone now; and at
last I lifted out the figure, which was prolonged at the bottom to make
a round peg.
My heart thumped with excitement. I pulled on the frame of the shrine. A
few tugs and the whole thing swung in like a door, on hinges. And so
there was uncovered a black hole behind.
I put my hands on the edge and tried to pull myself up into that hole.
It was no go--I hadn't the strength. I tried again and again, but I
weakened at every effort.
I went over and looked at that food and drink, tempted to have a few
mouthfuls--for strength's sake. But I finally decided against the risk.
Instead, I filled my lungs with air--such as there was--and rested.
After five minutes I got my toes on the tray again. And this time I made
it. I got through. And I pulled the shrine door shut after me. There was
an interstice through which I got my hand, and put that figure-peg in
place again. I meant they should not discover the manner of my escape
from the cell.
That place I was now in was entirely dark, and the air damp and
oppressive. I could touch both walls at once, so narrow was the place.
And now which way to turn? How I wished for my flashlight! I tried it to
the left, moving cautiously. I had taken about twenty short paces, when
I noted little beams of light coming through the wall. I got my eye to a
chink, and made it out that here was another shrine, set in the wall of
some room of the palace.
I got a view, too, of some part of that room. A cluster of burning
candles stood on a table, which piece of furniture, I could see, was of
richly-carved mahogany. And there lay my flashlight in plain view.
A figure moved into the field of my eye. It was the _papaloi_; his
wounded hand was still in a bandage. He bustled about, though I could
make nothing of his occupation; till finally he set a pomade jar on the
table, turned in his clothing at the neck, and began to smear his face.
Here was a fastidious black. The process was long and leisurely, and
there came a period of wait--to let the oil that shone on his dark skin
soak in. And then he took up a cloth and began to wipe.
It was then I got a start, for his face came out from under the
rag--white! And it was then I recognized Duran, alias Mordaunt! This
voodoo _papaloi_, who put the knife to little innocents, was no other
than Duran himself. I was now prepared to believe the stories of the
horrifying cruelty, and strange fanaticism--or whatever it may be
called--of some of those of mixed blood.
A black attendant came into the room with a vessel of water. Duran
washed, while the black busied himself with laying out clothing, as I
could see when he moved into my view. These Duran began to don, making
himself into more the appearance of a gentleman, a role he had learned
to assume. Only now he allowed his features to relax into an expression
that was more that of a hardened criminal than of a gentleman. There was
little talk, and that was in French; no word of it that I could
understand.
I lingered in the hope that the room should be vacated, and I might try
if his Calvary--through whose filigree chinks I peeked--should not prove
to be another door, and so be the means of my recovering my electric
flashlight. It was a thing I wanted, to help me find my way out of that
black hole.
The black man went out, finally, soon followed by Duran. I heard the
door close. Now was my time! I got my hand through a crevice. I tried
one kneeling figure, and then another. It came out, and I swung the gate
in. In another moment I was on the floor, though I turned over a chair
in the jump. I closed the portal and looked about.
The furnishings were rich, the floors marble. A single window there was,
tightly shuttered; a bed, with an end to the wall.
I thrust my flashlight into a pocket of my trousers; I still held the
stone peg in my hand.
The candles had been left burning; likely Duran would be back; so it was
time I was scrambling out. But my presence was already known, for the
door opened, and in sprang a black.
There was no time for anything but defense. The black reached for me. I
dodged, and made toward the bed. As I landed on the covers, he had me by
the ankle. And then I came down on his woolly pate with my stone peg,
using all my force.
The black doubled up on the floor without a sound. I rushed a chair
under the secret portal, and in two moments was back in the dark
passage, the door with its peg back in place.
I put my eyes to the chink. In a minute Duran appeared. That he was all
in a knot--dumfounded at the thing he saw, was plain.
I was curious to know whether I had committed manslaughter, but when
Duran opened the door and began to call out to others, I thought it wise
to move. I used my light, and went back the way I had come. There showed
nothing but bare stone walls; the passage, between four and five feet
wide, and not twice so high.
Presently it descended, in steps; at the bottom my light showed a door.
I lifted a long, rusty latch, and with repeated strong pulls, swung it
open. There was a hole through, ostensibly to permit of reaching the
latch with a stick from the outside.
The welcome outdoor air came through a heavy growth of vines. It was
perhaps fifteen feet to the ground. I swung the door to after me, and
scrambled down by the vines.
Ah, how good that bit of turf felt under my feet! Trees were all about,
though just here they were new growth--small. A stream trickled over
stones close by. I went down to its edge and drank my fill, and I took
the brook for my guide, upward, toward the hills.
I came to a place where I must walk in the water to go round a low
cliff. And then I came upon a path, new used, and seeming to come from
that great building whose upper walls I could still see peeping through
the tree-tops.
I heard voices, and jumped behind a bushy screen. There appeared on the
path a half dozen black men, and an old black crone. Two pairs of the
men were burdened with litters, and two went before as an advance
guard--they were armed with guns. On the litter were bundles, some in
gunny sacks, and some tied in blankets. I was sure I saw some movement
in the bundle on one litter, as of some living thing there. My heart
thumped with the thought that here were some little ones being
transported for voodoo slaughter. And my reason told me that little
Marie Cambon was of the number.
I followed for some miles, for the most part out of view--but now and
then getting glimpses of the blacks ahead. The trail--much used I could
see it was--held pretty much to the shores of the stream; at times the
way was through the brush, avoiding a bend or some bad going; at times
the path lay in the water itself. Grand tree ferns and a great variety
of tropic growth made it a wonderfully romantic and beautiful woods
path. And yet here it was given over to hell's own purposes.
I went far enough to convince my mind that the blacks were making direct
to that castle fortress on the mountain, whose high walls now and anon
came into view. I turned short about then, and hurried back. I would go
to the Brill cottage for news of Robert and Carlos, and send for my
friends on the _Pearl_.
I was still a mile or more from the old ruin where I'd been a prisoner,
when I heard shots. I soon cut away from the path, and stumbled through
the jungle, in the direction of the sounds of battle. My mind was full
with conjecture.
"It must be Jean Marat, and Norris, and the others from the _Pearl_," I
said to myself at last. Robert must have signalled them last night, and
now they were attacking.
When the sounds of firing told me I was near, I whistled a call. And
then I came up with them. And there were Robert, and Ray with my rifle;
and Ray had a story of his performance with the gun. "I peppered him at
the south end, going northwards," he said, "and it's a hot tack he'll be
sitting on every time he 'plunks' down on a stool."
For some reason those at the palace had ceased their firing. Maybe the
unscathed blacks had taken their lesson of the things those two crack
shots, Marat and Norris, had proven themselves able to do to every black
head that showed round the edge of portal or stone wall. And perhaps
those mysterious--silent--little missiles sent by Robert and Ray had
also had a thing to do with it. Anyway, the old palace opposite, had
become as silent as from its appearance it ought to be.
"Now, how did you get away?" demanded Robert.
"Yes, you might have stayed a while longer and let us have the credit of
rescuing you," exclaimed Ray.
And so I told my tale. And next I had a word for Carlos. I'd been
spoiling for this word from the moment of our reunion.
"Who was Amos?" I asked bluntly.
Carlos jerked himself erect at the word. He was caught with surprise.
"Amos, he is my brother," he said, still staring his wonder.
"I don't know why I never thought to mention it to you," I said, "but
Amos was with us from New Orleans to Kingston, Jamaica."
And we gave Carlos the whole story. And when we came to the mention of
Amos' death, the poor fellow went all of a heap for a minute. Then he
got a grip of himself, and his frame became rigid; and I could see his
lips move as he made some silent vow.
Carlos told us how he had been awaiting the coming of his brother, whom
he had sent forth to seek help for the recovery of a hidden gold mine,
belonging, by right of inheritance, to the Brills.
"My father, he discover that mine somewhar in the hills," said Carlos.
"It was when Amos, and I, and Melie ver' small. He tell us how sometime
he goin' to show us the place--when we little bigger. He go 'way
five--six day, and come back with plenty gold, some piece big as my
thumb--Melie got one home. Father go to the city, and bring home plenty
fine things, and much to eat. And one day that man Duran come with him.
They talk big things--we little, and don't understand. Then they go 'way
together in the hills. We wait six day--seven day--more, two week. No
use, our father he never come back.
"That Duran then, we find out, have plenty money: he buy fine schooner,
wear fine clothes--diamon's, go to France, study, and everything fine he
want to have. We--Amos, I, Melie--we say, 'Duran, he kill our father--he
steal the gold mine.' And we know what we have to do. We try to watch
Duran. We see him with the voodoo. He a _sang mele_.[1] We see him go to
the old king's palace. He send warning we to keep away. One time Amos is
shot in leg. But we can never find the mine. Duran never go from the
palace to the mine. We think he go in the schooner when he go to the
mine, so no one can follow. And then, at las' we decide we mus' have
help, if we can find some that are honest. And so Amos he go."
[Footnote 1: _Sang mele--said to be 127 parts white and one part
black._]
And thus we of the _Pearl_ came to know that Amos, even despite his
untimely death, had led us--or at the least he had set us on the way--to
the very place he had meant to pilot us.
Norris suggested that perhaps the mine was worked out long ago. But
Carlos declared that a friend he had in the city had seen Duran convert
a fresh supply of gold dust and nuggets but a few months ago.
"Well," said Norris, "then we're going to have a try for that gold mine,
after all."
"Yes," said Jean Marat, "when we have find little Marie Cambon."
I had renewed my courage with food my friends carried; and now, with
Carlos' help I conducted our party to the trail, going to the fortress
on the mountain. Carlos had been many times on that trail, he said, and
he led us over a number of short-cuts. Robert and I were still in our
black paint; and Ray abused us shamefully--in play--at every turn, for
presuming to hobnob so freely with our superiors.
Half the hot afternoon was gone when we had climbed to the end of that
path. It was at the bottom of a hundred-foot wall. Carlos pointed to
where there was to be found a door, sheltered from view by the brush. We
did not venture too close, for it was certain the door would be fast,
and we planned to try for an entry by a ruse. Carlos knew a call that
was much used by these blacks of Duran's, and he was confident he could
make it serve our purpose.
So we laid our trap. Norris and Robert crawled cautiously into the
bushes up to either side of the door, Robert armed with a strong cord,
that Carlos plaited of long grasses. Carlos then sent out his call. It
sounded much like the screech of a sea-gull. He repeated it three or
four times, and waited. Then again he gave the call. In a minute, now,
came an answer from high overhead. Another little space, and that door
opened, and a black came forth.
Norris pounced on him, bearing him down, one hand on the black's mouth,
to prevent an outcry. Robert soon had the bonds on the fellow's wrists,
and the others of us moved forward.
Captain Marat spoke to the black in French. He told him he must answer
us truthfully, on pain of torture; and he had Norris give him a twist of
the arm for a sample. And so we got it out of the man that Duran was not
in the fortress, and that there were three children there, brought this
day; one, he admitted was white. There were seven men there, two of them
armed.
Then, with a gun at his back, the black was ordered to lead the way.
It was a long climb, by stone steps; then came a long corridor. At last
a room, where was a fire and cookery, utilizing a break in the wall,
looking on the court, for a fireplace.
The six men, and the voodoo woman, at the cooking, were taken unawares,
their two rifles confiscated, and they were lined up against the wall;
Norris patting his rifle and winking, to accentuate what Marat was
telling them in the French.
The three children sat on the floor in a corner: two of them blacks,
about three years of age each--and little Marie Cambon, looking like her
portrait, but now big-eyed and dazed with trying to realize the meaning
of this new appearance. I divined the prelude to a storm; so I hurried
over and took her up in my arms. "Little Marie!" I said. And then burst
forth that flood. You have seen children cry. It continued till she was
exhausted; and then she sobbed long in her sleep. She wouldn't let me
put her down; even while she slept, my attempt to relinquish her little
body invariably awakened her. For two hours I must carry her, and we
were far from that place before she would let me rest my arms.
The two little pickaninnies were taken on, and we went off the way we
had come, leaving the seven blacks to reflect on the words of a lecture
Jean Marat delivered them on the evil of their ways, and to consider how
they were to account to their lord and master--and _papaloi_--Duran, for
the loss of the three "goats without horns."
Night sprung upon us before we reached the Brill cottage. And it was
truly a happy throng that gathered there. Melie bustled about preparing
a supper, between whiles crooning over the three little ones--white and
black.
"Shall I see my papa and mamma?" said little Marie Cambon.
"Yes," Melie assured her. "You shall go to your papa and mamma," and
they both giggled, girl-like, for happiness.
And the little pickaninnies echoed: "Maman, maman," and Melie delighted
them with creole baby-talk; and they grinned and clapped their hands.
Robert and I had soon got the stain off our skins. Little Marie watched
the process, and said I looked "more beautiful" without the black. At
supper there was held a council of war. Before we could move about the
business of the gold mine, there were two things left to be done: we
must take the Brills under our protection, for by enlisting their active
help we had got them under the anathema of the voodoos; and we must see
to the return of little Marie to the arms of her waiting parents. Some
of the effects of the Brills we got over to the care of a friendly
neighbor. Norris and Robert were to remain to assist Carlos and Melie
with their little wagon to the city. They were also to look out for the
two little blacks.
The rest of our party moved seaward over the old trail by which we had
come. Little Marie clung to myself; she would have none but the one who
had been the first to take her from her captors.
The morning was not yet gone, when we got to the coast. We drew our boat
to the water; and then it was--back to the _Pearl_ again.
Marat and Julian were at the oars, and our boat swung round and pointed
toward the _Pearl_. It was then we perceived a boat coming toward us.
And we made it out to be the other small boat from the _Pearl_. Two of
the black sailors manned the oars, and a stranger sat in the stern
sheets.
The two boats rapidly approached; in another pair of minutes I had
identified that new figure.
"It's Monsieur Cambon!" I cried. Little Marie was beside me; I turned
her face to the approaching boat.
"See! It's papa!" I told her.
Her little face lighted up, and she seemed to expand with happiness, as
she looked.
"Papa! Papa!" she murmured.
The two boats came together, by oars they were held fast; and I passed
the child over to the silent, eager father.
"Oh! My little daughter!--Marie!" he said, then. "You are safe! Your
mamma will be so happy! So happy!"
Madame Cambon was on the _Pearl_, Monsieur told us. She was worn to a
shadow with anguish. The good news must trickle to her gently. It was
for that he came to meet us.
A strange thing it seems, that emotions of happiness can be as deadly as
the tragic. Monsieur Cambon's boat lingered behind, as ours moved to the
_Pearl_. Madame Cambon lay on a hammock set up under the awning. Dark
patches were under her eyes. She tried to smile a greeting.
"I am happy that you are here," I began.
I did not rightly hear her murmured reply; and I had no mind for it
anyway, whatever it was, for my mind was in a rack--how to proceed?
"You must not give in that way," I protested.
"How can I help?" she said.
"You help us all if you have courage," I said.
"Oh, I have tried," she said. "If only I could have hope."
"If you have courage I promise you hope," I ventured.
She sat up. "Hope! Only give me hope!"
"Yes," I said, with all the assurance of which I was capable, "I give
you hope--you have it."
"Oh, I like the way you say that!" And her face took on a new look.
"I even promise you she shall come back to you again," I ventured once
more.
Her bosom heaved for some moments; then she got control.
"Please do not give me false hopes," she begged.
"No," I asserted, now more sure of her, "I even promise you shall see
her soon."
She looked me in the eyes, to read if I told the whole truth.
"You have come with news!" she cried. "I understand you now. Tell me
all--I can bear it--I see; you have prepared me. She is coming. Where is
my husband?"
"Yes," I said. "She is coming. She is with her father; they will soon be
here."
Her eyes swept the water, but the boat was hidden under the rail. I went
to the side, reached down and took up little Marie from her father's
hands, and brought her to her mother.
No need to describe that scene. Madame Cambon's now was a quiet,
restrained emotion. She shed some tears, but there was no violence. And
at last she came to talk of gratitude, and we had to cut off her speech.
That task fell to Ray.
"You don't know what you're doing," he said. "You're making us ashamed
of all the fun we had. And I want to tell you of the bee I turned loose
in one voodoo fellow's bonnet."
And in a minute Ray had her laughing.
Monsieur Cambon told us how Madame's condition made it imperative that
they follow us in our search for Marie. He said, "We must go, she
insisted, if only to be near."
The Cambons were destined to leave us on the following day, and to carry
Melie Brill with them on the steamer to Jamaica. But in the meantime we
awaited the coming of that portion of our party left behind up in the
foothills.
It was long after dark had come that we heard the call of Robert on the
beach opposite. Ray and I hurried the boat to shore, and took on Robert,
Norris, Carlos and Melie Brill. And they had a story to tell.