eyes wide open, and while he stared what little blood was left in his
wasted body found its way up into his face; at last, it seemed to me, he
was ashamed on _his own account_. While he was staring at me Deshay came
up.
“‘Call your cur,’ he growled. I was vexed that he interfered just when
he did, as Claud in his weakened state had not yet assimilated the
pre-digested idea which I had fed him. I was scarcely normal at the
time, Doctor; to my mind, the whole thing mattered very little; it was
like one of those nightmares in which one is sub-consciously aware that
it is really only a dream and acts with delightful disregard of
consequences. I thought of dying as one thinks of waking up, and before
waking up I wanted to see Claud kill Deshay. I knew that he could kill
him if he wanted to, for all of us had passed the physical limits and
were living upon our mentalities, and Claud’s being so much more virile
than Deshay’s, he was just that much more alive; yet Deshay was too
stupid to discover this, although I think that he must have felt it in a
way.
“‘Call your cur!’ he repeated, but this time there was a change in his
tone. It reminded me of the voice in which Claud had attempted to assert
_him_self upon that first day aboard the schooner, but in Deshay’s case
this irresolution was on _his own_ account; subjective, you see—not
objective, like Claud’s.
“I noticed this and began to laugh, and Deshay looked at me sheepishly.
It was not a pleasant laugh; one feels sorry, Doctor, for a man who
sacrifices his self-respect for the sake of some one else, but one
laughs as I did at the man who does so for himself. This was the
proportion between Claud and Deshay, and, although I found it amusing, I
was nevertheless grievously disappointed when I saw that Deshay was
subtle enough to feel his side of the see-saw go down—for, as I have
said, I wanted to see Claud kill him before _any_ of us died.
“As it was, Claud simply ignored his demands—and that was a little step
toward preponderance. You see, Doctor, the two were dying men; we were
all dying men. Deshay’s investment was ultra-physical, and consequently
low; Claud’s was psychical, and although he might not last any longer,
or as long, for that matter, he was _all there_ as long as he _did_
last; he was either alive or dead, not half-alive, like Deshay—and as
the springs of our lives ran low Deshay’s grew muddy, while Claud’s was
still clear and cold.
“The following morning Dixie again discovered a nest of eggs. I do not
wish to tax your credulity, Doctor, and yet I will ask you to believe
that so nearly approached the types of these two gentlemen that the
sensibilities predominant in Claud obtained in Dixie to an extent where
he, too, felt the fall of Deshay, and when he had found the eggs and we
starving wretches shambled up to the cache, Dixie, the fine,
thoroughbred, peace-loving aristocrat, stood over his find with bared
fangs and flashing eyes and allowed all to approach but Deshay.
“Yet gentlemen do not press these things, these matters of authority, as
do your ruffians who have cut a high card in the shuffle of Fate—they
accept them as a matter of course—and so neither Claud nor Dixie
emphasized this occult change of balance, and as the days passed Deshay,
crass fool that he was, lost sight of the fact that he had been
relegated with any other dejecta. He would thrust in with surliness
rather than ugliness, according to the nature of the low-grade,
overthrown bully; but Claud and Dixie ignored him, his two sailors
grinned at him, old Lentz blinked at him, and I, the mean average of the
lot, laughed at him and explained carefully to him in how very many
different sorts of ways he was a fool, neglecting to help him out. This
was quite safe, for, although my own mentality is of a fairly low grade,
it was still in excess of Deshay’s, and this fact gave me the whip hand.
I did not tell him too much, as I still cherished hopes of seeing him
killed.
“There came another season of starvation in this epoch of famine and
none of us had anything to eat, and it was at this time that Deshay
began a systematic stalking of Dixie, who was still a peace-lover and
preferred, when nothing of greater value than his own life was at stake,
to get out of the way. The dog slept always at his master’s side, and,
although the nights were cool to men starved and shelterless, Claud
would never draw near the fire, because he wished to avoid the
propinquity of Deshay. More than once I had awakened from my light,
fitful, fever sleep to see this sneaking wretch creeping stealthily on
hands and knees toward the sleeping animal, but with invariable
result—Dixie would slip silently away and Deshay would return to the
fire, cursing savagely. Often through the day one would see him slyly
maneuvering to get within reach of his prey; and as our starvation
proceeded, this desire fastened upon his famished brain with the force
of an insistent idea, until I really believe that he was impelled less
by his hunger than through a sort of dementia. At times he would awake
with a sharp cry, spring to his feet and rush at Dixie, who would lope
away before him, when Deshay would fall into a paroxysm of rage. At
these times Claud would turn away with a shiver of disgust, Lentz would
blink rapidly, the two sailors would lie upon their empty bellies and
snigger, while I would laugh.
“Yet all of this time Deshay had been encroaching little by little upon
Claud’s liberty, for, you see, Doctor, he was one of those unimaginative
animals who require a clubbing at certain intervals as a sort of tonic
treatment. Claud had utterly ignored him; he had rubbed against the rest
of us in little ways and found himself of baser metal, but Claud, like
Dixie, had only avoided him, and this avoidance he continued to
misinterpret until his confidence returned.
“It was after one of his frantic attempts to catch Dixie that he sought
to force the issue. He turned suddenly and strode to where Claud was
lying on the sand, and at the sight of his face the lad struggled to his
feet—while I sat and waited, for something seemed to tell me that the
time had come, and I felt no fear of the result.
“‘Call your dog, you putty-face!’ snarled Deshay. ‘Call your dog!’—he
thrust out his matted jaw; ‘call him up where I can get my hands on
him!’ said he. He had put away his knife and gripped the stretcher.
‘Call him up, d’ye hear, or I’ll spatter your fool brains all over the
shop!’
“It was here that he struck the steel beneath the fresco. Claud looked
him over, carefully, coolly, and, although their faces were almost in
contact, from such an infinite distance—and then he spoke, in a voice
which matched his look, and at the chill of it Deshay drew back.
“Claud half turned and pointed to the cluster of palms. ‘Go over there,’
said he, very quietly, ‘and see if you cannot die a little more decently
than you have lived.’ Words fail to express the icy dignity of his tone.
‘It is the only thing left for you,’ he continued, and leaned slightly
toward Deshay, looking intently into his face, and at something in the
look Deshay drew back with a shiver. ‘There is death in your eyes,’ said
Claud; ‘I think that you are going to die this very day’—and then the
bolt fell.
“Deshay, terrified, panic-struck at some quality of the cold voice and
the words and the chill light of the eyes, staggered and threw up one
arm as if to ward a blow. There was no suspicion of a threat in the
gesture—no intent—but Dixie, crouching at his master’s side, read it
differently. Before Deshay’s arm began to descend the hound had sprung.
There was the shock of contact, gurgling noises, convulsive forms
heaving upon the sand, the guttering sounds of—of—the _abattoir_! I saw
the snout of the hound twisted sideways, the nose pushed comically
upwards, the full mouth in a grotesque grin. Ah, what is more terrible,
Doctor, than to see something in human guise worried and throttled by
something in the guise of a brute beast?”
Leyden walked to the rail, drummed upon it with his fingers and spat
several times into the sea. One guessed that he felt with the hound.
“Dixie sprang back,” he continued, his face still from me; “he sprang
back and stood panting, _salivating_—as a dog does when for the first
and only time in his life he commits the error of picking up a toad.
Dixie was a starving animal—you understand, Doctor—and his mouth was
full of blood, but he did not want _that_ blood—that human blood—nor did
he want a human life, to save _his own_. He backed away, then leaned far
forward—as far as he could without stepping nearer, and his delicate
nostrils twitched at his work—where his hold had been.
“Soon he turned and walked slowly down to the water, waded out and swam
seaward, until all that I could see was the brown speck of his head just
entering the outer line of surf; and then he disappeared, and it seemed
to me that there were other specks about in the water; but I did not see
much of anything for a while. I heard Claud laughing as if to kill
himself, and apparently he did, for the natives who found me said that
he was dead and one of the sailors was dead. The other sailor, Lentz and
myself hung on—the sailor because he took advantage of what Dixie _would
not do_; Lentz, because his pulse was slow, like a tortoise, and, like a
camel, he was able to live for a while on his reserve adipose; and I,
because the fever had banked my fires so low that no food was required.
Besides, I am tough, and—will you please tell me, Doctor, what in the
devil ever possessed me to tell such a villainous story? That cat?
_Ach!_—yes—_p’st!_—scat, you beast!”
I walked over and put a “sheep-shank” in the lanyard on the cage of the
_tulu-pial_ bird, and then the cat was unable to reach it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BAMBOULA
FROM the deck of the ship the night seemed split into three zones of
darkness: the vague water, with its elusive surface sheen; the heavier
murk of the land, which was not black, but a deep tone of color
impalpable from lack of light; then the sky, which was all that was
left, and rested prone upon the other two, with no intermediary
separation.
I leaned on the rail and tried to pick out the features of the land; a
pale band of beach crept out of the opacity, and it seemed to me that I
could see dark splotches where the _compèche_ was piled. Now and then a
light would spark out and disappear, in many cases its swinging motion
proving it to be a torch carried in some black fist. A thin land breeze
had sprung up, and it brought off the scent of the damp earth, whiffs of
wood smoke, and now and then the heavy fragrance of the stephanotis.
Deeper in the gloom tossing hills threw their rough shoulders against
the opaque sky.
Suddenly, from a shadowy recess in the black land there arose the steady
beat of a drum—a pulsing, cavernous sound, measured in rhythmic time,
neither loud nor fast; a patient sound, yet a note impalpable in
quality, insistent and seeming like the throbbing heart-beat of the
savage island sleeping under the black mantle of the night.
There came an alert step on the deck behind me, and a throaty voice,
with the hint of a German accent, remarked at my shoulder:
“The bamboula!”
It was Dr. Leyden who spoke—a shipmate whom I had met the day we both
went aboard at Demerara. He had just come down the Essequibo, after
three months’ orchid-hunting in the bush; an interesting man, who was by
profession what one might call a “market-naturalist.” By that I mean
that he was one of these not ultra-scientific collectors who can tell a
rare specimen when they see it and who do the outdoor work of the
“closet naturalist,” in whose place they get the fever, and to whom they
are ready to sell fame at so much per bone, or bug, or plant. He had
been everywhere, barring the populous communities, and was at home with
all primitive peoples. “No, Doctor,” he said to me one day, “I speak
very few languages, no more than nine or ten, but I am acquainted with a
great many dialects!” He could acquire an ordinary savage dialect in
about a month.
“What is it?” said I, in answer to his remark. “A dance?”
“Perhaps—it sounds like it. There are but few lights yonder in the
village and there are torches moving on the mountain-side. Wait—let us
see.”
Just below us a shore-boat was hanging to the staging at the foot of the
accommodation ladder, waiting, no doubt, to take some visitors ashore.
Leyden called down to them in Créole, asking if there was to be a dance
that night. One of the men replied somewhat sulkily that there was not.
“A minute,” said Leyden, turning to me. He slipped below, and directly I
heard what appeared to be the voice of a Haytian stevedore coming from
one of the freight-ports. A boatman in the bow replied guardedly, and
for a few minutes there was a conversation in low tones. Soon it ceased,
and Leyden rejoined me.
“There is to be a dance,” said he, “but it is a small affair.”
“Was that you talking from below?” I asked.
“Yes. I stood back in the shadow, and the fellow thought that he was
speaking with one of the black gang. They do not like to discuss the
bamboula with _leblancs_.”
“Your imitation was extraordinary. If I had not suspected what you were
up to I could have sworn that it was one of the Haytian boatmen talking.
You must have lived in this country.”
“It was but three months, and that several years ago. I came here to
catch snails. There was an experience—a thing odd and uneven. It is
possible that you would be interested—listen!” He held up one hand.
From out of the illusive velvety depths that marked the contours of the
tumbling hills came monotonously the “tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom,” now
rising with the puff of the land breeze, waning slightly, yet unvarying
as the swing of a pendulum. With it came the night smells of flowers
drenched in dew and the mouldy reek of the tropic woods.
“Smell it!” said Leyden. He leaned both elbows on the rail and dropped
the butt of his cigar into the black water, where it drowned with a
spiteful little hiss. “The ‘bamboula’—the smell of the trees and the
stephanotis—_ach_, how it seems as if it were last night! That bamboula,
with its tom-tom-tom! First it is quaint, then it is a nuisance, then
irritating, then fascinating, and last of all it maddens. To think that
such a people should have learned the secret of repeated concussions on
a single group of brain-cells——”
“You have heard it before?” I interrupted, for I knew all of this he was
telling me and wanted his story.
“Yes. It was when I was here five years ago looking for snails. I was
crossing on a French boat, and the second day out I met the Doctor and
Madame Fouchère. He was a Haytian, a _marabout_, an Adonis carved out of
jet, for you know that breed are of a type magnificent and hold their
fineness of skin and feature far into advanced age. He was an
intelligent man, highly educated and skilled in his profession. I
learned afterwards that he was the left-handed son of a former President
by a _marabout_ woman—one of the usual cases of _placage_ of those high
in official circles. Fouchère had been educated in France, and after
talking with him for a while one forgot that he was black; yet I will
confess to a sense of shock when he presented me to Madame.
“She might easily have passed for pure French. I fancy that I was the
only person aboard who could see the outcrop of African—or, to be
polite, Haytian. She was charming in manner and appearance, inclined to
be fair, with blue eyes and that dusky blonde hair which will defy any
pedigree. Her face was pretty, rather piquant, and her figure _svelte_
and full of grace. Altogether she was most attractive and not lacking in
a certain _chic_, but there was a furtive expression about her eyes like
that which I have noticed in the eyes of a trained lioness.
“I talked with the Fouchères many times during the voyage, and learned
that since their marriage they had lived in Paris and were returning to
Hayti for the first time. Madame, it appeared, although Haytian by
birth, had been sent to a convent school in France when a mere child and
had not visited her native country since then.
“The day after our arrival in New York we sailed for Hayti by the Dutch
mail. By this time I had grown to know them quite well. A very decent
fellow, Fouchère; different from the average educated Haytian—but, then,
he was of quite a higher type. On parting at Port-au-Prince he made me
promise to visit them before I left the island.”
Leyden paused and shifted his position, leaning back against an awning
stanchion and hooking the fingers of one hand over the bolt-rope above
his head. The night had darkened, for a heavy cloud-bank had drifted
across to shroud that part of the sky where the late moon would rise. It
welded to itself the dim, broken outline of the mountain-tops and gave
to the sable contour of the land the sinister aspect of looming almost
to the zenith—and all the while from somewhere just beneath the surface
came the hollow, rhythmic beat of the bamboula.
“Enough to drive one _loi_,” muttered Leyden.
I heard a rustling from the shore-boat lying at the staging. The crew
were softly picking up their oars.
“They are getting restless, those fellows below. They cannot stand it
long, this night and that noise. Ho! they are shoving off without their
fares.” He leaned over the rail and hailed the boatman in Créole.
“_Ou ça v’aller?_” he called, with a trace of irony. They paid no
attention.
“_Attention, mon cher! Ou ça v’aller?_” he called, peremptorily.
“_Ca ou dit!_” growled one of the men, sulkily.
“_Côté bamboula la?_” called Leyden. They began to row again, without
answering, but it seemed to me that I caught a mutter which sounded like
“_nère vous écrasse!_”
Leyden chuckled. “Like master, like man in this savage country,” he
remarked, absently. “But I was telling you about Fouchère. When I had
got my snails and a beetle or two I remembered my promise to Fouchère
and looked him up. He had a nice place, for Hayti, up at La Coupe. I
sent word that I was coming the day before, and one of his servants came
down the mountain on horseback with a note from Madame expressing
herself as charmed. I went up the following forenoon. You know what the
journey is from Port-au-Prince to La Coupe: six miles of steady upward
strain by two emaciated, dying ponies, along a road which the rains have
made the dry bed of a torrential cataract; a half-wrecked surrey
fastened together with ropes, two of the wheels on the wrong side
before, the bush turning in the hub of one of them and screaming like a
soul in torment; bad sights and bad smells at every hand, and all about
you scenery which seems almost as divine as the Garden of Paradise.
“When finally I arrived, feeling like the pea in a tin whistle, the
Fouchères were awaiting me; and when Madame led me through the house to
the verandah in the rear, whence one got the full magnificence of the
view of the green valley stretching away to Port-au-Prince, the
sparkling blue of the bay, the vivid green of the mountains rising
behind Bisoton, and far in the distance the cloud-capped island of
Gonave, I felt amply repaid for the sun and the dust and other trials of
the trip up.
“Our _dejeuner_ was very good, though, like even the best in Hayti,
falling just a little short of being clean, and later in the day Dr.
Fouchère ordered his ponies saddled, and we rode higher up the mountain
to a point whence we were able to enjoy a magnificent view of the bay on
one side and the big lakes which form part of the geographical boundary
between Hayti and Santo Domingo on the other.
“We dined at six, for the Haytians retire early when they retire at all.
After dinner, as we sat upon the verandah with our cigars, I became
conscious of a certain lack of repose on the part of both my host and
hostess. Madame was obviously making an effort to be at ease, yet all of
the time it seemed to me that she was under a certain tension; alert,
expectant and a little restive—as one listens for a summons—or fears
that perhaps it may have passed unobserved. Dr. Fouchère was also
_distrait_, and several times I noticed that he turned his head sharply
to one side, as if striving to catch some hidden sound.
“It was such a night as this—dark, still, partly clouded, but with stars
and a late moon. At times there would be a flare of lightning in the
south, but the five o’clock shower had come and gone and there would be
no more rain. I was narrating an experience in Java, and they appeared
to be interested; then, as I talked on, there came pulsing up from the
valley beneath the slow, measured beat of a bamboula.
“I heard a rustle from the _chaise-longue_ occupied by Madame; the dull
glow at the end of Dr. Fouchère’s cigar blazed suddenly bright, then
died away again.
“I went on with my story, but all of the time that wretched drum was
sounding its even, tireless beat, and, although a good way off, there
was something insistent about the noise which refused to be ignored. As
I talked on, it began to set a time for my speech, and I found myself
unconsciously trying to adjust it to my words, or, more properly, to
adjust my words to _it_. Some people have a more distinct perception of
time and rhythm, just as some have a keener musical ear, and I have
both. The result was that before long I began to get a bit confused,
missed the point of my anecdote and finished lamely and with some anger.
“‘Will that fellow never finish beating that drum?’ I demanded
impatiently of my host. Of course, I had heard such instruments before
during my sojourn in the country, and had often noticed the children
thumping them in the daytime, so that the sound had no especial
significance for me.
“The lighted end of Dr. Fouchère’s cigar suddenly glowed again, then he
remarked: ‘I am afraid that noise will go on all night, Dr. Leyden. I
understand that the peasants are having one of their dances to-night.’
He slightly emphasized the word peasants.
“‘The bamboula?’ I asked, curiously, for, of course, I knew of the rites
attendant upon voodoo worship, although I had never witnessed them.
“‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘one of my servants told me this evening that there
was to be a dance to-night. This relic of paganism is one of the curses
of our country, Dr. Leyden. Although we whites have done our best to
discountenance it, it still persists.’
“Unlike most Haytians of the better class, who pretend to a black
aristocracy socially superior to the white, Dr. Fouchère always referred
to himself as white, although a blacker man never walked in the full
blaze of the equatorial sun. No doubt this was due to his prolonged
residence among the white race.
“‘Is the affair, then, as bad as it is painted?’ I inquired, for I had
heard some very somber stories of the bamboula.
“He hesitated for an instant, and in the pause my ear caught the click
of Madame’s little slipper tapping the floor to the time of the distant
drum.
“‘It is primitive,’ replied my host. ‘A virile people do not forget in a
day the customs of centuries.’ He paused again, and, as before, I heard
the click-click of Madame’s slipper marking the beat of the drum.
“‘Perhaps Dr. Leyden is fatigued and would wish to retire,’ she
suggested. ‘One rises early——’
“‘Indeed,’ I protested, ‘I am accustomed to sleep but little, but pray
do not let me keep you and Dr. Fouchère from your repose.’ To tell the
truth, the thought of lying on a bed and counting the strokes of that
infernal drum was terrifying to me.
“There was another brief pause, but in the interval I heard Fouchère’s
fingers softly tapping the rail in concert with the drum and the slipper
of Madame.”
Leyden paused and stared into the viscid water beneath. The land breeze
was fanning steadily now; the regular pulses of sound had swelled in
volume, but the interval was unchanged.
He continued, without looking up. “‘_Derrière mornes, gagner mornes_,’
as the Haytian proverb has it,” he sighed. “But I did not guess what was
behind their solicitude for my comfort. Fouchère politely denied any
wish to retire, and Madame said that she would wait a little longer
before asking to be excused.
“‘Come, we will smoke a fresh cigar,’ said Fouchère, presently. He
clapped his hands, but no servant appeared.
“‘The rascals are all out,’ he said, apologetically. ‘If you will pardon
me, I will go myself.’