I.
Night in all countries brings with it vaguenesses and illusions which
terrify certain imaginations;--but in the tropics it produces effects
peculiarly impressive and peculiarly sinister. Shapes of vegetation that
startle even while the sun shines upon them assume, after his setting,
a grimness,--a grotesquery,--a suggestiveness for which there is no
name.... In the North a tree is simply a tree;--here it is a personality
that makes itself felt; it has a vague physiognomy, an indefinable _Me_:
it is an Individual (with a capital I); it is a Being (with a capital
B).
From the high woods, as the moon mounts, fantastic darknesses descend
into the roads,--black distortions, mockeries, bad dreams,--an endless
procession of goblins. Least startling are the shadows flung down by the
various forms of palm, because instantly recognizable;--yet these take
the semblance of giant fingers opening and closing over the way, or a
black crawling of unutterable spiders....
Nevertheless, these phasma seldom alarm the solitary and belated Bitaco:
the darknesses that creep stealthily along the path have no frightful
signification for him,--do not appeal to his imagination;--if he
suddenly starts and stops and stares, it is not because of such shapes,
but because he has perceived two specks of orange light, and is not yet
sure whether they are only fire-flies, or the eyes of a trigonocephalus.
The spectres of his fancy have nothing in common with those indistinct
and monstrous umbrages: what he most fears, next to the deadly serpent,
are human witchcrafts. A white rag, an old bone lying in the path, might
be a _malefice_ which, if trodden upon, would cause his leg to blacken
and swell up to the size of the limb of an elephant;--an unopened bundle
of plantain leaves or of bamboo strippings, dropped by the way-side,
might contain the skin of a _Soucouyan._ But the ghastly being who
doffs or dons his skin at will--and the Zombi--and the _Moun-Mò_--may
be quelled or exorcised by prayer; and the lights of shrines, the white
gleaming of crosses, continually remind the traveller of his duty to the
Powers that save. All along the way there are shrines at intervals, not
very far apart: while standing in the radiance of one niche-lamp, you
may perhaps discern the glow of the next, if the road be level and
straight. They are almost everywhere,--shining along the skirts of the
woods, at the entrance of ravines, by the verges of precipices;--there
is a cross even upon the summit of the loftiest peak in the island. And
the night-walker removes his hat each time his bare feet touch the soft
stream of yellow light outpoured from the illuminated shrine of a white
Virgin or a white Christ. These are good ghostly company for him;--he
salutes them, talks to them, tells them his pains or fears: their
blanched faces seem to him full of sympathy;--they appear to cheer him
voicelessly as he strides from gloom to gloom, under the goblinry of
those woods which tower black as ebony under the stars.... And he has
other companionship. One of the greatest terrors of darkness in other
lands does not exist here after the setting of the sun,--the terror
of _Silence_.... Tropical night is full of voices;--extraordinary
populations of crickets are trilling; nations of tree-frogs are
chanting; the _Cabri-des-bois_, [14] or _cra-cra_, almost deafens you
with the wheezy bleating sound by which it earned its creole name; birds
pipe: everything that bells, ululates, drones, clacks, guggles, joins
the enormous chorus; and you fancy you see all the shadows vibrating to
the force of this vocal storm. The true life of Nature in the tropics
begins with the darkness, ends with the light.
And it is partly, perhaps, because of these conditions that the coming
of the dawn does not dissipate all fears of the supernatural. _I ni pè
zombi mênm gran'-jou_ (he is afraid of ghosts even in broad daylight) is
a phrase which does not sound exaggerated in these latitudes,--not, at
least, to anyone knowing something of the conditions that nourish or
inspire weird beliefs. In the awful peace of tropical day, in the hush
of the woods, the solemn silence of the hills (broken only by torrent
voices that cannot make themselves heard at night), even in the amazing
luminosity, there is a something apparitional and weird,--something that
seems to weigh upon the world like a measureless haunting. So still all
Nature's chambers are that a loud utterance jars upon the ear brutally,
like a burst of laughter in a sanctuary. With all its luxuriance
of color, with all its violence of light, this tropical day has its
ghostliness and its ghosts. Among the people of color there are many who
believe that even at noon--when the boulevards behind the city are most
deserted--the zombis will show themselves to solitary loiterers.
II.
... Here a doubt occurs to me,--a doubt regarding the precise nature of
a word, which I call upon Adou to explain. Adou is the daughter of
the kind old capresse from whom I rent my room in this little mountain
cottage. The mother is almost precisely the color of cinnamon; the
daughter's complexion is brighter,--the ripe tint of an orange.... Adou
tells me creole stories and _tim-tim_. Adou knows all about ghosts, and
believes in them. So does Adou's extraordinarily tall brother, Yébé,--my
guide among the mountains.
--"Adou," I ask, "what is a zombi?"
The smile that showed Adou's beautiful white teeth has instantly
disappeared; and she answers, very seriously, that she has never seen a
zombi, and does not want to see one.
--"_Moin pa té janmain ouè zombi,--pa 'lè ouè ça, moin!_"
--"But, Adou, child, I did not ask you whether you ever saw It;--I asked
you only to tell me what It is like?"...
Adou hesitates a little, and answers:
--"_Zombi? Mais ça fai désòde lanuitt, zombi!_"
Ah! it is Something which "makes disorder at night." Still, that is not
a satisfactory explanation. "Is it the spectre of a dead person, Adou?
Is it _one who comes back?_"
--"_Non, Missié,--non; çé pa ca._"
--"Not that?... Then what was it you said the other night when you were
afraid to pass the cemetery on an errand,--_ça ou té ka di_, Adou?"
--"Moin té ka di: 'Moin pa lé k'allé bò cimétiè-là pa ouappò
moun-mò;--moun-mò ké barré moin: moin pa sé pè vini enco.'" (_I said, "I
do not want to go by that cemetery because of the dead folk,--the dead
folk will bar the way, and I cannot get back again._")
--"And you believe that, Adou?"
--"Yes, that is what they say... And if you go into the cemetery at
night you cannot come out again: the dead folk will stop you--_moun-mò
ké barré ou._"...
--"But are the dead folk zombis, Adou?"
--"No; the moun-mò are not zombis. The zombis go everywhere: the dead
folk remain in the graveyard.... Except on the Night of All Souls: then
they go to the houses of their people everywhere."
--"Adou, if after the doors and windows were locked and barred you were
to see entering your room in the middle of the night, a Woman fourteen
feet high?"...
--"_Ah! pa pàlé ça!!_"...
--"No! tell me, Adou?"
--"Why, yes: that would be a zombi. It is the zombis who make all those
noises at night one cannot understand.... Or, again, if I were to see
a dog that high [she holds her hand about five feet above the floor]
coming into our house at night, I would scream: '_Mi Zombi!_'"
... Then it suddenly occurs to Adou that her mother knows something
about zombis.
--"_Ou Manman!_"
--"_Eti!_" answers old Théréza's voice from the little out-building
where the evening meal is being prepared over a charcoal furnace, in an
earthen canari.
--"_Missié-là ka mandé save ça ça yé yonne zombi;--vini ti bouin!_"...
The mother laughs, abandons her canari, and comes in to tell me all she
knows about the weird word.
"_I ni pè zombi_"--I find from old Thereza's explanations--is a phrase
indefinite as our own vague expressions, "afraid of ghosts," "afraid of
the dark." But the word "Zombi" also has special strange meanings....
"Ou passé nans grand chimin lanuitt, épi ou ka ouè gouôs difé, épi plis
ou ka vini assou difé-à pli ou ka ouè difé-à ka màché: çé zombi ka fai
ça.... Encò, chouval ka passé,--chouval ka ni anni toua patt: ça zombi."
(You pass along the high-road at night, and you see a great fire, and
the more you walk to get to it the more it moves away: it is the zombi
makes that.... Or a horse _with only three legs_ passes you: that is a
zombi.)
--"How big is the fire that the zombi makes?" I ask.
--"It fills the whole road," answers Théréza: "_li ka rempli toutt
chimin-là_. Folk call those fires the Evil Fires,--_mauvai difé_;--and
if you follow them they will lead you into chasms,--_ou ké tombé adans
labîme_."...
And then she tells me this:
--"Baidaux was a mad man of color who used to live at St. Pierre, in the
Street of the Precipice. He was not dangerous,--never did any harm;--his
sister used to take care of him. And what I am going to relate is
true,--_çe zhistouè veritabe!_
"One day Baidaux said to his sister: 'Moin ni yonne yche, va!--ou pa
connaitt li!' [I have a child, ah!--you never saw it!] His sister paid
no attention to what he said that day; but the next day he said it
again, and the next, and the next, and every day after,--so that his
sister at last became much annoyed by it, and used to cry out: 'Ah! mais
pé guiole ou, Baidaux! ou fou pou embeté moin conm ça!--ou bien fou!'...
But he tormented her that way for months and for years.
"One evening he went out, and only came home at midnight leading a child
by the hand,--a black child he had found in the street; and he said to
his sister:--
"'Mi yche-là moin mené ba ou! Tou léjou moin té ka di ou moin tini yonne
yche: ou pa té 'lè couè,--eh, ben! MI Y!' [Look at the child I have
brought you! Every day I have been telling you I had a child: you would
not believe me,--very well, LOOK AT HIM!]
"The sister gave one look, and cried out: 'Baidaux, oti ou pouend
yche-là?'... For the child was growing taller and taller every
moment.... And Baidaux,--because he was mad,--kept saying: 'Çé
yche-moin! çé yche moin!' [It is my child!]
"And the sister threw open the shutters and screamed to all the
neighbors,--'_Sécou, sécou, sécou! Vini oué ça Baidaux mené ba moin!_'
[Help! help! Come see what Baidaux has brought in here!] And the child
said to Baidaux: '_Ou ni bonhè ou fou!_' [You are lucky that you are
mad!]... Then all the neighbors came running in; but they could not see
anything: the Zombi was gone."...
III.
... As I was saying, the hours of vastest light have their weirdness
here;--and it is of a Something which walketh abroad under the eye
of the sun, even at high noontide, that I desire to speak, while the
impressions of a morning journey to the scene of Its last alleged
apparition yet remains vivid in my recollection.
You follow the mountain road leading from Calebasse over long meadowed
levels two thousand feet above the ocean, into the woods of La Couresse,
where it begins to descend slowly, through deep green shadowing, by
great zigzags. Then, at a turn, you find yourself unexpectedly looking
down upon a planted valley, through plumy fronds of arborescent
fern. The surface below seems almost like a lake of gold-green
water,--especially when long breaths of mountain-wind set the miles of
ripening cane a-ripple from verge to verge: the illusion is marred only
by the road, fringed with young cocoa-palms, which serpentines across
the luminous plain. East, west, and north the horizon is almost
wholly hidden by surging of hills: those nearest are softly shaped and
exquisitely green; above them loftier undulations take hazier verdancy
and darker shadows; farther yet rise silhouettes of blue or violet tone,
with one beautiful breast-shaped peak thrusting up in the midst;--while,
westward, over all, topping even the Piton, is a vapory huddling of
prodigious shapes--wrinkled, fissured, horned, fantastically tall....
Such at least are the tints of the morning.... Here and there, between
gaps in the volcanic chain, the land hollows into gorges, slopes down
into ravines;--and the sea's vast disk of turquoise flames up through
the interval. Southwardly those deep woods, through which the way winds
down, shut in the view.... You do not see the plantation buildings till
you have advanced some distance into the valley;--they are hidden by a
fold of the land, and stand in a little hollow where the road turns:
a great quadrangle of low gray antiquated edifices, heavily walled and
buttressed, and roofed with red tiles. The court they form opens upon
the main route by an immense archway. Farther along ajoupas begin to
line the way,--the dwellings of the field hands,--tiny cottages built
with trunks of the arborescent fern or with stems of bamboo, and
thatched with cane-straw: each in a little garden planted with bananas,
yams, couscous, camanioc, choux-caraibes, or other things,--and hedged
about with roseaux d'Inde and various flowering shrubs.
Thereafter, only the high whispering wildernesses of cane on
either hand,--the white silent road winding between its swaying
cocoa-trees,--and the tips of hills that seem to glide on before you as
you walk, and that take, with the deepening of the afternoon light, such
amethystine color as if they were going to become transparent.
IV.
... It is a breezeless and cloudless noon. Under the dazzling downpour
of light the hills seem to smoke blue: something like a thin yellow fog
haloes the leagues of ripening cane,--a vast reflection. There is no
stir in all the green mysterious front of the vine-veiled woods. The
palms of the roads keep their heads quite still, as if listening. The
canes do not utter a single susurration. Rarely is there such absolute
stillness among them: on the calmest days there are usually rustlings
audible, thin cracklings, faint creepings: sounds that betray the
passing of some little animal or reptile--a rat or a wa manicou, or a
zanoli or couresse,--more often, however, no harmless lizard or snake,
but the deadly _fer-de-lance_. To-day, all these seem to sleep; and
there are no workers among the cane to clear away the weeds,--to uproot
the pié-treffe, pié-poule, pié-balai, zhèbe-en-mè: it is the hour of
rest.
A woman is coming along the road,--young, very swarthy, very tall, and
barefooted, and black-robed: she wears a high white turban with dark
stripes, and a white foulard is thrown about her fine shoulders; she
bears no burden, and walks very swiftly and noiselessly.... Soundless
as shadow the motion of all these naked-footed people is. On any quiet
mountain-way, full of curves, where you fancy yourself alone, you may
often be startled by something you _feel_, rather than hear, behind
you,--surd steps, the springy movement of a long lithe body, dumb
oscillations of raiment;--and ere you can turn to look, the haunter
swiftly passes with creole greeting of "bon-jou'" or "bonsouè, Missié."
This sudden "becoming aware" in broad daylight of a living presence
unseen is even more disquieting than that sensation which, in absolute
darkness, makes one halt all breathlessly before great solid objects,
whose proximity has been revealed by some mute blind emanation of force
alone. But it is very seldom, indeed, that the negro or half-breed
is thus surprised: he seems to divine an advent by some specialized
sense,--like an animal,--and to become conscious of a look directed upon
him from any distance or from behind any covert;--to pass within the
range of his keen vision unnoticed is almost impossible.... And the
approach of this woman has been already observed by the habitants of the
ajoupas;--dark faces peer out from windows and door-ways;--one half-nude
laborer even strolls out to the road-side under the sun to her coming. He
looks a moment, turns to the hut and calls:--
--"Ou-ou! Fafa!"
--"Étí! Gabou!"
--"Vini ti bouin!--mi bel negresse!"
Out rushes Fafa, with his huge straw hat in his hand: "Oti, Gabou?"
--"Mi!"
--"'Ah! quimbé moin!" cries black Fafa, enthusiastically; "fouinq! li
bel!--Jésis-Maïa! li doux!"...Neither ever saw that woman before; and
both feel as if they could watch her forever.
There is something superb in the port of a tall young mountain-griffone,
or negress, who is comely and knows that she is comely: it is a
black poem of artless dignity, primitive grace, savage exultation of
movement.... "Ou marché tête enlai conm couresse qui ka passélariviè"
(_You walk with your head in the air, like the couresse-serpent swimming
a river_) is a creole comparison which pictures perfectly the poise of
her neck and chin. And in her walk there is also a serpentine elegance,
a sinuous charm: the shoulders do not swing; the cambered torso seems
immobile;--but alternately from waist to heel, and from heel to waist,
with each long full stride, an indescribable undulation seems to pass;
while the folds of her loose robe oscillate to right and left behind
her, in perfect libration, with the free swaying of the hips. With
us, only a finely trained dancer could attempt such a walk;--with the
Martinique woman of color it is natural as the tint of her skin; and
this allurement of motion unrestrained is most marked in those who have
never worn shoes, and are clad lightly as the women of antiquity,--in
two very thin and simple garments;--chemise and _robe--d'indienne_....
But whence is she?--of what canton? Not from Vauclin, nor from Lamentin,
nor from Marigot,--from Case-Pilote or from Case-Navire: Fafa knows
all the people there. Never of Sainte-Anne, nor of Sainte-Luce, nor of
Sainte-Marie, nor of Diamant, nor of Gros-Morne, nor of Carbet,--the
birthplace of Gabou. Neither is she of the village of the Abysms, which
is in the Parish of the Preacher,--nor yet of Ducos nor of François,
which are in the Commune of the Holy Ghost....
V.
... She approaches the ajoupa: both men remove their big straw hats; and
both salute her with a simultaneous "Bonjou', Manzell."
--"Bonjou', Missié," she responds, in a sonorous alto, without appearing
to notice Gabou,--but smiling upon Fafa as she passes, with her great
eyes turned full upon his face.... All the libertine blood of the man
flames under that look;--he feels as if momentarily wrapped in a blaze
of black lightning.
--"Ça ka fai moin pè," exclaims Gabou, turning his face towards the
ajoupa. Something indefinable in the gaze of the stranger has terrified
him.
--"_Pa ka fai moin pè--fouinq!_" (She does not make me afraid) laughs
Fafa, boldly following her with a smiling swagger.
--"Fafa!" cries Gabou, in alarm. "_Fafa, pa fai ça!_" But Fafa does
not heed. The strange woman has slackened her pace, as if inviting
pursuit;--another moment and he is at her side.
--"Oti ou ka rêté, che?" he demands, with the boldness of one who knows
himself a fine specimen of his race.
--"Zaffai cabritt pa zaffai lapin," she answers, mockingly.
--"Mais pouki au rhabillé toutt nouè conm ça."
--"Moin pòté deil pou name main mò."
--"Aïe ya yaïe!... Non, vouè!--ça ou kallé atouèlement?"
--"Lanmou pàti: moin pàti deïé lanmou."
--"Ho!--on ni guêpe, anh?"
--"Zanoli bail yon bal; épi maboya rentré ladans."
--"Di moin oti ou kallé, doudoux?"
--"Jouq lariviè Lezà."
--"Fouinq!--ni plis passé trente kilomett!"
--"Eh ben?--ess ou 'lè vini épi moin?" [15]
And as she puts the question she stands still and gazes at him;--her
voice is no longer mocking: it has taken another tone,--a tone soft
as the long golden note of the little brown bird they call the
_siffleur-de-montagne_, the mountain-whistler.... Yet Fafa hesitates. He
hears the clear clang of the plantation bell recalling him to duty;--he
sees far down the road--(_Ouill!_ how fast they have been walking!)--a
white and black speck in the sun: Gabou, uttering through his joined
hollowed hands, as through a horn, the _ouklé_, the rally call. For an
instant he thinks of the overseer's anger,--of the distance,--of the
white road glaring in the dead heat: then he looks again into the black
eyes of the strange woman, and answers:
--"Oui;--moin ké vini épi ou."
With a burst of mischievous laughter, in which Fafa joins, she walks
on,--Fafa striding at her side.... And Gabou, far off, watches them
go,--and wonders that, for the first time since ever they worked
together, his comrade failed to answer his _ouklé_.
--"Coument yo ka crié ou, chè" asks Fafa, curious to know her name.
--"Châché nom moin ou-menm, duviné."
But Fafa never was a good guesser,--never could guess the simplest of
tim-tim.
--"Ess Cendrine?"
--"Non, çe pa ça."
--"Ess Vitaline?"
--"Non çé pa ça."
--"Ess Aza?"
--"Non, çé pa ça."
--"Ess Nini?"
--"Châché encò."
--"Ess Tité"
--"Ou pa save,--tant pis pou ou!"
--"Ess Youma?"
--"Pouki ou 'lè save nom moin?--ça ou ké épi y?"
--"Ess Yaiya?"
--"Non, çé pa y."
--"Ess Maiyotte?"
--"Non! ou pa ké janmain trouvé y!"
--"Ess Sounoune?--ess Loulouze?"
She does not answer, but quickens her pace and begins to sing,--not as
the half-breed, but as the African sings,--commencing with a low
long weird intonation that suddenly breaks into fractions of notes
inexpressible, then rising all at once to a liquid purling bird-tone,
and descending as abruptly again to the first deep quavering strain:--
"À te--moin ka dòmi toute longue;
Yon paillasse sé fai main bien, Doudoux!
À te--moin ka dòmi toute longue;
Yon robe biésé sé fai moin bien,
Doudoux!
À te--moin ka dòmi toute longue;
Dè jolis foulà sé fai moin bien,
Doudoux!
À te--moin ka dòmi toute longue;
Yon joli madras sé fai moin bien,
Doudoux!
À te--moin ka dòmi toute longue: Çe à tè..."
... Obliged from the first to lengthen his stride in order to keep up
with her, Fafa has found his utmost powers of walking overtaxed, and has
been left behind. Already his thin attire is saturated with sweat; his
breathing is almost a panting;--yet the black bronze of his companion's
skin shows no moisture; her rhythmic her silent respiration, reveal no
effort: she laughs at his desperate straining to remain by her side.
--"Marché toujou' deïé moin,--anh, chè?--marché toujou' deïé!"...
And the involuntary laggard--utterly bewitched by supple allurement of
her motion, by the black flame of her gaze, by the savage melody of her
chant--wonders more and more who she may be, while she waits for him
with her mocking smile.
But Gabou--who has been following and watching from afar off, and
sounding his fruitless ouklé betimes--suddenly starts, halts, turns, and
hurries back, fearfully crossing himself at every step.
He has seen the sign by which She is known...
VI.
... None ever saw her by night. Her hour is the fulness of the sun's
flood-tide: she comes in the dead hush and white flame of windless
noons,--when colors appear to take a very unearthliness of
intensity,--when even the flash of some colibri, bosomed with living
fire, shooting hither and thither among the grenadilla blossoms, seemeth
a spectral happening because of the great green trance of the land....
Mostly she haunts the mountain roads, winding from plantation to
plantation, from hamlet to hamlet,--sometimes dominating huge sweeps
of azure sea, sometimes shadowed by mornes deep-wooded to the sky.
But close to the great towns she sometimes walks: she has been seen at
mid-day upon the highway which overlooks the Cemetery of the Anchorage,
behind the cathedral of St. Pierre.... A black Woman, simply clad,
of lofty stature and strange beauty, silently standing in the light,
_keeping her eyes fixed upon the Sun!_...
VII.
Day wanes. The further western altitudes shift their pearline gray
to deep blue where the sky is yellowing up behind them; and in the
darkening hollows of nearer mornes strange shadows gather with the
changing of the light--dead indigoes, fuliginous purples, rubifications
as of scoriae,--ancient volcanic colors momentarily resurrected by the
illusive haze of evening. And the fallow of the canes takes a faint warm
ruddy tinge. On certain far high slopes, as the sun lowers, they look
like thin golden hairs against the glow,--blond down upon the skin of
the living hills.
Still the Woman and her follower walk together,--chatting loudly,
laughing--chanting snatches of song betimes. And now the valley is
well behind them;--they climb the steep road crossing the eastern
peaks,--through woods that seem to stifle under burdening of creepers.
The shadow of the Woman and the shadow of the man,--broadening from
their feet,--lengthening prodigiously,--sometimes, mixing, fill all the
way; sometimes, at a turn, rise up to climb the trees. Huge masses of
frondage, catching the failing light, take strange fiery color;--the
sun's rim almost touches one violet hump in the western procession of
volcanic silhouettes....
Sunset, in the tropics, is vaster than sunrise.... The dawn,
upflaming swiftly from the sea, has no heralding erubescence, no
awful blossoming--as in the North: its fairest hues are fawn-colors,
dove-tints, and yellows,--pale yellows as of old dead gold, in horizon
and flood. But after the mighty heat of day has charged all the blue
air with translucent vapor, colors become strangely changed, magnified,
transcendentalized when the sun falls once more below the verge of
visibility. Nearly an hour before his death, his light begins to turn
tint; and all the horizon yellows to the color of a lemon. Then this hue
deepens, through tones of magnificence unspeakable, into orange; and the
sea becomes lilac. Orange is the light of the world for a little space;
and as the orb sinks, the indigo darkness comes--not descending, but
rising, as if from the ground--all within a few minutes. And during
those brief minutes peaks and mornes, purpling into richest velvety
blackness, appear outlined against passions of fire that rise half-way
to the zenith,--enormous furies of vermilion.
... The Woman all at once leaves the main road,--begins to mount a steep
narrow path leading up from it through the woods upon the left. But Fafa
hesitates,--halts a moment to look back. He sees the sun's huge
orange face sink down,--sees the weird procession of the peaks vesture
themselves in blackness funereal,--sees the burning behind them crimson
into awfulness; and a vague fear comes upon him as he looks again up the
darkling path to the left. Whither is she now going?
--"Oti ou kallé la?" he cries.
--"Mais conm ça!--chimin tala plis cou't,--coument?"
It may be the shortest route, indeed;--but then, the fer-de-lance!...
--"Ni sèpent ciya,--en pile."
No: there is not a single one, she avers; she has taken that path too
often not to know:
--"Pa ni sèpent piess! Moin ni coutime passé là;--pa ni piess!"
... She leads the way.... Behind them the tremendous glow
deepens;--before them the gloom. Enormous gnarled forms of ceiba,
balata, acoma, stand dimly revealed as they pass; masses of viny
drooping things take, by the failing light, a sanguine tone. For a
little while Fafa can plainly discern the figure of the Woman before
him;--then, as the path zigzags into shadow, he can descry only the
white turban and the white foulard;--and then the boughs meet overhead:
he can see her no more, and calls to her in alarm:--
--"Oti ou?--moin pa pè ouè arien!"
Forked pending ends of creepers trail cold across his face. Huge
fire-flies sparkle by,--like atoms of kindled charcoal thinkling, blown
by a wind.
--"Içitt!--quimbé lanmain-moin!"...
How cold the hand that guides him!...She walks swiftly, surely, as one
knowing the path by heart. It zigzags once more; and the incandescent
color flames again between the trees;--the high vaulting of foliage
fissures overhead, revealing the first stars. A _cabritt-bois_ begins
its chant. They reach the summit of the morne under the clear sky.
The wood is below their feet now; the path curves on eastward between
a long swaying of ferns sable in the gloom,--as between a waving
of prodigious black feathers. Through the further purpling, loftier
altitudes dimly loom; and from some viewless depth, a dull vast rushing
sound rises into the night.... Is it the speech of hurrying waters, or
only some tempest of insect voices from those ravines in which the night
begins?...
Her face is in the darkness as she stands;--Fafa's eyes turned to
the iron-crimson of the western sky. He still holds her hand, fondles
it,--murmurs something to her in undertones.
--"Ess ou ainmein moin conm ça?" she asks, almost in a whisper,
Oh! yes, yes, yes!... more than any living being he loves her!...
How much? Ever so much,--_gouôs conm caze!_... Yet she seems to doubt
him,--repeating her questionn over and over:
--"Ess ou ainmein moin?"
And all the while,--gently, caressingly, imperceptibly--she draws him
a little nearer to the side of the nearer to the black waving of the
ferns, nearer to the great dull rushing sound that rises from beyond
them:
--"Ess ou ainmein moin?"
--"Oui, oui!" he responds,--"ou save ça!--oui, chè doudoux, ou save
ça!"...
And she, suddenly,--turning at once to him and to the last red light,
the goblin horror of her face transformed,--shrieks with a burst of
hideous laughter:
--"_Atò, bô!_" [16]
For the fraction of a moment he knows her name:--then, smitten to the
brain with the sight of her, reels, recoils, and, backward falling,
crashes two thousand feet down to his death upon the rocks of a mountain
torrent.