‘First of all,’ said the Duke, ‘while our minds are still fresh I think we’d better plot out our night, dividing it into hours in which we’re going to talk about certain subjects or play various word-games; then with each hour that passes we shall have something new to occupy our thoughts and not suddenly find ourselves stuck for ideas when our vitality is at its lowest ebb.’
Accordingly they made out a short list. For the first hour they were to talk about their earliest memories. For the second, they would indulge in a battle of wits where each would write down a subject on a piece of paper, and without actually mentioning what they had written would see which of them could first lead the other into talking of the subject chosen. For the third, they were each to recount their recollections of their first love-affair; and so on, right up to six o’clock, soon after which dawn would come and release them from the pentacle.
During the first three-quarters of an hour nothing at all happened, but it was an eerie sensation to be sitting there with the knowledge that a third, invisible, person might also be in the room watching them with quiet malevolence and planning various schemes which might lead to their undoing.
Shortly ofter one the oil-lamp above their heads began to dim. The Duke rose to his feet and turned up the wick, but that made no difference; the light grew fainter and fainter, spluttered a little and went out.
The darkness seemed charged with sinister vibrations and for the first few moments after the light had died it appeared very black, but as their eyes became accustomed to it the bright starlight outside gradually lit the room for them so that they could still just make out each other’s features and the objects of furniture which had been pushed against the wall. They then noticed that the places where the boards had been damped with the charged water now showed as lines with a phosphorescent glow, which was a considerable comfort to them.
From their previous experience they had realised beforehand that they would almost certainly be robbed of light, so they went on talking, quite unperturbed, but each kept their eyes fixed on the other’s face, both grimly determined not to be drawn into looking behind them.
After a little while Marie Lou saw a thickening of the shadows over the Duke’s shoulder, just outside the pentacle. It slowly condensed into the form of a small black astral, like a dwarf with a very big head; but she knew that it was only a Utile ‘black’ and took no notice of it.
De Richleau, meanwhile, could see over her head, and beyond it, too, the shadows were moving. As he watched they writhed and twisted until they formed a giant smoky hand with fingers that flickered backwards and forwards in a clutching motion, as though to snatch Marie Lou bodily from inside the protective barrier.
Anyone with less knowledge than the Duke might have been scared into shouting a warning to her, but he knew that their only hope of safety lay in complete passivity and he was able to bring into his conversation a little joke which made her laugh, whereupon the big hand suddenly shivered and dissolved.
After that, many strange things came and went outside the limits of the pentacle, obviously sent to try to terrify them into leaving it; but, far from becoming anxious, the Duke was now much easier in his mind. It was apparent that the water charged with power, from which he had made their astral defence, was sufficient without the many other items that he had used at Cardinals Folly to keep the evil manifestations at bay—at least, as long as he and Marie Lou could keep awake. In order to maintain its force, ignoring anything that might be jibbering at them from beyond the barrier, at intervals of about an hour he made the circle of the star on his hands and knees, remoistening the lines, from the carafe, as he went.
At about half-past two the enemy appeared to realise that they could not be scared and the manifestations abruptly ceased. For nearly two hours nothing happened, and they talked on about a multitude of subjects, de Richleau having soon come to the conclusion that the reason for the evil forces having been withdrawn was because their initiator hoped that if they were not molested further they would grow tired of talking and go to sleep.
Actually, neither of them felt in the least like sleeping, as both were conscious of an ally upon which they had not counted. All the portions of their bodies which had been exposed to the full rays of the sun were glowing with heat, and at times they were tempted to tear off the sun-scorched skin in the hope of securing even momentary relief. The pain had been bad enough when they were sitting out on the verandah talking to Doctor Saturday, but it had eased a little while they were moving about after having come up to their rooms. Then, when they had settled down for the night, it had seemed to become infinitely worse, so they doubted if they could have managed to get any sleep even had they been out of all danger and in the most comfortable beds.
Shortly before half-past four it seemed that the enemy’s patience was exhausted or that he had suddenly realised the fact that it was not their intention to go to sleep. In any case, he changed his tactics.
A strange, heady perfume began to filter into the room until the whole atmosphere was laden with it. There was nothing that they could see, nothing tangible at which they could throw their defiant wills; but for that very reason the new manifestation was all the more frightening. The strong scent seemed to dull their senses like a drug, so that their limbs grew heavy; it became difficult for them to hold their heads upright, and they felt an awful yearning to relax and let great waves of sleep pass over them.
De Richleau stretched out his hand and took Marie Lou’s. They were speaking much more slowly now and it required a great effort to continue their talk of old memories and irrelevant things; but each time there fell a pause one of them dug his nails into the palm of the other until the pain jerked back the one who was due to reply and some form of answer was forthcoming.
How long that continued neither of them could tell but it seemed as though they wrestled there for an endless time with the intangible, awful thing that was weighing down upon them, until at last the scent grew fainter and they knew that they had won through that ordeal.
There was another pause, during which they were able to rally their strength a little. Then came the next attack: an attempt to hypnotise them into sleep by sound and at the same time to destroy their power of speech.
Very softly at first, they heard the beating of the Voodoo drums. The drumming went on and on with a terrible monotony that frayed their nerves to ribbons, slowly increasing in volume until the drum-beats were thundering in their ears so loudly that they could barely catch each other’s words.
As the sound increased, so they raised their voices, and soon they were shouting at each other with all the power of their lungs. Both felt that they must either be overcome or go mad.
In vain they stuffed their fingers in their ears. It made no difference. The awful, primitive rhythm seemed to stun them with its volume; yet they struggled on. As a counter to the sound the Duke burst into song, and Marie Lou followed his lead. Wildly, crazily, they sang snatches of choruses from old musical-comedy shows, patriotic airs, and marching-songs—anything that entered their heads— sometimes together but often in opposition. They made the night hideous but their tuneless caterwauling enabled them to keep their thoughts concentrated on their own efforts and free of the somnolent effects of the insistent, never-changing rhythm.
Suddenly the drumming ceased and by comparison the silence was overwhelming. Yet it was not complete silence. Faintly, in the distance, a cock was crowing, and the crowing of a cock has the power to break any night-cast spell.
De Richleau drew in a deep breath as he glanced at the window. The stars had paled, grey light now filled the oblongs. Dawn had come.
They stood up and stretched themselves, now free to move outside the makeshift pentacle, that had served them so well. With their relief a new tiredness had seized upon them; but this was a normal thing which they knew they could fight for hours to come. De Richleau relit the lamp and they smiled at each other.
‘Well done, Princess,’ he said. ‘It was pretty ghastly, but we’ve come through all right. I doubt, though, if I could have done so alone. I could have stood the drums, but not that awful perfume, unless I’d had somebody with me to keep me from going under.’
‘I wonder,’ she said slowly, ‘if I’m looking as grim as you.’
They both turned and stared into the dressing-table mirror. That awful night had taken it out of both of them. De Richleau’s face was grey and lined, while it seemed that Marie Lou had aged ten years.
He put an arm about her shoulders and shook her gently. ‘Don’t worry about that now; it’s only a temporary thing, within a few hours you’ll have recovered all your beauty.’
As is always the case in the Tropics, the sun rose very quickly. Within quarter of an hour after their ordeal had ended daylight had come, so they decided to go out for a short walk to freshen themselves up. Their burns were still too angry to permit them to bath, but having washed themselves and dressed they went out into the garden and a little way down the road. They did not, however, walk far, as the wound in the Duke’s foot had not fully healed and still pained him slightly. When they got back they went into the living-room and collected some magazines. These were all several months old but served to keep them occupied until eight o’clock, when they felt that they could decently go in search of breakfast.
Having found the head house-boy de Richleau went through a pantomime of pouring out and drinking, upon which the dumb Negro pointed to the dining-room, and ten minutes later they were eagerly giving their attention to hot coffee, buttered eggs and a selection of the island’s luscious tropical fruit.
They were just finishing when Doctor Saturday joined them. After having wished them good morning, he remarked: ‘You were up very early for people of leisure. I do hope that you didn’t sleep badly?’
‘On the contrary,’ lied the Duke genially. ‘We found your beds most comfortable; but both my niece and I are accustomed to getting up early, and your lovely garden tempted us into taking a short walk.’
‘I fear my garden is a poor place by European standards,’ the Doctor smiled. ‘We cannot grow your beautiful lawns here, and the garden boys are incurably lazy; it is difficult to get them even to keep it tidy; but I have managed to collect quite a number of interesting flowers and plants. To have examples of as many varieties as possible helps me in my work, you know. Now, what would you like to do today? Please consider me entirely at your disposal.’
‘That is most kind,’ de Richleau bowed slightly. ‘We should be delighted to leave ourselves in your hands.’
‘Very well, then. This morning we might have a look round the town, and, since you are keen to learn about Voodoo, this afternoon I will take you to a Hounfort.’
‘What is that?’ Marie Lou asked.
‘A Hounfort, Madame, is a Voodoo temple, or perhaps one could describe it more correctly as a place in which a Houngan lives with his family and retainers and carries out his Voodoo ceremonies.’
‘That really would be most interesting,’ said the Duke.
When the Doctor had finished his breakfast his car was brought round and in it they drove down to Port-au-Prince. On the previous evening they had been too concerned with other matters to pay much attention to what little of the town they had seen, and they now realised that it was a much larger place than they had at first supposed. The Doctor told them that it contained a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, being by far the largest and, in fact, the only considerable town in Haiti, as there were no others in which the population exceeded twenty thousand.
The main streets were wide but ragged. Few of the houses were of more than two storeys but outside their upper floors nearly all of them had verandahs—airy balconies supported on pillars—upon which their owners could sleep during the midday heat. There were a few miles of tramway, and here and there a lorry or a battered car bumped along the uneven way, but there was very little traffic apart from a certain number of ox-wagons and poor, mangy little donkeys saddled with panniers which were stuffed to the brim with goods.
They visited the cathedral, a twin-towered architectural monstrosity of Victorian times, and the Senate House, in which the theoretical representatives of the people held their meetings and heard the decisions of the President, in whom all real power was vested. There were numerous markets: one very big, open one in a wide space in front of the cathedral, and another, a covered market, which was entered through a quadruple-towered arch—one of the most hideous structures that de Richleau had ever set eyes on. It had been erected, Doctor Saturday said, to the memory of General Hippolite, who had been President for seven years, from 1889 to 1896, a record term in the whole island’s history for a continuous and peaceful reign.
The curious bits and pieces in the meat market did not bear close inspection for anyone with a delicate stomach but the many varieties of local fish were interesting and the wealth of fruit and vegetables was positively astounding, for tropical varieties flourished in the lowlands and those natural to the more temperate climate of Europe, which had originally been brought over by the French, were still grown in the higher lands of the interior.
The attire of the citizens of Haiti was diverse. Most of them wore the wide-brimmed, locally-made, straw hats to keep off the strong sun, and the Doctor bought two of these for his companions. But in every other detail of dress the Haitians showed the most varied tastes; particularly the women, whose striped, spotted and self-colour head-coverings and neckerchiefs were of every hue under the rainbow. Although it was only ten o’clock it was already very hot, and few of the men in the streets wore coats; only a white, and generally dirty, open-necked shirt.
When the Doctor took them to the one hotel they found that the Haitian upper classes showed a very different taste in dress. No women, except the serving girls, were present, which made Marie Lou feel a little awkward, but the Doctor was greeted with respect wherever he went, and they sat down at a little table near the entrance to the big bar. In it, and at the neighbouring tables, there were at least a hundred men, all dressed, despite the heat, in black frock-coats or some kind of uniform.
The frock-coated men, whose wide straw hats had been enamelled a shiny black, were, the Doctor told them, Haitian politicians; and the others, although their uniforms differed almost without exception, were generals. It appeared that in Haiti they had had exactly the same number of generals in their army as they had had privates—to be exact, 6,500 of each—that is, up to the date of the American occupation. Before evacuating the island the United States officers had reorganised Haiti’s defence force on more usual lines, but there were still countless generals who had obtained their rank when quite young men and had very determinedly stuck to it.
They did not look very much like generals, but more like black footmen in rather badly-designed and shop-soiled liveries, for in nearly every case the uniforms had done many years—and often even generations—of service, having been handed down as treasured possessions from father to son. The tunics, trousers and cloaks were of all colours and the oddest fits; the only thing which they had in common being tarnished gold lace, wherever it could be tacked on, and a rakish cockade of colourful plumage stuck in each battered shako or cap. Some of the generals carried revolvers in the gaily-tasselled sashes about their waists, while others clattered rapiers and sabres, some of which had seen service at the time of the French Revolution or, even earlier, in the hands of the pirates on the Spanish main.
The whole crowd talked and gesticulated incessantly, and it was clear to the visitors that this was the true ‘house of representatives’; where the real business of the island was conducted during each morning session throughout the year, whether the Senate was supposed to be sitting or not. While they rested there the Doctor and his guests enjoyed an excellent ‘planter’s punch’ made from iced rum, the juice of fresh limes, sugar and various other ingredients, but so many curious glances were cast at them that Marie Lou was heartily glad when they got away.
By eleven o’clock the town was beginning to empty, as the broiling sun was already high overhead, and people were making their way home for the midday meal, after which they would indulge in a siesta until three o’clock, thereby virtually dividing their working-day into two widely-separated periods—early morning and late afternoon.
Back at the Doctor’s house, they lunched at midday and directly afterwards the Doctor said that he felt sure they would like to rest during the great heat; so they thanked him and went through to the side of the house in which the row of guests’ bedrooms was situated.
‘Well.’ asked the Duke immediately they were alone, ‘how are you feeling?’
‘Not too bad,’ said Marie Lou in a voice that belied her words.
It was now twenty-seven hours since they had wakened in their comfortable rooms at the Pancoast Hotel, Miami, and during that period they had been through a greater strain than most people are called upon to undergo in an unusually hectic week; but they knew that they had many hours to endure yet before they could hope for the succour that Richard and Rex would bring.
‘Don’t you think,’ she said after a moment, ‘that it would be all right for us to sleep a little now it’s the middle of the day? As our enemy was at us all last night, he must be awake himself, otherwise he won’t be able to sleep and attack us again tonight.’
De Richleau shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Princess, but the probability is that, like everybody else in the island, he’s just about to take his siesta; so we dare not risk it. Still, if you like to lie down and cat-nap, I don’t think there would be any harm in that. I shall have to shake you gently every few minutes to prevent you from dropping right off, but a lie-down and doze would be better than nothing.’
Knowing what was ahead of her and that she must conserve every atom of resistance that she could, Marie Lou agreed to the suggestion and lay down on the Duke’s bed. She had hardly relaxed before she fell asleep, but he woke her and after about a quarter of an hour they had to give up the experiment as the constant dragging back just as she was leaving her body proved more of a strain than a relief.
Somehow or other they got through the next two hours, until the chief house-boy came to knock on their doors. Then they had a wash to freshen themselves and joined the Doctor in the big living-room.
Their mouths were parched, their eyes sunk in their sockets; whereas he was looking spruce and fresh in a clean suit of white drill. They both felt that he could not possibly help noticing their miserable condition, but he did not seem at all conscious of it; which they put down to the fact that the faces of both of them were now disfigured by sun-blisters as well as acute fatigue.
In spite of the applications of the Doctor’s liniment and some soothing poultices that he had sent along to them by one of the houseboys, their foreheads, noses, ears and necks had now gone a dull red and were a mass of tiny, painful blotches. Marie Lou had done her best to disguise the disfiguring effects but the Duke had told her that she must on no account put any of her scented powder on the raw places, for fear it might poison them, so she had been unable to do very much except hide her burnt forehead under a clean white handkerchief which she had tied across it pirate-fashion.
The Doctor drove them off in his car, up the hill this time, for about a mile, until they entered a considerable village and, passing through it, came to the Hounfort. It was a big enclosure containing several one-storeyed buildings and a number of open thatches of banana-palm fronds laid one on top of the other in a network which was supported by a few dozen poles of all sizes and leaning at all angles.
The Houngan, a bald-headed, bespectacled, intelligent-looking Negro, dressed in a long, white, cotton garment, welcomed the Doctor and his companions. He spoke a little very bad French but enough for the Duke and Marie Lou to converse with him in simple sentences.
In the town that morning ugly looks had been cast at the two visitors and some of the men lounging about the markets had hissed after them, ‘Blanc’, since Whites are not popular in Port-au-Prince; but here their reception was very different and seemed full of the kindness which goes with the genuine Negro character. The men, women and children of the Houngan’s family—which numbered the best part of a hundred—all crowded about them with wide-mouthed grins.
Soon after their arrival the people from the village began to crowd in, as it was a Wednesday afternoon and the weekly service to Dambala was just about to begin.
As they stood apart, so that the Priest could proceed with his ritual, Doctor Saturday explained that Dambala, the chief of the beneficent Rada gods, was thought by many people to be Moses. Why the great Jewish prophet should have been deified by the Negroes of the West African coast no student of folklore had ever been able to explain, but the two definitely had much in common. For example, the green snake which was Dambala’s symbol had also been that of Moses. It is recognised that certain African Witch Doctors have the power to hypnotise a snake into rigidity so that they can use it as a walking-stick, but at their will it wakes and becomes live again in the hand. It is more than probable that Moses’s rod was a hypnotised snake of a special variety which by habit attacked and ate another variety of snake; so that when he threw down his rod before Pharaoh he knew that it would become alive and devour the snake-rods of the Egyptian priests which were of the second variety. The snake which they saw beside the pool, near the Voodoo altar, was, the Doctor said, regarded not as the actual god but only as his servant or handmaiden.
Actually there were a number of altars, each dedicated to one of the principal Voodoo gods, both Rada’s and Petro’s. All the altars had an extraordinarily heterogeneous collection of objects piled on them in a jumble: pictures and cheap plaster figures of the Catholic saints who were associated with the various gods, bottles of rum, little bells, and innumerable crude pottery dishes containing offerings of food and beads. Each altar was canopied with an elaborate arrangement of palm fronds, the leaves of which had been frayed out by hand, until they looked like huge green feathers, and in and out among them were woven hundreds of streamers of coloured paper. The whole effect was far from impressive as they looked more like a row of dirty junk-shops than anything else.
The Houngan took the centre of the stage, sitting down in a low chair, and the Mambo, or Priestess, huge old Negro woman, stood behind him, while on either side, on cane-seated chairs, sat the Hounci, Voodoo adepts who had passed the first degree of initiation, and the Canzos, who had passed the second degree of initiation. Among them were the drummers, each of the great drums which they clasped between their knees being dedicated to a particular god. Also near the Houngan was the Sabreur, or sword-bearer, and the Drapeaux who held above their heads two silk flags embroidered and fringed with silver. But only the most rudimentary order was maintained, as the Priest’s assistants jostled one another for places, laughed, argued and cracked jokes with each other. The congregation, too, moved freely about the great compound, which was like that of an African chieftain; sometimes appearing to pay attention to what was being done, and at others disputing among themselves or going up to talk to the Houngan and his entourage.
‘There will be four ceremonies,’ said the Doctor. The first to Papa Legba, the God of the Gate, who lives in that great great silk-cotton tree outside the gate there. He must be propitiated before the way is open to any of the other gods. Next they will make a sacrifice to Papa Loco, the God of Wisdom, lest he become jealous and afflict them with some ill. The third sacrifice will be for Mah-Lah-Sah, the Guardian of the Door Sill. And finally there will be the sacrifice to Dambala himself.’
Seated in his low chair before the altar the Houngan covered his head with a ceremonial handkerchief and began a monotonous litany to which the whole congregation made the responses. It was a longish business and the visitors would have found it extremely wearisome had it not been for the sweetness of the Negroes’ singing.
After a time the chanting stopped and they crowded into a big room, where spread on a wide table were all sorts of foods and drinks which were being offered to the gods. The Priest came out again, drew on the ground a design in corn-meal and poured a little of each of the dedicated drinks upon it. He then took pieces of all the offered foods and piled them up in a small heap in the middle of the design.
Two speckled chickens were now handed to him. He elevated them to the east, to the west, to the north and to the south, calling upon the Grand Master, while his assistants knelt down and he waved the squirming chickens over their heads. He next presented the birds at the altar dedicated to Legba, took both birds in one hand and a firebrand in the other, with which he set off three heaps of gunpowder which had been placed round the cornmeal design. Kneeling, he kissed the earth three times and the whole congregation did likewise. Suddenly the drums began to beat and some of the adepts began to dance. The Priest broke the wings of one of the chickens, then its legs, holding the throat so that the bird could not cry out in its pain.
Marie Lou turned away from the sickening sight. When she looked again she saw that the second bird had suffered a similar mutilation and that both had been placed on the altar, where, in spite of their broken limbs, the poor brutes were fluttering and squirming.
The Priest kissed the ground again and wrung both the birds’ necks, putting them out of their agony; after which the corpulent Mambo took them from him and roasted them over a slow fire. When they were done they were put in a sack and to the accompaniment of a great deal of drum beating, chanting and stamping of feet the sack was carried outside and tied to Legba’s tree.
To the uninitiated visitors the ceremonies that followed differed little except that grey roosters were sacrificed to Papa Loco and a white cock and hen to Dambala, while in all cases but the first the heads of the birds were bent back and their throats cut so that when held by the feet the blood could be drained out into a crock. To Marie Lou’s disgust, the Houngan each time drank deeply of the hot blood, allowed each of the drummers a taste, then flung the bowl as far from him as he could, whereupon the assistants raced after it and milled about it like a rugby-scrum, fighting to secure a finger-lick of the wonder-working blood.
As the ceremonies proceeded the Negroes became more and more excited. From time to time one of them appeared to become possessed and, foaming at the mouth, danced until he dropped. At intervals the leading dancers stopped and demanded rum. The Houngan make a pretence of refusing them but on each occasion went inside and fetched a bottle. After each tot of the fiery spirit the dancing became more frenzied than ever, but there was nothing mysterious or frightening about the services as they were being conducted in the strong afternoon sunlight.
Just before the sacrifice to Dambala there was one untoward episode. Two women in black had sneaked into the compound and were standing quite near the visitors. One of the Houncis spotted them and told the Priest; upon which he rushed at them and drove them away with threats and curses. When he had quietened down a little, seeing that everybody spoke to him quite freely in the middle of his rituals, de Richleau asked him what the women had done. He replied in his broken French that they were in mourning and therefore had no right to attend a Dambala ceremony, which was for the living. Their association with recent death caused them to carry with them, wherever they went, the presence of the dreaded Baron Samedi.
‘Lord Saturday,’ whispered Marie Lou to the Duke. ‘What a unusual name for a god!’ But the Doctor caught what she had said and turned to smile at her.
‘It is another name that they use for Baron Cimeterre. You see, his Holy Day is Saturday. And it is a sort of joke, of which the people never get tired, that my name, too, is Saturday.’
Had the scene not been so animated, and the rituals so interesting, in spite of their cruel and disgusting side, Marie Lou and the Duke would have found it almost impossible not to fall asleep where they sat, in the shade of a tall fence, and with their backs propped against it, but the beating drums and wild chanting acted as a tonic to their tired nerves.
Almost unperceived by them, dusk fell, and to light the compound the Priest’s assistants ignited torches of freshly cut pinewood. The scene now savoured of an orgy, as although the rituals were still going on, with the Priest kissing the sword and the flags and waving aloft his ascon, the Voodoo symbol of power, which is a sacred gourd decorated with beads and snake vertebrae, the whole congregation had given themselves up to the wildest extravagances.
The rum had made most of the Houncis and Canzos three-parts drunk and the drums had completed their intoxication. The women ‘cramped’ and shook themselves before the ‘shuckers’ until they fell quivering upon the ground, but they were not allowed to lie there. The men grabbed them up to continue their insane whirling. Now and then one of the congregation became possessed, raved, foamed at the mouth and collapsed in a fit, but their faces were bathed in rum to revive them. Clothes were torn away until many of the dancers were stark naked. Hot, sweaty bodies collided and limbs became locked in rhythmical ecstasy. The dancing grew more and more abandoned until the Doctor whispered to the Duke that as they had Madame with them he thought that they had better go; so they went out to the car and returned, through the soft, velvety darkness, by the winding track that led down the hill.
It was just on eight when they reached the house and Marie Lou and de Richleau were both hoping desperately that they would find Richard and Rex waiting for them in the living-room. If the plane had got in by sundown they should have had ample time to come up to the house. But they were not there. With bitter disappointment the Duke realised that his worst forebodings had been fulfilled. The others had not been able to secure a plane in time to leave Kingston before five o’clock, so there was now no hope of their arriving before dawn. Another whole night of sleepless watching would have to be endured.
Dinner was served almost immediately they got in, but during it de Richleau and Marie Lou could hardly keep awake sufficiently to make intelligent conversation. They had spent nearly five hours watching the Voodoo rituals and although the sight had kept them awake through a bad period of the afternoon the noise and clamour had also added to their exhaustion. After the meal both felt that they would scream if they had to continue small-talk with their genial host so they pleaded extreme fatigue after their long day in the heat to which they were not accustomed, and excused themselves.
As soon as they were in the Duke’s room they looked at each other in dismay. They had now been awake for some thirty-eight hours yet there was not the slightest prospect of help reaching them for another ten at least, and how they were to face the second night neither of them knew.
Grimly the Duke set about charging another carafe of fresh water. Just as he had finished, Marie Lou burst out in a hoarse whisper:
‘I can’t go on—I can’t—I can’t!’
‘You must,’ said the Duke firmly. ‘Another few hours and we’ll win through.’
‘I can’t!’ she moaned, and suddenly gave way to a fit of heartrending sobbing.
He let her be for a few moments then put his hands on her head and, concentrating all his remaining strength, began to charge her. In his exhausted state it was now very difficult for him to call down power and he could do little more than pass on to her some portion of the resistance which still animated his own consciousness. Yet this ancient ceremony of the laying-on of hands took effect. Her hysterical weeping ceased. She felt soothed and comforted. She was still unutterably weary but the danger of an immediate collapse had receded.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, mopping her reddened, half-closed eyes. ‘I’ll manage somehow. But we haven’t got to settle down in the pentacle yet—have we? It’s only just after nine, and the shorter the period we have to remain sitting there the less strain it will be.’
‘That’s true,’ the Duke agreed. ‘We’re now both so tired that it would prove fatal to relax, but I don’t think that we shall actually need protective barriers for another hour or so.’
‘Then let’s go for a walk,’ Marie Lou suggested. ‘It’s the sitting still for hour after hour which is such a ghastly strain.’
De Richleau had given her much of his own remaining strength. He was sitting, bowed and limp, on the end of the bed, and he shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not up to it at the moment, Princess. I must remain absolutely still for a while to conserve my energies against the coming ordeal, and if you don’t mind we won’t even talk for the next half-hour.’
‘Would it be asking for trouble if I went for a stroll on my own?’ she inquired. ‘I must occupy myself somehow and I’m far too tired to read. If I stretch my legs now I’ll be better able to endure our long session once we get down to it.’
He hesitated for a moment. ‘It’s unwise for us to separate for any length of time, but if you don’t go far …’
She smiled. ‘I’m much too weary to want to walk any distance. I only thought of taking a turn round the garden.’
‘Very well,’ muttered the Duke; ‘as long as you remain within call. It would really be better if you took your stroll up and down the verandah, where there’s a certain amount of light from the windows.’
She touched his cheek for a second with her finger-tips, as she said: ‘I won’t be long.’ Then she walked out through the wire-gauzed swing door of the room into the stillness of the tropic night.
At first she strolled slowly up and down outside the row of guest-rooms; then she increased her beat until it took her as far as the big living-room in the centre of the low house. Its doors were open, the lights were still on, and the Doctor was sitting reading, with his back towards her, at the far end of the room. He did not turn at the sound of her soft footfalls, probably imagining it to be one of the house-boys who was passing.
She went a little further. The next room was the dining-room; then came the Doctor’s bedroom. There was another big room beyond it; then the servants’ quarters, which occupied the end of the house that was nearest the road to Port-au-Prince.
There was a single light burning in the room beyond the Doctor’s bedroom and she paused to look through the window.
Evidently it was the Doctor’s study. In it were many books, a long horsehair couch, some rows of test-tubes in a rack along one wall, and a number of instruments. There was nothing there at all to differentiate it from the working-room of any man engaged in medical or scientific studies—with one exception—a huge map which covered the whole of one wall. It was a large-scale Admiralty chart of the North Atlantic.
Marie Lou stared at it, then she gently pushed open the wire swing door and tiptoed into the room. Her mind was working furiously. She was recalling a number of things that had occurred in the past two days and which had seemed quite natural at the time.
The Doctor had been out in his launch fishing when their plane had been wrecked. For hours he had not come to their assistance; yet he must have seen it crash. He had rescued them only when they had already been sighted and were about to be picked up by the native fishing-boat. Yet now, it seemed inconceivable that he had not been aware that they were there, less than half a mile away from him, in imminent danger of drowning.
Then his name—Doctor Saturday. Lord Saturday was one of the aliases of the dread Lord of the Cemetery, the chief of the evil Petro gods. Why was the Doctor, too, called Saturday? Many of the natives and Mulattoes in the island had a whole string of names which they had received when baptised by the Catholic Church to which they paid a purely nominal allegiance; but others bore only a single name, from having been dedicated to one of the Voodoo gods at birth. Perhaps the appellation had started as a nickname, given to him years ago when his fellow-islanders had realised that he was devoting himself to strange and horrid practices.
And now this large-scale chart of the North Atlantic. The fact that it had a number of little flags stuck in it, marking places right out in the open ocean, clinched the matter in her mind beyond all doubt. The Doctor had come out in his launch to make certain that they were all dead, but since his attack upon them had failed he had taken them to his home in order that he might have them under his physical eye and be ready to seize the first suitable opportunity to strike them down.
He had not commented upon their exhausted condition but he knew of it and was biding his time. Their genial host was none other than the enemy whom they had come so far to seek, and he was sitting only two rooms away from her now, like a spider in his web, waiting until sleep should overcome them.
With a sudden surge of terror she realised that he might come in at any moment and find her there. She must get out—at once—and warn the Duke. At the very instant she was about to turn she heard steps approaching and the wire door swing open behind her.