United States or Faroe Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Why am I safe?" "Because your landlady is who she is." Witherbee glanced over his shoulder, and, although they were the only people on the pier, from force of habit he dropped his voice. "The mamaloi has more power than the Church." He straightened and looked out toward the ship. "Here's her idiot with your trunk. My office is the first house on the left after you leave the pier.
On one side of him the cripple appeared; on the other strode the mamaloi the child, screaming with fear, on her hip. A hymn-tune stirred under the tumult rose above it. "Le fils de Dieu se va Pen guerre Son drapeau rouge comme sang." Wild quavers adorned the tune obscenely; the mob marched to it, falling into step.
They string it up by its heels, cut its throat, and drink the blood. Then they eat it. Regular ceremony the mamaloi officiates." "Who officiates?" "The mamaloi the priestess." Simpson jerked himself out of his chair and went on deck. Occasionally his imagination worked loose from control and tormented him as it was doing now. There was a grizzly vividness in the drummer's description.
Vieux Michaud sprang from the circle into the full firelight, feet stamping, eyes glaring. "La ch vre!" he yelled. "La chèvre sans cornes!" The drums rolled in menacing crescendo, the fire licked higher. All sounds melted into one. "La chèvre sans cornes!" The mamaloi tore the child from her neck and held it high by one leg.
That" indicating the cripple "is her son." "Good God!" Witherbee exclaimed. "Madame Picard! The mamaloi!" "The the what?" But Simpson had heard well enough. "The mamaloi the mamaloi high priestess of voodoo." "Her house is fairly clean," Simpson said. He was hardly aware of his own inconsequence.
The cripple and the mamaloi were beside him still. In the grove, with the drums more than one of them now palpitating unceasingly, the dancing became wilder, more savage. In the light of the fire the mamaloi swayed, holding the screaming child, and close to the flames crouched the cripple.
"To the grove!" screamed the mamaloi. She leaped to the platform, almost from her knees it seemed, and snatched the child. "To the grove!" The crowd took up the cry; it swelled till Simpson's ears ached under the impact of it. "To the grove!" Doubt assailed him as his mind a white man's mind rebelled. "This is wrong," he said dully; "wrong." Madame Picard's fingers gripped his arm.
Word Of The Day