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With a frantic effort the master lifted himself upon his elbow and extended his clenched fist in speechless defiance; but his brain reeled, his sight went out, and when again he saw, Palmyre and her mistress were bending over him, the overseer stood awkwardly by, and Bras-Coupé was gone. The plantation became an invalid camp. The words of the voudou found fulfilment on every side.
Aie! Voudou Magnan!" and "Aie Calinda! Dancé Calinda!" The volume of sound rose and fell with the augmentation or diminution of the dancers' extravagances.
Joseph stopped aghast with the drawer half drawn. "Not persons of intelligence and " "All kinds. It is only some of the foolishness which they take from the slaves. Many of your best people consult the voudou horses." "Horses?" "Priestesses, you might call them," explained the Creole, "like Momselle Marcelline or 'Zabeth Philosophe." "Witches!" whispered Frowenfeld.
But, like Porto Rico, the Dominican Republic is absolutely free from the practise of those barbarous negro rites, of which dances like these often form part, and which are known in Haiti under the name of "voudou," in Cuba under that of "witchcraft" and in the British West Indies under that of "obeah," and which sometimes lead even to human sacrifices.
The former mistress not only cast her hands into her lap, lifted her eyes supplicatingly and dropped them again, but actually locked her fingers to keep them from trembling. "Momselle Aurore " began Palmyre, solemnly. "Now, I know what you are going to say but it is of no use to say it; do this much for me this one time and then I will let voudou alone as much as you wish forever!"
Chat-oué moved a little, and delivered a broadside: "Afteh dat, you betteh leave! Yes, you betteh leave Gran' Point'!" "Sir," said Bonaventure, turning with flushed face, "I stay." "Yes," said the other, "dass righ'; you betteh go way and stay. Magicien," he added as the schoolmaster moved on, "sorcier! Voudou! jackass!" What did all this mean?
The influence of the Voudou priests is so much feared by the government that the horrible practice is little interfered with. When the officials are forced to take cognizance of the crime, the lightest possible punishment is imposed upon the convicted parties.
Presently she drew a short step backward, then another, then a third, and then turned and moved away down the avenue of willows, followed for a few steps by the lion and by the laughing comment of the marchande, who stood looking after them with her tray balanced on her head. "Ya, ya! ye connais voudou bien! The old man turned to rejoin his companion.
He was trying to get the unwonted quaking out of his hands and the memory of the night's heart-dissolving phantasms from before his inner vision. To do this he had resort to a very familiar, we may say time-honored, prescription rum. He did not use it after the voudou fashion; the voudous pour it on the ground Agricola was an anti-voudou. It finally had its effect.
The excitement and alarm produced by the practical threat of voudou curses upon Agricola was one thing, Creole lethargy was quite another; and when, three mornings later, a full quartette of voudou charms was found in the four corners of Agricola's pillow, the great Grandissime family were ignorant of how they could have come there. Let us examine these terrible engines of mischief.
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