Black Moon

by Seabury Quinn

  A little knot of white men grouped round something on the ground before the Scatterhorn veranda, a railroad lantern shedding its uncertain light upon their dusty boots. Two or three Negroes, eyes rolling in abysmal terror till they seemed all whites, hung on the outskirts of the crowd, studiously avoiding a glance at the blanket-covered object round which the white men gathered.

  “Pardon, gentlemen, we are physicians,” apologized de Grandin as we pushed our way among the crowd, knelt and turned the blanket back.

  Judge Scatterhorn lay as he had died, his arms outstretched, fingers clutching at the yielding sand of the driveway. His throat and chest were horribly lacerated, as though he had been clawed and bitten by some savage beast; across his cheeks and brow ran several hideous gashes; as de Grandin turned him gently over we saw six deep cuts upon his back, running parallel from shoulder-blade to waist, and so deeply incised that the bone had been laid bare in several places.

  “When did this atrocity occur?” de Grandin asked as we completed our examination.

  “’Bout half an hour back,” a member of the crowd replied. “We just got word of it. Mis’ Semmes ’phoned us.”

  “Ah? And who is Madame Semmes?”

  “She’s th’ Judge’s sister. Wanna see her?”

  “I regret to intrude, but it would be well if I might question her.” The little Frenchman put the blanket back upon the dead man’s face and rose, brushing the sand from his knees.

  “Madame, we do not waste your time in idle curiosity,” he told the trembling woman when she met us in her parlor, “but much depends upon our having first-hand information now. Will you tell us all you can?”

  “We’ve had no servants for the last two weeks,” the bereaved lady answered, “and George and I made out the best we could. He’d been out this evenin’, and I heard him drive into the yard about three-quarters of an hour ago. Presently I caught his step as he walked round to the front door—we’ve kept the back door barred since all the servants left—then I heard a frightful scream, and the sound of someone strugglin’ on the porch. George called, ‘Don’t come out, Sally!’ then there was the sound of more thrashin’ around, and—and when I finally lit a lamp and ventured out, I found him there—like that.”

  “Was it your brother who screamed, Madame?”

  “No. Oh, no. It sounded more like the scream of a wildcat.”

  “And did you hear anything else?”

  “I—I think—but I’m not quite sure—I heard somebody laughin’, a terrible, high-pitched laugh; then I heard someone or something runnin’ off among the laurels.”

  The little Frenchman looked at her intently for a moment. “You say that you have been without domestic servants for some time, Madame. Why is that?”

  The woman shuddered. “My brother was a justice of the peace. For some time, now, there have been strange Negroes in the district. None of them has been disorderly, but they’re a sullen lot, and we considered them a bad influence on the local colored people. So when one of them was picked up by the constable last month my brother sentenced him to road work as a vagrant. The fellow grinned at him before they took him off and told George, ‘You’ll regret this, you infernal blanc’—I don’t know what he meant by that, but he spoke English with so strong an accent that perhaps it was an insult in some foreign language. At any rate, our servants left us the next mornin’, without explanation and without even waitin’ for their wages, and we’ve had no help of any sort since then.”

  De Grandin took his chin between a thoughtful thumb and forefinger. “Mademoiselle Sterling called on you this afternoon?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “And was it one of your servants who held her stirrup?”

  A slight flush mounted to our hostess’ face. “Perhaps you didn’t understand,” she answered. “I told you that we’d been without help for two weeks.”

  “Forgive my seeming rudeness, Madame, but Mademoiselle Coralea told us that a strange young colored lad was waiting at the front door when she left, and helped her set her foot into the stirrup.”

  We left the bereaved lady with her grief, and at the doorway de Grandin gave a snort of impatience. “Me, I am the stupid-head!” he confided. “I have left my pocket lens. Will you be good enough to go and fetch it from our room, Friend Trowbridge? I fear the crowd has destroyed most of the evidence, but I may be able to find something helpful to us. I shall wait you here.”

  I was none too pleased with the assignment, but there was no way of getting out of it; so I started up the road toward Sterling’s home, grasping my heavy stick and walking faster with each step. The moon rode high and round in a clear sky, and the wind that blew up from the bay, moaned and sighed among the roadside cedars like the ghosts of lovers parted in the days when North and South contended bloodily for this Virginia land. Nearer and nearer I approached the Sterling homestead, faster and faster I walked. By the time I reached the driveway I was almost running.

  The house lights shone between the trees with beckoning cheerfulness; I had not more than fifty yards to go until I reached the door, but the memory of Judge Scatterhorn’s disfigured face was with me like the image of a walking nightmare. I pursed my lips to whistle a signal to Hiji, but it was no use. Walking required all my breath, and the muscles of my face were stiff as if a winter chill had gripped them.

  A heavy growth of vines screened the porch from the front lawn, and the rustling of their leaves in the light breeze was like the clapping of dry, long-dead hands applauding some obscene comedy. I launched myself at the short flight of steps that led to the veranda like a winded runner entering the home stretch, then rolled floundering to the sandy driveway beneath a sudden devastating impact from above.

  Something long and black, twisting, clutching, grappling, dropped upon me from the string-piece of the porch roof, hurtling through the air like a panther pouncing on its prey, clawing, grasping, tearing at my throat, gnashing teeth in berserk rage, screaming like all the fiends of hell in chorus. I felt myself borne to the earth beneath its loathsome weight, felt the cruel, cutting claws shear through the padding of my jacket shoulders, felt the gush of warm blood as they sank into my flesh.

  I tried to draw the pistol which de Grandin bad insisted that I carry. My right arm was pinioned to my side between my body and the ground. I tried to strike at the thing with my fist. A talon hand, strong as a steel vise, gripped my wrist until I thought the bones would surely break. “This is how Judge Scatterhorn was killed!” I thought as I bridged my body, rising on a shoulder as I sought desperately to free myself.

  A blaze of sudden light seared my eyes, a report like a field gun’s sounded in my ear. There was a light impact, like a stone flung into moist sand, and the thing above me stiffened, then went limp. Something warm and sticky-feeling, something which I felt instinctively was red, began to soak the clothes above my breast.

  “Bull’s-eye, by Jove!” Hiji called delightedly, rushing forward from the shadow, his Browning gleaming in the lamplight filtering through the porch vinery. “Potted the beggar neat as neat. Couldn’t ’a’ done it better if I’d practised on him for an hour!

  “Up you come, Trowbridge.” He rolled the body off me and thrust forth a helping hand. “Cheerio. You’re all right, old thing!”

  I wasn’t quite as certain of my all-rightness as he seemed to be as I sat up slowly and stared around. Close behind him, her face pale and set, but without a trace of fear, stood Coralea, a dark cloak masking her light dress.

  “We were sittin’ in the parlor after you all’d gone,” she explained, “when suddenly Sir Haddingway said, ‘S-s-sh! There’s something prowling round outside.’ I thought maybe it was you all coming back, but he insisted on investigatin’, so I came along, too. We slipped out a side window and circled round the house, keepin’ down behind the bushes till we came to the front lawn. Just as we got there we saw someone or something climb one of the porch posts and crawl along the string-piece up above the steps. Sir Haddingway cou
ldn’t shoot it from there, for the beam was between it and us, so we waited.

  “Directly we heard you comin’ up the drive and knew that it would jump on you, so Sir Haddingway had his pistol ready to shoot it before it could do much harm.”

  “H’m, I’m glad he didn’t wait much longer,” I replied. “His idea of harm and mine don’t seem to coincide.”

  “Trowbridge, old fellow, you’re not much hurt, are you?” cried Hiji penitently. “I’d ’a’ shot him sooner, but I was afraid of hittin’ you—”

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s any damage sticking-plaster and some antiseptic can’t take care of,” I responded as I got unsteadily upon my feet.

  “Right-o,” Hiji answered with enthusiasm. “Here comes the blighted little Frenchman. Wait till we show him our bag. First blood for us, eh, what?”

  “Trowbridge, mon vieux, is it thou?” de Grandin called as he strode up the drive. “I decided that it was too dark to make out anything tonight, so—mon Dieu, what have we here?”

  Hiji struck an attitude. “This w’y, gents an’ lydies, yer ludships an’ yer ’ighnesses!” he called in whining singsong. “Come see the gryte he-normous wild man, shot in ’is nytive ’abitat by Hiji, the gryte ’unter. Come one, come hall, and see the gryte, he-normous marvel—”

  “Que diable?” de Grandin cut in testily, glancing from my torn and bloodstained clothing to the dark bulk of the thing Hiji had shot. “Be silent, you great zany, and tell me what goes on here!”

  Coralea, supplied the information, repeating substantially what she had told me, but making it appear Hiji’s shot was almost supererogation, since, according to her version, I had already worsted my antagonist and Hiji shot him merely to relieve him of his suffering.

  The little Frenchman viewed my tattered clothing skeptically. “Hiji, my friend, I am indebted to you,” he declared. “Me, I have often thought Friend Trowbridge might be better for a slight amount of murdering, but always I have wished to do it with my own two hands. You have preserved him for my vengeance.” But there was no affectation in the tears that glinted on his lashes as he threw both arms around me and kissed me on each cheek, murmuring, “Mon vieux, mon cher, mon brave camarade!”

  He drew a hand across his eyes and turned away, playing his flashlight upon the sprawling body. It was a man, very tall, very thin, with cord-like muscles standing out on arms and legs. Save for a breech-clout of gunny-sacking he was naked, but his black skin was smeared with patches of dun-colored pigment in each of which was a rosette of five small dark-brown dots, the design bearing a striking resemblance to a leopard’s spots.

  Fastened to his hands by thongs were metal appliances like brass knuckles, only instead of bearing knobs, their rings were supplied with long, sharp blades which curved above the fingers, making each hand a clawed talon. About his head was bound a band of skin which proved to be the scaly hide of a full-grown fer-de-lance such a snake as we had seen pursuing Coralea that afternoon.

  “By George,” said Hiji as de Grandin shut his light off, “he’s got the full regalia on. I’ve seen his kind in the Reserved Forest Area more than once—hanged a few dozen of ’em, too.”

  The Frenchman smiled, a thought unpleasantly. “Unless I’m more mistaken than I think, some necks will test the strength of ropes before we finish with this present business of the monkey,” he declared.

  THE BIG CLOCK IN the hall ticked slowly. All of us were tired, but sleep was farthest from our thoughts. My shoulder hurt abominably, and every whisper of a breeze-blown leaf against the window-panes seemed charged with menace. Once or twice I started up, sure that I saw a grinning, painted face beyond the window, but each time search showed that imagination had been playing tricks on me. “If we could only find the blighters’ lair we’d clean ’em out in jig-time,” muttered Hiji. “In most ways they’ve run true to form, murderin’ people with their ‘leopard claws’ and terrifyin’ all the local blacks so they don’t dare squeak on ’em, but there’s one thing puzzles me. In Africa these human leopards gather for their pow-wows several days before the Black Moon, and send their signals to the party out by means of drums. They should be usin’ something of the kind round here—”

  “That’s hardly likely,” I objected. “So far they’ve managed to conduct their raids in secrecy. If they beat drums at their meetings they’d give away their gathering-place, and—”

  Across the sultry summer night there came a low, slow-swelling sound. Something like the rumble of a giant kettledrum, but also like the low, sustained note of a bass viol it was, beginning on a low, deep note and slowly rising in intensity, if not in pitch: “Ro-o-om, ro-o-om, rum-rum-rum; ro-o-om, ro-o-om, rum-rum-rum,” its rhythm swelled and sank with a monotonous, menacing insistence.

  Hiji leaped across the room, dashed the window up and thrust his head out, listening intently. “That’s it!” he told us as he wheeled around. “The jungle telegraph, the night-drum of the Leopard People! What’re we waitin’ for? Let’s go! Yoicks away, lads; the chase is on!”

  We started for the door, but. “Wait a moment, wait for me!” cried Coralea. “You all aren’t goin’ out to hunt those savages and leave me here alone; I’m goin’ with you. Give me a half a minute to put on some other clothes!”

  She was somewhat longer than the stipulated thirty seconds, but it was little later when she reappeared in boyish riding-togs, twisting her long hair in a knot and stuffing it into a cap as she ran down the stairs. Bound to her slender waist by a wide leather belt was a powder-and-ball revolver of Civil War model, its eight-inch barrel knocking trim, straight knees each step she took.

  “Let’s go!” she cried as she rejoined us, and before we realized her intent she was through the door, across the veranda and speeding down the driveway beneath the honey-locust trees, heading for the open road.

  We followed, catching up with her just as she reached the gate, and paused a moment, seeking bearings.

  “Ro-o-om, ro-o-om, rum-rum-rum; ro-o-om, ro-o-om, rum-rum-rum!” the drums’ deep monotone rolled across the darkened landscape, surging forward and receding like the sound of distant surf.

  “It’s over there,” said Hiji, nodding toward a low, tree-crested line of hills that raised their bulk beyond the intervening fallow fields.

  “It can’t be there,” objected Coralea. “There’s an abandoned Negro cemetery in the hollow of those hills; a pair of murderers are buried there, and you couldn’t get a darky within half a mile of it in daylight, much less at midnight.”

  Hiji’s teeth flashed white beneath the black of his mustache. “You may know the superstition of your local blacks, but you don’t know voodoo. Graveyards and haunted places are their favorite gathering-spots. Earth from graves of executed felons is a favorite ingredient of their charms. I vote we try the jolly old burying-ground.”

  “I, too,” de Grandin concurred. “But let us step with caution. We may be seen by members of the cult who come in answer to those devils’ church bells.”

  Cautiously we made our way across the fields, dropping to all-fours occasionally where the visibility was high, crawling, running half bent over, gradually approaching the thick-wooded knoll behind which growled the drums’ low monody. By the time we reached the hill crest we were crawling on our stomachs like a scout patrol of soldiers reconnoitering an enemy’s position.

  Light gleamed in the little valley shut in by the hills. A bonfire of fat pine sent its orange-yellow flames mounting ten feet, painting the whitewashed headboards and occasional stone markers of the graves with startling highlights, casting purple shadows on surrounding trees and bramble bushes.

  Where light and shadow met, a circle of dark forms was huddled in a wide, loose ring, the gleam of a once-white shirt or a soiled Mother Hubbard giving clue to the spectator’s sex. A low, slow-moaning chant, like that heard when the mourners are about to ‘get religion’ at a Negro gospel meeting, sounded from the group. Now and then there was a movement, a flash of fire-lit clothing or the g
leam of bared teeth or of rolling eyeballs, which told that a fresh member of the congregation had arrived in response to the summons of the drums.

  More and more they came, creeping stealthily up to the firelight’s margin. From fifty to a hundred the group grew; now there were two hundred votaries about the fire, at last at least five hundred. And still the drums tolled their insistent “ro-o-om, ro-o-om; rum-rum-rum” through the night.

  I heard Coralea’s small smothered “Oh!” and Hiji’s sigh of excitement coupled with de Grandin’s almost frenzied flow of bubbling French profanity as a figure glided from behind a tombstone. It was a woman, so old and thin and wrinkled there was something almost obscene in the picture she presented, as if a mummy had come from the tomb or the corpse of one dead of senility had risen from its grave to mock and gibber at the living. Her skinny arms and legs, bare in the mounting firelight, seemed smeared with mingled filth and ashes. Her lich-like form was nude save for a length of dirty calico which hung across her back, loose ends split and tied about her waist and hips to form a sort of apron. The upper end of the cloth had been bound about her gray-wooled head to make a turban, and round and round this weird head-dress had been wound strings of gleaming beads. “Teeth!” muttered Hiji. “Human teeth! They knock ’em out and string ’em to make amulets.”

  “Ouranga!” came a greeting from the crone as she danced round the firelit circle. “Ouranga!” In one emaciated hand she held a black snake whip; in the other was a dried gourd-shell which she waved to and fro, making its seeds rattle furiously against the sun-dried rind. Back and forth before the fire she tripped and stumbled, leaping, sometimes, sometimes shuffling in a sort of buck-and-wing; then pirouetting on her toes like a ghastly caricature of Columbine. “Ouranga!”

  From the trembling congregation sounded echoes of her hail, not deep-voiced, but high and thread-thin, frightened, more than half hysterical: “Ouranga, ouranga; ouranga!” Then, in a high-swelling chorus, “Voodoo!”