Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S Whitehead (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural)

by Henry S. Whitehead

  There, in the center of the hall, its neck turned about so as to look toward whoever had just opened the door from the inner gallery, in this case, myself – stood a young, coal-black bullock!

  Beside it, on the floor in the middle of the Bokhara rug which my grandfather had brought with him from his voyage to Turkestan in the year 1837, there was a crate, half filled with fresh grass and carrots; and nearby, and also on the rug, stood a large bucket of water. Wisps of the grass hung from the bullock’s mouth as it stared at me for all the world as though to remark, ‘Who is this who intrudes, forsooth, upon my privacy here!’

  Malling, I let myself go then. This – a bullock in my hall, in my town house! – this was too much! I rushed back into the gallery crying out for the servants, for Herman and Josephine and Marianna. They came, looking down at me, fearfully, over the balusters of the stairway, their faces gray with fear. I cursed them roundly, as you may well imagine. I conceive that even the godly Dr Dubois himself would at least feel the desire so to express himself were he to return to his rectory and find a bullock stabled in his choicest room!

  But all my words elicited nothing save that look of blank stupidity to which I have already referred; and when, in the midst of my diatribe, old Amaranth Niles, the cook, came hastening upon the scene from her kitchen, a long spoon in her fat old hand, she, who had been with us since my birth twenty-eight years before, likewise went stupid.

  Suddenly I ceased reviling them for ingrates, for fools, for rapscallions, for gallows birds. It occurred to me, very shortly, that this rascality was none, could be none, of theirs, poor creatures. It was the latest devilment of my half-brother Otto Andreas. I saw it clearly. I collected myself. I addressed poor Herman in a milder tone.

  ‘Come Herman, get this beast out of the house immediately!’ I pointed toward the now open door into the hall.

  But Herman, despite this definite command of mine, never stirred. His face became an ashen hue and he looked at me imploringly. Then, slowly, his hands raised up above his head as he stood there on the stairway looking fearfully over the baluster, he cried out, tremblingly: ‘I cyan’t, sar, ’fore the good God an’ help me de Lord – I cyan’t dislodge de animal!’

  I looked back at Herman with a certain degree of calmness. I addressed the man.

  ‘Where is Mr Otto Andreas?’ I inquired.

  At this simple query both maids on the stairs began to weep aloud, and old Amaranth Niles, the cook, who had been staring, pop-eyed and silent through the doorway, turned with an unexpected agility and fled back to her kitchen. Herman, if possible, became a full shade paler. Unsteadily the man forced himself to come down the stairs, holding rigidly to the baluster. He turned and stepped toward me, his face gray and working and the beads of sweat standing thickly and heavily on his forehead. He dropped upon his knees before me there on the gallery floor and, his hands held up above his head, cried out: ‘Him dead, sar, from day before yestiddy, sar – it de troof, me marster!’

  I will confess to you, Malling, that the gallery reeled about me at this wholly unexpected news. Nobody had told me the night before. Just possibly my hosts had not been aware of it. Another question presented itself to my tottering mind, a question the answer to which would clear up that matter of not being told.

  ‘What time did he die, Herman?’ I managed to articulate. I was holding on to the baluster myself now.

  ‘Late, sar,’ returned Herman, still on his knees, and swaying backward and forward. ‘P’rops two hour after midnight, sar. Him bury de nex’ day, sar, dat am to say ’twas yestiddy afternoon, two o’clock, me marster. De body ain’ keep good, sar, an’ ’sides, all we ain’ made sensible of your arrival, sar.’

  So that was why the Mulgravs had not told me. They simply had not known of my half-brother’s death, would not know until today in the ordinary course of events, at that distance from Christiansted.

  My first reaction, I will admit, was one of profound relief.

  Otto Andreas would never – I confess to have thought – trouble me again; would not, indeed, again trouble anyone with his shortcomings, his arrogance, his manifold evil habits, his villainies. I was premature . . .

  Then, almost mechanically, I suppose, my mind turned to that shambles in my hall, that barnyard beast stabled there, the priceless rug sodden with its filth. I turned to Herman and spoke.

  ‘Get up, Herman! Stand up, man! There is no occasion for you to act in this fashion. I was, naturally, very much annoyed at the animal being in the hall. I am, in fact, still vexed about it. Tell me – ’ as the man rose to his feet and stood trembling before me – ‘who placed it there, and why has it not been removed?’

  At this Herman visibly shook from head to foot, and again his dark visage, which had been somewhat restored to its wonted coloration, turned gray with fright. I sensed somehow that he was less frightened at me than at something else. I am, of course, accustomed to the peculiarities of our Negroes. I spoke to him again, very gently, voicing my previous idea which had stayed my first great anger.

  ‘Did Mr Otto Andreas place the animal there?’

  Herman, apparently not trusting himself to speak, nodded his head at me.

  ‘Come now, man, get it out quickly!’ I commanded.

  Again, to my profound annoyance, Herman fell on his knees before me, mumbled abjectly his statement of inability to carry out my orders.

  I struggled with myself to be patient. I had been, I conceived, rather sorely tried. I took Herman by the shoulder, drew him to his feet, walked him, unresisting, along the gallery and into my office. I closed the door behind us and sat down at my work table where I do my accounts and write – where I am now writing this to you. Herman, I perceived, was still trembling. There was something in this which I was – so far – unable to fathom.

  ‘Go and bring me some rum and two tumblers, Herman,’ I ordered, still forcing myself to speak gently, calmly. Herman left the room in silence. I sat there waiting for him to come back, intensely puzzled. The bullock, it seemed to me, could wait. By the indications it had been there for a full day or more. The odor was, even here with the door closed, almost unbearable.

  Herman returned and set down the rum and the tumblers. I poured out a stiff tot and a smaller one for myself. I drank off my rum and then handed the other tumbler to Herman.

  ‘Drink this, Herman,’ I ordered him, ‘and then sit down there. I wish to speak with you very seriously.’

  Herman gulped the rum, his eyes rolling and, when I had repeated my command, seated himself uneasily on the extreme edge of the chair I had indicated. I looked at him. Fetching and drinking the rum had somewhat helped his agitation. He was no longer visibly trembling.

  ‘Listen to me, now, man,’ said I. ‘I beg you to tell me, plainly and without equivocation, why is it that you have not taken that bullock out of the hall. That I must know. Come now, tell me, man!’

  Once again Herman literally threw himself at my feet and groveled there. He murmured – ‘I is beg yo’ to believe, me marster, dat I can not do, sar.’

  This was too much. I threw my restraint to the winds, caught the black rascal by the neck, hauled him to his feet, shook him soundly, slapped him on both sides of the face. He was unresistant, quite limp in my grasp, poor old fellow.

  ‘You will tell me,’ I threatened him, ‘or, by Caesar, I’ll break every bone in your damned worthless black body! Come now, at once and no more of this intolerable stupidness!’

  Herman stiffened. He leaned forward, whispered, tremblingly, in my ear. He did not dare, it seemed, to mention the name he had on his tongue aloud. He told me that Pap’ Joseph, their devilish black papaloi, as they name him, their witch-doctor, had been the cause of the bullock’s remaining in the hall. Furthermore, now that he was started on his confession, he told me that my half-brother had had that filthy wretch staying in the house – can you imagine it, Malling? – for several days before his sudden death; that the two had made elaborate arrangements, there in the hal
l, for some filthy obeah which they were planning between them; that the bullock had been introduced three days ago; other detail which would be here superfluous, and, finally, that, as nearly as he – not a witness of whatever necromancy or sorcery they were working among them – there had been various other blacks on the scene in my hall besides those two – could estimate the matter, Otto Andreas had died, very suddenly and unexpectedly, in the midst of their incantations, and that Pap’ Joseph himself had given him, Herman, the strictest orders not to remove the bullock from the hall upon any pretext whatsoever until he, Pap’ Joseph, should come to take the animal away in person. It was to be watered, fed – hence the bucket and the trough of green food – but not otherwise to be interfered with in any manner whatsoever.

  That, of course, explained much; but knowing why poor old Herman had balked at answering my previous questions did not help the affair very greatly. The disgusting creature was still, as it were, pastured in my hall. It was inexplicable – why the witch-doctor had issued such ridiculous orders, I mean to say, because to understand that, one would have to be familiar with the inner workings of their incantations and similar stupidness. However, I saw clearly that Herman could not, being under such pressure of fear – they all dread this Joseph like pestilence or the Evil Fiend himself – do anything by way of removing the animal. I sent him out, and stepped along the gallery and again into the hall.

  Here, for the first time, I perceived what my complete stultification upon seeing that bullock calmly occupying my hall on my first visit had prevented my noticing before. At the east end of the hall, a large, strong platform of boards, approached from the side by a ramp or inclined plane, had been solidly built against the wall, at the same height as the marble mantelshelf. Indeed, the platform, which was about twelve feet square, was an extension into the room of the mantelshelf itself. I knew, and you know, of course, what that had involved. The platform was a ‘high’ altar of voodoo. Some very elaborate rites of the higher manifestations of their horrible practises had been planned here. I was dry-mouthed with pure indignation. The son of my father, Fergus Gannett, even by a person of color, lending himself to that, taking willing part in such atrocious villainy!

  I saw that I should have to secure a rope to remove the bullock, which was entirely free, and now standing looking out of one of the windows without so much as a halter on its head. I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me, and as I was about to call Herman to fetch me a rope it occurred to me that I would do well to procure some help. I could not, you see, lead such an animal out of my house on to the public road. It would be a most ridiculous sight and would mark me for years as a subject for derisive conversation among the blacks of the town, indeed of the entire island. I called to Herman, therefore, but when he came in answer to this summons I demanded, not a rope, but the carriage and, when that appeared ten minutes later, I ordered Herman to drive me out to Macartney House.

  Yes, I had made up my mind, even to the extent of taking Macartney some way into my confidence, that I would do wisely to have him along. For one thing, he has many cattle. Macartney handing over a bullock – it could be led out through a back passage and into the house yard – to one of his farm laborers would not excite any comment at all in the town.

  I thought better and better of this decision during the ten-minute drive to Macartney’s, and when I arrived I found him at home and Cornelis Hansen, his son-in-law, who married Honoria, with him.

  I explained no more to these gentlemen than that my eccentric late half-brother had seen fit to leave an animal in the hall shortly before his death, and that I begged their aid and countenance in getting rid of the beast, and they both came back with me.

  It was close upon three o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived, Macartney having brought one of his cattlemen who sat beside Herman on the box, and taking this fellow with us, equipped with a rope and bull halter, we entered the house and walked along the inner gallery and into the hall.

  Here, then, my dear Malling, I am constrained to set down the oddest happening! The bullock, which was a young one, only half grown, was not, as it turned out, the docile, placid creature one might very well have expected.

  To put the matter briefly, so soon as the creature saw us enter, and had, apparently, observed the cattleman with his halter and rope, it began to act as though it were positively possessed! It raged about the room, upsetting what furniture was there, breaking some articles, overturning others, the cattleman in hot pursuit; Macartney, Mr Hansen and I doing our best to hem it in and head it off. Finally it took refuge, of all imaginable places, upon the board platform! Yes, it ran up the ramp and stood, at bay, its muzzle positively frothing, its nostrils distended, and a look of the most extraordinary emotion upon its heavy animal face that anyone could – or could not – possibly imagine.

  As it stood there, and the three of us and the cattleman stood looking up at it, Macartney burst out with – ‘Faith, Mr Gannett, sir, it has every appearance of humanity in its confounded eyes – the beast!’

  I looked at it and felt that Macartney might almost be right! The animal had most pronouncedly upon its facial expression every indication of unwillingness to be removed from my hall! The thing was entirely ridiculous, save only that its rushing about was going to cost me a pretty penny for the joiner’s work which must be done upon my broken furniture.

  Macartney ordered his Negro to mount the ramp and place the halter upon the now apparently cornered beast, and he attempted to do so. He had got nearly to the top when the beast unexpectedly lowered its head and hurled the unfortunate man to the floor, breaking one of his arms between the shoulder and elbow.

  At this, once more that day, I lost patience entirely. This stupidness, it seemed to me, had gone far enough. Was my half-brother and his witless knavery to follow and distress and annoy me even from beyond his grave? I decided that I would end the affair there and then.

  ‘Attend to your poor fellow, here, Macartney,’ said I, ‘and I will return directly. You might take him out and Herman will drive him to the municipal hospital.’

  I left the room, walked along the inner gallery to my office, and took my pistol from the drawer of the table where I always keep it.

  I came back to the hall, passing Macartney and Hansen as they carried the poor devil with his broken arm, moaning quite piteously, out to the carriage in the roadway below.

  The pistol in my hand, I approached the platform. On it the bullock was still standing. It had made no effort to descend. I walked straight down the room and stood before the platform, raised the pistol, and took careful aim at the middle of the animal’s forehead. It was only just as I pressed my index finger firmly around the trigger that I caught the expression in its eyes. Then I understood fully what Macartney had meant by his remark that it looked almost ‘human’! If I had had time, I confess to you, Malling, I would, even then, and after all that provocation and vexatiousness, have stayed my hand. But it was too late.

  The bullet struck squarely in the middle of the beast’s forehead and, as it swayed on its stricken legs, a great gout of red blood ran down its soft nose and dripped upon the boards of the platform. Then, quite suddenly, its four legs gave out from under it, and it fell with a round thud on the boards, shaking the solid platform with its considerable weight, and lay still, its head projecting over the edge of the platform.

  I left it lying there, the blood running over the edge and dripping on the mahogany flooring of the hall underneath and, as I left the room in the definite certainty that I was finished with this annoyance, all but having the furniture repaired and the stinking shambles cleaned and aired, I carried with me the most extraordinary impression which suddenly grew up in my mind – the most distressful matter imaginable – a feeling which, however illogical the affair may appear to you, I feel certain I shall carry with me to the grave – the feeling that I had gravely interfered, in some truly mysterious and inexplicable fashion, with my half-brother Otto Andreas’
s last wishes!

  Macartney and his son-in-law were returning along the inner gallery from depositing the man in my carriage, and I took them into the dining room for some refreshment, laying the pistol on the table.

  ‘So you shot the beast, eh?’ remarked Macartney.

  ‘Aye,’ I returned, ‘and that ends that phase of the trouble, Macartney. The wine and rum are here on the sideboard; be pleased to take your glasses, gentlemen – only, there is another side to all this on which I wish to consult you both.’

  We drank a tot of rum and then, the decanter and glasses on the table beside the pistol, we drew up our chairs and I opened to these gentlemen the affair, in confidence – both, as you know, are, like ourselves, members of the Harmonic Lodge in St Thomas, first placing them formally on the *****s’p – of my late half-brother and his bringing the witch-doctor into my house for their infernal deviltry, whatever it may have been.

  Both, as soon as I had made this affair clear, were of one mind with me. This, in truth, was a matter for swift and very definite action. We must take into our joint confidence the Policemaster – our brother Freemason, fortunately – Knudsen.

  We wasted no time, once we had come to that conclusion. I excused myself, leaving these gentlemen to their glasses and the decanter and, taking the pistol, which I returned to its drawer, entered my office and wrote a brief note to Policemaster Knudsen and dispatched Marianna with it to the Christiansfort.

  Knudsen arrived in response to this summons just at four, and we sat down to a dish of tea in the dining room to discuss the matter. Knudsen agreed with us fully. He would send out a pair of his gendarmes at once, apprehend Pap’ Joseph, lodge him in the fort safely, and bring him here to the scene of this last crime of his at nine o’clock that evening. Macartney and Hansen promised to be here at that hour, and Herman, who had returned from the hospital, drove them back to Macartney House.