by Otto Penzler
His dark eyes held no recognition of the fact that she was a very beautiful woman. Vivian sensed, and rightly, that to him she was merely a woman who might thwart his plans. But she caught the implication in his last sentence.
“I shall not take poison,” she said. “You may come with me—watch me, if you wish.”
—
She took a step or two and groped blindly at the table for support. Instinctively he stretched out a hand to steady her.
That was the moment for which she had planned, the instant for which she had been waiting. Benedetti made the fatal mistake that many men had made with the Lady from Hell as an opponent—of underestimating her as an adversary.
Like a striking snake her hand darted to the table, seized one of the heavy candlesticks. Before Benedetti could interfere, had even divined her purpose, the heavy metal fell across his forehead with stunning force. He crumpled to the floor without a murmur.
Leaving him where he had fallen, Vivian ran to the door and peered out. The gigantic black on guard at the veranda steps had heard nothing. He was still standing there, unaware of the drama being enacted within the dining room.
Swiftly she turned back and her slender fingers searched the drawers of the carved mahogany sideboard against the wall until she found what she sought—a heavy, sharp carving knife. She balanced it speculatively in her hand. It would do, she decided.
The man was still standing there when she peered out the door again. He never saw the slender blade as it flew through the air, sped by a hand that had learned its cunning from the most expert knife thrower in Shanghai. The blade went through, sinking into the flesh at the base of his throat as though it had been butter. He died without an outcry.
Now she must work fast, if she were to escape and save Wylie too. Benedetti she bound and gagged and rolled against the sideboard where he was out of the way. But first she had taken his revolver from his side pocket.
Trip after trip she made, first to the flat tin roof of the house, and then to the front of the house. Finally she was satisfied with what she had done, and, snatching up a flashlight from the sideboard fled toward the path in the jungle that she knew led to the place of sacrifice.
A tropical squall was rising out of the sea beyond the little cove. A cloud, black in the light of the moon, was rising above the horizon. She glanced at it anxiously. Then she plunged into the jungle.
The valences of the palms were motionless against the moonlit sky. The atmosphere, as she pushed her way along, seemed saturated with mystery, dew dripping, bars of green moonlight between the trunks of the trees; the cry of night birds, the patter of something in the dark mystery of the tree roof overhead, the thudding of the drums that had never ceased. Out of that familiar hollow rhythm of drums that had begun to emerge a thread of actual melody—an untraditional rise and fall of notes—a tentative attack, as it were, on the chromatic scale of the beat. A tentative abandonment of Africa. It was a night of abandonment, anyhow, a night of betrayal and the peeling off of blanketing layers down to the raw.
Once she stopped short with a sudden emptiness in her chest at sight of what she thought was a man in the path ahead. But it was only a paint-daubed, grinning skull on a bamboo stake planted in the ground—a voodoo ouanga. Then she went ahead again. Evidently there were no guards posted. With every inhabitant of the island concerned in the ceremony in one way or another there would be no need for guards to be posted now.
—
The rapid sequence of events had edged Vivian’s nerves, and the boom of the drums—heavy, maddening, relentless, did nothing to soothe them. That passage through the jungle was galling, fraying the nerve ends like an approaching execution.
A red glow came to her through the trees, and seemed to spread and spread until it included the whole world about her in its malignancy. The drums, with that queer rise and fall of notes that it seemed impossible to achieve with taut skins stretched over drum heads, beat upon her senses, pounded until the air was filled with sounds that seemed to come from the earth, the sky, the forest; dominated the flow of blood with strange excitations.
She had formulated no plan for rescuing Wylie. She could not, until she reached the spot and saw what she had to contend with. She had the gun she had taken from Benedetti, but six cartridges against a horde of drum-maddened blacks—that was only a last resort.
And then she stood on the edge of a clearing that seemed sunk to the bottom of a translucent sea of opalescent flame.
Something that was age-old was happening in that crimson-bathed clearing, something old and dark, buried so deeply under the subtleties of civilization that most men go through life without ever knowing it is there, was blossoming and flowering under the stark madness of those thudding drums.
Coconut fibre torches, soaked in palm oil, flaring red in the blackness of the night lit up the space in front of her like a stage, the torchlight weaving strange scarlet and mauve shadows. Tall trees, lining the clearing opposite her, seemed to shelter masses of people, darker shadows against the red glow of the burning torches.
Two enormous drums, taut skins booming under the frenzied pounding of the palms of two drummers, stood on one side. A dozen, two dozen dancing black figures, male and female, spun and danced in the center of the clearing, movements graceful and obscene—animal gestures that were identical with similar dances of their ancestors hundreds of years before in Moko or the Congo.
And then she saw Wylie. He was tied to a post in the center of the clearing, and the dancers were milling about him. Beside him stood a woman whom Vivian instinctively knew must be the Mamaloi, the priestess of whom Benedetti had spoken.
Now and then the priestess gave vent to a sound that seemed to stir the dancers to greater activity—to spur the slowly humming throng of watchers to a point of frenzy; a sound such as Vivian had never heard before and never hoped to hear again. When she stopped, it would hang, incredibly high-pitched, small, like a black thrill in the shadow. It was shocking and upsetting out of that ancient thin figure.
Her eyes shifted from the aged figure to the sky line above the trees. The black cloud that, a short time before had been no larger than the palm of her hand on the horizon, was visible through the branches of the trees now. Even as she looked a faint flicker of heat lightning laced through it.
And then, as if at a conductor’s signal, more torches flowered on the edge of the clearing, and in their light the Lady from Hell saw half a dozen men staggering forward with an enormous thing of bamboo—a cage—and in that cage was a great snake; a boa constrictor, perhaps, or a python, although neither of them, she seemed to remember, was native to Haiti.
Chapter VI
White Man’s Voodoo
They placed the cage in the center of the clearing, and Vivian saw that it had been placed so that a small door in the cage was directly opposite Wylie’s bound figure. The significance of that fact went through her like a breath of cold wind. If she failed, she also would be bound to that stake. Mentally she could see the little door in the cage opening, the great triangular head of the snake gliding slowly…
Swiftly she bent over and caught up a handful of the black leaf mold underfoot, smeared it over her face, her arms, her neck, her shoulders. A section of the dress she was wearing was ripped off and made into a turban that hid the flaming crown of her hair. More earth was rubbed onto the white of her dress.
Then, with swift leaps, she was on the outer fringe of the dancers, and the chaos of moving arms and legs caught her up and swallowed her as a breaking wave on the beach swallows a grain of sand.
It was a mad thing to do, a desperate thing. She knew that, normally, her crude disguise would not have fooled the natives. The Haitian black seems to have the ability to almost smell the presence of a blanc, much as an animal can smell the presence of another. But, in that flickering torchlight, the crudeness of disguise would not be so apparent, and in that unceasing madness of drums that went on like a black echo of something reborn, she h
oped that her alien presence would pass unnoticed long enough for her to accomplish her object.
Slowly she worked her way through the writhing, dancing mass of figures toward the center. She knew that her time was short—that the lesser ceremony was approaching its height. Even as she reached the inner ring of dancers she saw the ancient Mamaloi joining in the dance, while the others kept a respectful distance from her. Monotonously, maddeningly, the priestess twisted and turned and shivered, holding aloft a protesting fowl. Faster and faster she went, and while all eyes were fastened on that whirling figure Vivian managed to reach Wylie’s bound figure.
A swift slash with the knife she had hidden beneath her dress and his hands were free.
“Keep still…don’t let them see that you’re not bound,” she whispered. Another motion and the bonds that fastened his ankles to the post were free.
Vivian moved about Wylie with graceful motions, imitating the movements of the blacks about her, and her voice came to him in broken, desperate whispers:
“Signal…you’ll recognize it…don’t move until then…dead tree by the edge of the clearing…that’s the path…I’ll be waiting there…it’s only chance…”
Then she was gone, breasting her way through the black figures that danced like dead souls come back from Hell in the evil glow of the sputtering torches. And then came a great shout as the Mamaloi caught the chicken she held by the head and whirled it around and around.
Throom…throom…throom. The drums were like coalescing madness. A moan went up from the onlookers and a chill went through Vivian.
—
She knew from what Benedetti had told her that the chicken was the prelude of what would happen to Wylie. Next, the old woman would slash Wylie’s throat…let his life blood spurt into a bowl with which the dancers would be sprinkled. Then would come the lesser ceremony, while the guard at the house would start with her for the ceremony that would end with the door in the great snake’s cage being opened…
Vivian snatched a torch from the hands of one of the dancers. The man did not even seem to be aware of the fact that it had been taken away. From beneath her dress she took a stick of dynamite with fuse attached—part of her loot from the storeroom—and touched the fuse to the flame of the torch.
It sputtered and she hurled it with all her strength at her command toward the overhanging tree beneath which the drummers sat, then fled for the bare naked branches of the dead tree that stood where the path entered the clearing—the spot where she had told Wylie she would meet him.
She had barely reached the spot when there came a tremendous concussion that shook the earth, and a gush of flame. The thing was as startling, as hideously unexpected to the drum maddened Haitians as a striking snake. Scream after scream—long, jagged screams that ripped red gashes through the dark, were followed by a swift clacking of tongues, a terrified roar as dancers and onlookers milled about, black bodies writhing in the light of the remaining torches. A black tide, rising, filled the clearing with terrified clamor. A moment later there was the sound of running feet and Wylie was at her side.
“This way,” she whispered, and guided him into the path.
Both of them knew that it would be only a moment before the startled natives recovered their wits and discovered that their victim was gone. Then they would take up their trail again immediately.
“Where are we going?” Wylie asked her as he ran behind her along the winding jungle trail.
“The house,” she answered tersely.
“The house?” He almost halted in his amazement. “But Vivian—that’s the first place they’ll make for. Even if you’ve found weapons we can’t hold them off forever.”
“Wait,” she said. “No time to explain now…But if things work out, we’ll be off this island before morning, safe and sound.”
From behind them a quavering yell rose on the air and the two fugitives knew that Wylie’s escape had been discovered. It was a matter of yards and of minutes now. Then they burst from the shadow of the jungle into the moonlight clearing.
“Follow me,” she said quickly. “Don’t take the path,” and he followed her footsteps as she twisted and twined about the space toward the steps.
At the steps he halted a moment in wonder at what he saw there, and then, in spite of the gravity of the situation, a chuckle broke from his panting lips.
“So that’s it,” he said, and Vivian nodded.
“That’s it. Be careful. It’s a slim enough chance, but there is just a chance it’ll work—the only chance we’ve got.”
“But even that,” he said, a thought striking him, as he threaded his way carefully up the steps to the veranda, “will only be temporary. Even if it holds them at bay until dawn—when daylight comes…”
“I know,” she said a trifle impatiently, “but long before then…” She broke off suddenly as their pursuers appeared, breaking out from under the palms, just as a flash of lightning came.
“They’re here,” he whispered. “If the scheme won’t work, then it’s all up with us.”
“It will work,” Vivian said confidently.
But, although her tone was cool, confident, there was anxiety in her eyes as she watched the black figures pouring out of the jungle. Vivian knew that her own and Wylie’s lives were hanging by the slenderest margin in their criminal career.
—
The Papaloi, the giant negro with the white lines and scar ridges criss-crossing his muscular torso, was the first to see them as another flash of lightning illuminated the veranda where they stood. He uttered a single bellow, a stentorian cry, which seemed to shake the house, and bounded toward the stairs. Behind him came part of his followers, while others rushed for the other pair of stairs.
The Papaloi leaped for the steps, his men close behind him. His feet landed in something that slid quickly under him, that clung to his soles. He lost his balance, fell asprawl, his followers in a momentary confusion that quickly increased to panic—the panic of the primitive mind confronted with something unseen that it cannot understand.
The hands of the gigantic black Papaloi were glued now to squares of sticky fly paper that he could not shake off—the fly paper that The Lady from Hell had taken from the storeroom and spent so much precious time placing upon the steps and around the veranda without encountering it, save along the narrow, tortuous trail along which Vivian had led Wylie.
There was a square of fly paper on the Papaloi’s face now, clinging there, flapping a little as if alive, persistent as a vampire bat. There were more on the side of his body where he had slipped. He struck at them and accumulated more.
The Mamaloi, that ancient crone, was in trouble also. She had slipped and in falling, had a sheet of fly paper plastered squarely across her eyes. She was uttering shrill cries of distress as she pawed at her face with hands that were covered with sticky fly paper and glue. All about the two, men and women were struggling, shouting in alarm. The silent attack had materialized out of nothing with such appalling swiftness, and continued with such devastating persistence that it robbed them of every thought save alarm.
Robbed of their spiritual leaders, terror was striking at the hearts of the voodoo worshipers. At the edge of the veranda, black men writhed in horror, snatching at one another for support, tearing at the horrible things that clung as if with a million tiny sucking mouths. Their machetes, covered with glue and flapping fly paper, had been dropped, forgotten in the confusion. Torches had dropped underfoot, forgotten, so that the struggle was in darkness, illuminated only by the light of the moon through the clouds and the flashes of lightning. Flypaper in their hair, across their eyes, clinging, hampering, maddening them with the knowledge that some frightful voodoo, stronger than their Papaloi or Mamaloi, had laid hands upon them.
A flare of lightning slashed from the very center of the storm cloud that was now hanging overhead. Its brilliance illuminated, for a moment, the figure of The Lady from Hell, standing at the edge of the veranda, her arms uplif
ted as if calling down the wrath of the heavens upon them. A shattering blast of thunder followed and a gust of wind swept across the clearing.
That gust of wind was the crowning touch, the straw that was needed to break the camel’s back of resistance in that struggling, milling black throng. It set all the loose ends of the fly- paper fluttering, where it was not fastened to bodies. And, more than that, it caught up the sticky squares that were still unattached and sent them dancing through the air.
—
There rose a howl of fear. The demons of these blancs, not content with lying in wait and springing out upon them, were now flying through the air; attacking them from the heavens, sucking from their bodies all their strength.
What use to resist when even the magic of the Papaloi and the Mamaloi was not sufficient to fight off the demons.
They bolted headlong, flypaper sticking to every part of their anatomy. They fell, scaled with the awful things, and promptly acquired more. Women fell and shrieked as they were trampled upon, not from the pain of the trampling feet, but from the fear that they might be left behind at the mercy of the demons. Men, blinded by the sticky things, ran in circles and clutched at whatever they came in contact with.
Then came the low drone of an airplane engine in the distance, flying low because of the storm. Turning, Vivian ran back into the dining room, where Benedetti still lay, bound upon the floor, his eyes glaring hatred at her. Calmly she sat down and wrote upon one of his letterheads which she found in the desk there. Then she snatched off the gag that muffled his mouth.
“The danger is all over,” she told the man, “for us. But for you trouble is just beginning.”
“You can’t escape,” he raved at her viciously. “I don’t know what you’ve done, but you won’t be able to leave the island. In an hour, two hours—by daylight at least—they will return, and what they will do to you won’t be pleasant.”
Vivian smiled. The invisible plane seemed to be circling the house now. She waved the paper she had written to dry the ink.
