But the worst was yet to come. We heard it before we saw it. A rhythmic, eerie cacophony of human voices that sounded anything but human. It stopped us in our tracks. It hummed and it screamed, it whispered and it swelled, it was both musical and dissonant. Throughout there was a steady, ominous, maddening drumbeat lending body to the noise.
Raoul saw the question in my eyes. “Voodoo,” he explained tersely. “It couldn’t be anything else.”
We went forward a few more yards until we reached a bend in the trail. Cautiously, we peered around it. We could see that the path widened into a large clearing. There was a fire in the center of this clearing. Against its brightness, the figures circling it looked like shadows. It was impossible to tell how many there were.
“Do you think the trail continues on the other side?” I asked Raoul.
“We can only guess.”
“Is there any chance they might let us pass peacefully?”
“Very doubtful. From what I know of the followers of voodoo, they’re fanatic about keeping their rituals secret. Men have been killed for trespassing on their privacy.”
“Maybe we can sneak around them,” I suggested.
“Not likely. In this jungle they’d hear us before we went three feet.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here. What are we going to do?”
“A good question, Mr. Victor. But I’m afraid I don’t have any answer. Except-—-”
“Except?”
“Except that I am sure that the most prudent thing we can do is to simply turn around and go back the way we came.”
“That’s ridiculous! We’ll never get to Santo Domingo at that rate.”
“So we won’t get to Santo Domingo.” Raoul shrugged. “I’d rather stay alive.”
“No!” I objected excitedly. “We can’t—”
The reason I didn’t finish the sentence was that at that moment the decision was taken out of our hands. One of the dancing shadows had spotted us. It detached itself from the main group and came to the edge of the clearing to peer down the trail. Then a shout was loosed and the shadow was running toward us with others close behind. Raoul and I bolted down the trail.
Not soon enough. It only took one vine in our path to stop the two of us. Raoul, in the lead, tripped over it, and I sprawled over him. By the time we were on our feet again, they were on us.
They dragged us back to the clearing. Here a tall man with copper skin and Indian features detached himself from the others and confronted us. He rattled off some words in a patois that neither Raoul nor I understood. When we didn’t answer, he grew angry and shouted an order at a stocky ebony-skinned man behind us. Immediately a small club was slammed into my kidneys, and then the blow was repeated on Raoul. We both reacted the same way—we grunted with pain and we fell to our knees.
Again the leader rattled off some jargon at us. Again our failure to reply enraged him. Again the stocky black man took a step toward us. I steeled myself for the blow I was sure was coming.
But his hand was stayed by the intervention of a girl who stepped between him and us. She spoke to the leader in the same patois and then turned to us. “I have explained that you don’t understand the dialect,” she said. She spoke the words in English with just the lilting trace of a French accent.
“Thanks.” I looked at her curiously.
Her skin was neither ebony, nor copper-toned, but rather a delicate pink-and-white, like the flush of newly opened rose petals. She was young -- in her early twenties I would have judged—and quite beautiful in a fragile way. Her body was slender and covered with a simple white blouse and a rather long flowered peasant skirt. Her face was a perfect oval, delicately sculpted with high cheekbones and a small, straight nose. She wore no make-up, but her lips were naturally red and shaped in a small, sultry pout. Her eyes were blue-green in the firelight. She wore a handkerchief over her head and the tendril of hair escaping from it was a deep shade of reddish brown. She looked like a European, rather than a native.
Now she crossed her arms over her small breasts in a gesture of sympathy and told Raoul and me that we were in a serious predicament. Drily, I replied that we’d managed to figure that out for ourselves. What, I asked her, did she suggest we do to extricate ourselves from it?
“It is not possible,” she said sadly.
“What will be done with us?”
“That is for Pietro to say.” She gestured toward the tall Indian.
“Well, how about asking him?”
“It will do no good. He will decide only when he is ready.”
She seemed friendly, and I decided to capitalize on that. It looked like Raoul and I could use any friends we could get. “What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Simone Duprez. And you?”
“I’m Steve Victor and this is Raoul Marti. Tell me, Simone, what are you doing here?”
“I belong.” She said it simply, as though it explained everything.
“You mean you’re a member of this cult? You practice voodoo?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“I believe in it.” Her face took on an other-worldly expression and her eyes shone as she said it.
“But you’re not a native.”
“No. I am French. But there are many Caucasians who participate in our rites. The idea that voodoo is only for the Indian, or the Negro, is untrue. Actually, our form of worship was founded by a Frenchman—- Charles Vaudoux—-and ‘voodoo’ is really just another form of his name14 . The original believers were the French settlers of this island. It was they who spread our gospel to the native Indian slaves and later to the African slaves who were brought here to work the plantations.”
“Very interesting. And just exactly what is it that you believe?” I was trying to get some glimmering of their rites to determine what might be in store for Raoul and myself.
“You will see.” Simone was prevented from saying anything else by Pietro, the chief. Throughout this dialogue, he’d been standing by impatiently. Now he said something to her which was evidently an order to leave. As she moved off, he addressed the little band of men circling us. They dragged us off to the side of the clearing and sat us down there. A few of them stood behind us with clubs and knives to prevent us from trying to escape.
The voodoo ritual was about to begin. It seemed we were to be privileged to watch it. But just what part we might be called on to play was something we could only guess at. Raoul, whispering his apprehension to me, seemed to feel that the price of admission would be our lives.
The drumming continued. It had never stopped. It wasn’t any louder, but I was noticing it more now. That methodical beat might well be our death knell!
Now the participants formed two rough circles around the fire. The inner circle was made up of men. They had their backs to the flames. All of them were bare from the waist up. From the waist down there was a variety of garb ranging from loincloths to Bermuda shorts and ordinary trousers. All were barefoot, as were the women. And, like the women, the men’s circle was composed of a variety of colors and ethnic characteristics, with darker skins in the majority, but quite a few whites with decidedly Caucasian features also present.
The circle of women faced them. All wore simple outfits similar to Simone’s. All wore handkerchiefs on their heads. Their bodies moved in time to the drum- beat, swaying toward the men, and then away from them. Slowly, they began a chant which was unintelligible to me. It swelled in volume for a moment, and then stopped. Immediately, the men picked it up and chanted back at them.
This alternating chorus continued for a while, and each time it grew louder in pitch the women came closer and closer to the men. Suddenly, in the center of the circle, seeming to spring out of the flames, Pietro appeared. His body was smeared with dung. I knew it was dung because the odor reached me clearly. In each hand he held a live chicken by the neck. The chickens were squawking and flapping their wings frantically. But he kept a tight grip and waved them around in gestures that seemed to be a proscribed part of the ritual. The men had turned away from the women now and their circle grew smaller as it tightened around Pietro.