Strange Conflict (43 page)

The vestry was then locked up while the priest went away, but a quarter of an hour later he returned with two old Negresses, who set about performing the last rites. Each body was stripped, man-handled—somewhat to the watching Duke's repugnance—and washed; then, instead of being wrapped in a shroud, it was dressed again in its clothes as is the Negro custom. In due course some men arrived with five cheap wooden coffins. The bodies were put into them and—grim sound to the Duke's ears—the lids were hammered down.

On the priest's instructions the coffins were carried into the church and laid out in a row in the chancel. Having lighted a single candle for each and set these on the heads of the coffins, he said a short prayer for the departed and left the church.

In view of the rapid decomposition of corpses in the Tropics de Richleau knew that the burial would not be long delayed and would certainly take place that night. So far there had been no sign of Doctor Saturday, but the Duke did not doubt that the Satanist had means of ascertaining exactly what was going on and would put in an appearance in due course.

He felt very bitterly about having failed to locate the Doctor during the latter part of the day's siesta as had he done so he would either have triumphed or have known the worst; and in the former case he would have been able to spare his friends the horror that each of them must now be suffering. Although they had been certified as dead he knew that consciousness had never left them. As far as they were concerned, they were in the process of being buried alive, and the terrifying rites which had been carried out in the last hour must have been infinitely more frightening for them than for himself.

At five-thirty the priest returned. With him be brought the two women who had washed the bodies and the men who had delivered the coffins, to form a small, frightened congregation, which had evidently attended only because its members feared the priest more than the Duppies of
the dead. A short service was held and the coffins were carried out to a waiting cart.

The street was packed with people from end to end, as most of the inhabitants of Port-au-Prince had turned out in half-morbid, half-fearful curiosity, to witness the last stages of this strange affair which had caused such excitement throughout the whole town.

The cart moved off, its driver having great difficulty in forcing the two mangy-looking donkeys that drew it through the press; and the priest followed in an ancient, rickety barouche. They drove for some two miles outside the town, to a large cemetery the vast crowd trailing after them in complete and awe-struck silence.

Inside the cemetery five shallow graves had been prepared in a row and the coffins were lowered into them. Only the boldest of the crowd would venture through the cemetery gates to witness the final stages of the service, and de Richleau, who had hovered above the cortège, suddenly saw that Doctor Saturday was among these.

The Satanist did not approach the graves but stood on the fringe of the little group and appeared to be watching the ceremony only out of the corner of his eye; yet as the priest read the last rites de Richleau felt certain that he could see a satisfied smile twitching the corners of the Doctor's mouth.

Immediately the service was concluded the grave-diggers hurriedly shovelled in the earth, which rattled with a hollow sound upon the coffins. The priest got into his barouche again, the crowd at the gates began to melt like magic and with anxious glances at the setting sun those who had been in the cemetery hurried away from it, including the Doctor; who evidently had no intention of claiming his victims as yet.

There followed for the Duke a long and trying wait, during which he found it impossible to keep his thoughts from the tortures which his friends must be suffering down there under the earth. In vain he strove to reach them and to bring them comfort, but he very much doubted if they were even conscious of his astral presence, and their own spirits now had no means whatever of expressing themselves.

Darkness enveloped the sea, the coast, the groups of
graceful palm-trees, the poorly-kept little fields of maize, coffee and cotton, the scattered dwellings, the dense tropical jungle further inland and the ragged mountains beyond. The land became again what de Richleau had felt it to be two nights before, when he had gazed out from the Doctor's verandah; a place reeking with primitive sexual urges and saturated in stealthy, creeping evil.

One by one the lights in the houses went out. Then, at about eleven o'clock, somewhere in the distance he heard the sharp staccato note of the Petro drums as they began to beat at the opening of a Voodoo ceremony.

The drums went on and on, gradually increasing the pace of their rhythm until it felt as though the whole dark scene was pulsing to them. With his astral sight de Richleau, still hovering above the newly-made graves, could see the long road that led from the cemetery to the town. There was not a movement upon it, and he knew that after the happenings of the day not a soul in Port-au-Prince, with the possible exception of a Catholic priest, would dare to venture within a mile of that place while the darkness lasted; and the priest, who had buried the five bodies with the firm conviction that the dead do
not
return, would certainly not come out again to the cemetery that night.

In the opposite direction the road wound up along a rising cliff to a high place overlooking the sea and about quarter of an hour before midnight the Duke's attention was caught by a long snake of light gradually emerging from the blackness of the distant hillside. A few moments later it disappeared, only to reappear nearer and brighter, and the process was repeated. It was, as he knew, following the bends of the road that led down to the cemetery, and whenever it blacked out it was passing behind a mass of thick, tropical vegetation.

As the snake wound nearer the note of the drums grew louder and a dirge-like chant welled up into the still, sultry air. At the same time the snake gradually dissolved into a hundred separate points of gleaming light, and the Duke saw that it was a long procession in which each person was carrying a lighted pinewood torch. The head of what had been the “snake” reached the gates of the cemetery at exactly midnight.

The chant was abruptly broken off, the drums ceased to beat and a great shouting went up from the men and women who had formed the “snake”. Then their leader advanced and, as a sudden silence fell, called aloud upon Baron Cimeterre, the Lord of the Cemetery, to give them entrance. De Richleau had no knowledge of how the thing was done, but silently and smoothly, without the touch of a human hand, the iron gates swung open.

The new graves were some distance from the gates but by focussing his sight the Duke could quite clearly see the head of the procession, which was now entering them. The leading figure was one to inspire terror into the most courageous heart. It was that of a tall man, decked out in the hideous panoply of an African Witch Doctor.

His body and arms were smeared with various-coloured paints, forming whirls, stars and circles. Above his short, full, grass skirt—like that of a ballet girl—there dangled from his belt a row of human skulls; a dozen long necklaces of sharks' teeth and barracuda jaws hung from his neck and clattered on his breast. In his hand he shook a great
ascon
, a gourd dressed in sacred beads and snake vertebrae, the rattle of which is believed by Voodooists to be the voice of the gods whispering to their priests. Upon his head was a fantastic erection, from which emerged a pair of pointed horns, and his face was covered by a devilish mask. But de Richleau could see through the hideous trappings and knew that it was Doctor Saturday.

Behind him, each with a hand placed on the hip of the person in front, snaked the long procession, advancing slowly in a curious jog-trot dance of three steps forward and two steps back. As they came onward they began to chant in praise of the grim Lord of that fearsome place. At last they reached the graves and, one by one, sticking their torches upright in the earth before them, formed a swaying circle round the patch of newly-turned earth. Then there began the most macabre scene that de Richleau had ever witnessed.

At the signal from the Doctor a score of assistant devil-priests, all clad in weird garments and hideously painted, flung themselves upon the graves and with their bare hands tore the earth away until the five coffins were exposed. When this had been done a libation of rum was poured
into the grave and little bowls of corn and fruit were offered. At another signal some of the associates wrenched the lid from one of the coffins. Rex was inside it. Grabbing at his arms, they dragged his body up into a sitting position.

The Doctor went down into the grave to face it and, amidst deathly silence, called aloud: ‘Rex Van Ryn, I command you to rise and answer me.'

De Richleau knew that by the enchantments which the Satanist had performed Rex
must
answer. His head suddenly began to roll upon his shoulders, horribly grotesque, and from his still stiff lips there came a whisper: ‘Here I am.'

The Priest of Evil lifted his ascon and beat Rex upon the head with it, to awaken him further. As Rex jerked himself backwards to escape the blows his limbs began to twitch spasmodically with the animation that was returning to his body. The associates then dragged him up out of the coffin and hustled him up the little slope at the edge of the grave.

As further coffins were opened de Richleau three times more witnessed this profanity inflicted upon his friends. Simon, Marie Lou and Richard in turn were wakened from their deathly sleep, reanimated and dragged, captive, from the tomb. Purely by chance the ghouls wrenched the lid off the Duke's coffin last. He then looked down upon his own corpse and heard the Satanist call him, too, by name. For the first time in many hours he felt a little glow of warmth enter his cold, tired heart. There was no answer— there could not be—because his spirit was still free.

There was an utter silence for a moment, then the Black Magician called him by name again. Still there was no answer.

Threats, imprecations and blasphemies followed, streaming from the thick lips of the devil's priest. He stooped and struck the corpse in the face, again and again, in a furious endeavour to drag forth a response. But there was none.

After ten minutes of unceasing effort he gave up the struggle, ordering some of his assistants to pick up de Richleau's still inanimate body and carry it away.

A thanksgiving ceremony to the Lord of the Cemetery was performed, then the devil-worshippers prepared to
depart. They did not recede in Indian file as they had come, but, still holding their torches aloft, in one great crowd, in the middle of which Rex, Richard, Simon and Marie Lou, on their own feet but bemused and only semi-conscious, were hustled along.

The drums and the chanting began again; no longer a dirge but a paean of triumph at Evil having overcome Good. Stamping, gesticulating and dancing, the crowd of weirdly-dressed figures made its way up the hill for the best part of three miles, until it came to a great Hounfort, on the high place above the sea.

De Richleau's body was laid out in front of the altar to Baron Cimeterre and the other four victims were thrust forward until they stood in a row beside the Duke's body, upright on their feet but their heads and arms hanging loosely. A brazier was brought and on its fire the Witch Doctor heated some liquid in a small ladle. When it was warm he shook into it a little powder from one of the skulls at his girdle; then the four victims were held while he forced a drop of it between the lips of each.

At the Satanist's command the four were hustled away and thrown into a filthy shack, when they collapsed, half-conscious, upon the ground. It was lit by a single candle so that they could see faintly, but the Duke, who had passed into the shack and was hovering above their heads, felt his heart wrung at the blank stare which each regarded his companions. They did not know one another.

Outside a further ceremony was in progress, but the Duke could see that the evil priest was hurrying through it; and he guessed the reason. All was not yet done in this fell night's work. One of the five had failed to respond to the Doctor's summons and he was anxious to get to work upon the recalcitrant spirit which still defied him.

Immediately the ritual was concluded the Satanist had the Duke's body carried into a sanctum behind the altar, and as soon as his senior assistants were out of earshot of the crowd they began to question him anxiously as to what had gone wrong; but he at once assured them that there was no cause at all for alarm. He said that he had means with which he could force the corpse to answer and that he meant to apply them all in good time.

Reassured that there was no likelihood of the Duke's
Duppy suddenly appearing on the scene to revenge itself and his friends, the assistants went out and joined in the wild scene of depravity to which the lesser brethren of the Order had already given way. A hundred or more men and women, all of whom had participated in the ghoulish rites, were now executing an obscene dance in the compound. To the furious beating of the high-pitched drums they whirled, cavorted and leapt high into the air, and many of them seemed to have been seized upon by something more evil and more powerful than their own spirits, for here and there a number of them were frothing at the mouth as though about to be struck with a fit of epilepsy.

The Doctor came out and watched them for a moment, then he strode to the foul hovel which contained the four prisoners. Snatching a low cowhide whip from the wall, he laid about them with it. Unable to cry out, robbed of all their individuality and courage, they cowered away from him like four tortured animals, tears streaming from their semi-sightless eyes as he struck again and again at their shoulders, faces and legs.

‘Zombies!' he panted with horrible exultation, suddenly flinging the whip aside. ‘You are Zombies now! You will work fiendishly and tirelessly in my fields or at any degrading task that I may set you. For you there is no escape and no respite for many years to come. You are my slaves; and, as such, you shall labour like brute-beasts until accident or old age releases you. You have no wits, no understanding, and only a misty memory of the past: too little to recognise your fifth companion when he comes to join you. I go now, in the full knowledge of my power, to force his spirit and compel him to acknowledge that I am his master.'