The Island of Fu-Manchu (22 page)

* * *

“Queen Mamaloi,” said Father Ambrose in a low tone. “Yes, unfortunately, there
is
such a person.”

“She is not a myth?”

“Not at all—I wish she were. Who or what she is I cannot tell you. Only selected devotees of Voodoo have ever seen her.”

“Has there always been a Queen Mamaloi?” I asked.

The priest shook his head.

“Not to my knowledge. One never heard of her in Haiti until about”—he considered—“about 1938, I suppose. She is some very special sorceress, perhaps imported from Africa.”

“I thought,” said Barton in his coarsely jovial way, “that the Jesuits knew everything.”

Father Ambrose smiled.

“We know many things,” he replied, “but no man knows everything.”

“Are you acquainted”—Smith spoke slowly and emphatically—“with anyone who has seen this woman?”

“I am.” Father Ambrose indicated the little amulet on the cane table. “This penitent has seen her. Hence my putting the fear of hell into him and confiscating his charm.”

“Did he describe her?”

“He was too excited at the time,—I gather these meetings are orgiastic, you know—to be a credible witness. But one point I established quite firmly. She is not black.”

“What!” Smith’s eyes glinted with sudden excitement. “You are sure of that?”

“Perfectly sure.”

“A white woman?”

Father Ambrose extended his stout palms.

“Probably negro blood. Some of them, you know, are as white as you or I. I suppose that a European woman could have obtained this hold over the coloured people: it extends, mark you, beyond the boundaries of Haiti. At the great ceremony of the Full Moon—”

“Tomorrow night!” snapped Smith.

“Yes, there is to be a meeting tomorrow night, and many will come over the borders; nor”—he spoke sadly—“will they all be black. We fight phantoms here, Sir Denis, but we shall win in the end”

Smith was pacing up and down again, furiously loading his cracked old briar. Suddenly he turned to Barton.

“You hear, Barton?” he said. “You hear? Two moves are open to us. In one, I fancy, we have been anticipated by Dr. Fu-Manchu. I consider it at least equally important that we should see this woman.”

“And I assure you,” Father Ambrose interrupted, “that it is quite impossible you should see her, whatever your reason may be. Haiti is highly civilized, as you know—” he smiled; “but for any white man ignorant of Voodoo ritual to attempt to penetrate to that place, would be”—he shrugged his broad shoulders—“shall we say as dangerous as for one to walk into Mecca?”

“You say ‘that place’,” Smith remarked.

“Yes.”

“Does this mean that you know where it is?”

The priest hesitated, and then:

“Yes, I know,” he replied. “But it is contrary to the dictates of my conscience to tell you. Voodoo is undoubtedly the work of Satan. I would encourage no man to touch it. It is, as you yourself have suggested, a survival of pagan creeds older than Christianity. It is the worship of the hidden side of the Moon.”

There was a brief silence during which Nayland Smith paced restlessly up and down, and the bowl of the priest’s pipe bubbled unmusically.

“I don’t presume. Father, to interfere with your conscience. But let me make our position a little more clear. For your private information I am not treasure-hunting, although it is true that I hope to find Christophe’s Cave. I am acting for the United States Government and for my own. There are two movements taking place in Haiti: one mechanical, the other psychological. It is my business to investigate both. You say yourself that Voodoo has great power. You evidently know a lot about it, more than you have told us. But one thing you do not know. A Secret Society and a very old one, the Si-Fan—”

“The Si-Fan!” interjected Father Ambrose. “But what has the Si-Fan to do with Haiti? You see”—he smiled apologetically—“I was in Tibet for four years before I came here. Nearly as many of my converts there were members of the Si-Fan as here they are devotees of Voodoo.”

“No doubt!” said Smith. “The roots of the Si-Fan may not go as deep as those of Voodoo, but nevertheless it is an ancient organization, and a very powerful one. It is controlled by a Chinese genius. It includes all races and creeds—all shades of colour. Personally I cannot say for how long it has included Voodoo.”

“What!”

“The Si-Fan Is almost purely political. I need not emphasize the underground influence which could be set in motion by control of Voodoo. But those influences are already at work. There is a concrete danger to the United States Government growing hour by hour and day by day in the Caribbean. Several agents who have been sent to investigate have died or have never returned.”

“I confess,” murmured the priest, “that I know of one, myself.”

“There have been many. And this woman, the Queen Mamaloi, is undoubtedly an agent of the Si-Fan. I am urged by no idle curiosity. It is my plain duty to see this woman, to establish her identity—to check her activities. Now, I have been making some inquiries myself.”

He turned again to the map and rested the point of a pencil upon a spot which appeared to be the peak of a maintain close to the Dominican border. He glanced interrogatively at the priest.

Father Ambrose nodded.

“Yes, that is the headquarters of Voodoo in Haiti,” he admitted. “Morne la Selle, the Magic Mountain. I cannot deny it; I can see it from my own windows at Kenscoff: but I would point out that if you go with a considerable armed party, you will find no one there; and that if you go along you will certainly never return.”

Smith relighted his pipe.

“You do more than your duty, Father,” he said. “We have heard your warning and we do not take it lightly. But I have a duty as well as you, and I am going to be present at this meeting.” He took up the little snake amulet. “Is it consistent with your convictions that I should borrow this?”

The priest’s pipe bubbled, great rings of smoke rose from the steaming bowl. At last;

“You place the matter in a new light, Sir Denis,” he said. “I believe I shall be justified in withdrawing my opposition.”

“
W
e know roughly what we have to expect,” said Nayland Smith; “and I think our plans cover all the possibilities we can foresee.”

“I regret every moment lost in getting to work on the cave,” cried Barton. “There’s a party of United States marines ready to land. Even with their help it may take some time to clear the débris of the old chapel. In the present state of the war over there, Fu-Manchu’s chance might come tomorrow!”

“And tomorrow we set to work,” snapped Smith. “Tonight I might have another job to do—”

“Which may iron you out altogether!”

“Barton,” said Smith, ‘I regret to have to remind you that I am in charge of this party. Be good enough to listen. Near the top of Morne la Selle, our destination, there is a perfectly flat plateau. As the place is a Voodoo holy-of-holies, the American authorities have contented themselves with aerial survey. But it’s a good landing ground. Three Army planes are standing by. They are our rearguard, Barton, and you’re in command. I am not prepared to trust a soul in Haiti now that I know the Si-Fan is here. Nobody but you knows when those planes start, or where they are going.”

“Right,” growled Barton. “You know you can count on me.”

“One thing is important: I
must
see the Queen Mamaloi; and the time of departure I have given you allows for the starting of the ceremony. Don’t start a moment earlier.”

It was afternoon before Smith and I set out for the house of Father Ambrose in Kenscoff. We went in the car of the American consul—and saloons are rare in Port au Prince. The consul’s chauffeur drove us. Smith’s plans were peculiarly complete, as I was presently to learn; but at the outset he was very silent, filling the interior of the car with clouds of tobacco smoke. I realized as the journey proceeded what he had meant when he had said, “This
is
Africa.” The route betrayed a vista of wild, unspoiled beauty. There were magnificent trees, banks of flowers, and, once clear of the town, absence of any evidence to show that we were not indeed in tropical Africa.

Although this was a modern road, the dwellings which bordered it might have had their being in Timbuctoo. An all but unbroken file of Haitian women, each with a burden of vegetables, fruit or other produce upon her head wound its way ant-like down to the market place; a returning stream marched upwards. I saw no white faces from the time that we left the borders of the town. But below, a wonderful prospect was unfolded.

From above, Port au Prince, nestling in a cup between two mountains, reminded me momentarily of Damascus seen from the Lebanon hills. Beyond, seemingly floating on a blue sea, La Gonave, the mystery island, alone disturbed the blue expanse of ocean to the horizon. Little curiosity was displayed by the hundreds of natives we passed. Exceptions were a fierce-eyed old woman, riding a donkey, and a tall, distinguished-looking mulatto who carried a staff. The interest of this pair, I thought, although they were a mile or more apart, was definitely hostile. As the car passed the tall mulatto and his fierce glance sought us out in passing:

“We are covered, Kerrigan,” said Smith. “Did you note that man?”

“Yes.”

“One of the Voodoo doctors, beyond doubt. Drums will beat feverishly tonight.”

He said no more right up to the moment that we reached the priest’s house, a long, low, creeper-clad building, flowers climbing above a verandah which overlooked a tropical garden where humming birds hovered and butterflies of incredible colours flitted from flower to flower. As we descended from the car:

“The Father has comfortable quarters,” murmured Smith.

We were met by the genial priest and shown into a cool and spacious study. I thought, looking about me at the plain unpainted shelves laden with works in many languages, at the littered working-desk, a typewriter on a side table and a large crucifix upon a white wall, that here, probably, was the headquarters of Rome in its battle against African superstition, an advance post of Christianity all but hemmed in by the forces of ancient and evil gods.

* * *

When dusk fell Smith and I, with Father Ambrose, were in the garden. I looked into the crimson sunset and wondered what the new dawn would bring. With dramatic suddenness, the sky became a mirror of glorious colour—light jade, deep purple and a shell-like pink—all merging as I watched into an inverted casket of blue velvet, holding a million diamonds. A queenly moon rode in that serene heaven.

“It is time we went in,” said Father Ambrose.

Back in the study, now electrically lighted, for there was a small Kohler engine installed in the garage, I stood staring at Smith and he stared at me. We were heavily sun-burned, yet, except in the dusk, no man, I think, could have been deceived by our substitutes, two trustworthy lads selected by the priest who, wearing our clothes, had gone back in the consul’s car and would sleep in his compound that night. It was hoped, in this way, to lead spies to believe that we had returned to Port au Prince.

Smith wore an ill-fitting drill suit and a straw hat. I was similarly attired, except that I boasted a scarlet pullover beneath my jacket. My own headgear was a pith helmet of sorts.

“How many spare rounds in your belt?” Smith snapped.

“Twelve.”

He nodded grimly.

“More would be useless.”

As he began to load his pipe, Father Ambrose closed gauze shutters before the windows.

“The light attracts many nocturnal insects,” he explained; “some are beautiful, but others are unpleasant.”

Smith lighted his pipe and standing by the desk took from his pocket two objects. One was the green snake lent to us by the priest: the other was a jewel in the form of a seven-pointed star.

“This is the amulet from Barton’s collection,” he said, “to which I referred, Father.”

Father Ambrose changed his glasses and sitting down carefully examined the glittering jewel. Presently he looked up.

“The snake emblem, as I have told you,” he said, “denotes a shepherd,
papaloi
, or—shall we say?—a lodge master. But this—” he touched it gingerly—“is the badge of a high adept, or grand master. Strange how the significance of 7 haunts the pagan mysteries. I cannot imagine where Sir Lionel obtained it.”

Smith laughed.

“The same has been said of many pieces in Barton’s collection! But I may take it that these tokens will pass?”

“I have little doubt of that, but grave doubt of my wisdom in countenancing this thing. Both are emblems of Damballa, the serpent god, and are anti-Christ, like the swastika. However, I have promised and I do my part. I have shown you the way to the spot where the donkeys are tethered, and when we have sampled a glass each of my rum cordial—a very special honour, I assure you—I fear you must set out.”

We sampled his rum cordial in the lamp-lit room, a book-lined oasis in a Haitian jungle, and anxiously he gave us final advice, unwittingly displaying, as he did so, a vast knowledge of this country in which he was absorbed. Finally, glancing at a clock upon his desk: “It is time that you started,” he said. “I should like to give you my blessing.”

A queer dignity invested the stout priest, as laying down his vast calabash pipe on a tray, he stood up. Although neither Smith nor I were communicants of his Church we knelt as though prompted by one instinct whilst, his deep voice lending authority to the Latin, he blessed our journey.

Five minutes later we had groped our way to the end of a narrow lane which bordered the bottom of the priest’s garden, where scarcely visible lizards shot phantomesque from before our advancing feet. The lanterns of fire-flies seemed to guide us. Two well-kept, patient donkeys were tethered there, saddled and ready, but unattended. As we tightened a strap here and there, and presently mounted:

“This end of the business has been perfectly handled,” said Smith. “Barton is dining with the American Consul tonight as arranged, but amongst the servants there will almost certainly be one spy, and our absence will be reported.”