“HULLO, boy! how’s the wind blowing?” said the boisterous Bartholomew Biglow when he met Clensy a week after the young Englishman had betrayed Sestrina, through so carelessly brushing the fern and dead leaf from her sarong.

“I wish the wind would blow a bit cooler,” replied Clensy as he fanned his perspiring face with his silk handkerchief.

“Thank God you’re alive and up where the wind blows!” said Biglow as, to Clensy’s great relief, he released his vigorous grip from his hand.

“You might lift your hat or blow me a friendly kiss when we meet,” said Clensy, as he spread his tingling fingers out and made a wry face.

“Would you like to come with me on a splendid adventure, something that will interest you, a sight to please the gods while the Haytian ladies exhibit their dusky charms as they do the chica dance before dear, nice, religious old men.”

“What do you mean? It sounds interesting, I admit,” said Clensy, as he looked calmly into the handsome flushed face of his strange comrade.

“I mean that I’ve got a pretty good idea where at least one of the vaudoux temples is situated.”

Then Biglow told Clensy that he had received certain information, and meant to go off into the mountains without delay to try and get a glimpse of the terrible papaloi and see what really happened when they attended the rites of their creed.

“We’ll see a sight, as well as receiving the reward that’s offered!” said Biglow, giving one of his magnificent winks.

“Isn’t it a bit risky?” said Clensy, as he thought of all he had heard about the vaudoux horrors, and imagined what desperate characters men must be who attended such revolting orgies.

Biglow pooh-poohed Clensy’s misgivings.

“You can either come or stop away. I’m going to-morrow, and Adams is coming with me.”

Saying this, Biglow shrugged his shoulders and again waited Clensy’s reply.

Clensy was not a coward, neither was he a fool; he knew that a reward of five hundred pounds would not be offered for information of the vaudoux worshippers if getting such information was as easy as Biglow’s manner seemed to suggest. Besides, had not de Cripsny hinted that President Gravelot was a vaudoux worshipper? And what would Sestrina think if she ever heard that Clensy had been one of the party who had caused her father to be shot! For that’s what would happen if the French government officials got hold of the miscreants.

As Clensy stood reflecting, Biglow, who had been watching his face, said, “Don’t you worry about Sestrina’s pa. I won’t hurt him if we do find out that he is anything to do with these damnable cannibals.” Then the gun-runner added, “Besides, I know what I’m about; even if we were caught, I’ve got the trick card up my sleeve.” Saying this, Biglow explained to Clensy how he was in league with the Cacao insurgents, who were deadly enemies of the British and French authorities, and were staunch friends to the papaloi and all who were connected with the vaudoux fetish.

“You don’t understand. I can easily turn the tables if things turned up rough.” And as Biglow chatted on and made things look quite rosy, Clensy, though he really did not understand half the gun-runner said, made up his mind to accompany Biglow in his search in the mountains hard by for the secret vaudoux temples.

The risk of the adventure and all that he might see of the inner working of the strange fetish, warmed Clensy’s ardour up immensely as he reflected over it all.

“Perhaps Biglow will be so successful that he will get such information as will enable the authorities to smash the whole infernal fetish creed up!” And as he continued to reflect and thought of all the possibilities, his zeal increased till he was as eager to go in search of the secret fetish places as was Biglow. His imagination worked and worked till he pictured Sestrina standing before her father with bowed head, as he tried to lure her to become a convert to the revolting creed which he himself indulged in.

“Who knows! I may be the means of saving Sestrina from falling before a father’s vile temptation and becoming steeped in the blood, superstition and debauchery of an old West African cannibalistic fetish creed!” So ran Clensy’s thoughts; and when Biglow, Adams and he set out the next day for their journey to the mountains, a few miles from Port-au-Prince, Clensy was the most enthusiastic over the great possibilities of the venture.

The weather was very hot, consequently they had given themselves plenty of time for the venture. Biglow, who had once been employed by the American Government to help put down slave traffic in the South Sea Islands, was in his element. He had made all plans for the venture without a hitch. Both Clensy and Adams were equipped with revolvers and murderous-looking clasp-knives. When Biglow had handed Adams the clasp-knife and revolver, the derelict sailorman had turned quite pale. It wanted those deadly-looking weapons and Biglow’s serious-looking face to make his dull brain realise that they were not going off to gather strawberries. Even Clensy looked thoughtfully at the open clasp-knife’s bright blade and at the revolver, and then, taking his silk handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose vigorously, just to relieve his feelings.

As soon as they had got away from the town they entered the thick jungle country that lies inland from Port-au-Prince. After tramping three miles they camped by the palm-clad elevations of the lower mountain slopes, near Chocalo gullies. As they sat smoking their pipes, Biglow tugged at the tips of his big moustachios and gave repeated chuckles, presumably over all that his sanguine mind expected to happen when he had discovered the hiding-place of the fetish devotees.

“Don’t yer fink it’s dyngerous a-coming up ’ere alone to catch myderers and cannibals?” said Adams as he took another deep swill from his rum-flask and glanced nervously across the gullies and on the sombre forests of mahogany trees. Then he proceeded to remind Biglow that de Cripsny had intimated that the agents of the dreadful papaloi roamed the forests, looking out for likely folk whom they could strangle and sell to the fetish priests.

“Almighty Gawd, don’t!” suddenly moaned Adams.

Biglow had replied to Adams’s fears by bringing his huge hand down with a tremendous whack on the sailorman’s back, and at the same time had given vent to a peal of laughter that echoed across the silent hills.

Adams rolled his eye. It was easy enough to see that he was losing his temper. There’s a limit to all things. Even Clensy realised that it was more than unwise to give such a shout when they might be within a mile of the vaudoux stronghold. Observing Adams’s consternation, Bartholomew Biglow only laughed the louder. When the swarms of bright-plumaged lories and frightened cockatoos, that had ascended in screeching clouds from their perches, had settled down again on the topmost branches of the mahogany and palm-trees, Biglow cheered Clensy and Adams up by saying, “Look ye here, I can lick a hundred niggers myself, and I happen to know for a fact that there are only about twenty-five Haytian niggers in the fetish hole which we are bound for.”

“Um!” mumbled Adams, as he began to look more healthy and pleasant.

Clensy also looked more amiably settled in his mind. The fact is that their giant comrade’s fearless eyes, as he sat before them pushing huge morsels of toasted damper into his mouth, inspired them with fullest confidence over the possibilities of the enterprise.

“‘Ow on earth yer know all about these ’ere myderers and the exact plyce where they worshyps their gawds and women up ’ere, licks me!” said Adams, as he poured another dose of rum into his mug of hot tea.

“I take good care to know everything that’s worth knowing when I come out on a game like this. Do you think I’m leaving all the knowing to the likes of you?” said Biglow, as he put forth his big boot and scattered the fire’s glowing ash till it seemed that the awakening constellations of the darkening skies were sparkling in miniature in the gloom of fast-coming night which had suddenly fallen over the silent gullies.

“Smoke tells tales; can be seen miles away,” said Biglow, as he glanced towards the mountains, far away to the south-west.

“Wish you’d thought of thet afore yer ’ollared so loud just now,” said Adams in a complaining voice.

They had been resting about forty minutes when Biglow suddenly leapt to his feet and said, “Now’s the time, come on, lads.”

In a moment they were off again. The moon had risen and was sending a pale glimmer over the palm-clad slopes and distant mountains. Biglow carefully examined his revolver. Adams and Clensy did likewise.

“Wish ter Gawd it wasn’t so dark,” growled Adams.

“Wish the moon wasn’t so high!” replied Biglow with his usual cussedness, as the three men started to creep down the slope, Adams following very carefully in the rear.

“He’ll git us mydered out ’ere in this damned ’ole, and I ain’t been the best o’ men,” whispered Adams in a hollow voice as he leaned towards Clensy’s right ear. Then he added: “Wish we was a-buskin’, earning money honest, as of old, pal.”

“So do I,” whispered Clensy, as he broke the pledge—took the proffered rum-flask from Adams’s hand and took a rather big nip.

After crossing the gradual curves of the slope, they passed through a wide stretch of jungle and found themselves in a beautiful valley that seemed to wind away between the mountains. To the right of them the rugged hills slowly increased in height till they were lost below the peak of a mountain that strangely resembled a vast cross, quite distinct in the moonlight.

It was Biglow who called his comrade’s attention to that strange resemblance, for he suddenly said: “Old de Cripsny was right! It does look like a cross in the moonlight, though I’m damned if I could see any resemblance when I first sighted it whilst we were tramping across the plains, way back.”

“So that peak was your guide,” thought Clensy, as he stared up at the distant peak, and no longer wondered how it was that Biglow tramped along in one direction without the slightest hesitation, as though he was going over some well-known track.

“This way, lads, don’t keep on that path,” suddenly said Biglow in a low voice. Then he pointed to the ground and showed them a pathway that had most certainly been made through the tramp of human footsteps. Biglow’s voice had become subdued. His erstwhile jovial countenance had become serious-looking.

“If he looks serious, there’s something to be serious about,” was Clensy’s uncomfortable reflection as he looked at his revolver and began to wonder if he would ever see the sunrise again.

“Keep to the sand; for heaven’s sake keep to the sand!” said Biglow in a premonitory voice, as they sank up to their ankles into the silvery dust as they got off the beaten track.

“There’s no telling who might come along that pathway,” said Biglow, as they found themselves once again in the shadows.

“Look out! a light on the starboard bow!” whispered Biglow, just as Clensy and Adams were hoping that they had been brought on a wild-goose chase. Sure enough, right below the cross-shaped peak, far away at the end of the valley, gleamed a tiny light.

Clensy and Adams stared in each other’s eyes. What was going to be Biglow’s next move, they both wondered? The big man’s ears had gone stiff, alert, like a mastiff’s, as he stood there, his hand arched over his brow, his eyes staring as though with delight at the tell-tale gleam that flickered somewhere between the palm trunks ahead of them.

“Blest if the moon isn’t over the peak, in the exact position that I want it!” said Biglow.

“Wa jer mean?” said Adams, as he lifted his solitary eye and gazed nervously towards the mountain peak.

“Why, the moon’s the clock of the papoloi cannibal priests, and when it hangs over that peak it is a sign that the priests must offer sacrifices on the fetish altars of the vaudoux. Old Crippy said so, and he evidently knows, or else why is that light down the valley and the moon hanging like a Chinese lantern exactly over that big cross up there with a cabbage on top of it?”

Adams and Clensy looked towards the mountain. “It do look loike a cabbage that ’ere nob on top of it,” growled Adams as his eye shifted about, so nervous did he feel.

“Come on,” said Biglow, “don’t stand there gaping.”

The next moment Adams and Clensy obeyed Biglow’s orders. Without hesitating both went down on their bellies and crawled along the silver sand, Biglow leading the way. Adams began to make a bit of a fuss as he went wriggling along on all fours, dragging his stout corporation as high as possible over the stones and scrub. Presently the three of them had crossed through the thick scrub and bamboo growth that divided them from the treeless slope that led nearly to the end of the valley. Peeping through the edge of the jungle growth, they peered across the sands that ran towards the place where the tell-tale light gleamed, and stared like men in a dream. There before them, not more than five hundred yards away, stood about a dozen dark men robed in white surplices, the goats’ horns, the vaudoux symbol, stuck on their heads. The horns gave a weird, devilish appearance to the huddled, slowly moving figures.

“Keep yer peckers up, don’t get nervous,” said Biglow, as Adams and Clensy suddenly bobbed their heads back into the jungle leaves, dreading that they might be observed. Adams looked like having a fit when Biglow nudged him violently in the ribs, and said in a stage whisper; “Five hundred pounds, old boy! Five hundred!”

“You’ve gone mad ter talk loud like that in a hawful time like this ’ere,” Adams almost hissed. Biglow seemed delighted to see Adams’s extreme funk, and the vicious light of his solitary eye.

“We’re not at a picnic, Biglow,” said Clensy as he too stared at his giant comrade, feeling a trifle irritated.

“We’re at something a damned sight better!” replied Biglow as he pointed in the direction of the white-robed priests moving about in the gloom.

Most certainly, the scene before their eyes was more like the description of some brigand’s cave in a dime novel, than anything that Clensy could liken it to. Even Biglow rubbed his eyes as he stared again, and the light from the head priest’s torch fell in such a way that they distinctly saw two coffins lying at the feet of those swarthy, surpliced, fetish worshippers. And as the three men watched, they saw those dark forms stoop and slowly lift the two coffins, and then begin to move towards the wide, but low entrance of a cavern that ran deep into the mountain’s side. So brilliant was the moonlight that they distinctly saw the figures bend their horned heads as they carried their gruesome load through the low-roofed cavern doorway.

“You’ll see the sight of your lives when you get in there,” said Biglow.

For a while Adams refused to budge, and said he wasn’t going to be murdered by cannibals for twenty thousand pounds. But Biglow’s fearless eyes and sanguine manner revived the ex-sailorman’s courage. “Awl roight, Gawd forgive yer if I’m mydered!” said Adams, and then the three men started to crawl slowly along the edge of the jungle, making their way towards the cavern’s entrance.

“Don’t get flustered,” said Biglow as he turned his head while still on his stomach, then added: “All you’ve got to do, is to hold your revolvers ready, and shout your loudest if I give the signal, and all will be well. I’ve fought three hundred niggers down at Sumatra, and routed an army of nine hundred niggers armed with drums and spears on the West Coast of Africa.”

“‘Ope it ain’t all talk,” wailed Adams as they crept under the fern trees that grew thickly within a few feet of the cavern’s entrance. They suddenly stopped. They could hear sounds of music.

“They’re dancing to the chica jigs! Now for a ju-ju show!” chuckled Biglow. The gun-runner’s careless levity braced Clensy’s and Adam’s nerves wonderfully. “Come on, lads!” The next moment Biglow had boldly stood erect, and had run across the soft sands that separated the three of them from the cavern’s entrance. In another moment he had glanced hastily round, and seeing no sign of the vaudoux devotees, had slipped into the opening, the rocky cleft which led into the subterranean chambers of the secret vaudoux temples. Clensy and Adams immediately revealed their implicit faith in all that their courageous comrade did—they at once followed him.

“Keep close to me, lads,” said Biglow as he stole slowly along the side of the rocky wall of a passage that widened as it deepened.

“Well, now!” muttered Clensy. They could hear a voice singing a weird, sweet strain to words in a strange tongue. It was a woman’s voice, and the subterranean hollows produced a magical effect as the echoes of the song floating about and re-echoed, sounding like exiled strains of music in despair, calling for the brightness and beauty of the world outside.

“Gawd save me bacon!” said, or rather moaned Adams as the three of them dodged back into the deeper shadows, and hid behind the boulders that stood like massive pillars holding up the glittering crystalline subterranean roof. So silent were they as they stood there that they could hear each other’s breathing.

“All’s well, so far,” whispered Biglow. They were in a risky position though, for the slightest sound would betray their presence. The passage where they stood was about eighteen feet wide, so they were fortunately out of the way of anyone who might pass in or out of the fetish chambers. They stood still, breathless, like wonderfully chiselled statues, the highest thing in sculptural art, when a big mulatto fellow, clad in a surplice, walked down the passage from the chambers. They saw him go to the cavern’s entrance and peer cautiously out into the night. He was doing sentry duty, was on watch to give warning should anyone be seen approaching the vaudoux caves. The three hidden men saw his huge form glide by them as he passed along the passage on his way back to the hollow chambers. So close was he to Clensy that he felt a cool whiff of air touch his sweating face as the mulatto’s surpliced robe swished by.

“Come on,” whispered Biglow. The next moment they had arrived before the opening of some large inner chamber. By the dazzling glimmer of hanging lamps they knew they were close to the sacrificial altars of the terrible vaudoux, the altars that inspired strong Haytian men with fear, making them tremble when they passed through lonely forests by night, altars that inspired women and children with a vague terror of the devil as they whispered and stared with awestruck eyes by the firesides of the lonely homesteads round Port-au-Prince.

Biglow had already fixed his eye to a chink in the rocky wall. He could see all that was passing in the lofty chamber beyond. Adams, who had crouched behind Biglow, was vigorously chewing tobacco plug in an attempt to calm his excited nerves.

“Come you here, lad,” whispered Biglow; and Clensy, taking a place beside the intrepid gun-runner, at once fixed his eye to the chink. The sight Clensy saw made his brain swim in bewilderment. The scenic effect, while peeping through that tiny hole in the rocky wall, was as though he had fixed his eye to the tube of some marvellous telescope that revealed a scene of revelry on another world beyond the stars, some dim landscape faintly lit by a little sky, shining with the glittering light of starry constellations of stalactites. Had Clensy suddenly taken a peep at the heavens through a telescope and discovered God enthroned, hail-fellow-well-met with the devil on some infinite night-out, in a seraglio down a back alley of the constellation of Hercules, roaring forth the infinite laughter of the spheres, watching His own voluptuous houris and puppets dancing in the drama of some sensuous lapse, his face could not have expressed greater surprise. But the scene which Clensy saw had no kindredship with human conceptions of the mysteries of the unknowable overwatching the knowable. Relentless reality, unshadowy, full of mortal frailness and sensuous passion, and lacking that Æsthetic sanctitude of beauty and coldness which mortals imagine when dreaming over immortal things, was vividly expressed on the faces of that secret assemblage. The weird atmosphere of indescribable remoteness which the scene conjured up in Clensy’s brain was intensified by the swinging glow of innumerable lamps which hung from the cavern’s wide roof, giving the scene of impassioned abandonment an unreal, misty effect, as the handsome mulatto girls and women and men whirled about, waving their arms, chanting melodies in Haytian patois. The creole women, clad in blue and yellowish diaphanous robes, specially fashioned for the vigorous performance of the chic and bambalou dances in their primitive form, moved their shadowy-like limbs rhythmically to the chanting accompaniment of stern-looking papaloi and negroes. Haytian chiefs, who stood by, staring with burning eyes, repeatedly raised their sacred goblets full of white rum, and murmured “Wanga Louye garou,” which was the cry of the terrible papaloi priests who were known as “Les MystÉres.”

Notwithstanding the terror, the lust and cruelty associated with the rites of the fetish, Clensy and Biglow came under the magic spell of the music, and the alluring movements of the dancing houris, for such they looked. Three of the Haytian girls appeared strikingly beautiful as they performed the mystical passes of the forbidden ritual. Suddenly they stopped whirling, and, forming rows, swayed in front of the dreaded papaloi making graceful obeisance to those fetish priests, holding their robes high, bowing with delicate grace before the burning eyes of the swarthy white-surpliced voluptuaries. Under the influence of the fetish drinks and frenzied fanaticism the girls’ and women’s eyes shone like living jewels.

“Holy Mary!” exclaimed Biglow. The misty forms of the dancers stood perfectly still, and the two coffins which Biglow and Clensy had seen at the cavern’s entrance, were suddenly dragged into view by two huge negroes.

“Lou potoa,” moaned one of the papaloi, a venerable looking aged debauchee who wore a poetic-looking white beard. Then a pretty creole maid ran forward, and, severing the ropes which were round the two coffins, removed the lids. Nothing seemed too strange to occur that night as Clensy and Biglow stared in astonishment—the inmates of the two coffins sat up, were gazing on the assemblage with glazed, vacant looking eyes, their jaw-bindings still on! Clensy noticed that their hands were tied behind them.

“God!” was all that the young Englishman could mutter, but it sufficiently expressed his feelings at that moment when God seemed so far away.

“They’re sick men or women who have been buried alive, drugged, and hurriedly buried.”

“Good heavens! what do you mean?” gasped Clensy.

“I simply mean that those two men (one was a man and the other a woman) have been sold to the papaloi while they were sick, and after being drugged and buried have been dug up by the vaudoux thugs, stolen from the cemeteries by night, coffins and all!”

“Are they going to kill them, do—” Clensy said no more. A tall negro had stepped forward, and had dragged the coffins with their inmates back into the shadows. It was the sight of the terrible papaloi priest who had suddenly stepped forward, and had placed a large basket down on the stage that had startled Clensy. This individual was the sacred executioner, and he wore the horns of a goat on his bald, polished skull, which gave him a demoniacal appearance. The rows of creole and mulatto girls prostrated themselves before the executioner.

The whole assemblage of that cavern chamber stood in perfect silence when the negro priest stooped and raised the lid of the basket, revealing the enclosed victim, trussed, ready for the sacrificial altar—a terror-stricken mulatto girl! The girl’s eyes gazed in vacant terror at the stern chiselled-like faces of the papaloi who at once surrounded her. No mercy shone in the eyes of those hungry looking fanatics of the most bloodthirsty creed that has ever sent cries of anguish to God. The girl’s mute appeal, for her mouth was gagged, made no impression on the hearts of the hot-blooded African and Haytian men and women who witnessed that sight. The greater her grief, the more terrifying her convulsive throes, the more glory to the fetish deities whom they worshipped. The wretched victim was the Goat Without Horns; her living blood the anticipated libation that must be drunk with white rum when those terrible fetish men and women knelt before the vaudoux altars. No Marquesan, no Fijian cannibalistic orgy of the old pre-Christian times ever approached in cruelty and lingering terror the torture that those semi-civilised Haytians meted out to their victims. The Goat Without Horns was the chosen of the dark powers, the honoured of their people, and so why should their hearts be touched by the victim’s anguish?

Undoing the sennet thongs that bound the girl’s legs together, they made her stand on the vaudoux altar. Her terror was so great that her limbs trembled like blown leaves, her fingers moving convulsively.

“Savoot, garou!” wailed a hoarse voice. That voice and those dreadful words sent a death-like silence and chill into Clensy’s soul. Even Biglow’s bosom gave a half-stifled sigh as he quietly drew his revolver from his pocket. A tall, handsome man had suddenly stepped forward; he removed his cloak.

“Good heavens! impossible!” murmured Clensy. But it wasn’t impossible at all, for there, as real as Clensy’s surprise, stood President Gravelot, Sestrina’s father. The fear of Clensy’s heart over the risk he was running through being in that place, was extinguished as his whole soul became centred with an intense curiosity on the scene before him. His eyes began to scan eagerly the rows of robed women and girls, many in their teens, who made up the strangely assorted audience of that terrible seraglio of bloodthirsty superstition and indiscribable lust that was sanctified by the presence of the vaudoux priests. A great fear had begun to haunt Clensy’s brain—was Sestrina among that crew? Why were some of the female adherents as well as the men, wearing masks that only revealed their burning eyes? Already the frenzy of drink and superstition had seized those fetish devotees. The hot-blooded negro and Haytian priests were already lifting their hands as they chanted the weird vaudoux melodies. They were wonderful strains that they chanted, inasmuch as they suggested the indescribable debauchery of the men and women who sang. Some of the young mulatto and creole girls were already lying in postures of stupefied abandonment on the couches and settees of that sumptiously furnished subterreanean temple chamber, some weeping and laughing in the hysteria and religious fervour which had seized them. Others stood as though transfixed by a terrible curiosity, yes, as they watched in fiendish anticipation to see the coming torture of the sacrificial victim.

By the wall, just behind the altars, stood a large stone figure of the Virgin Mary, one chiselled arm outstretched, holding the figure of a little child—it was a diabolical, blasphemous perversion of the beautiful symbol of the Christian creed. Even Clensy and Biglow became imbued with a sudden tinge of heathenish superstition at that moment, for a strange-looking black figure, that had been standing by the altar, had commenced to dance in a silent, unsubstantial manner. It was waving its shadowy hands, mimicking every movement of the priests who were going through the mystical passes of the vaudoux rites. And as that shadowy figure danced and the whole audience stared, spellbound, the gleams of the lamps on the figure of the Virgin just behind it, were distinctly visible through its form! Clensy, his eye still fixed to the chink, slowly recovered his mental equilibrium, and was convinced that Sestrina was not present with her parent.

“Thank God, she’s not here,” he muttered to himself as he too gripped his revolver. He knew that Bartholomew Biglow was not going to stand there and see the young mulatto girl sacrificed before their eyes. Biglow turned towards Adams, “Clear out of it, run your damndest.”

Adams needed no second request to take to his heels; he, surely, had never run so fast in his whole career as he ran when he bolted down the passage, and vanished from sight. Clensy and Biglow were good runners, and they well knew that Adams, through being stout, would be a terrible encumbrance were he with them when the time came for flight.

“Keep still, lad, leave it all to me,” whispered Biglow. Then he added; “Wish we had my best pal, Samuel Bilbao here, he’d glory in a fix like this, he would!”

And as the big man muttered the foregoing, alluding to a celebrated South Sea character who was noted for his pluck and adventurous career, he gave a quiet chuckle and clicked the trigger of his revolver. “Keep quiet, lad!”

“All right!” whispered Clensy, for he knew that Biglow was a splendid shot, whereas he might fire and miss. The head papaloi priest had stepped forward. The whole audience stood breathless, spellbound, as they watched to witness the fatal thrust that would make the victim’s blood gush into the sacramental goblet. Clensy felt sick. The victim already stood on the terrible slab, her anguished paralysed form held up by two white-surpliced negroes who stood on either side, gripping her arms. Then the aged, almost venerable looking papaloi priest, stepped forward and began to mumble something. His head was thrown back, his beard raised towards the roof as he continued mumbling the sacrificial thanksgiving prayer! It all happened in a few seconds; the aged papaloi stood with hand raised. Clensy and Biglow saw the shining steel of the long blade hover before the victim’s terror-stricken eyes—the slayer must aim true!

“Crack!” the papaloi-slayer’s arm was shattered near the wrist! Four more shots followed in swift succession. Gravelot was winged in the shoulder, another fell with the top of his head blown off! Then Biglow snatched Clensy’s revolver from his hand, and, rushing into that chamber of horrors, snatched the sacrificial victim up in his broad arms!

And what did the bloodthirsty vaudoux worshippers who drank human blood and sacrificed helpless children, do? They bolted like a drove of frightened shadows, went flying in all directions. Maybe they imagined that a hundred government gendarmes had charged them. Sure enough, Biglow yelled loud enough for such an idea to seize their cowardly imaginations as the echoes of his mighty voice and Clensy’s shouts rumbled through the chambers of that subterranean place.

Clensy never could give a coherent account as to how he got safely out of that terrible vaudoux temple in the mountains. He had long legs, and probably that fact, more than his heartfelt prayers, saved his life.