I saw in a flash of the torches
behind it was the black hag I had watched before at the Port-au-Prince
cottage. Beside her, whiter of skin, and faultless of figure, stood a younger
woman, beautiful to behold, imperious and haughty still, like a Greek
statue, unmoved before that surging horrid background of naked black and
cringing savages. Her head was bent, and her hand pressed convulsively
against the swollen veins in her throbbing brow; and I saw at once it
was my own wife--a Vaudoux worshipper--Césarine Tristram. In another flash, I knew the black woman had a sharp flint knife in her
uplifted hand; and the dark object in the other hand I recognized with a
thrill of unspeakable horror as a negro girl of four years old or
thereabouts, gagged and bound, and lying on the altar. Before I could see the sharp flint descend upon the naked breast of the
writhing victim, my fingers in mercy refused to bear me, and I fell half
fainting on the ground below, too shocked and unmanned even to crawl
away at once out of reach of the awful unrealizable horror. But by the sounds within, I knew they had completed their hideous
sacrifice, and that they were smearing over Césarine--my own wife--the
woman of my choice--with the warm blood of the human victim. Sick and faint, I crept away slowly through the tangled underbrush,
tearing my skin as I went with the piercing cactus spines; untied my
horse from the spot where I had fastened him; and rode him down without
drawing rein, cantering round sharp angles and down horrible ledges,
till he stood at last, white with foam, by the grey dawn, in front of
the little piazza at Maisonette. VIII. That night, the thunder roared and the lightning played with tropical
fierceness round the tall hilltops away in the direction of the Vaudoux
temple. The rain came down in fearful sheets, and the torrents roared
and foamed in cataracts, and tore away great gaps in the rough paths on
the steep hill-sides. But at eight o'clock in the morning Césarine
returned, drenched with wet, and with a strange frown upon her haughty
forehead. I did not know how to look at her or how to meet her. "My prayers are useless," she muttered angrily as she entered. "Some
heretic must have followed me unseen to the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon
Secours. The pilgrimage is a failure." "You are wet," I said, trembling. "Change your things, Césarine." I
could not pretend to speak gently to her. She turned upon me with a fierce look in her big black eyes. Her
instinct showed her at once I had discovered her secret. "Tell them, and
hang me," she cried fiercely. It was what the law required me to do. I was otherwise the accomplice of
murder and cannibalism. But I could not do it. Profoundly as I loathed
her and hated her presence, now, I couldn't find it in my heart to give
her up to justice, as I knew I ought to do. I turned away and answered nothing. Presently, she came out again from her bedroom, with her wet things
still dripping around her. "Smoke that," she said, handing me a tiny
cigarette rolled round in a leaf of fresh tobacco. "I will not," I answered with a vague surmise, taking it from her
fingers. "I know the smell. It is manchineal. You cannot any longer
deceive me." She went back to her bedroom once more. I sat, dazed and stupefied, in
the bamboo chair on the front piazza. What to do, I knew not, and cared
not. I was tied to her for life, and there was no help for it, save by
denouncing her to the rude Haitian justice. In an hour or more, our English maid came out to speak to me. "I'm
afraid, sir," she said, "Mrs. Tristram is getting delirious. She seems
to be in a high fever. Shall I ask one of these poor black bodies to go
out and get the English doctor?" I went into my wife's bedroom. Césarine lay moaning piteously on the
bed, in her wet clothes still; her cheeks were hot, and her pulse was
high and thin and feverish. I knew without asking what was the matter
with her. It was yellow fever. The night's exposure in that terrible climate, and the ghastly scene she
had gone through so intrepidly, had broken down even Césarine's iron
constitution. I sent for the doctor and had her put to bed immediately. The black
nurse and I undressed her between us. We found next her bosom, tied by a
small red silken thread, a tiny bone, fresh and ruddy-looking. I knew
what it was, and so did the negress. It was a human finger-bone--the
last joint of a small child's fourth finger. The negress shuddered and
hid her head. "It is Vaudoux, Monsieur!" she said. "I have seen it on
others. Madame has been paying a visit, I suppose, to her grandmother." For six long endless days and nights I watched and nursed that doomed
criminal, doing everything for her that skill could direct or care could
suggest to me: yet all the time fearing and dreading that she might yet
recover, and not knowing in my heart what either of our lives could ever
be like if she did live through it. A merciful Providence willed it otherwise. On the sixth day, the fatal _vomito negro_ set in--the symptom of the
last incurable stage of yellow fever--and I knew for certain that
Césarine would die. She had brought her own punishment upon her. At
midnight that evening she died delirious. Thank God, she had left no child of mine behind her to inherit the curse
her mother's blood had handed down to her! IX. On my return to London, whither I went by mail direct, leaving the yacht
to follow after me, I drove straight to the Lathams' from Waterloo
Station. Mrs. Latham was out, the servant said, but Miss Irene was in
the drawing-room. Irene was sitting at the window by herself, working quietly at a piece
of crewel work. She rose to meet me with her sweet simple little English
smile. I took her hand and pressed it like a brother. "I got your telegram," she said simply. "Harry, I know she is dead; but
I know something terrible besides has happened. Tell me all. Don't be
afraid to speak of it before me. I am not afraid, for my part, to
listen." I sat down on the sofa beside her, and told her all, without one word of
excuse or concealment, from our last parting to the day of Césarine's
death in Haiti: and she held my hand and listened all the while with
breathless wonderment to my strange story. At the end I said, "Irene, it has all come and gone between us like a
hideous nightmare. I cannot imagine even now how that terrible woman,
with all her power, could ever for one moment have bewitched me away
from you, my beloved, my queen, my own heart's darling." Irene did not try to hush me or to stop me in any way. She merely sat
and looked at me steadily, and said nothing. "It was fascination," I cried. "Infatuation, madness, delirium,
enchantment." "It was worse than that, Harry," Irene answered, rising quietly. "It was
poison; it was witchcraft; it was sheer African devilry."