The cypress branches bent a gloomy, moss-trailing arch over
the creek. The water was black as midnight. Braxton was a blur, toiling
behind me. I gained the first shelf of the opposite bank and paused, in
water knee-deep, to turn and look back at him. Everything happened at once, then. I saw Braxton halt short, staring at
something on the bank behind me. He cried out, whipped out a gun and
fired, just as I turned. In the flash of the gun I glimpsed a supple
form reeling backward, a brown face fiendishly contorted. Then in the
momentary blindness that followed the flash, I heard Jim Braxton scream. Sight and brain cleared in time to show me a sudden swirl of the murky
water, a round, black object breaking the surface behind Jim--and then
Braxton gave a strangled cry and went under with a frantic thrashing
and splashing. With an incoherent yell I sprang into the creek,
stumbled and went to my knees, almost submerging myself. As I struggled
up I saw Braxton's head, now streaming blood, break the surface
for an instant, and I lunged toward it. It went under and another
head appeared in its place, a shadowy black head. I stabbed at it
ferociously, and my knife cut only the blank water as the thing dipped
out of sight. I staggered from the wasted force of the blow, and when I righted
myself, the water lay unbroken about me. I called Jim's name, but there
was no answer. Then panic laid a cold hand on me, and I splashed to the
bank, sweating and trembling. With the water no higher than my knees I
halted and waited, for I knew not what. But presently, down the creek
a short distance, I made out a vague object lying in the shallow water
near the shore. I waded to it, through the clinging mud and crawling vines. It was Jim
Braxton, and he was dead. It was not the wound in his head which had
killed him. Probably he had struck a submerged rock when he was dragged
under. But the marks of strangling fingers showed black on his throat. At the sight a nameless horror oozed out of that black swamp water and
coiled itself clammily about my soul; for no human fingers ever left
such marks as those. I had seen a head rise in the water, a head that looked like that of a
negro, though the features had been indistinct in the darkness. But no
man, white or black, ever possessed the fingers that had crushed the
life out of Jim Braxton. The distant drum grunted as if in mockery. *       *       *       *       *

I dragged the body up on the bank and left it. I could not linger
longer, for the madness was foaming in my brain again, driving me
with white-hot spurs. But as I climbed the bank, I found blood on the
bushes, and was shaken by the implication. I remembered the figure I had seen staggering in the flash of Braxton's
gun. _She_ had been there, waiting for me on the bank, then--not a
spectral illusion, but the woman herself, in flesh and blood! Braxton
had fired at her, and wounded her. But the wound could not have been
mortal; for no corpse lay among the bushes, and the grim hypnosis that
dragged me onward was unweakened. Dizzily I wondered if she could be
killed by mortal weapons. The moon had set. The starlight scarcely penetrated the interwoven
branches. No more creeks barred my way, only shallow streams, through
which I splashed with sweating haste. Yet I did not expect to be
attacked. Twice the dweller in the depths had passed me by to attack
my companion. In icy despair I knew I was being saved for a grimmer
fate. Each stream I crossed might be hiding the monster that killed
Jim Braxton. Those creeks were all connected in a network of winding
waterways. It could follow me easily. But my horror of it was less than
the horror of the jungle-born magnetism that lurked in a witch-woman's
eyes. And as I stumbled through the tangled vegetation, I heard the drum
rumbling ahead of me, louder and louder, in demoniacal mockery. Then
a human voice mingled with its mutter, in a long-drawn cry of horror
and agony that set every fiber of me quivering with sympathy. Sweat
coursed down my clammy flesh; soon my own voice might be lifted like
that, under unnamable torture. But on I went, my feet moving like
automatons, apart from my body, motivated by a will not my own. The drum grew loud, and a fire glowed among the black trees. Presently,
crouching among the bushes, I stared across the stretch of black water
that separated me from a nightmare scene. My halting there was as
compulsory as the rest of my actions had been. Vaguely I knew the stage
for horror had been set, but the time for my entry upon it was not yet. When the time had come, I would receive my summons. A low, wooded island split the black creek, connected with the shore
opposite me by a narrow neck of land. At its lower end the creek split
into a network of channels threading their way among hummocks and
rotting logs and moss-grown, vine-tangled clumps of trees. Directly
across from my refuge the shore of the island was deeply indented by an
arm of open, deep black water. Bearded trees walled a small clearing,
and partly hid a hut. Between the hut and the shore burned a fire that
sent up weird twisting snake-tongues of green flames. Scores of black
people squatted under the shadows of the overhanging branches. When
the green fire lit their faces it lent them the appearance of drowned
corpses. In the midst of the glade stood a giant negro, an awesome statue in
black marble. He was clad in ragged trousers, but on his head was a
band of beaten gold set with a huge red jewel, and on his feet were
barbaric sandals. His features reflected titanic vitality no less than
his huge body. But he was all negro--flaring nostrils, thick lips,
ebony skin. I knew I looked upon Saul Stark, the conjure man. He was regarding something that lay in the sand before him, something
dark and bulky that moaned feebly. Presently, lifting his head, he
rolled out a sonorous invocation across the black waters. From the
blacks huddled under the trees there came a shuddering response, like
a wind wailing through midnight branches. Both invocation and response
were framed in an unknown tongue--a guttural, primitive language. Again he called out, this time a curious high-pitched wail. A
shuddering sigh swept the black people. All eyes were fixed on the
dusky water. And presently an object rose slowly from the depths. A
sudden trembling shook me. It looked like the head of a negro. One
after another it was followed by similar objects until five heads
reared above the black, cypress-shadowed water. They might have been
five negroes submerged except for their heads--but I knew this was not
so. There was something diabolical here. Their silence, motionlessness,
their whole aspect was unnatural. From the trees came the hysterical
sobbing of women, and someone whimpered a man's name. Then Saul Stark lifted his hands, and the five heads silently sank out
of sight.