Well,
while he was standin' there he got a lick on the head from _behind_,
and as he fell he seen that crazy nigger Tope jump over him and light
out for the woods. Tom he taken a shot at him, but missed. Now what you
make of that?" "The Call of Damballah!" I muttered, a chill perspiration beading my
body. "God! The poor devil!" "Huh? What's that?" "For God's sake let's not stand here mouthing! The sun will soon be
down!" In a frenzy of impatience I kicked my mount down the trail. Braxton followed me, obviously puzzled. With a terrific effort I got a
grip on myself. How madly fantastic it was that Kirby Buckner should be
shaking in the grip of unreasoning terror! It was so alien to my whole
nature that it was no wonder Jim Braxton was unable to comprehend what
ailed me. "Tope didn't go of his own free will," I said. "That call was a summons
he couldn't resist. Hypnotism, black magic, voodoo, whatever you want
to call it, Saul Stark has some damnable power that enslaves men's
will-power. The blacks are gathered somewhere in the swamp, for some
kind of a devilish voodoo ceremony, which I have reason to believe
will culminate in the murder of Tope Sorley. We've got to get to
Grimesville if we can. I expect an attack at dawn." Braxton was pale in the dimming light. He did not ask me where I got my
knowledge. "We'll lick 'em when they come; but it'll be a slaughter." I did not reply. My eyes were fixed with savage intensity on the
sinking sun, and as it slid out of sight behind the trees I was shaken
with an icy tremor. In vain I told myself that no occult power could
draw me against my will. If she had been able to compel me, why had
she not forced me to accompany her from the glade of the ju-ju hut? A
grisly whisper seemed to tell me that she was but playing with me, as a
cat allows a mouse almost to escape, only to be pounced upon again. "Kirby, what's the matter with you?" I scarcely heard Braxton's anxious
voice. "You're sweatin' and shakin' like you had the aggers. What--hey,
what you stoppin' for?" I had not consciously pulled on the rein, but my horse halted, and
stood trembling and snorting, before the mouth of a narrow trail which
meandered away at right angles from the road we were following--a trail
that led north. "Listen!" I hissed tensely. "What is it?" Braxton drew a pistol. The brief twilight of the
pinelands was deepening into dusk. "Don't you hear it?" I muttered. "Drums! Drums beating in Goshen!" "I don't hear nothin'," he mumbled uneasily. "If they was beatin' drums
in Goshen you couldn't hear 'em this far away." "Look there!" My sharp sudden cry made him start. I was pointing down
the dim trail, at the figure which stood there in the dusk less than
a hundred yards away. There in the dusk I saw her, even made out the
gleam of her strange eyes, the mocking smile on her red lips. "Saul
Stark's brown wench!" I raved, tearing at my scabbard. "My God, man,
are you stone-blind? Don't you see her?" "I don't see nobody!" he whispered, livid. "What are you talkin' about,
Kirby?" With eyes glaring I fired down the trail, and fired again, and yet
again. This time no paralysis gripped my arm. But the smiling face
still mocked me from the shadows. A slender, rounded arm lifted, a
finger beckoned imperiously; and then she was gone and I was spurring
my horse down the narrow trail, blind, deaf and dumb, with a sensation
as of being caught in a black tide that was carrying me with it as it
rushed on to a destination beyond my comprehension. Dimly I heard Braxton's urgent yells, and then he drew up beside me
with a clatter of hoofs, and grabbed my reins, setting my horse back on
its haunches. I remember striking at him with my gun-barrel, without
realizing what I was doing. All the black rivers of Africa were surging
and foaming within my consciousness, roaring into a torrent that was
sweeping me down to engulf me in an ocean of doom. "Kirby, are you crazy? This trail leads to Goshen!" I shook my head dazedly. The foam of the rushing waters swirled in my
brain, and my voice sounded far away. "Go back! Ride for Grimesville! I'm going to Goshen." "Kirby, you're mad!" "Mad or sane, I'm going to Goshen this night," I answered dully. I was
fully conscious. I knew what I was saying, and what I was doing. I
realized the incredible folly of my action, and I realized my inability
to help myself. Some shred of sanity impelled me to try to conceal
the grisly truth from my companion, to offer a rational reason for my
madness. "Saul Stark is in Goshen. He's the one who's responsible for
all this trouble. I'm going to kill him. That will stop the uprising
before it starts." He was trembling like a man with the ague. "Then I'm goin' with you." "You must go on to Grimesville and warn the people," I insisted,
holding to sanity, but feeling a strong urge begin to seize me, an
irresistible urge to be in motion--to be riding in the direction toward
which I was so horribly drawn. "They'll be on their guard," he said stubbornly. "They won't need my
warnin'. I'm goin' with you. I don't know what's got in you, but I
ain't goin' to let you die alone among these black woods." I did not argue. I could not. The blind rivers were sweeping me
on--on--on! And down the trail, dim in the dusk, I glimpsed a supple
figure, caught the gleam of uncanny eyes, the crook of a lifted
finger.... Then I was in motion, galloping down the trail, and I heard
the drum of Braxton's horse's hoofs behind me. _4. The Dwellers in the Swamp_


Night fell and the moon shone through the trees, blood-red behind the
black branches. The horses were growing hard to manage. "They got more sense'n us, Kirby," muttered Braxton. "Panther, maybe," I replied absently, my eyes searching the gloom of
the trail ahead. "Naw, t'ain't. Closer we git to Goshen, the worse they git. And every
time we swing nigh to a creek they shy and snort." The trail had not yet crossed any of the narrow, muddy creeks that
criss-crossed that end of Canaan, but several times it had swung so
close to one of them that we glimpsed the black streak that was water
glinting dully in the shadows of the thick growth. And each time, I
remembered, the horses showed signs of fear. But I had hardly noticed, wrestling as I was with the grisly compulsion
that was driving me. Remember, I was not like a man in a hypnotic
trance. I was fully awake, fully conscious. Even the daze in which I
had seemed to hear the roar of black rivers had passed, leaving my mind
clear, my thoughts lucid. And that was the sweating hell of it: to
realize my folly clearly and poignantly, but to be unable to conquer
it. Vividly I realized that I was riding to torture and death, and
leading a faithful friend to the same end. But on I went. My efforts
to break the spell that gripped me almost unseated my reason, but on I
went. I cannot explain my compulsion, any more than I can explain why a
sliver of steel is drawn to a magnet.