I bowed my head in acquiescence5. "I can guess why[Pg 24] you want to go, Reeney," I answered gently. "You want to pray there about something that's troubling you. And if I'm not mistaken, it's the same thing that made you cry the other evening when I spoke6 to you down yonder in the cabin."
The tears rose hastily once more into Césarine's eyes, and she cried in a low distressed7 voice, "Harry, Harry, don't talk to me so. You are too good to me. You will kill me. You will kill me."
I lifted her head from the table, where she had buried it in her arms, and kissed her tenderly. "Reeney," I said, "I know how you feel, and I hope Notre Dame will listen to your prayers, and send you what you ask of her. But if not, you need never be afraid that I shall love you any the less than I do at present."
Césarine burst into a fresh flood of tears. "No, Harry," she said, "you don't know about it. You can't imagine it. To us, you know, who have the blood of Africa running in our veins8, it is not a mere9 matter of fancy. It is an eternal disgrace for any woman of our race and descent not to be a mother. I cannot help it. It is the instinct of my people. We are all born so: we cannot feel otherwise."
It was the only time either of us ever alluded10 in speaking with one another to the sinister11 half of Césarine's pedigree.
"You will let me go with you to the mountains, Reeney?" I asked, ignoring her remark. "You mustn't go so far by yourself, darling."
"No, Harry, you can't come with me. It would make my prayers ineffectual, dearest. You are a heretic, you know, Harry. You are not Catholic. Notre Dame won't listen to my prayer if I take you with me on my pilgrimage, my darling."
I saw her mind was set upon it, and I didn't interfere12. She would be away all night, she said. There was a rest-house[Pg 25] for pilgrims attached to the chapel, and she would be back again at Maisonette (our bungalow) the morning after.
That afternoon she started on her way on a mountain pony13 I had just bought for her, accompanied only by a negro maid. I couldn't let her go quite unattended through those lawless paths, beset14 by cottages of half savage15 Africans; so I followed at a distance, aided by a black groom16, and tracked her road along the endless hill-sides up to a fork in the way where the narrow bridle17-path divided into two, one of which bore away to leftward, leading, my guide told me, to the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours.
At that point the guide halted. He peered with hand across his eyebrows18 among the tangled19 brake of tree-ferns with a terrified look; then he shook his woolly black head ominously20. "I can't go on, Monsieur," he said, turning to me with an unfeigned shudder21. "Madame has not taken the path of Our Lady. She has gone to the left along the other road, which leads at last to the Vaudoux temple."
I looked at him incredulously. I had heard before of Vaudoux. It is the hideous22 African canibalistic witchcraft23 of the relapsing half-heathen Haitian negroes. But Césarine a Vaudoux worshipper! It was too ridiculous. The man must be mistaken: or else Césarine had taken the wrong road by some slight accident.
Next moment, a horrible unspeakable doubt seized upon me irresistibly24. What was the unknown shrine25 in her grandmother's garden at which Césarine had prayed in those awful gutturals? Whatever it was, I would probe this mystery to the very bottom. I would know the truth, come what might of it.
"Go, you coward!" I said to the negro. "I have no further need of you. I will make my way alone to the Vaudoux temple."[Pg 26]
"Monsieur," the man cried, trembling visibly in every limb, "they will tear you to pieces. If they ever discover you near the temple, they will offer you up as a victim to the Vaudoux."
"Pooh," I answered, contemptuous of the fellow's slavish terror. "Where Madame, a woman, dares to go, I, her husband, am certainly not afraid to follow her."
"Monsieur," he replied, throwing himself submissively in the dust on the path before me, "Madame is Creole; she has the blood of the Vaudoux worshippers flowing in her veins. Nobody will hurt her. She is free of the craft. But Monsieur is a pure white and uninitiated.... If the Vaudoux people catch him at their rites26, they will rend27 him in pieces, and offer his blood as an expiation28 to the Unspeakable One."
"Go," I said, with a smile, turning my horse's head up the right-hand path toward the Vaudoux temple. "I am not afraid. I will come back again to Maisonette to-morrow."
I followed the path through a tortuous29 maze30, beset with prickly cactus31, agave, and fern-brake, till I came at last to a spur of the hill, where a white wooden building gleamed in front of me, in the full slanting32 rays of tropical sunset. A skull33 was fastened to the lintel of the door. I knew at once it was the Vaudoux temple.
I dismounted at once, and led my horse aside into the brake, though I tore his legs and my own as I went with the spines34 of the cactus plants; and tying him by the bridle to a mountain cabbage palm, in a spot where the thick underbrush completely hid us from view, I lay down and waited patiently for the shades of evening.
It was a moonless night, according to the Vaudoux fashion; and I knew from what I had already read in West Indian books that the orgies would not commence till midnight.
From time to time, I rubbed a fusee against my hand[Pg 27] without lighting35 it, and by the faint glimmer36 of the phosphorus on my palm, I was able to read the figures of my watch dial without exciting the attention of the neighbouring Vaudoux worshippers.
Hour after hour went slowly by, and I crouched37 there still unseen among the agave thicket38. At last, as the hands of the watch reached together the point of twelve, I heard a low but deep rumbling39 noise coming ominously from the Vaudoux temple. I recognized at once the familiar sound. It was the note of the bull-roarer, that mystic instrument of pointed40 wood, whirled by a string round the head of the hierophant, by whose aid savages41 in their secret rites summon to their shrines42 their gods and spirits. I had often made one myself for a toy when I was a boy in England.
I crept out through the tangled brake, and cautiously approached the back of the building. A sentinel was standing43 by the door in front, a powerful negro, armed with revolver and cutlas. I skulked44 round noiselessly to the rear, and lifting myself by my hands to the level of the one tiny window, I peered in through a slight scratch on the white paint, with which the glass was covered internally.
I only saw the sight within for a second. Then my brain reeled, and my fingers refused any longer to hold me. But in that second, I had read the whole terrible, incredible truth: I knew what sort of a woman she really was whom I had blindly taken as the wife of my bosom45.
Before a rude stone altar covered with stuffed alligator46 skins, human bones, live snakes, and hideous sorts of African superstition47, a tall and withered48 black woman stood erect49, naked as she came from her mother's womb, one skinny arm raised aloft, and the other holding below some dark object, that writhed50 and struggled awfully51 in her hand on the slab52 of the altar, even as she held it. I saw in[Pg 28] 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 behold53, imperious and haughty54 still, like a Greek statue, unmoved before that surging horrid55 background of naked black and cringing56 savages. Her head was bent57, and her hand pressed convulsively against the swollen58 veins in her throbbing59 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 descend60 upon the naked breast of the writhing61 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 smearing62 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; untied63 my horse from the spot where I had fastened him; and rode him down without drawing rein64, cantering round sharp angles and down horrible ledges65, till he stood at last, white with foam66, by the grey dawn, in front of the little piazza67 at Maisonette.
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1
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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6
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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16
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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18
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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19
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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20
ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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22
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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witchcraft
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| n.魔法，巫术 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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26
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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expiation
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| n.赎罪，补偿 | |
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tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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cactus
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| n.仙人掌 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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spines
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| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
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35
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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37
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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39
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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40
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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41
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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42
shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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43
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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44
skulked
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| v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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46
alligator
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| n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼) | |
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47
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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48
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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49
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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50
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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52
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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53
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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54
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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55
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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56
cringing
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| adj.谄媚，奉承 | |
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57
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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58
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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60
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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61
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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62
smearing
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| 污点，拖尾效应 | |
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63
untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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64
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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65
ledges
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| n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台 | |
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66
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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