Black Medicine
(Continued from page 166)
out of an army of 35,000, a mere handful returned to tell of the hell through which all had gone? No wonder the hair of the man in the little house was prematurely streaked with gray! A general may be confident when facing flying lead; but what can he do when his men sicken and die in the silent places, untouched by machete or bullet, transferred into gibbering skeletons by the mere presence of black brutes with not a weapon in their hands? With only the vast knowledge of evil tactics possessed by the brain of a single negro who was as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp!
The officer in the little house came to the door and looked away toward the jungle wall. Chandler saw him beckon to a private soldier who stood just outside. The soldier placed a metal instrument to his lips and, though he could not hear it, Chandler knew that the man was blowing the call which would assemble the soldiers for, startled, they leaped to their feet. The officer raised his hand in a signal and the soldiers began to fall in, in long, ragged ranks. The officer placed his queer-shaped hat upon his head, looked around the jungle once more, turned about and deliberately touched fire to the building he had just left!
The camp was being abandoned! Chandler saw the blacks in the jungle lick their drooling lips with red tongues. Then, with the officer leading, the little army fell into step and marched into the forest, its members scanning the close-ranked trees for signs of the black hordes which they could not see, but which they knew were watching their every step.
The army of Le Clair had begun the first leg of its long journey back to France, to report dismal failure to Napoleon!
Slowly the flagpole, bare now of the flapping tricolor, began to shimmer and grow dim, until it vanished altogether. The flame from the house which the officer had occupied blended slowly with that vaster flame against which the weird picture had been painted by the horrid necromancy of a voodoo priestess. This huge flame divided slowly as the picture vanished, and through it came the figure of the voodoo priestess herself!
Chandler blinked his eyes as he saw the blacks seated around him and took in the circle of fires, ordinary fires now, upon a hilltop, with the motionless figure of Chai David in the background, arms akimbo.
The woman spoke again.
"See!" she cried; "see the potency of the black medicine which we of the Green Serpent have created! You have drunk of it and have seen a vision which cannot but inspire you to go and do likewise! The point of the sword of Dessalines is lowering! The medicine is almost perfect—lacking but a single ingredient—"
The woman paused for effect.
"You all know that ingredient," she screamed, "and know that only the blood of a hated blanc can complete the brewing of the black medicine—that medicine which is to help us make a new Haiti which shall be a country for followers of the Great Green Serpent, in which there is no room for white masters! Across the border, yet far from the rifles of soldiers, there are white people. One of you will now be chosen to cross that border and return with either a white person or a small portion of that life-giving element which flows in his veins! It shall be a charm against the rifles of the soldiers after
