great clearing lit up by a huge wood fire. A dozen men and women who were gathered around the fire rushed angrily at him, and the mail rider, not unnaturally concluding that he had fallen upon thieves, opened fire with his revolver. The strange woodland mob fled wildly shrieking into the darkest recesses of the wood, leaving the astonished traveller standing alone, as he thought, by the mysterious fire in the clearing.

The mail rider took a swig of rum to steady his nerves, and was about to beat a hasty retreat back to the flooded trail, which now contained for him nothing so fearful as the mysteriously populated forest, when suddenly, despite the rum, his blood ran cold. A long moan, as of some one in mortal agony, fell upon his ear. Twice, according to his own story, the mail rider fled the ghostly place, and twice something which he could not define or overcome brought him back.

At last, snatching up a burning cedar branch from the fire, he looked all about him, and the mystery of the moans at last was quickly explained. Not twenty feet from the fire and facing it, he saw a man dressed in the garments of the grave, who, though tied to a tree and gagged, was still faintly moaning and still weakly struggling to be free. The mail rider, after a moment's hesitation, getting the better of his fears, freed the poor wretch, who soon recovered his speech but not his mind. He could give no coherent account of how he had come into this strange plight, and finally the mail rider mounted him on his horse, tied him to the saddle, and led the way to the nearest military post on the road.

Here he turned the strange waif of the forest, who was still incoherent in his speech, over to the soldiers of

the guard, and hurried on himself to the capital with his mail-bags. Once there, he not only reported the matter to the authorities, which might have been forgiven, but he not unnaturally talked about it to all his friends, an indiscretion which ultimately cost him his place. Port-au-Prince was wild with excitement, and the next day the unfortunate man was brought into town. He was lodged in jail, for want of a better place, and here he was immediately identified by his wife and by the physician who, a few days before, had pronounced him dead, and by the clergyman who had read the service over his body. The recognition was not mutual, however. The unfortunate victim of Voodoo barbarity recognised no one, and his days and nights were spent in moaning and groaning and in uttering inarticulate words which no one could understand.

A careful investigation was promised, but from time to time postponed, and finally definitely abandoned. The procurateur, or district attorney, who had been appealed to by the whole foreign colony, and, indeed, in private by many prominent Haytians, confessed he could do nothing, because of the mental decay into which the unfortunate man had fallen; but it was in reality because of the opposition of the President and the whole reigning Black House crowd to his taking any steps in the matter, as, indeed, he is reported to have admitted in private.

The unfortunate wretch was never allowed to return to his home, and, indeed, his identity was never officially admitted, though the wife pointed out that even the shroud he still wore when he was brought into the city bore his name written upon it. As the man never re

covered his reason and the expected revelations were not forthcoming, interest on the part at least of the aroused community died away, and eventually the man, who had become perfectly imbecile, was quietly removed from the city prison by the order of President Nord Alexis, and placed on a government farm near Gonaïves, which is worked by the insane and by convicts with influence enough to get them out of the city dungeons.

Here, in this retreat, the unfortunate man was living last October, when I was in Hayti. Here he had been secretly visited by his wife and by the clergyman I have already mentioned, and by many others who had been present at his funeral and interment. These are all the facts of this extraordinary case that can be vouched for, but the inferences which are drawn from the facts are so generally made and in such perfect agreement are they, whether made by foreigners or educated Haytians, that while not evidence, they should not be entirely without weight.

This general opinion, a plausible accounting for the foregoing not closely connected facts, is as follows: The Voodoo sectaries of the capital were on the lookout for a human sacrifice. A heart or a quart of the heart's blood was required as an offering to the Guinea coast fetich always guarded by the little green snake. The baleful eyes of the witch doctors, the papalois and the mamalois, fell upon this unfortunate man, who had come into unusual notice of late because of his entrance as a fervent member into one of the Protestant missions. A poison was administered to him in his food which brought about his apparent death without exciting any suspicion of what had really happened, and a

few hours after his interment he was dug up and carried through the night to the clearing of the woods, where later the mail rider appeared in time to save his life but not his mind.

It is generally thought that the same medicine man upon whose orders the poison had been administered, was giving the antidote to the wretched man, trussed up to the tree, when the mail carrier dropped in so unexpectedly. Not with any purpose of saving the unfortunate's life was the antidote about to be administered, claim those who seem to be the best acquainted with the ways of the high priests of Voodoo, but simply to restore vitality and reason for a few fleeting moments because the dread Guinea god of the blacks exacts a suffering and a knowing victim for the human sacrifice.

There are many who believe that even at this late day if the papaloi or medicine man who first administered the poison to this unfortunate could be found an antidote might be forthcoming that would restore the victim of these barbarous practices to health and to reason, and many instances are related which are the common knowledge of reputable people which go far to confirm this belief. In fact, if a serious prosecution of these malefactors, who work in the guise of religious servants, is ever undertaken, the most serious obstacle to success will be the unfortunate victims themselves and their families, who dread the power which has been demonstrated upon those who are near and dear to them.

CHAPTER VI

THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO (continued)

EVERY moonlight night in Hayti you hear in the woods the tom-tomming of the Voodoo drums and you know that the devil's priests are astir. On the horizon burns a great campfire, and around it dance weird and shadowy forms. Now and again a piercing shriek rends the air, whether of joy or of pain or uttered at the sight of death, you know not, and your friend and mentor, acclimated by twenty years of residence and sophisticated by much study of this strange people, takes you by the hand and says, at least so did mine: "It is time, high time, to go now."

So I never saw the dark frenzy of the African rites descend to the level of the cannibalistic feasts which, at least in the last generation, became so frequently a matter of court record, and I believe that to-day there is only one white man in Hayti, a French priest, who has seen the Voodoo rites carried out to their ghastly conclusion. The little green serpent, the ruling spirit of the abject Guinea coast sect, is often worshipped and the feast terminates in scenes of the most vile debauchery, the "goat without horns," however, not always being sacrificed.

The cannibalistic feed is only indulged in on rare occasions and at long intervals, and is always shrouded in mystery and hedged about with every precaution against interlopers; for, be their African ignorance ever

ΙΟΙ