IN THE SHADOW
amphitheater; here they were visible, but of their presence none gave any sign. Dessalines, the sweat streaming into his eyes from the heat of the fire, stared about him with awed interest; the early summons, their furtive arrival, the sinister surroundings all stirred powerfully something deep within him; something of which he had always been conscious, lived in fear, dreaded to awaken. Now it quivered, seemed to stretch and expand, a genius long dormant, roused to action by the terrific heat, the unhallowed rites.
La Fouchère motioned for him to sit upon the ground; he sank into the angle formed by the spreading, buttressed roots of a great ma-poo tree. She dropped to his side, her body against his, her head against his great arm. They waited in silence.
At the farther end of the amphitheater he saw dimly through the flames a large, square object, apparently an altar built of logs and mud; it was chest high; upon it lay a bleeding carcass which might have been that of a goat.
They waited in silence for many minutes, and all the while from some unseen, dark corner the drum continued its even, tireless beat. The fire burned lower; the heat of the flames became supportable, its crackling less loud. No sound, came from the waiting audience; one caught the flash of white eyeballs, ruby hued in the reflected light, the glistening of black, reeking faces; that was all.
"Look!" whispered La Fouchère suddenly.
Into the inclosure there had flitted a wild figure; a woman, stark naked, tall, muscular in form and with a skin as fine as black satin. She wore a necklace of
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