Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/266

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

THE MOUNTAIN OF FEARS

ing, then fascinating, and last of all it maddens. To think that such a people should have learned the secret of repeated concussions on a single group of brain-cells——"

"You have heard it before?" I interrupted, for I knew all of this he was telling me and wanted his story.

"Yes. It was when I was here five years ago looking for snails. I was crossing on a French boat, and the second day out I met the Doctor and Madame Fouchère. He was a Haytian, a marabout, an Adonis carved out of jet, for you know that breed are of a type magnificent and hold their fineness of skin and feature far into advanced age. He was an intelligent man, highly educated and skilled in his profession. I learned afterwards that he was the left-handed son of a former President by a marabout woman—one of the usual cases of placage of those high in official circles. Fouchère had been educated in France, and after talking with him for a while one forgot that he was black; yet I will

[ 250 ]