Directly ahead now, on a tree-shaded path leading uphill from the hall of the elders, stood a conical-shaped building with an open roof; a stream of smoke was pouring almost vertically from the aperture, for there was no wind of any consequence. The scent of fire lingered in the air, and Janine's nostrils smarted from the pungent, spicy odor. Glancing idly at the building, she saw that, despite a circumference of approximately twenty feet at its base, it was windowless, unlike every other dwelling place she had seen in the village.
"What's that house?" she asked, indicating the strange log structure with a nod.
Myra*s deep green eyes darted toward the weird dwelling, and she smoothed back her reddish-brown hair with a quick, nervous gesture. "That is not for us," she said with forced casualness. "No visitors are permitted there. And we'd better hurry, my dear, or the children will be coming home for their dinners before we've had a chance to visit the school-house.'*
Janine half guessed the truth, half divined it from the other woman's attitude. "That's where Jeremy Stone is being kept!" Before Myra could stop her she sped down the path, then circled around to the far side of the conical house, where an opening was cut into the wood and made a door shaped like an inverted V.
Jeremy Stone was laid out on what appeared to be a high bier, and at first glance he seemed to be dead. He was flat on his back, his legs and arms stretched out straight, his eyes closed, and his skin shining with a pale, yellowish translucence. He was resting on a slab of rock which was mounted on a four-foot-high pile of bricks which were hollowed out in the center at ground level. In the hollow a small fire was burning, and boughs, green and fragrant, which rested on the top of the flaming mass of wood, gave off the delicate but pungent odor.
On the walls were huge, hideous masks, caricatures of human faces, and each denoted a different expression of human suffering or sorrow. At the foot of the bier, only a few inches from Jeremy lay a slaughtered lamb; the animal's throat had been slit from one end to the other, and a trail of blood dribbled down the bricks to the earth beneath.
Transfixed and utterly horror-stricken, Janine could only stare. Then feeling came back with a rush, and her first instinct was to flee. But instead she raced forward and stood with her face close to Jeremy's as she peered at him. She could feel that the bricks and the stone slab had picked up some of the fire's warmth, and she now saw something that had escaped her attention at first—Jeremy was perspiring profusely, the sole indication that he was alive.
A wave of infinite tenderness engulfed Janine as she looked at him, and all the emotions she had controlled during the trials and dangers of recent days bubbled to the surface. She burst into tears and placed her cheek against his. "Oh, Jeremy, Jeremy," she sobbed, "what are they doing to you? Get well, please! Please! I '*
A low growl sounded directly behind her and strong hands gripped her arms. Startled, she looked around and found herself staring up into the burning eyes of two huge Negroes. Carefully painted with broad stripes of white and vermilion, they were naked except for a breechcloth, and each carried a spear. One of them snarled something at her in the harsh African dialect that was used as the community's second language. Then she was lifted bodily, whisked from the building, and deposited with a thump outside, where both men continued to glare at her menacingly.
Myra, shaken and pale under her tan, addressed the Negroes briefly in their own tongue, and they stepped back a few feet but continued to stand alert and ready to spring as they eyed Janine. Myra, badly upset, turned to the younger woman furiously. "You fool, you little fool!" she cried. "Don't you realize the obeah man could have you executed for what you've done? Don't you know you could be flayed and then burned alive for upsetting an obeah ceremony? Come with me immediately—straight back to my house! I'm not letting you out of my sight for the rest of the day!"
There was no choice but to obey. Janine fell in beside Myra, noting as she did so that the two gaudily painted black warriors followed them carefully. With a sinking heart and a mood that fringed on hysterical despair she realized that her opportunity to help Jeremy, if indeed there had ever been one, was now irrevocably lost. Critically ill, perhaps closer to death than to life, he was at the mercy of ignorant savages who intended to attempt his cure with jungle rituals.
By sundown the village began to buzz with excitement and there was an increasing sense of a holiday atmosphere. Women bathed, carefully combed their hair, and anointed their heads and bare breasts with coconut oil. Men stopped work early, scraped the whiskers from their faces with sharp machetes and cutlasses, and donned clean trousers. At least thirty of the younger men were now painted and attired in loincloths, and they stood at intervals of five to ten feet from each other in the main clearing of the community, forming a hollow square as they rested silently, their spear butts touching the ground, their faces impassive.
Inside the square a score of workers wearing high, strange headdresses fashioned from laced twigs and spliced with wild flowers were mixing the contents of three huge kettles which were suspended from poles above blazing fires. A black, oily smoke poured from one of the kettles, and another gave off a peculiar odor, powerful and sour and penetrating. But the workers seemed oblivious to the fumes and stirred the contents industriously as they occasionally added to the brew from various casks and rough burlap bags strewn about on the ground.
An atmosphere of excitement pervaded the home of Arnold and Myra, and it was apparent that despite the tender years of their children the little boys were going to be permitted to attend the ceremonies. Arnold had shown tolerant amusement when he had heard of Janine's entrance into the conical hut where the unconscious Jeremy was being held and had made light of the whole affair. He had even tried to arouse the French-English girl from her gloom, and when that had failed he had suggested to Myra that she bedeck Janine in some of her own jewelry. The effect had been just the opposite of that intended, for with a heavy gold chain around her neck and thick loops on her ears, Janine felt partly like a pagan, partly like the trollops of Port Royal. And far worse than her own degradation was the fact that she would be forced to watch while Jeremy Stone's life was slowly snuffed out by well-meaning people who substituted ignorance for medical knowledge, superstitious gibberish for a surgeon's skill.
As the sun sank over the rim of hills to the west, hundreds of flares were lighted in the clearing, and eight men seated at one side near a row of poinsettia bushes began to tap out a soft rhythm on heavy drums, each of which was about five feet in diameter. Without conscious effort the drummers kept time together perfectly.
Arnold, wearing a sapphire-hilted sword, a faded army officer's shako, and a watered-silk ribbon of scarlet over his bare chest, walked out of his house and strode toward the clearing, his family and Janine straggling behind him. Everyone in the village was gathering, and Janine was surprised to see the number of people present; from the size of the crowd, she estimated that the Maroons numbered at least one thousand persons in all.
On the north side of the open space a dais had been erected, and the commander was already seated there, waving and smiling benignly as his people took their places just outside the hollow square of spear-armed guards. Arnold turned to his woman, said something to her, then hurried to the commander and stood at the foot of the platform, to the right of the old man.