“No need to do that,” declared Rawlins. “Just tell Jules and his gang here to help themselves and there won’t be much left for the Bolsheviks, if they do come back. When they get through looting they can build a rattling big fire in here and that’ll finish it. It’s limestone and after it’s heated it’ll crumble to bits.”
“Good idea!” replied the other. “Sam, tell Jules that he and his men are welcome to anything they want in the cave. But make him promise to build a huge fire inside after they’ve taken what they want.”
As Sam interpreted this to Jules, the latter’s eyes fairly bulged with wonder and a wide grin spread across his countenance as it gradually dawned upon him that the white man had made him a present of all these treasures. Already, in his mind’s eye, he could picture the dusky belles of his village strutting about in gowns of silk and satin brocades, he could see their earthen jars and battered iron pots giving way to those shiny cooking utensils, he could imagine how dressed up his huts would be with those deeply cushioned chairs, the pictures and the statues.
“I’ll say he’ll’ be heap big chief now,” chuckled Rawlins, as he saw Jules’ eyes roaming greedily over the furnishings as if at a loss what to seize first. “And say, won’t it be a scream when some chap comes along and finds a bunch of French West Indian niggers all dolled out with billiard tables, grand pianos and marble Venuses!”
Then, a sudden whimsical idea seized him, and grasping Jules’ arm, he exclaimed, “Here, old sport, come along and see what you think about this for a devil box.”
As he spoke, he led the negro towards the Victrola, but at the words “devil box” the black’s eyes took on a frightened look and he drew back.
“Oh, it’s all right!” Rawlins assured him, “it won’t bite.”
Still hesitating, but somewhat reassured by the diver’s tones, and putting on a brave front, Jules accompanied Rawlins and stood silently watching as the latter wound up the machine, placed a record under the needle and set it in motion. But as the first sounds of a singer’s voice burst from the horn, Jules uttered a frightened yell and leaped away.
Every one burst into a hearty roar of laughter and the negro, with a hasty terrified glance about, halted in his precipitate retreat, ashamed to exhibit his fear before the white men. Then, with the odd, quizzical, half-puzzled, half-frightened and wholly wondering expression of an ape, he leaned forward, turning his head first to one side and then the other as he listened to the song, peering at the mahogany cabinet as if expecting to see the hidden singer step out at any moment. But finding that nothing happened and that the others seemed in no dread of the affair, he drew nearer and nearer, absolutely fascinated by this new form of witchcraft. Never in his life had he beheld a phonograph, and while he realized that the “Bekes,” as he called the whites, were capable of performing almost any miracle or of making most marvelous and incomprehensible things, yet this, he was sure, was something quite beyond their power and must be some most powerful form of Obeah. But evidently the “devil” or whatever it contained was most securely imprisoned and compelled to serve the white men, and when he saw that Sam was not in the least afraid, and even picked up and examined the flat, round objects that Rawlins drew from the cabinet, he decided that this particular devil was even harmless to men of his own color. Here indeed was a treasure. With this he would be truly a king and he could imagine what a sensation he would create when, in the light of the Voodoo fire, he ordered the devil in the box to sing and talk and produce music.
His fears had now completely vanished and, drawing close to the instrument, he stood absolutely fascinated as Rawlins placed record after record in the machine.