It was at this moment that de Cripsny looked up and said, “It is mostly the high-class Haytians and negroes who are adherents to the vaudoux.”
“Not surprising,” replied Biglow, as he rubbed his hands, his face flushed through the intense enthusiasm of his thoughts.
Then de Cripsny stared hard at his three companions, and continued, “Would you be surprised to hear that President Gravelot is King of the vaudoux worshippers?”
Clensy visibly paled. In a flash he realised that he was in Hayti, and nothing in the way of surprises was impossible. Bartholomew Biglow, on hearing the last bit of information, behaved in his usual boisterous manner; de Cripsny dodged his head, and Adams and Clensy fell under the table, but by a miracle none of them were hurt. Biglow, who had suddenly knocked the table over to emphasise his surprise, immediately grabbed it and stood it up on its legs again. De Cripsny looked quite spiteful as he rose to his feet and stared about him with his brilliant small eyes.
“I speak truth only, and then you go and knock table over and nearly kills me. Why so? You Englishman are too rude and noisy to speak to.”
“Beg pardon, Crippy, old pal,” said Biglow, as he patted the incensed Frenchman on the back and soon soothed his ruffled feelings. Once more the four seated themselves. Then de Cripsny began to tell them a lot about the vaudoux horrors, and hinted that many of the high officials of the government were adherents to the fetish creed and cannibals. He even hinted that many of the Haytian ladies were in with the papaloi and attended the fetish dances, giving themselves up to all the abandonment that the rites of the fetish demanded. When the Frenchman leaned across the table and hinted that President Gravelot’s daughter, Sestrina, was possibly a vaudoux worshipper, Clensy had great difficulty in controlling himself.
“Have you proof of such things?” he demanded, his voice quite hoarse-sounding.
“No, monsieur, but I say ’tis possible, dat is all.”
This admission eased Clensy’s mind considerably. Then de Cripsny, who seemed to love to illustrate the horrors of all that he was telling the Englishmen, said, “If I do not speak truth, then I cut mines throat like dis”—thereupon he drew an imaginary knife across his skinny throat.
As the conversation proceeded, Biglow tried to get information from de Cripsny as to where he thought the vaudoux temples were. The Frenchman only shook his head and seemed to be unable to give Biglow any useful information. It is quite possible that de Cripsny was ignorant as to where such temples existed. Though de Cripsny had been a government official for many years, he knew very little about the doings of the people or of Haytian politics proper. He had been superintendent of the burial of the dead in the great malaria plague of nineteen years before, when an official had to be appointed to see that the death-carts called at the homes of the victims and gave the dead immediate burial in the cemeteries. And though the plague had long since passed away—indeed, had become a dim, grim memory to the Haytians—de Cripsny had still remained in office till about three weeks before Clensy met him. De Cripsny might have been a splendid example of the latest thing in government officials of civilised lands had he not have been dismissed, only three weeks before, because he had omitted to attend to his duties. For years and years he had drawn up his weekly report on the blue government forms, filling them in so—“Deaths from malaria, none. All buried according to Act 9, Statute 14. Disinfected death-carts and burnt victims’ clothing.” But through illness he had not filled in the usual form, and this, having been noticed by some alert official, had been the means of his dismissal from office. Even Bartholomew gave a loud guffaw when de Cripsny, after giving him the aforesaid information about his own private affairs, suddenly said, “But, monsieurs, I care not that I am dismissed from office.”