Torches and bonfires illuminated the spot and cast gleams of light upon the dark faces and distended, white and rolling eyes of the men and women who, squatting in a circle back in the shade of the underbrush, chanted a monotonous dirge-like invocation to the Voo Doo divinity called by them Tu Konk, and supposed to dwell in the loathsome body of the serpent on the stump.
By almost imperceptible degrees the blows upon the drum increased in frequency; old Sybella seemed some tireless fiend incarnate as gradually she animated the multitude and quickened the growing excitement of her emotional listeners by the ceaseless booming of her improved tom-tom. Soon the forest began to resound with hollow bellowing of conch shells carried by many of the squatters about the circle. The chant became quicker. Shouting took the place of the droning monotonous incantations to Tu Konk.
Higher and higher grew the gale of excitement. The shouting grew in volume and intensity. Wild whoops mingled with the more sonorous shouts that made the forest reverberate.
Suddenly the half-clad figure of a man sprang into the circle of light that girded the stump whereon the now irritated snake was hissing continuously. The man was bare to the waist and without covering on his legs and feet below the knees; his eyes glared about him, the revolving white balls in their ebony colored setting was something terrifying to behold. The man uttered whoop after whoop and began shuffling sideways around the stump, every moment adding to the rapidity and violence of his motions until shortly he was madly bounding into the air and with savage shouts tearing at the wool on his head, while white foam flecked his bare black breast.
The man’s madness became contagious. Figure after figure sprang within the lighted space about the serpent. Men, women, and even children all more or less nude, the few garments worn presenting a heterogeneal kaleidoscope of vivid, garish colors as the frenzied dancers whirled about in the irregular light of the torches and bonfires.
Soon spouting streams of red stained the glistening black bodies, and joined the tide of white foam pouring from the protruding, gaping, blubber lips of the howling, frantic worshipers.
The fanatic followers of Voo Dooism were wounding themselves in the delirium of irresponsible emotion. Blood gushed from long gashes made by sharp knives on cheeks, breasts, backs and limbs. The gyrations of the gory, crazed and howling mass were hideous to behold.
When the tempest of curbless frenzy seemed to have reached a point beyond which increase appeared impossible, old Sybella rushed forward, like the wraith of the ancient witch of Endor, dashing the dancers aside, springing to the stump she seized the snake and winding its shining coils about her she waved aloft the long, glittering blade of the knife that she held in hand, and shrieked out, in the voice of an infuriated fiend,
“Bring forth the hornless goat. Let Tu Konk taste the blood of the hornless one!”