"Don't you be too sure of that," said the consul. "There, try that and see how you like it."
Jones sipped the cool mixture; it seemed like nectar to him in his feverish condition. The bullet which had passed through his arm had made a wound, which, while not in itself serious, had left him weak and feverish.
"Yes," continued the consul, "you were mighty lucky to get off as you did. You may not know it, but right here in Hayti the people in the interior are as savage and bloodthirsty as any Central African tribe. Most of the inhabitants are descendants of negroes brought from the Gold Coast many years ago. They have reverted to their original wild state, keeping up many of the
ancient customs. Mixing as they have with the Indians of the interior, the present race is even worse than their ancestors. From Toussant l'Overture in 1804, when he first ruled, to Hyppolite Florvil and Salomon, the island has been the scene of continuous insurrection, intrigue, and murder.
"Salomon was probably the best of them all. He was an immense negro, some six feet four inches tall, with a pock-marked face, who had received an education in Paris and married a Frenchwoman. He, like the rest, however, was superstitious and cruel at heart. Hyppolite was a Voodoo priest and, it is said, an anthropophagist. The people of the interior have an intense hatred for the white man, and still retain many of the barbarous customs of the savages of the African interior.
"The Voodoo dance is presided over by a high priest, who usually commands a goat or a hen to be killed, but in some of the more
important ceremonies a child is murdered, and its blood mixed with the tafia and drunk by the dancers. The high priest is called Papoloy. Every two years after the dance of the moon a human sacrifice is ordered; generally a young girl is killed and eaten. You probably ran up against one of the Voodoo gods, and the large stone in front was undoubtedly the sacrificial stone. How you ever got away alive passes my comprehension. They evidently thought that you would try to leave in the day-time, and had things all arranged for taking a shot at you somewhere, but your nocturnal skedaddle knocked their plans galley west. There is one thing dead sure, those Voodoo priests are bad medicine, as we used to say out West, and you want to keep your weather-eye open until you are safe on board a steamer and out of the harbor. I wouldn't give five cents for your life if you walked about the streets of Porto Prince. When
the time comes to leave I will have you smuggled on board. The authorities would wink at your assassination, but they would not openly countenance it."
Jones remarked wearily that he had begun to believe it might be as well for him to rest quietly in the consulate, and not give them another chance.
The soft flower-scented breeze blew softly in through the open window and was soothing to Jones. Lying there on the lounge with his eyes closed, he soon fell asleep, and the consul left him to attend to his various duties. When Jones awoke he lay in a sort of drowsy condition—half asleep and half awake. Through his partly open eyes he looked through the open door leading out on the broad piazza. There was a chair in front of the door, and over the top of this he saw a face and a pair of very black eyes looking at him intently. For a moment he imagined it was some