The Nut shook Chéri-Bibi who, however, slept on. He reproached himself for trying to awaken him from his heavy slumber; and so as to make sure that he was not the victim of his over-excited nerves, he stole, with rifle at the ready, towards the sound which he fancied he had heard.
The noise was repeated, but it seemed to be moving away.
The Nut went forward boldly, and suddenly emerged into a small clearing, in the center of which was a native on his knees with arms upraised in the shining moon, sighing and, seemingly, giving himself up to infinitely sad incantations.
It was an Indian clad simply in the skin of a carnivora. His face was curiously tattooed, while his long hair was parted in the middle. His eyes gleamed in the dusk like the luminous eyes of an animal while he sobbed forth his muffled and singular litany wherein ever and anon occurred the refrain: "Galatha! Galatha! Galatha!"
He failed to perceive the Nut, who stood hidden behind a tree. "That's a magician, a piaye, who is calling upon Yoloch or Goudon," said the Nut to himself. But he had no desire to break in upon the man's supplications.
Suddenly the piaye was surrounded by a band of infuriated redskins, whose leaping shadows appeared enormous to the Nut and filled him with affright. They seemed to be bounding as high as the trees, and the play of the moonlight through the branches lent itself to the fancies of a man who had been listening all day to exciting and fantastic stories of the forest.
He fled, convinced that he had seen the Oyaricoulets, and he gave no rest to Chéri-Bibi until he allowed himself to be dragged away still half asleep. At last when he was entirely awake in the early morning, and the dreaded country was left far behind, he said:
"Tell me what you saw."
"I saw the Oyaricoulets."
"But what else?"