The Mountain of Fears

by Henry C. Rowland

“There was a swift rustle, and Madame had leapt to her feet and was pacing the verandah with clinging, cat-like steps. I arose.

“‘I am fatigued from sitting still,’ she explained, with a light but nervous laugh. ‘See, the moon is rising.’

“I glanced toward the east and saw a dull yellow glow before which the low stars paled. Madame permitted herself another turn of the verandah, and as she passed the banded shaft of light which smote through the jalousies from the illuminated room I noticed that her slim fingers were closing and opening as if she were in pain. Her light footsteps fell in unison with the beat of the bamboula.

“My host and I talked on different things, and still Madame paced back and forth, and every time she passed the barred zone of light I saw the white fingers writhing in and out, and at times clutching the light fabric of her skirt in a grip that left it creased and seamed—and still the drum beat on and on. Fouchère’s manner of speech had changed; his statements were short and arbitrary, as if challenging contradiction; his chair had come down to all four legs, and he sat bolt upright, tense, together, as if prepared to spring upward at a bound. As the light over the mountain glowed brighter I could see the silhouette of his straight back against the sky, as straight and cleanly cut as one of the posts of the verandah.

“Soon Madame paused in her promenade, and, walking to the rail, gazed at the glowing light in the sky, and as she stood, the drum, partially drowned before by her light step and the swish of her skirts, welled out resonantly. I glanced at her curiously. It was still too dark to distinguish her features, but a naturalist, or, more properly, perhaps, a collector, can see things to which better eyes than his are blind, and it seemed to me that I caught a swift quiver as it flashed across her mobile face. Suddenly she turned.

“‘I think that I shall beg to be excused,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘The heat of the day has fatigued me, and the night air is cool and promises refreshing sleep. Would not Monsieur wish also to retire?’

“Dr. Fouchère arose as if to show me to my room. I had no desire to go to bed, for I did not think I could sleep; but, following the line of least resistance, I went.

“Lying on my bed, with that old and jaundiced moon peering through the window and the whole earth wrapped in the stillness of utter space, the bamboula, which had never ceased, seemed pounding at the portals of my brain. Have you ever, after a day of almost superhuman physical exertion—say a long march through the jungle carrying a double pack—lain too tired to sleep and listened to your overtaxed heart pounding its pulse against your ear-drums? No? Well, it is hard to say what else that drum was like. It appeared, too, to have grown louder, although the time continued to be exactly the same.

“Before long I dozed a little, but the drum beat on, weaving weird and distorted pictures. I saw the stark, whirling figures glistening ebony-red in the lurid firelight, the outer circle of fantastic shadows gyrating in a wider arc; the flash of flames between the circling shapes—others partly hidden—watching from the black hollows between the buttressed boles of the trees. The old, old rites—bursting out in this civilized era like embryonic cells in the adult—cancer-cells—you understand, Doctor. Later on, the sickly yellow moon, high in the zenith, its pale light quenching that of the dying embers of the fire and waning itself before the dawn. The things it looked down upon—the heaving figures of the devotees—and all about the pure, sweet peace of the tropic night!

“‘Tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom,’ went the drum, and then I awoke with a shiver and began to dress. I stepped to the window for added light, and other noises than those of the drum welled up from the valley beneath. Air was stirring, and it blew through my jalousies and filled the room with the smell of the stephanotis.