Cynthia seemed to consider the precaution scarce sufficient; for the moment the door was closed, in order to make herself still more secure against being seen, she glided up to the light and extinguished it. Then, groping her way back to the bedstead, she staggered down upon it, and sate shivering with apprehension.
As the myal-man had enjoined upon her, she listened; and, as he had promised her, she heard—if not the voice of Accompong—sounds that were worthy of having proceed from the throat of that Ethiopian divinity.
At first a voice reached her which she knew to be human: since it was the voice of Chakra himself. It was uttered, nevertheless, in strange and unnatural tones, that at each moment kept changing. Now it came ringing through the interstices of the bamboos, in a kind of long-drawn solo, as if the myal-man was initiating his ceremonies with the verse of a psalm. Then the chaunt became quicker, by a sort of crescendo movement, and the song appeared transformed to a recitative. Next were heard sounds of a very different intonation, resembling the shrill, harsh call of a cow-horn or conch-shell, and gradually dying off into a prolonged bass, like the groaning of a cracked trombone.
After this had continued for some moments, there ensued a dialogue—in which the listener could recognise only one of the voices as that of Chakra.
Whose could be the other? It could only be that of Accompong. The god was upon the ground!
Cynthia trembled as she thought how very near he was. How lucky she had blown out the light! With the lamp still burning, she must have been seen: for both Chakra and the deity were just outside the door, and so near that she could not only hear their voices with distinctness, but the very words that were spoken.
Some of these were in an unknown tongue, and she could not understand them. Others were in English, or rather its synonym in the form of a negro patois. These last she comprehended; and their signification was not of a character to tranquillise her thoughts, but the contrary.
Chakra, chantant:—
“Open de bottle - draw de cork,
De ’pell he work - de ’pell he work;
De buckra man muss die!”
“Muss die!” repeated Accompong, in a voice that sounded as if from the interior of an empty hogshead.