"Perhaps it's a night owl, Mr. Jones, sir."
"No," said I, "I should say it was a cooing dove, but they do not coo at this time of the night, rather toward morning."
We sat there, listening breathlessly. One grows cautious in the forest of an inhospitable land, and we did not speak above our breath. What if it were some murderous natives calling thus to lure us on under cover of the night? Perhaps they had discovered our whereabouts, and while we were drawing near them some of the party would skirt the forest and capture those we had left behind. My heart stood still at the thought, for, though Cynthia and I exchanged no more than the merest commonplaces, still she was then, as she has ever been, the one woman in the world for me. Again that wail, but louder than before.
"It is a human being in distress," whispered the Skipper. I nodded. The Bo's'n's eyes were starting out of his head.
We arose and crept cautiously in the direction of the sound, and, after walking a minute or so, a dark structure loomed up before us. It seemed a rude copy of a church. It had doors larger than those of an ordinary dwelling, and in front there were some hieroglyphics cut roughly in the wood and painted in various fantastic colours. Upon the top of the roof, which was a few feet above our heads, there was an attempt at a cross. It looked altogether like a savage copy of a Catholic church; and that it was, for the French brought the Catholic religion to the island with them, and the Africans had compounded it with their own savage worship. As we approached the edifice—if I may dignify it by a word used for much grander buildings—the wailing grew more distinct. Just here I heard a stealthy step in the bushes, and, cautioning the others by a jerk of the sleeve and a "Hist!" we stood silent. I saw a form emerging from the underbrush. My heart thumped loudly, for I recognised Zalee; but as now he could speak a little in a very broken way, we found from him that all was quiet at the camp, and that he had only come to make sure that we had not lost our way.
"What is that?" whispered the Skipper, as the wail broke again upon his ear.
Zalee raised his hand, commanding silence. Then he stooped and laid his lips to the crack between the palm board uprights. He called something in a sweet, low voice. It sounded like "Kala?" The Bo's'n asserted that it was intended for "Qui est la?" We listened intently for an answer. There was a long, sobbing sigh and a thick muttering in answer.
Zalee gave a subdued and joyful cry and ran around to the back of the building. We followed him. Here he found a place where some of the boards seemed loose. In fact, they had been purposely loosened, and, the building being so remote from all habitation, it had not been thought necessary to replace them. He pulled away the boards and crawled quietly through. I followed him, the Skipper came next, and finally the Bo's'n.
We found ourselves in a sort of church. There was a fairly well-constructed desk on one side of the chamber, and an altar on the other. There were some rude seats behind the altar, some metal crosses standing about, with one or two wooden cages which looked like an attempted reproduction of the places where the Catholics keep the holy sacrament. Masses of red and yellow flowers festooned the pillars, and gave a barbaric strangeness to the scene. Upon the walls was reproduced at small intervals a sort of copy of the ring which Cynthia had found on the beach. Sometimes it was the serpent, sometimes the goat's head, sometimes they were combined, the serpent body coiling round to meet the head of the goat, in so strange and natural though rude a resemblance to the symbol, that I could not but feel that the owner of the ring had had something more than a little to do with these barbarous people. Zalee had produced and lighted the end of a candle. He hoarded these candle ends, and as I know that he got them from the great hall of the cave, so I have always suspected that he knew where the pirates kept their secret store. Zalee seemed never to be without one when emergency demanded a permanent light. Again that wailing cry and a restless movement somewhere in the interior.
Zalee was not at a loss. He at once approached the altar and raised a sort of hanging lid at the bottom. From thence he drew forth a boy of about eight years. The child had been so crushed and pushed into the receptacle that it was with difficulty that Zalee pulled him from the place. The boy could not stand. His knees gave way, and he fell to the ground. His face was bathed with tears, and he moaned as if in pain. He clutched with his fingers at his rescuer, saying over and over, "Zalee! Zalee! Sui bo," which the Bo's'n told us that he thought was intended for "Je suis bon," though how he knew I can not tell. The words seemed so unlike.