The Papaloi bent low to the ground, and then advanced with the same undulating gait that I had before observed. I saw now that, great as he was in the eyes of the people, there were others much greater than he. I learned afterward, from one who was present, what was said during those momentous seconds that ticked, I thought, perhaps, my life away.
The Papaloi advanced slowly up the broad space, lined on each side by fantastic shapes. These figures had ranged themselves the length of the hall. They held their torches steadily in hand. The glare of this barbaric light shone on the throne, toward which they partly turned. When the Papaloi had reached the throne he prostrated himself, and waited until permitted by a wave of the hand from the Priestess, to arise. The person seated on the throne beside the Priestess I found to be the Senior Papaloi. This priest was acting his rôle until return of the Greatest of All. I found that the leading or Grand Papaloi had been lost to his followers for some months now, and that the Senior Papaloi, while jealous of the king of the sect, still feared him. For the Grand Papaloi had possessed great power with Christophe, they told me, and the entire sect must sooner or later reckon with that powerful king. I could not discover whether Christophe himself belonged to the vaudoux tribe, but that he protected his favourite minister, who had been Grand Papaloi, was well known to all the votaries of the different branches. When I became aware of these facts I can not exactly remember. They came to me gradually, and these and whatever else I learned that will make my story more clear to you I will set down, regardless of the time and place of my first knowledge of them.
The Senior Papaloi surveyed the approaching priest impatiently.
"Where is the sacrifice?" he questioned in harsh tones.
The Papaloi, whom we had thought at first a man of great power, trembled and prostrated himself before the throne. He answered in a low voice and haltingly, as if he knew not whether he had done wrong or right:
"O! great Papaloi, the sacrifice is safe, but we found in the small temple some strangers, who would know our secrets, and we brought them to you before procuring the sacrifice."
The Papaloi smiled hideously. I have never, I think, seen such a travesty on Nature as that Papaloi of the vaudoux.
"It matters not," said he; "we have another sacrifice here among us. Bring the strangers forward!"
Whereupon two of our guards pushed us ahead of them, and we found ourselves walking up the long apartment in full sight of the whole multitude. There were lighted torches stuck in upright posts, and upon the walls I noticed everywhere, without being conscious that I was seeing them, those terrible symbols of vaudouism, the serpent and the goat's head. It shocked and horrified me to find the cross often represented. There was a sort of font at the entrance to the temple, and other signs and symbols of the Catholic religion, and under this very cross of Christ these blasphemers from Dahomey carried on their horrid rites, thus debasing a Christian religion, whose laws and tenets they broke a thousand times in each one of their hellish orgies.
It was strange to see the fetish worship which the blacks brought from Africa, mixed with some of the rites of the Catholic Church. I have heard it said that the good priests tried their hardest to eradicate the evil. When finally one of them found that a serpent was confined beneath the altar of a lonely country church, and he remonstrated unsuccessfully with those whose religion was a mixture of the fetish worship and what of the Catholic form they could remember, he shook the dust of the place from his feet and went his way. He could not permit the serpent to defile the consecrated building in which he officiated, and the blacks would not relinquish their serpent god. This vaudoux sect called themselves "Les Mystères," and, indeed, their whole superstition is one of mystery, from the stealing of children and throwing them into a trance, to the concealment and final sacrifice. The human body is not used by them. It is only the cock, the goat, or the lamb that are offered up as a propitiation to the serpent god. Members of this latter sect are not tainted with cannibalism, but are simply idol worshippers, not combining with their other wickednesses the slaying and eating of human bodies. That these members of the vaudoux sect can, many of them, throw one into a trance at will, I know to be a fact, for I have seen it too often to doubt it. I should like to give you some instances, but my account will be too long as it is, and I must refrain.