When the sacred drum begins with its low monotonous "tum-tum-tum! tum-tum-tum!" the votaries begin to feel an uneasy stirring within them. They can not settle down to anything else until they have responded and have worshipped with the other sectaries or taken part in one of the dreadful orgies which I have heard described by an eyewitness, but can not relate. I shall describe only that which I witnessed.
No pure woman or man would defile his or her pen with committing to paper the beastliness that follows, and which shows in its nakedness the nature of these animals, travesties made in God's image.
As we started on our walk toward the throne, I heard a muttering beside me:
"Haven't you got anything to conjure with?"
This sounded a reasonable request, but, beyond my pistol and my little appliances for snaring the cooing dove, I could think of nothing which would help me out. We approached the awful throne. At its foot we came to a halt, and stood there awaiting our sentence.
"Now they'll slug us on the head," said the Skipper to me in an undertone.
I raised my eyes to the occupants of the throne. I have commented upon the looks of the Papaloi, but I was surprised to see that the woman at his side was of a much lighter shade, and was almost pretty. She was slight and, as I found afterward, for a woman very tall and exceedingly graceful. She gave one passing glance at the Skipper, and then her gaze rested upon me. As she gazed I heard a hissing sound, and I looked down and around me to discover its source. The Mamanloi looked upon me long, with a sort of trembling of the eyelids, which made me feel as if she were a species of serpent ready to spring upon me. At the same time her flickering, caressing glance did not make me afraid, rather it fascinated and disgusted me at the same moment.
The lids of the Mamanloi were long and narrow, and sleepy and nearly closed. The upper lid lay flat across the eyeball, which did not seem to protrude, as is usual. When she sleepily raised the eyelid, a sort of opaque green appeared, pale, but with a yellow light, that made one feel that this weird creature did indeed partake of the nature of the serpent which she worshipped. Those oblong green eyes seemed to send forth a gleam which came to you, as the ray of a street lamp does at times, direct to your eye, and apparently to that of no one else. Her lips were red, a vivid shade, and when she opened them her tongue, which outvied the trimmings that she wore, played back and forth and licked and caressed them as a serpent's might have done. I wondered, as I gazed spellbound at this baleful creature, whether she were woman, serpent, devil, or all three in one.
The Papaloi spoke hurriedly to the men who stood as guards for us. One of them shook his head, but the one next to me answered in a subdued tone, at the same time nodding his head. He did not look at me as he spoke. The Papaloi again addressed him, and he then turned to me.
"The old blackguard wants to know where you come from and where you are going. Hadn't I better tell him that you are friends of Christophe's? Sooner or later he must reckon with Christophe, and it's just as well to frighten him a little now."