How shall I describe that dance? How call up before your imagination the murky interior, the reddish flare of the smoking torches, the shining black bodies, the glittering eyes, the look on every face which spoke not of the lofty aspirations of the human being, but of the low nature of the brute? If there was ever any ceremony that combined as a whole the horrible, the soul-sickening, the disgusting, and the fascinating, it was that dance of the serpent. The whole community joined in the fiendish movement, each and all trying as best he or she could to imitate the movements of the reptile. They wound themselves about, in and out, and round each other. They twisted, they squirmed, they wriggled, they crawled, and all the time the Mamanloi sat gazing stolidly on like a sphynx. The serpent hissed and alternately caressed her cheek and bosom. Sometimes it disappeared entirely within the folds of her dress, and then again its great head would protrude from the open front of her robe, and we heard the hissing repeated, and saw the tongue dart its flamelike points against the flesh of her throat. Some of the dancers, the women especially, seemed to be overtaken by a wild state of frenzy. They circled themselves round the other dancers, regardless of sex. They even climbed with a snakelike motion up the posts which supported the roof. There they wriggled along the rafters or hung, glaring down on those below. Their tongues protruded and played back and forth like a serpent's; their mouths emitted a hissing noise, which was deafening. I feared that with these awful sights and sounds I should lose my senses. Of so bold an exhibition of the beastliness that still dwells in the earthly tenement I had never dreamed, and I hope that I may never be called upon to witness its like again. With much of it I will not soil these pages. Suffice it to say that the worst passions were depicted, if not actually represented. I turned toward the Skipper. The heavy drops were pouring from his brows.
"By Gad! Jones, I'm sick," said he.
When the dancers had worked themselves up to a state of insanity that was almost unbelievable, the Papaloi suddenly called a halt. The noise did not stop at once. It seemed that the serpent habit had become chronic with the votaries. Some of the women still clung to the rafters and refused to descend, sending forth an occasional hiss. But when the Papaloi started a subdued and minor chant, they began to quiet down, and gradually dropped, limp and lifeless, to the ground. They reminded me, each one as he fell, of the leech as he drops heavy and clogged from overrepletion.
That, however, was a phase of these diabolical orgies which was yet to come.
Far be it from me, Adoniah, to wish to shock or horrify any one, especially those dear to me. You have asked for a truthful description of what I saw, and, though I can not give it all to you in these pages, I can come as near it as decency permits. Perhaps you will say, nearer, and accuse me in your heart of having over-stepped the bounds of propriety and decency. If such be your feeling, do not let this cover fall into the hands of your children. It would unnecessarily shock and terrify them. There are many things happening in this world which they need not know. Perhaps you had better decide when you read to them these remembrances that you will skip some portions, saying to them at certain pages, which you shall mark upon its first perusal by you, "Your grandfather is not very clear at this stage, and I think that I had better relate to you what follows," or, "We will close the book for to-night, my child; I will tell you more to-morrow." On the morrow you may skip the obnoxious paragraphs. But for you, Adoniah, I am setting down these things as they occurred, and what I promised, I am in duty bound to do. When you feel that I have described with too much realism that which I was forced to witness, you may also close the book. But my task is to finish to the bitter end, that perhaps at some not far distant day some earnest votary of our holy religion of Christ may feel it his privilege to go as a missionary to this island of the western main, and with labour which shall not fail try to bring some soul from out the darkness and lead it into light, and show these benighted creatures what is really meant by that symbol to which they are accustomed, the cross of Christ. You may say, however, "Why should we succeed, where other Christians have failed?" But I digress.
"Bring in the white cock!" shouted the Papaloi.
Two men disappeared behind the curtain of red and returned with a handsome white cock, the one, probably, which I had heard crowing in homelike confidence. The priest seized the cock in his strong grasp. He now descended the steps of the throne. The Mamanloi followed in his footsteps. Their sandalled feet called back no answering sound from the earthen floor. The Papaloi stalked majestically toward the central post which up-held the roof tree, and mounting upon a low step, he stood facing the multitude. He waved the helpless animal round and round his head, repeating rapidly, and with fierceness of demeanour, some species of incantation which I could not follow. He then began to beat the body of the unfortunate cock against the post.
Now, any man who has lived upon a farm, as I have at Belleville, does not squirm at the killing of a fowl if necessity demands, but we perform the operation humanely and as quickly as time and dexterity will permit. To see that poor animal battered and hammered against the resisting wood, which was already stained red and black with previous ceremonies of the kind, made me shudder. I closed my eyes, but there was still that fearful thud in my ears. I can give no idea of the vengeful fury of the blows. Just before the Papaloi gave the animal what our black friend called the "final kew," it was struggling, though faintly, and when the Papaloi raised a glittering knife on high I saw one poor leg thrust weakly outward, as if the helpless thing hoped even then to elude its slayer. The throat was slashed through with a clean cut, and the torture was over.
