Even the heavy animal slumber of the blacks was broken by the scream that issued from the hut of Captain Inocencio. And then the sound of such fighting! The negroes might have rushed to the assistance of their leader had it not been for the echo of that awful woman-cry hovering over the village like a shadow. It filled the air and hung there, saturating the breathless night with such unnamable terror that the wakened children began to whimper and the women buried their heads in the ragged bedding to keep it out. Death was among them and the bravest cowered while through the quivering silence there came the sounds of a mighty combat lasting for such an interminable time that the listeners became hysterical.
At length they discovered that the night was dead again, save for the sudden patter of raindrops on the thatches when the palm fronds stirred. One of them called shrilly, another answered, but they did not venture forth. Afterward they fancied they had heard the thrust of paddles in the lagoon and strange voices dwindling away to seaward, but they were not sure. Eventually, however, the stillness got upon them more fearfully than the former noises, and they stirred. Then, in time, they heard the voice of Inocencio himself cursing faintly, as if from a great distance. A light showed through the cracks of a hut, and Nicholas, the least timid, emerged with a lantern held on high. He summoned the rest around him, then went toward the black shadow of Inocencio's dwelling with a score of white-eyed, dusky faces at his shoulder.
The door was down, and from the threshold they could see what the front room contained. It was Nicholas who, with clattering teeth and nerveless fingers, dragged a blanket from the bed and covered the woman's figure. It was he who traced the feeble voice to the wreck of a room behind, and strove to lift Inocencio out of the welter in which he lay. But the Haytian blasted him with curses for opening his wounds; so they propped him against the wall by his direction, and bound him about with strips torn from the mattress. Then he called for a cigarette, and its ashes were upon his breast when the French doctor arrived from the hospital on the Point.
When the white man's work was done, the mulatto addressed him weakly:
"Will m'sieu' do me a great favor?"
"Certainly."
"M'sieu' is acquainted with the American, Señor Williams?"
"Oui."
"Will m'sieu' le docteur please to tell him that Captain Inocencio has won his wager?"
"I don't understand."