Page:Weird Tales v15n01 1930-01.djvu/103

the amazing tragedy of a few moments ago.

"He led the way down the slope by way of the goat track, and then in the shelter from the wind and by a great clump of tree ferns he sat down on the ground, still warm from the vanished sun, and motioned me to his side.

"'In St. Pierre,' said he, 'you were good to me and I opened my heart, telling you of my affairs and of my girl; you remember, on the Sundays I used to come over here starting before the light of day and whilst the Cabribois still filled the woods with sound. Then the day came when I found my girl dying. Maman Robert, her mother, could not say what ailed her, and Maman Faly, who is the doctor for all the workers round these parts, said she had been seized with a fever from the woods. No matter, she died—but you will remember all this; I only say it to keep my mind from traveling astray as one might follow a string in the dark, for the things I have to tell belong indeed to the darkness that is deeper than night.

"'I came back to you and life went on. I had no need of it but I could not cast it away; it is not easy for a man to lose the habit of living even after it becomes an evil habit to him.

"'I went on as one dead might go on with his work, could he be moved by some spirit of life.

"'Then one evening Cyrilla, who was the girl of the landlady where your rooms were, came to me and said:

"'"There is one who wishes to speak to you, Baidaux."

"'I went to the door and there I found the mother of my girl, Maman Robert.

"'I said to her, "What do you want?" and she said, "I have come to speak to you about Finotte."

"'I said, "What then about Finotte?" thinking the old woman had come to me for money as is the way with relatives of those one loves, but I had done her a wrong.

"'She answered, "I have come to you from Finotte—and I would bring you to her," and as she spoke the flesh crawled on my bones, for I had seen Finotte buried in the place where the people are buried by the palmiste grove near her home—where of a Sunday we used sometimes to go to look on the graves of the dead and say to ourselves, "Without doubt some day we will be here," for I never had the fancy to be buried at St. Pierre.

"'I listened to what the old woman said and I could say nothing to her in reply, till my lips moved and they said, "Very well—but not now—leave me and I will come."

"'You remember, I did not leave you at once after that old woman had been there. In fact I was afraid. I said to myself, "Maybe that old woman is not a woman but a Zombie come to betray me and steal my soul." I knew her well—how should one not know the mother of one's girl?—but a man's mind is strange and full of fear in the dark and in the unknown.

"'Then I put all that by and said to myself, "I will go."

"'I had always set out on foot on my journeys to Finotte and before dawn, so as to get there in the early day. I could have taken the stage to Morne Rouge and got a horse from there, but I could go as I had always gone, on foot; so I went past Morne Rouge and the old Calebasse road past Ajoupa-Bouillon, past the Rivière Falaise, pausing only to rest for a moment by the great gommier that marks where the path to the village of Mirail strikes off from the road.

"'Here I stayed an hour, resting in the shade, so that it was past noon when, taking the path, I sought the little house of Maman Robert.

"'It lies by the cocoa fields, and a great wood of balissiers shelters it from the trade wind; you can hear like the voice in the shell the sea on the beach of Grande Anse and now