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Page 36
Again their glances met, and it was patent to me that underlying all
this conversation was something beyond my ken. What it was that Harley
suspected I could not imagine, nor what it was that Colonel Menendez
desired to conceal; but tension was in the very air. The Spaniard was
on the defensive, and Paul Harley was puzzled, irritated.
It was a strange interview, and one which in the light of after events
I recognized to possess extraordinary significance. That sixth sense of
Harley's was awake, was prompting him, but to what extent he understood
its promptings at that hour I did not know, and have never known to
this day. Intuitively, I believe, as he sat there staring at Colonel
Menendez, he began to perceive the shadow within a shadow which was the
secret of Cray's Folly, which was the thing called Bat Wing, which was
the devilish force at that very hour alive and potent in our midst.
CHAPTER IX
OBEAH
This conversation in Colonel Menendez's study produced a very
unpleasant impression upon my mind. The atmosphere of Cray's Folly
seemed to become charged with unrest. Of Madame de St�mer and Miss
Beverley I saw nothing up to the time that I retired to dress. Having
dressed I walked into Harley's room, anxious to learn if he had formed
any theory to account for the singular business which had brought us to
Surrey.
Harley had excused himself directly we had left the study, stating that
he wished to get to the village post-office in time to send a telegram
to London. Our host had suggested a messenger, but this, as well as the
offer of a car, Harley had declined, saying that the exercise would aid
reflection. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find his room empty, for I
could not imagine why the sending of a telegram should have detained
him so long.
Dusk was falling, and viewed from the open window the Tudor garden
below looked very beautiful, part of it lying in a sort of purplish
shadow and the rest being mystically lighted as though viewed through a
golden veil. To the whole picture a sort of magic quality was added by
a speck of high-light which rested upon the face of the old sun-dial.
I thought that here was a fit illustration for a fairy tale; then I
remembered the Colonel's account of how he had awakened in the act of
entering this romantic plaisance, and I was touched anew by an
unrestfulness, by a sense of the uncanny.
I observed a book lying upon the dressing table, and concluding that it
was one which Harley had brought with him, I took it up, glancing at
the title. It was "Negro Magic," and switching on the light, for there
was a private electric plant in Cray's Folly, I opened the book at
random and began to read.
"The religion of the negro," said this authority, "is emotional, and
more often than not associated with beliefs in witchcraft and in the
rites known as Voodoo or Obi Mysteries. It has been endeavoured by some
students to show that these are relics of the Fetish worship of
equatorial Africa, but such a genealogy has never been satisfactorily
demonstrated. The cannibalistic rituals, human sacrifices, and obscene
ceremonies resembling those of the Black Sabbath of the Middle Ages,
reported to prevail in Haiti and other of the islands, and by some
among the negroes of the Southern States of America, may be said to
rest on doubtful authority. Nevertheless, it is a fact beyond doubt
that among the negroes both of the West Indies and the United States
there is a widespread belief in the powers of the Obeah man. A native
who believes himself to have come under the spell of such a sorcerer
will sink into a kind of decline and sometimes die."
At this point I discovered several paragraphs underlined in pencil, and
concluding that the underlining had been done by Paul Harley, I read
them with particular care. They were as follows: "According to Hesketh
J. Bell, the term Obeah is most probably derived from the substantive
Obi, a word used on the East coast of Africa to denote witchcraft,
sorcery, and fetishism in general. The etymology of Obi has been traced
to a very antique source, stretching far back into Egyptian mythology.
A serpent in the Egyptian language was called Ob or Aub. Obion is still
the Egyptian name for a serpent. Moses, in the name of God, forbade the
Israelites ever to enquire of the demon, Ob, which is translated in our
Bible: Charmer or wizard, divinator or sorcerer. The Witch of Endor is
called Oub or Ob, translated Pythonissa; and Oubois was the name of the
basilisk or royal serpent, emblem of the Sun and an ancient oracular
deity of Africa."
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