Rebels of Babylon Read online

  He had no cause for worry. My mouth was sealed as if I had the lockjaw.

  “Madame Bette!” he called toward the shanty. “Madame Bette! C’est moi, Barnaby!”

  Now, that was French, a language I don’t trust. I did not like the way things were developing.

  “Can’t you walk any faster?” the fellow begged me.

  I grunted in the negative. I could hardly walk at all.

  A woman appeared in a doorway, lofting a lantern. A negress she was, of the sort they call a “mammy.” Wearing a ragged dress and a turban dishevelled.

  With a great sigh of effort, Mr. Barnaby lifted me onto the porch and set me down before her.

  Her eyes widened. “Perdu!” she muttered. “Il est perdu …”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Mr. Barnaby said, in a voice that had changed utterly. He sounded as confident as a banker’s banker. “You can put ’im right, Madame Bette. I says to myself, I was saying, ‘There’s only one woman in all Loosy-anne can put this one to rights, and that’s Madame Bette.’ I’ve been telling ’im all the way ’ere not to worry.”

  The woman’s features gathered toward her nose in consternation.

  “Been crossed good, eh?” she asked me. I believe I detected the faintest hint of a laugh. “You been crossed terrible, monsieur. Cost you gol’ money, not just jingle-silver, lif’ that crossing off you.”

  “Spare no effort!” Mr. Barnaby told her. “Spare no effort, spare no cost, Madame Bette!”

  Now that is the sort of thing no sensible Welshman would ever say, poisoned or not. A fair price for all must be agreed in advance of any undertaking. But my ability to interject myself was limited.

  Mr. Barnaby held out the stinking bag my abductors had tied round my neck.

  The woman’s eyes showed their whites again.

  “Marie Venin,” she muttered. “That’s her work, how you been crossed.” She grew excited, like Mick Tyrone, my doctor friend, at the sight of a challenging patient. “Allez, allez!” she called, rushing into the shanty.

  I blush to tell you what I next experienced. The woman’s abode might have been the lair of one of those fakirs who haunt the lanes of Lahore. Stinking it was, with smells ineffable to our Christian noses. By the lantern’s cast, I saw the skins of every sort of reptile, dangling from the ceiling to dry or nailed to the walls in bunches. Jars and pots of every shape competed for space on tabletop and floor, along with plaster statues not a few of which had strayed from a Catholic church. An advertisement for a steamboat line hung beside a cloth stained red with symbols recalling the village mosques of the Punjab. A newly skinned cat lay over a bench, its black pelt drying beside it.

  Without warning, the woman tossed a handful of dust in my face. Then she began to chant:

  “Walk on needles, walk on pins,

  Papa Limba, wash our sins …

  li Grand Zombi, li Zombi Grand,

  vaincre, vaincre, Marie Venin …

  l’homme perdu, l’homme perdu …

  he walk on gilded splinters to you …”

  That did not resemble anything Charles Wesley wrote.

  Hardly had she finished her singing than Mr. Barnaby laid seven gold coins on the planks, forming an arrow that pointed toward a back door.

  To my mortification, the two of them undressed me.

  “Begging your pardon,” Mr. Barnaby said, “there ain’t time to be modest.”

  I might have interfered. But my every limb had stiffened and my tongue was beyond speech.

  A devil of a time the two of them had, though. For I had grown stiff as a musket barrel. They had to sweep the dead cat from the bench and lay me down to draw off my shoes and trousers. Impatient with all niceties, Mr. Barnaby took a knife to my underclothing. That was a terrible waste. The garments were almost new.

  The queerest thing it was, though. I seemed literally of two minds. The right and proper part of me dreaded the coursing poison, yet clung to some last instinct of propriety. A darker side hushed every fear, seduced by a peculiar warmth sweeping my body. Twas almost like dreaming, although I remained awake. I began to feel that dying might not be unpleasant.

  My state was rude and shameful, but it mattered less and less. I could no longer summon much embarrassment, although my parts had grown remarkably stiff.

  “Alors!” the mammy said, after considering me.

  They ferried my rigid form over the gold pieces. After that, Mr. Barnaby tilted me backward while the woman forced a potion into my mouth. Grim enough that was. But she was not finished. She had Mr. Barnaby turn me over so that she might introduce the cure elsewhere.

  “Papa Limba, lif’ the cross,” the woman called ecstatically, “man be saved, the gol’ be lost …”

  Together, they hustled me to the rear door. Then Mr. Barnaby dragged me into the darkness.

  He tied a rope around my naked waist.

  “You’ve really ’ad the finest luck,” he told me. “Couldn’t ’ave picked a better time of year for it. The moccasins is all tucked up—your bathmate, notwithstanding—and the alligators move wonderful slow in the cold. You’ll be in and out before any ’arm can come to you …”

  At that, the fellow heaved me over his shoulder, carried me down a reedy slope and hurled me into a watercourse.

  I sank.

  The thing of it is, I am not much of a swimmer. Even when my limbs do not dissent.

  Icy water closed over me. I seemed to descend forever. Yet, it cannot have been more than a few, crushed seconds. I stopped face down in heavy mud and grasses. With no air in my lungs.

  Something happened. Twas like the slap across the recruit’s face that calls him back to duty on his first battlefield. My arms and legs thrashed back to life. The frenzy was almost miraculous. I fought and splashed and thrust and found my footing.

  Mick Tyrone could doubtless have explained it all, how the shock of the freezing water vanquished my lethargy, how the mammy’s potion had conquered the poison through some knack of chemistry. Spells and such like had nothing at all to do with it.

  The water was not deep. In moments, I was drinking the cold night air, feet planted solidly near the “bayou’s” shore.

  Mr. Barnaby tugged on the rope, nearly spilling me over.

  “I can extricate myself now, thank you,” I called toward the bank.

  “Lovely, sir, that’s lovely,” he said. “But you might wish to ’urry a bit. The alligators ain’t so slow as all that.”

  Hurry I did.

  As I climbed onto the cold mud of the bank, dripping and shivering, I sought to hide my shame from the mammy’s lantern. But she cackled, “You cain’t cover no big ol’ thing like that with one little stubby hand.”

  I turned about to free myself of the rope. Twas wet and stiff and slimed.

  Mr. Barnaby assisted me. Still, we took some time undoing the knot.

  “It hardly seems to have been necessary,” I observed as the rope fell away.

  Mr. Barnaby shook his head and whispered in my ear, “Madame Bette’s skills ain’t always that reliable.”

  WE DROVE TOWARD the city, with the driver grumbling so loudly we could hear him within the cab. He complained of being delayed and of being hurried, of the tendency of our guards to shoot before issuing a challenge to night-time travelers, then of the poor security provided to honest men of business such as himself. He complained to his horse of wicked practices so various I doubted a single city could contain them all—even New Orleans—and he condemned our Yankee prudery.

  We passed the sentinels again. For a second time, my uniform went our bond. As the city’s humbler lights appeared, I turned to Mr. Barnaby.

  “Surely,” I said, “you don’t believe in that sort of thing. Voodoo, or hoodoo, or whatever it may be called. Science can explain everything. It was all a matter of nervous electricity, of chemical transactions and the like.”

  The slackness of his jowls betrayed the hour, which had slithered past midnight. Truth be told, the fellow had und
ergone some exertion on my behalf. Dubious though his methods may have been. I was not ungrateful, but troubled.

  “It ain’t so much a matter of what I believes,” he told me, “but only of what works, begging your pardon. I wouldn’t say as I believes in any of it, not yours truly, Barnaby B. Barnaby. But it always seems to me a fellow should keep ’imself alert to possibilities.” He sighed, wishing to give me satisfaction. “I looks on life as a business proposition. Not in your mercenary sense of the word, Major Jones. But as a system of trading back and forth, of going to one shop for a certain good as one requires, but to another for something entirely different. One for bottles, one for boots. You might just say I took us to the right shop, that’s ’ow I’d put it.”

  Glad of my recovered powers of speech, but nagged again by my dull, insistent toothache, I said, “You seem to know a good deal about such matters.” My tone was not as nice as I would have liked.

  He shrugged. Even widened by his coat, his shoulders were markedly narrower than his waist. “Oh, I does and I don’t, sir. I learned a good deal from my little Marie, bless ’er. Never was finer woman born to man. I miss ’er still, I does.”

  “You mean that … you allowed your wife …”

  “All’s one, sir, all’s one. Marie was … oh, I’m not ashamed to say it, I ain’t. ’er background was mixed, if I was to put it politely. Not that you’d of knowed it, sir. Not that anyone made a fuss. Looks is what matters in our fair city, looks, not facts and other trivialities. French she looked, so French she was, and mum’s the word hereafter. But she ’ad a wild streak in ’er, sir, and I wouldn’t of ’ad ’er different by an inch.” He sighed again and slumped. “Oh, she kept me ’appy, sir! ’Er and the little ones. And if a man’s kept ’appy, what more can ’e ask?”

  That was a lax philosophy. Though not without its point, that I will give you. For happiness is rare enough among us.

  “Lucky you was, though, sir,” he continued. “That spell was put upon you by no less than Marie Venin ’erself, who is second only to Marie Laveau the Elder. The Widow Paris, as some calls ’er. It’s a blessing that Madame Bette was ’ome and not drunk to an excess.”

  “Mr. Barnaby, I realize that conditions are … somewhat different here. The French influence, no doubt. But was that woman worshipping the devil? Who did she call on? ‘Papa Limber’? Is that Satan?”

  “Oh, no, sir! Not the devil at all, sir, not at all! I wouldn’t ’ave nothing to do with that sort of thing, at least under general circumstances. Papa Limba’s only St. Peter. You must ’ave seen the statues. They prays to ’em just like us regular folks.”

  “Well, since you have a degree of expertise, Mr. Barnaby, perhaps you can help me understand some matters.”

  “I should be glad of it, sir. Indeed, I would.”

  “This evening … after I was rescued from the tomb … there was a violent affair. A darky spoke to me as he lay dying. I recall it clearly, astonishingly so. He said ‘Vodu.’ Thrice. His mother’s name, perhaps?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Not at all. Vodu’s their snake-god. Out of Africa, ’e comes. That’s why they’ve always got a snake somewheres about, the women who take up as priestesses. A voudouienne can’t do ’er work without ’er snake to ’elp ’er.” He rolled his stomach forward. “Vodu, ’e’s the god, although there’s others. Voodoo’s the practice of worshipping ’im. And a few other things besides that don’t bear mentioning.”

  “You said there was no devil worship.”

  “There ain’t. Not exactly.”

  “But … a snake-god? What could such practices have to do with St. Peter?”

  He rolled his head to one side, then the other. “It all becomes a merry bit of a muddle down ’ere, Major Jones. Folks ain’t particular that way. They take what suits, in life and things thereafter. An altar rail’s fine for the morning, but they don’t mind a bit of voodoo after dark.”

  “That’s paganism!”

  “No, sir. That’s New Orleans.”

  “All right, Mr. Barnaby. I will not argue. Not now. But back to the dying fellow, the negro. After he called upon this … this false god … he gazed at me by the lantern light. Just before life left him. And he said the queerest thing. He looked at me and said, ‘Book sand corn.’ Now, what do you make of that? Their religion, too, is it?”

  My companion was mystified. By the inconstant light of the carriage lamp, his face took on an expression of thought unrewarded.

  “Book sand corn,” he repeated, testing and tasting the words.

  “Exactly.”

  “ … book … sand … corn … I must say, I’ve never ’eard the—”

  The fellow sat up. Straight as a grenadier. Although the light was untrustworthy, I do believe his face paled beyond white.

  “You said … you said ’e looked at you, sir … then ’e said, ‘Book sand corn.’ That’s what you said?”

  “Exactly. What’s the matter, Mr. Barnaby?”

  “Le bouc sans cornes …” he whispered. You would have thought he was staring down the devil and starting to falter.

  “But what does it mean?”

  “Le bouc sans cornes …oh, dear.” He leaned toward me, belly preceding the advance of his arms and head. “It’s French, sir, that is. It means ‘the goat without horns.’”

  “A goat without horns? You mean a sheep, perhaps?”

  The poor fellow shook his head gravely. “No, sir. That ain’t it. It’s a human being. Usually, it’s a babe they takes. But on special occasions they chooses themselves a man. As a sacrifice to the snake-god.” He leaned closer still. “And you said the fellow was looking right at you?”

  FOUR

  MR. BARNABY SHOUTED NEW INSTRUCTIONS TO THE driver. We clattered over cobblestones, making a frightful ruckus, but I heard him speak of the “Roo” St. Philip, by way of the “Roo” Dauphine.

  As my companion dressed the bench with his abundance again, I said, “You told the fellow to drive us to the French Quarter. My hotel is on the American side.”

  “Right you are, sir, right you are. No time to be wasted.”

  “Mr. Barnaby … I have had a tiring day and must report to General Banks in the morning. Grateful I am for all you have done, but—”

  He shook his head. “Won’t wait, sir. We’ve got to visit Pére Champlain this hour, and not a breath wasted! They won’t stop trying to kill you and otherwise acting unfriendly, begging your pardon. Only Pére Champlain can ’elp us now.”

  All I wished was a bit of rest and a proper shave come morning.

  “And who,” I asked, “is Pear Champlain?”

  “Pére Champlain, sir? The Americans … those what lives on the other side of Canal, I mean, calls ’im ‘Papa Champ.’ But it’s Père Champlain what’s ’is proper name, and so ’e’s called by them what admires and respects ’im.”

  “But who is the fellow? It must be two in the morning. Why on earth must we—”

  “Pére Champlain’s neither this nor that. ’E’s a little bit of everything. But if anyone knows what’s going on, it’s ’im. I’m counting on ’is mercies, sir, since ’e’s always taken a most peculiar liking to me. Of course, I was the one supplier of gentlemen’s articles and conveniences what come up to ’is needs and standards.” Mr. Barnaby succumbed to a moment’s revery. “Such times we ’ad, before the Yellow Jack spoiled ’em …”

  “He’s not another of these voodoo fellows, is he?”

  “Pére Champlain? Not a bit of it, sir, not a bit of it! I do believe ’is brother was a Jesuit. Although there’s them what might not see the difference. Pére Champlain’s a splendid fellow, known to all what knows. A secret’s not a secret in New Orleans until Pére Champlain’s ’eard it twice.”

  We turned into the old city. The smells grew worse and the look of the creatures haunting the shadows turned grimmer.

  “Won’t the fellow be sleeping at this hour?”

  “Pére Champlain?” Mr. Barnaby looked at me in surprise. “Not at all
, sir, not in the least! I doubt ’e’s even sat ’imself down to dinner.” Registering my confusion, he explained, “’E don’t much like the sunshine anymore, sir. Says it’s bad for the digestion, at ’is age. I dare say ’e likes the quiet after midnight. The better to ’ear things what doesn’t wish to be ’eard.”

  Twas clear that Mr. Barnaby would not be discouraged from helping me and I hardly had the energy to resist. I sat back and tried to put my thoughts in order, coddling my tooth with my tongue. It had been an unruly day and I must say that I did not like New Orleans. Even after the sack of Delhi, the natives were kinder disposed to us than the creoles were to soldiers in blue coats.

  We passed into a curious street of cottages packed together. In one doorway, a colored lassie stood thoughtlessly in her nightdress, holding a candlestick, as a white fellow kissed her farewell.

  Mr. Barnaby noted my dismay. “Begging your pardon, sir, but it ain’t what you’re thinking. It’s true love that, true love! The gentlemen keep their darlings ’ere, them as custom forbids a lad to marry, thanks to certain indiscretions what ’appened at birth. The situation’s good for one and all, sir. Oh, many’s the marriage been saved by a wife’s blind eye. And vicey-versey.”

  I did not comment, but thought, instead and unwillingly, of India.

  We pulled up before a well-lit house that seemed to have strayed into that forlorn street. Old it was. Although I was unfamiliar with the architecture, it hinted at a colony’s early days, in the second generation, when a founding family begins to distinguish itself and spends more on appearances than is sensible. Of two stories, the establishment was not great in size, yet wore a telling grandeur of intent. Two curling staircases, one at either end of a high verandah, reached down to the street like arms stretched out in welcome. Upstairs, lamps shone brightly through the shutters. Yet, a second glance warned that the house would not look so fine by the light of day, but wanted paint and a nail or two.

  Remarkably agile for his bulk, Mr. Barnaby leapt down from the conveyance. As I followed after, a hand caught me by the arm. I nearly gave its owner a lick of my fist.