hat? Take the
old man right up!"

CHAPTER LVII

VOUDOU CURED

"Honore," said Agricola, faintly, "where is Honore!"

"He has been sent for," said Doctor Keene and the two ladies in a
breath.

Raoul, bearing the word concerning Clemence, and the later messenger
summoning him to Agricola's bedside, reached Honore within a minute of
each other. His instructions were quickly given, for Raoul to take his
horse and ride down to the family mansion, to break gently to his mother
the news of Agricola's disaster, and to say to his kinsmen with
imperative emphasis, not to touch the _marchande des calas_ till he
should come. Then he hurried to the rue Royale.

But when Raoul arrived at the mansion he saw at a glance that the news
had outrun him. The family carriage was already coming round the bottom
of the front stairs for three Mesdames Grandissime and Madame Martinez.
The children on all sides had dropped their play, and stood about,
hushed and staring. The servants moved with quiet rapidity. In the hall
he was stopped by two beautiful girls.

"Raoul! Oh, Raoul, how is he now? Oh! Raoul, if you could only stop
them! They have taken old Clemence down into the swamp--as soon as they
heard about Agricole--Oh, Raoul, surely that would be cruel! She nursed
me--and me--when we were babies!"

"Where is Agamemnon?"

"Gone to the city."

"What did he say about it?"

"He said they were doing wrong, that he did not approve their action,
and that they would get themselves into trouble: that he washed his
hands of it."

"Ah-h-h!" exclaimed Raoul, "wash his hands! Oh, yes, wash his hands?
Suppose we all wash our hands? But where is Valentine? Where is Charlie
Mandarin?"

"Ah! Valentine is gone with Agamemnon, saying the same thing, and
Charlie Mandarin is down in the swamp, the worst of all of them!"

"But why did you let Agamemnon and Valentine go off that way, you?"

"Ah! listen to Raoul! What can a woman do?"

"What can a woman--Well, even if I was a woman, I would do something!"

He hurried from the house, leaped into the saddle and galloped across
the fields toward the forest.

Some rods within the edge of the swamp, which, at this season, was
quite dry in many places, on a spot where the fallen dead bodies of
trees overlay one another and a dense growth of willows and vines and
dwarf palmetto shut out the light of the open fields, the younger and
some of the harsher senior members of the Grandissime famil