post. Inside, the
shadow of the woman flickered across the close bars of bamboo.

II

Bunsen was standing on the jetty when they reached it talking
excitedly with a tall bowed man of fifty or so whose complexion showed
the stippled pallor of long residence in the tropics.

"Here he is now!" Bunsen exclaimed as Simpson approached. "I was just
getting anxious about you. Stopped at the hotel--you hadn't been
there, they said. Port au Prince is a bad place to get lost in.
Oh--this gentleman is our consul. Mr. Witherbee--Mr. Simpson."

Simpson shook hands. Witherbee's face was just a pair of dull eyes
behind a ragged moustache, but there was unusual vigour in his grip.

"I'll see a lot of you, if you stay long," he said. He looked at
Simpson more closely. "At least, I hope so. But where have you been? I
was getting as anxious as Mr. Bunsen--afraid you'd been sacrificed to
the snake or something."

Simpson raised a clerical hand, protesting. His amazing morning swept
before his mind like a moving-picture film; there were so many things
he could not explain even to himself, much less to these two Gentiles.

"I found lodgings," he said.

"Lodgings?" Witherbee and Bunsen chorused the word. "Where, for
heaven's sake?"

"I don't know the name of the street," Simpson admitted. "I don't even
know the name of my hostess. That"--indicating the cripple--"is her
son."

"Good God!" Witherbee exclaimed. "Madame Picard! The _mamaloi_!"

"The--the what?" But Simpson had heard well enough.

"The _mamaloi_--the _mamaloi_--high priestess of voodoo."

"Her house is fairly clean," Simpson said. He was hardly aware of his
own inconsequence. It was his instinct to defend any one who was
attacked on moral grounds, whether they deserved the attack or not.

"Ye-es," Witherbee drawled. "I dare say it is. It's her company that's
unsavoury. Especially for a parson. Eh? What's the matter now?"

Simpson had flared up at his last words. His mouth set and his eyes
burned suddenly. Bunsen, watching him coolly, wondered that he could
kindle so; until that moment he had seemed but half alive. When he
spoke his words came hurriedly--were almost unintelligible; yet there
was some quality in his voice that compelled attention, affecting the
senses more than the mind.

"Unsavoury company? That's best for a parson. 'I come not to bring the
righteous but sinners to repentance.' And who are you to brand the
woman as common or unclean? If she is