Fiction > Book editions > New York, 1885 - Dynamiter

258 THE FAIR CUBAN.
they would raise their palms half- closed to
heaven, with a peculiar, passionate gesture of
supplication ; now they would bow their heads
and spread their hands before them on the
ground. As the double movement passed and
repassed along the line, the heads kept rising
and falling, like waves upon the sea ; and still,
as if in time to these gesticulations, the hurried
chant continued. I stood spell -bound, know-
ing that my life depended by a hair, knowing
that I had stumbled on a celebration of the rites
of Hoodoo.
Presently, the door of the chapel opened and
there came forth a tall negro, entirely nude,
and bearing in his hand the sacrificial knife. He
was followed by an apparition still more strange
and shocking : Madam Mendizabal, naked also,
and carrying in both hands and raised to the
level of her face, an open basket of wicker. It
was filled with coiling snakes ; and these, as
she stood there with the uplifted basket, shot
through the osier grating and curled about her
arms. At the sight of this, the fervor of the
crowd seemed to swell suddenly higher ; and
the chant rose in pitch and grew more irregular
in time and accent. Then, at a sign from the
tall negro, where he stood, motionless and
smiling, in the moon and firelight, the singing
died away, and there began the second stage of
this barbarous and bloody celebration. From