VAMPIRISM CREATED BY VOODOO MAGIC

 

 

New York researcher James Henderson Connelly related the following story:

 

Several winters ago, New York experienced a new sensation in the performances of five banjo-players, who appeared nightly in a large third-class but popular drinking saloon, on the west side. Banjo-playing black men had become so common, in such places, that, except when they took up collections, their presence was hardly noticed. But these fellows demanded attention. They did more: they created a furor. Their fame spread until many men, who never before had visited such a place as a saloon in which they performed, made up parties to go and hear them. For cultivated musicians they possessed exceptional fascination and, night after night, famous pianists, celebrated composers, and leading directors of orchestras, came to listen to and study their remarkable music.

 

It was music. Such music as probably was never before heard in New York: wild barbaric music; full of tone combinations that by all the laws of harmony, were violent discords, yet, as torn by the players' fingers from the quivering strings, or beaten from the drum-like heads of their instruments, had strange power to charm and thrill. Very rarely, and most unwillingly, did they ever play any other music than their own. But their repertoire of unmistakably savage airs seemed inexhaustible and infinite in variety; things purely exotic, quite uncontaminated by civilization or diluted by the white man's influence. Sometimes they added to the instrumental effect by adding their voices; in low, weird, strangely broken chants, or short sharp cries of animal ferocity.

 

The leader of the band was a typical black man, only a little above medium height but with the powerful build of a gorilla. His voice was a deep tremendous bass, and he did not, either when he spoke or sang, trouble himself to remove the cigar from his lips. His eyes seemed always half shut, yet he had such sharpness of sight, that no face, or incident, in that big, crowded, smoke-obscured room ever escaped his observations. He even saw, and without turning his head, things that were behind him.

 

Two members of his band were like him in color; the third was a mulatto; and last was a young octoroon, in whom the trace of African blood was only distinguishable at the bases of his nails and the roots of his hair. His skin was so white as to seem almost ghastly. All played with like frenzied rapidity and force, swaying to the music and keeping the most perfect time.

 

 

While they were playing, late one January evening, the burly leader, without looking around at the octoroon whom he addressed and who sat a little behind him, rumbled in Creole patois and a tone of command:

 

-      "Not here, Alonzo; play banjo!"

 

The young man started and color flashed into his pale cheeks, but he made no reply. Of course, he knew, when recalled to himself, that it would not do here. But it was not in his blood to see before him, among the audience, the handsome hated face of that white man, who had so long escaped him, and not think of the long, keen dagger he carried hidden in his breast. It did not at all surprise him that the boss, without seeing him, should have known of the flame in his eyes and the fierce blood longing in his heart.

 

Later, as they went home, the boss and Alonzo walked together, apart from the others and the former asked, "What did he do?"

 

-      "Stole away the girl who was to be my wife; little Lola, the prettiest in New Orleans, and the dearest in the world to me. He must have put a spell on her. Because, although she loved me truly, she went away with him."

 

-      "Where is she now?"

 

-      "I shall have to find out from him. My knife will ask the question from his heart."

 

-      "That is not a good way here in New York. Better-because surer and safer-see Mama Mokele."

 

 

 

Wherever black people are, there is Voodoo. The more numerous they are, the stronger is Voodoo. Under various names and without a name, but always the same. The obscene cult of terror and crime reigns over all the Dark Continent beyond the comparatively small part conquered by Mohammedanism. In Haiti it is, practically, the state religion. It dominates politics, social and domestic life, and even business.

 

It is ineradicable from the black blood of the South. Christianity assails it in vain. That there are sincerely devout Christian colored people, in all parts of the United States, is no doubt true, but even among them, few are proof against the superstitious fears inherited from their ancestors. The faith of the meek and loving Christ promises something in a distant future. Voodoo seems a power of the real present. Hate, revenge, lust, and the fear of death,-master passions in even the lowest intelligences-are the chords upon which Voodoo plays. The Christ is afar off, only to be seen in another life. But the Master of Evil whom the Voodoo priests and priestesses invoke, comes at their summons and in bodily presence accepts the human sacrifice they offer. So, at least, they claim, and the black man who, in his heart, believes that claim false, is rare.

 

Northern white people are wont to say that Voodoo is nothing but brutal superstition and the adroit, unscrupulous use of poisons. Southern white people, who know much more about it, do not think so. Qualified investigators, whose conclusions are at least worthy of respectful consideration, affirm that Voodoo is a terribly degraded form of occultism-lower even than Shamanism-but possessed of a malign potency too serious to be dismissed with a scoff or sneer.

 

Never since slavery existed on Manhattan Island has New York been without representatives of the Voodoo hierarchy, who have always been of pure black blood. The taint of white blood is supposedly fatal to attainment of the highest powers in the dark cult. Few, if any, white persons were ever privileged to meet or know anything about their most potential priests and priestesses. Others, of minor rank, about some of whom clung vehement suspicion that they were mere pretenders, sought a certain publicity, which they knew how to render profitable.

 

Only a few years since, there was one who kept a little botanic drug-shop on lower Sixth A venue, about whom articles were published, setting him forth as the apostle of a "reformed" Voodoo. He declared himself a Voodoo priest but denied participation in the rites of the nocturnal sabbaths-then held, from time to time, at an obscure place on Long Island and another in the New Jersey Pine Barrens where his Satanic Majesty was occasionally invoked by the sacrifice of a child, the "goat without horns." Probably he had little right to call himself a Voodoo priest.

 

In Philadelphia, at that time, was an aged black man who did preside at these ceremonials, assisted by a woman who was said to live in Baltimore-whence, it was whispered, most of the child sacrifices were obtained. It was generally believed that her power was actually much greater than his. She was apparently not more than thirty years old and in face and form was worthy to be called "The Black Venus," yet it was affirmed by octogenarians that she had looked just the same when they were young and that their fathers had a like recollection of her.

 

Mama Mokele, living in New York at the time of the incidents here narrated, was apparently not over thirty years old. Her eyes were brilliant, her skin was smooth, her voice melodious and her form lithe, elastic and graceful as that of a young panther. Was she the Voodoo priestess who came from Baltimore?

 

There were those who affirmed it.

 

 

 

Alonzo readily found her dwelling, a small house on the Northern verge of the black colony on the West side. The room into which he was ushered, was dimly lighted by a pendant above a black marble table, but whether it was a large or a small apartment he could not, for the life of him, have told. It was entirely draped and furnished in black, ceiled and floored with black.

 

Not a dot, line, or gleam of any other color modified that universal nigrescence, except that in a large open fire-place some embers smoldered amid grey ashes on a flat hearth, beneath a brazen pot suspended from a tripod. The heat was stifling, the silence oppressive.

 

He waited several minutes; then, suddenly became aware that a woman was sitting silent and motionless, at the black table, facing him. She was not there when he entered; he could have sworn to that, and he had not heard her come in. The sudden sight of her gave him a shock.

 

-      "Well?" she said enquiringly, in a strangely bell-like tone.

 

Obeying the instructions given to him, he laid several gold coins upon the table.

 

With one hand she swept them into a drawer, where they fell with only a little, soft, mellifluous chinking among themselves, while with t}le other hand she did something that caused the pendant light to grow brighter. He now saw clearly before him a young woman, handsome though intensely black, clad in a gown of black velvet, without even a line of white or a jewel to relieve its ebon hue.

 

-      "Well," she replied, "what do you want, Alonzo Hoa?"

 

He started at her utterance of his name, but immediately said to himself that the boss has no doubt told her he was coming.

 

-      "No," she answered his thought, "I knew you. You came once, in New Orleans, at the summons of the Voodoo drum."

 

-      "And you still remember me!"

 

-      "I have never forgotten anything. Again; what do you want?"

 

-      "Revenge!"

 

-      "Was she worth it?"

 

-      "Oh yes! A thousand times, Yes!"

 

There was a weary cynical smile on her lips as she turned to take from a wall recess, on one side, a large lump of rock crystal, which she laid upon the table before her. For some minutes she gazed fixedly into its pellucid depths, without speaking. Then she said to him:

 

-      "It makes no difference to me, but that white man is not so much to blame as you think."

 

-      "I know that he is. That's enough for me."

 

-      "For me also if you will have it so," she assented indifferently, "he is nothing to me."

 

From where she took the crystal, apparently, she now procured a small round black box, which she opened to receive in it a good tablespoonful of blood drawn from the end of Alonzo's left little finger. When she had taken enough for her purpose, she simply muttered something over the still gushing wound and in a second more, to his great surprise, he was unable to find where the cut had been.

 

-      "Now," she told him, "go away and come back to-morrow night, after twelve o'clock. That will be time enough. You will not see him again until the night after. Then he will return with a friend and you must do what I tell you."

 

-      "And shall I have my revenge T Assure me of that, or I will not be able to refrain from taking it myself, with my knife."

 

-      "The knife would be more kind than what you will give him if you obey me."

 

 

 

When Alonzo returned, the next night, he found Mama Mokele sitting in the same place, behind the black table, as if she had not moved in the interim. The lump of crystal still lay before her and the black box was in her hand.

 

She said:

 

   "Before I trust this to you, I've got to warn you, or your curious unsatisfied white blood will be your ruin. If you were to open this black box now, you'd see nothing but a little half-dried blood. Death is there, but you couldn't see him. Maybe if you could you wouldn't know him for what he is. But he's there, ready and waiting to pounce on whoever sets him free.

 

The earth, and the air, and the water, and the fire, are full of spirits of many different kinds; not dead folks' ghosts-that some call spirits-but beings as real in their way as we are in ours. You can't see them, but I can, because I've got the sight.

 

And I know them. Lots of them are mighty dangerous; others aint until they're made so by people like me. Most of them haven't got much minds and don't know good from bad, but in one thing they're pretty much all alike — more than anything else, they want to live in bodies. And I know how to help them to that, when it suits me, putting them in the shapes I please.

 

I've made one of them a bat, for your service. You gave your blood to start it on the way to being a solid thing. After that, it must have fresh blood. At first it could take only the life principle in the blood. Pretty soon it grows strong enough to drink the blood and can never get enough of it. That is how we produce the bat of death-the Voodoo Vampire.

 

To him who opens the box, the bat will cling so long as he and it will live. If all goes well, he will die first, but it will soon follow him to the shadows, for when it entered physical life it crossed the threshold of death.

 

There: take your box and go along. Slip it into his overcoat pocket, where he will find it when he goes home. He will open it and you need not concern yourself any more about him."

 

 

While she spoke, a feeling of fascinated horror grew upon Alonzo, not so much by reason of what she said, for the easy, plain, common-place way in which she made her explanation minimized its hideous significance, but because of a bodily presence, a something quite diabolic, as it appeared to him, that slowly obtruded itself upon his sight. So gradually that it seemed to be growing rather than moving, the great head of a large serpent came into view above the line of Mama Mokele's left shoulder; first just the tip of its nose, then, rising by hairsbreadths, the flat malignant head that finally remained very still, with its bead-like, baleful eyes gleaming at him.

 

She did not seem conscious of the creature. After a little, it glided down her left arm to the hand that held the little black box, toward which it protruded its quivering forked tongue, enquiringly, tentatively, after the fashion of its kind. Then it went up her right arm, behind her neck, and eventually came to rest where it had first appeared

 

Alonzo had seen too many reptiles to be frightened by any ordinary snake, even a very big one, but Mama Mokele's pet inspired him with fear, for he recognized it as the yellow serpent worshipped by the Voodooists of Haiti as an incarnation of their Infernal Master.

 

 

 

At a late hour, Mr. John Alden, junior member of the reputable legal firm of Reid, Blake & Alden, said "Good-night," at the door of the Garfoyle bachelor apartment house in which he lived, to his closest friend, Dr. Deland, and went up alone to his rooms.

 

The wild, weird music of the African quintette haunted him, and while taking off his overcoat he tried humming one of the airs to fix it in his memory. A handkerchief pulled from a pocket, drew out a small, round, black box, which fell upon the carpet and rolled half-way across the room. He stopped humming and picked it up, saying to himself:

 

-      "Where did I get this thing?"

 

It seemed to be of ivory, stained, jet black, smooth and plain. A screw-thread held its lid securely. He opened it. A smear of some red and black substance on its bottom was all it appeared to contain. He had an idea that the substance was blood. That suggested an explanation. Dr. Deland had no doubt dropped it in his pocket accidentally, by mistake for his own, as they walked together. It seemed like the sort of nasty thing for which a doctor might have some use. Closing it again, he laid it on the mantel and went to bed.

 

Waking consciousness came very slowly to John Alden, the next morning. His eyes were open, but the effort to think whether the hour was late or early, wearied him, and he dropped into a dose, only to wake, with a start, from a hideous dream that he was drowning. His windows were darkened by heavy curtains, but usually he could guess pretty well at the time by the tone of the traffic roar that came up to him from the street below. But this morning, the roar merged itself into a barbaric march played by the African quintette and only confused him. By a violent effort he called: "Ben!"

 

Instantly a cheery voice responded, "Yes Sah; I'se hyeah," and a head was poked in between the portieres.

 

-      "What time is it?"

 

-      "Mos' ten, Sah."

 

-      "The deuce it is! Open up."

 

A flood of sunshine poured into the room, as the valet drew aside the curtains. Having arranged them to his satisfaction, Ben turned toward his master, who was at the moment trying to sit up in bed, and uttered a cry of horror:

 

-      "Faw Godsake! Mistab Alden, what's done happen to you?"

 

-      "I don't know, nothing that I am aware of. But I do feel queerly."

 

-      "You's all blood! Sah."

 

-      "Blood! That's strange!"

 

And Mr. Alden startled into momentarily acting with accustomed energy he jumped out of bed, though his legs almost gave way when he stood. His shoulders seemed to have been resting in a crimson pool that had saturated the bedding and upper portion of his night-shirt. It was not surprising to him now, that he should feel so weak, if all that blood was his.

 

A call over the telephone brought Dr. Deland speedily. The doctor had not yet reached the age when people ceased to speak of him as a "young man," but his professional reputation was —deservedly— such as would have honored a much older man, and his practice was large. Never, however, had he seen, or read of, so strange a mishap as this which had befallen his friend.

 

Copious effusion of blood from badly extravasated tissues, though rather uncommon, would not have surprised him in a certain class of patients, but, not only was John Alden young, physically sound, and entirely free from organic pre-disposition to such a thing, but in this case there was no primary extravasation, and the source of the flow was, in itself, quite unlike anything he had ever seen.

 

In a space as large as a silver dime, directly upon the jugular vein, each pore of the skin had been converted into a little fountain, from which the blood, even yet, poured steadily. It was beyond him to imagine how such a thing could have been possible, but it really looked as if the lesion had been produced by some powerful suction. He applied a strong styptic and the bleeding was at once arrested, but John's vital force had been so depleted that he was quite willing to go back to bed.

 

In the afternoon, Mr. Alden felt well enough to rise, and even made an ineffectual effort to work upon a brief he had to prepare, but had no inclination to go out and, at an early hour in the evening retired. Ben, whose attendance usually was only in day time, demonstrated an anxiety he did not explain and insisted upon passing the night on a couch in the adjoining room, separated only by the portieres from his master. In the middle of the night he was awakened by a cry.

 

By one of those involuntary and unconscious movements common in sleep, John Alden had waked himself. The fingers of his left hand no sooner touched his face than, even in his sleep, he was aware that they dripped with some warm, slippery fluid, which he saw by his night-light, the instant his eyes opened, was fresh blood. It had left a red smear across his face. He tried to sit up, but was so dizzy and weak that he fell back upon his bed.

 

Ben hastily telephoned for Dr. Deland again. That time, the wound was found to be altogether different. It was a triangular puncture, such as is made by a leech, and entered a large vein of the hand. The doctor closed it, and put on a bandage that nearly covered the hand, as the one placed in the morning enveloped the neck.

 

-      "If this keeps on, Doc," said John, weakly smiling, "I'll soon look as if I'd been through a primary election row."

 

-      "I can't guarantee that it won't," replied his friend, "I don't understand it. But I think nothing more of the sort will happen to-night."

 

And he established himself as nurse, until morning, administering regularly the restoratives and stimulants that Ben, at his order, brought in from a neighboring drug-store.

 

Once, John Alden protested that he felt upon his face a little cool wind, such as might be made by the fluttering of some winged creature.

 

-      "That is only a trick of the nerves, caused by your weakness," replied the doctor.

 

John turned upon his left side, away from the light, leaving his right hand exposed on the bed-clothing, and dropped asleep.

 

Half an hour later John suddenly cried out:

 

-      "Harry! I saw it! It's a bat. It was on my hand and darted away when I moved. There it goes now, fluttering into the shadows above that book-case."

 

Dr. Deland looked sharply in the indicated direction but could see nothing moving. "Nonsense! my dear boy,'' he replied,

 

-      "You've been dreaming. A bat here! At this season! Preposterous."

 

-      "Is that so? Well, what do you think of this?" and he held up his right hand, from which blood was streaming.

 

One of the large veins was punctured as the left hand had been, but this wound seemed to be a little larger.

 

-      "Why: this is the most damnably mysterious thing I ever saw in my life," exclaimed the doctor, ''It looks as if you were doing it to yourself."

 

-      "Could I have done that to my jugular?"

 

-      "Certainly not. You know I'm only joking."

 

 

 

Neither of the men noticed, between the portieres, protruded into the room, Ben's woolly head, his broad face, not now of its normally shiny ebon hue, but wearing that strange greenish-yellow tinge produced upon a black countenance by such terror as spreads death-like pallor upon the white man's face.

 

Ben's racial inheritance of superstition made him ready to believe in things the learned white men would have laughed to scorn. With all due deference to their greater intellects and better education, he had a conviction that he knew about those things more than they. The phantom vampire that grew to materiality, feeding upon human blood, was a reality to him.

 

Time and again he had listened, shudderingly and with bated breath, to horrifying tales of its deadly work and he did not doubt that his master had seen it. But what he could not understand was that any one should have evoked the infernal thing to curse John Alden, in whose kindness of heart and goodness he was a firm believer. "He nebber wronged nobody," said Ben to himself, "an' ah'd risk mah life to tuhn dat conjah back on de one dat sent it."

 

Killing the bat, he understood, would save its victim this time, but could not prevent the malignant secret enemy repeating the attack, or doing something else equally bad. It was essential that that enemy should be discovered.

 

How would that be possible?

 

 

In his perplexity he resolved upon that which even a wise man may occasionally do, in extreme cases; he would consult his wife. As Dr. Deland announced his intention to remain all day, in personal attendance upon his patient, Ben readily obtained leave of absence for the afternoon. The bat, he felt assured, would not allow itself to be seen by daylight and he intended to return in time to deal with it, but of that purpose he said nothing.

 

Ben's wife was an exceedingly pretty little Creole quadroon, sprightly and sharp as she was handsome. When he attended his master to a Mardi-Gras festival in New Orleans, two years since, he had met her. Their falling in love was as sudden as mutual; they were married within a week, and ten days later, when he returned north with Mr. Alden, she came along.

 

After hearing her husband's story of the recent alarming events and reflecting a little, she said, but with evident reluctance:

 

-      "I never told you before, Ben; didn't see any use for it; but, it 'pears like I must now. When I met you, I was engaged to marry a young man named Alonzo Hoa. He was a handsome chap and a mighty fine banjo and guitar player, but nearly white and had the name of being dangerous. I know he made me afraid of him and I drew my breath a good deal freer when I got away from New Orleans with you. And now he's here, in New York. I saw him on the street one day last week. Thank the Lord I saw him first, so he didn't see me. He swore, if I ever married anybody but him, he'd cut my heart out."

 

-      "Huh! Don't you be 'fraid, Lola. He got to get mah p'mission fust. But what all dat got to do wif de cunjah on Mistah Alden?"

 

-      "Well; it's pressin' on my mind that nobody but him sent that bat. Some fool sure told him about Mistah Alden dancing with me that night of the quadroon ball, which you know for you were there and said that I might."

 

-      "Dat's all right, Lola. No haam dah."

 

-      "No. But I disappeared from New Orleans the same time Mistah Alden come away and Alonzo has just the mean sort of mind that would think he fetched me. He'd not think of you. But who do you suppose is high Voodoo enough to make that conjure here? Mama Mokele could, I've heard said, but she's in New Orleans."

 

-      "Ah don't know an' haint got no time foh to hunt up de debble's rostah an' look it ober to find her. Mah business is wif dat neahly white coon 'lonzo."

 

-      "Oh I Ben I be careful. He's awful hasty and carries a knife in his breast."

 

-      " 'm. What's de mattah wid de razzed?"

 

 

Ben readily divined the identity of Alonzo with the lightest member of the African Quintette, whom he had heard more than once. But to learn where the young man lived, and catch him at home, were matters of patient persistence and extraordinary luck.

 

Alonzo occupied a dingy room over a low "black and tan" saloon, where he sat this afternoon alone, reflecting moodily upon Mama Mokele's words, "that white man isn't so much to blame as you think.'' He was not a thoroughly bad fellow, at heart, and found himself wishing now that he had allowed her to be more explicit and prove to him, if she could, that he had been mistaken. He was capable of perpetrating any deed of violence, in hot blood, had indeed killed two men in quarrel; but never before had he deliberately invoked the power of Voodoo to procure so terrible a thing as the vampire and the possibility that his victim might be an innocent man, now that he had taken time to reflect upon it, disquieted him.

 

Perhaps it was not so much conscience as fear, that troubled him. Vaguely he remembered having heard that one wrongfully done to death by a Voodoo "cunjah" could return from the other world and take some awful vengeance upon the author of his undoing, not upon the priest or priestess who, as mere instruments were held immune, but the one employing them, which was perhaps just, but alarming. He was wishing he had not been so precipitate in dealing with Mama Mokele, when a loud rap sounded upon his door and in response to his sullen l' Come," a sturdy young man, thoroughly black, entered, saying interrogatively — "Mistah Lonzo Hoa."

 

-      "That is my name."

 

-      "Mine's Ben Radney," volunteered the visitor, closing the door and planting himself in a chair before it. Then he demanded bluntly: "Whaffo' you send dat cunjah to Mistah Alden?"

 

Blank astonishment for a few moments seemed to suspend Alonzo's faculties, even' his breathing. but when he recovered himself a little he replied haughtily, "You are meddling with what's none of your business; and if it were, I don't know what you mean."

 

-      "Dat's a mighty funny speech, an' no paht of it true," retorted Ben placidly. "Ah know why you send dat Voodoo bat to Mistah Alden. You jes dam fool enough to think he cyah'd off Miss Lola f'm New Orleans."

 

-      "So he did I" cried Alonzo, crimsoning with sudden rage.

 

-      "Dat's a lie. Ah did it; me mahse'f. Ah mah'ied huh, brung huh Norf an' she's hyah now, mah wife."

 

-      "You!" exclaimed Alonzo and his right hand flew to his breast, where the ever ready dagger lay.

 

But before his fingers could touch its hilt, Ben with the quickness of a magician, had an open razor within three inches of his throat and told him cooly, "Put dat han' down, an' keep it down, or Ah'll cut yo' haid off."

 

The hand dropped and Ben re-took his chair, first moving closer and keeping the open razor in his hand.

 

-      "Now," pursued Ben, in even tones, as if nothing had occurred to mar the serenity of the interview, "don't you you'se'f think it was a mighty mean thing f oh to do lahk dat to a gemman who nebber mixed up in yo' cousahus an' nebber hah'med nobody!"

 

Alonzo's better nature for once asserted itself, or his superstitious fear of consequences recurred. Tears stood in his eyes and he answered, "Yes. It was. God forgive me. But I thought I was right."

 

-      "Well; now you know different — hyeah's de cole proof you can see foh yo'se'f, Lola's mah'ge lines to me. An' you needn't ax no favohs f'm God, 'less you make good foh de hah 'm you done. Go to de one dat put de cunjah on him an' hab it took off."

 

-      "I'll do what I can'' Alonzo replied, adding after a moment of hesitation in which an evil expression flitted across his face — for him."

 

-      "I'm; ah unde 'stan. But ef you got any designs ob gettin' squah wid somebody else, foh yo' own good, f ohget 'em. 'member dah's three, Lola, me an' de razzar an' dat little blade wuhks quicker'n any cunjah."

 

With elaborately polite manner, Ben bowed himself out, saying "Good day, Mistah Hoa'' and taking good care to face Alonzo, to the last.

 

 

 

Mama Mokele received her client with cool indifference. She had no patience for people who repented of things. If he wanted her aid in some other case, well and good, she was ready; but so far as concerned the matter of the bat, that belonged to the past, she washed her hands of it. Its possible consequences concerned him, not her. She would not, if she could, recall the sanguinary demon she had brought into being and —what was more to the purpose— she could not if she would. Material and visible as it might have become by this time, of course it would soon be slain and anything further happening might be Alonzo's affair, but certainly was not hers.

 

He went away from her in despair, for her words had cast over him a great fear that his death would speedily follow that of the bat. She had not said as much, but so he understood her.

 

But for the very serious condition of his friend, Dr. Deland would have been much amused that evening, by the preposterous story Ben told him about a devil's bat, conjured into being by Voodoo art; that, from a bodiless thing of air came to be a material form, by feeding upon human blood. Of course, as he well knew, such superstition was perfectly ridiculous, but he did not think it worth while troubling himself to say so. He even humored the faithful and evidently well-meaning black man in making arrangements to kill, at sight, the bat which he knew had no other existence than in his unfortunate friend's imagination.

 

One part of these preparations evidenced well the sincerity of Ben's belief in what he affirmed. With his always handy razor, he cut one of his arms, in order to fill a dish with fresh warm blood, such a gash that the doctor had not a little trouble in closing the wound. That dish of blood he placed upon an elevated shelf, in an angle of the room, where a screen would throw a deep shadow over it, while the bed, upon which the young lawyer lay, was kept in full light.

 

"He saw de bat las' night," Ben told the doctor, "because when a man's pretty near de great dahkness he sees wid de eyes ob de sperrit more'n de eyes ob his haid. De fus night, nobody could'a seen it but high Voodoo. De nex' night it hahden up a leetle, but not enough f oh you or me to see. Dis thu 'hd night, ef it gets plenty blood, by midnight it cyahn't hide itself no mo', not I'm nobody. Den we club it down, wid dese." And he procured a pair of tennis racquets one of which the doctor languidly took and placed near his chair. The Doctor weary from his long watch, half-dozed after a while, but Ben kept vividly awake, his nerves tense and thrilling with expectancy.

 

-      "Gosh!" exclaimed the doctor, nervously starting up a little after midnight, ''I must have been asleep. I thought I saw it."

 

-      "Yo' did. I covah'd de hood an' its hunting fob mo', but feah'd to settle in de light. See! Dere it goes!"

 

-      "By Heavens!" cried Dr. Deland excitedly, "It's true! I do see it! Stay on that side of the room to head it off. Ah! Missed it! Almost got it that time!"

 

The flitting creature, darting hither and thither, with almost the speed of light, by erratic sweeps and turns eluded their strokes for several minutes.

 

The noise they made in its pursuit awoke John Alden, who sat up in bed watching them and crying out, "What did I tell you? Didn't I see it? Preposterous nonsense, is it? Just my weak nerves! Eh?"

 

At length a well directed blow of the doctor's racquet met the evil thing in flight and dropped it on the hearth rug, where Ben prompty jumped on it. It was as if he burst a huge capsule of blood. The crimson fluid spattered widely all about and all else left seemed to be a shriveled membrane retaining no semblance of form.

 

Of course, it may have been only "a coincidence," as many persons are fond of calling mysteriously synchronous events, they are unable to explain, but, the next morning after the killing of the bat, Alonzo Hoa was found dead in his bed and the coroner's physician said he had "burst a blood vessel."

 

John Alden, thanks to a good constitution, well conserved, speedily recovered and neither he nor Dr. Deland are among those who say "There is nothing in Voodoo."

 

(“The Voodoo Vampire,” Word, NY, vol. 2, 1906, p.57-63, 117-124)

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATION

 

I could not tell you how true or invented is this story, but esotericism explains that sorcerers can create astral entities, which by absorbing the vital flow of living beings can even materialize on the physical plane, so perhaps it could there is some truth in this story. And anyway I keep it as a testimony to what is mentioned about Voodoo magic.