“Good. I’ll leave you. See you this evening,” he said.
“Yes, in front of the church.”
But the cook did not let go of D’Arrast’s hand. He hesitated. Finally he made up his mind.
“And you, have you never called out, made a promise?”
“Yes, once, I believe.”
“In a shipwreck?”
“If you wish.” And D’Arrast pulled his hand away roughly. But as he was about to turn on his [187] heels, he met the cook’s eyes. He hesitated, and then smiled.
“I can tell you, although it was unimportant. Someone was about to die through my fault. It seems to me that I called out.”
“Did you promise?”
“No. I should have liked to promise.”
“Long ago?”
“Not long before coming here.”
The cook seized his beard with both hands. His eyes were shining.
“You are a captain,” he said. “My house is yours. Besides, you are going to help me keep my promise, and it’s as if you had made it yourself. That will help you too.”
D’Arrast smiled, saying: “I don’t think so.”
“You are proud, Captain.”
“I used to be proud; now I’m alone. But just tell me: has your good Jesus always answered you?”
“Always . . . no, Captain!”
“Well, then?”
The cook burst out with a gay, childlike laugh.
“Well,” he said, “he’s free, isn’t he?”
At the club, where D’Arrast lunched with the leading citizens, the Mayor told him he must sign [188] the town’s guest-book so that some trace would remain of the great event of his coming to Iguape. The Judge found two or three new expressions to praise, besides their guest’s virtues and talents, the simplicity with which he represented among them the great country to which he had the honor to belong. D’Arrast simply said that it was indeed an honor to him and an advantage to his firm to have been awarded the allocation of this long construction job. Whereupon the Judge expressed his admiration for such humility. “By the way,” he asked, “have you thought of what should be done to the Chief of Police?” D’Arrast smiled at him and said: “Yes, I have a solution.” He would consider it a personal favor and an exceptional grace if the foolish man could be forgiven in his name so that his stay here in Iguape, where he so much enjoyed knowing the beautiful town and generous inhabitants, could begin in a climate of peace and friendship. The Judge, attentive and smiling, nodded his head. For a moment he meditated on the wording as an expert, then called on those present to applaud the magnanimous traditions of the great French nation and, turning again toward D’Arrast, declared himself satisfied. “Since that’s the way it is,” he concluded, “we shall dine this [189] evening with the Chief.” But D’Arrast said that he was invited by friends to the ceremony of the dances in the huts. “Ah, yes!” said the Judge. “I am glad you are going. You’ll see, one can’t resist loving our people.”
That evening, D’Arrast, the ship’s cook, and his brother were seated around the ashes of a fire in the center of the but the engineer had already visited in the morning. The brother had not seemed surprised to see him return. He spoke Spanish hardly at all and most of the time merely nodded his head. As for the cook, he had shown interest in cathedrals and then had expatiated at length on the black bean soup. Now night had almost fallen and, although D’Arrast could still see the cook and his brother, he could scarcely make out in the back of the but the squatting figures of an old woman and of the same girl who had served him. Down below, he could hear the monotonous river.
The cook rose, saying: “It’s time.” They got up, but the women did not stir. The men went out alone. D’Arrast hesitated, then joined the others. Night had now fallen and the rain had stopped. The pale-black sky still seemed liquid. In its transparent dark water, stars began to light up, low on [190] the horizon. Almost at once they flickered out, falling one by one into the river as if the last lights were trickling from the sky. The heavy air smelled of water and smoke. Near by the sound of the huge forest could be heard too, though it was motionless. Suddenly drums and singing broke out in the distance, at first muffled and then distinct, approaching closer and closer and finally stopping. Soon after, one could see a procession of black girls wearing low-waisted white dresses of coarse silk. In a tight-fitting red jacket adorned with a necklace of varicolored teeth, a tall Negro followed them and, behind him, a disorderly crowd of men in white pajamas and musicians carrying triangles and broad, short drums. The cook said they should follow the men.
The hut, which they reached by following the river a few hundred yards beyond the last huts, was large, empty, and relatively comfortable, with plastered walls. It had a dirt floor, a roof of thatch and reeds supported by a central pole, and bare walls. On a little palm-clad altar at the end, covered with candles that scarcely lighted half the hall, there was a magnificent colored print in which Saint George, with alluring grace, was getting the better of a bewhiskered dragon. Under [191] the altar a sort of niche decorated with rococo paper sheltered a little statue of red-painted clay representing a horned god, standing between a candle and a bowl of water. With a fierce look the god was brandishing an oversized knife made of silver paper.
The cook led D’Arrast to a corner, where they stood against the wall near the door. “This way,” he whispered, “we can leave without disturbing.” Indeed, the hut was packed tight with men and women. Already the heat was rising. The musicians took their places on both sides of the little altar. The men and women dancers separated into two concentric circles with the men inside. In the very center the black leader in the red jacket took his stand. D’Arrast leaned against the wall, folding his arms.
But the leader, elbowing his way through the circle of dancers, came toward them and, in a solemn way, said a few words to the cook. “Unfold your arms, Captain,” the cook said. “You are hugging yourself and keeping the saint’s spirit from descending.” Obediently D’Arrast let his arms fall to his sides. Still leaning against the wall, with his long, heavy limbs and his big face already shiny with sweat, D’Arrast himself looked like [192] some bestial and kindly god. The tall Negro looked at them and, satisfied, went back to his place. At once, in a resounding voice, he intoned the opening notes of a song that all picked up in chorus, accompanied by the drums. Then the circles began to turn in opposite directions in a sort of heavy, insistent dance rather like stamping, slightly emphasized by the double line of swaying hips.
The heat had increased. Yet the pauses gradually diminished, the stops became less frequent, and the dance speeded up. Without any slowing of the others’ rhythm, without ceasing to dance himself, the tall Negro again elbowed his way through the circles to go toward the altar. He came back with a glass of water and a lighted candle that he stuck in the ground in the center of the hut. He poured the water around the candle in two concentric circles and, again erect, turned maddened eyes toward the roof. His whole body taut and still, he was waiting. “Saint George is coming. Look! Look!” whispered the cook, whose eyes were popping.
Indeed, some dancers now showed signs of being in a trance, but a rigid trance with hands on hips, step stiff, eyes staring and vacant. Others quickened their rhythm, bent convulsively backward, and began to utter inarticulate cries. The [193] cries gradually rose higher, and when they fused in a collective shriek, the leader, with eyes still raised, uttered a long, barely phrased outcry at the top of his lungs. In it the same words kept recurring. “You see,” said the cook, “he says he is the god’s field of battle.” Struck by the change in his voice, D’Arrast looked at the cook, who, leaning forward with fists clenched and eyes staring, was mimicking the others’ measured stamping without moving from his place. Then he noticed that he himself, though without moving his feet, had for some little time been dancing with his whole weight.
But all at once the drums began to beat violently and suddenly the big devil in red broke loose. His eyes flashing, his four limbs whirling around him, he hopped with bent knee on one leg after the other, speeding up his rhythm until it seemed that he must eventually fly to pieces. But abruptly he stopped on the verge of one leap to stare at those around him with a proud and terrible look while the drums thundered on. Immediately a dancer sprang from a dark corner, knelt down, and held out a short saber to the man possessed of the spirit. The tall Negro took the saber without ceasing to look around him and then whirled it above his [194] head. At that moment D’Arrast noticed the cook dancing among the others. The engineer had not seen him leave his side.