Part 2

“She sho’ is strange,” Hopey affirmed with deep conviction. “Look at her eyes an’ years an’ toofs an’ nose! Look at her _stomick_--it don’t sag down correck an’ it don’t stick out at de right place----”

“That will do, Hopey!” Mrs. Gaitskill said sharply. “You must not comment on the personal appearance of your guest----”

“She sho’ is a guess--Mis’ Mildred. She’s got me guessin’!”

“Place a chair by the window, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill said. “I’ll keep Diada with me.”

“_Which?_” Hopey howled. “You gwine let dat coon set in yo’ boodwar in one dese gold cheers?”

Hopey placed a rocking-chair by the window and motioned Diada to sit down.

“Set easy, Diader!” she commanded sharply. “Yo’ whole hide couldn’t hold as much money as dat cheer costed. An’ do yo’ manners, nigger! You is de onlies’ coon whutever set down in ole Mis’ Mildred’s settin’-room!”

She turned and walked down-stairs, informing Hitch Diamond in tragic tones that Mrs. Gaitskill had “done gone cripple under de hat.”

Peering through the branches of a large pecan-tree which stood beside the window, Diada could see the purple haze which hung above the Little Moccasin Swamp. Charmed by this vision she settled back in her chair and remained perfectly quiet.

Mrs. Gaitskill sealed all her envelopes; then finding that she lacked a sufficient number of stamps walked down-stairs to the library. The instant she left the room Diada stepped out on the window-sill, poised for a moment, and leaped with the agility of a monkey from the window to a heavy branch of the pecan-tree. Slipping quickly to the ground she started for the Little Moccasin Swamp.

Avoiding the streets of Tickfall by a detour, she struck into a long, swinging, tireless trot, as rapid as the gallop of a mustang, and in twenty minutes swung off into the bridle-path which led to the Gaitskill hog-camp. Her long skirts hindered her by catching upon the briers and underbrush. She stopped, rolled her skirts up above the knees, knotted them into place by a deft twist, then trotted on.

Standing under the shadow of a live-oak-tree on the Little Moccasin ridge, holding a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun, was a diminutive darky named Little Bit. His eager eyes were searching the branches of a hickory tree for an elusive gray squirrel. Little Bit was afraid of snakes, varmints, his own shadow, and “ha’nts.”

“Dis shore is a lonesome place,” he chattered to himself. “I’s got snake-dust in my shoes, an’ a buckeye in my pocket, an’ a buzzard’s feather in my hat--but I ain’t feel like nothin’ cain’t happen----”

Twenty yards away Diada stood in the shadow of another tree watching him. She was very much interested in the little negro, who had his back to her. With absolutely noiseless tread she approached him--her intentions most friendly and peaceable. When she was ten feet away Little Bit turned around and saw her.

The features of Little Bit’s face first expanded, then contracted, then resolved into a heterogeneous mass expressive of more conflicting emotions than he had ever before experienced. The gun fell from his hands and dropped with the barrel resting across his toes. Even in his agony of fright he was conscious of Diada’s shortened skirt, and beheld her big, brown knees, knotted and gnarled like the trunk of a black gum-tree. With a trembling hand he reached upward for his hat--a sure sign he was getting ready to go away from there at his best speed.

Like a flash he wheeled and raced bareheaded down the ridge, slapping his hat against his thigh at every step like a jockey lashing his mount. In a moment he merged himself like a brown, fleeting shadow among the shadows of the overarching trees. Diada picked up the gun, holding it like a club, and striking her tireless trot, followed in his tracks.

Old Isaiah, the venerable negro superintendent of the Gaitskill hog-camp, sat upon the porch of the cabin sunning his rheumatic legs when Little Bit came racing across the clearing at breakneck speed.

“Save my life, Isaiah!” Little Bit shrieked. “She’s a comin’!”

“Sot down, Little Bit,” Isaiah remarked in a sleepy tone. “You gits at least one good skeer eve’y day. Now set yo’ triggers an’ take good aim, an’ git at de right eend of de gun befo’ you shoots her off! Who’s a comin’?”

“Gawd knows!” Little Bit moaned.

“Whut do she look like?” Isaiah demanded.

“She don’t favor nothin’ or nobody!” Little Bit sighed. “_Oo-ee!_ Her’s got on shoes an’ socks, but her dress is cut bobtail----”

He stopped with a shriek. Diada, carrying his gun, came walking sedately across the clearing toward the cabin.

Isaiah gazed upon her for a second, then slowly raised himself to his feet, and with the explosive force of a steam-whistle, he bellowed:

“My--good--gosh!”

He ran to the side of the house where an ax reposed upon the wood-pile. Seizing this, he flourished it in a threatening manner and bawled:

“Hey, dar! Stop! Hol’ up! Quit yo’ foolin’!”

Diada paid no heed to these admonitions, but continued her advance, holding Little Bit’s gun by the end of the barrel and swinging it like a club.

“Throw a chunk at her, Little Bit!” Isaiah howled. “Skeer her away!”

The boy snatched up a pebble, hurled it at Diada, and ducked under the house.

Diada stopped. Beholding Isaiah’s threatening gestures with the ax, she whirled the gun around her head like a cowboy preparing to hurl a lasso, and threw it, butt-foremost, at Isaiah. The weapon curved like an arrow, missed Isaiah’s head by two feet, struck against the side of the cabin, smashing the gun-butt to splinters and discharging both barrels!

Thereupon Isaiah and Little Bit departed from the hog-camp and did not come back for two days.

The sound of the explosion frightened Diada, and she leaped back into the jungle like a deer, struck the Tickfall trail, and one hour later sat down beneath the pecan-tree in Gaitskill’s yard.

* * * * *

Late that night Colonel Tom Gaitskill stuck his head into the door of his wife’s bedroom and demanded in irascible tones:

“Mildred, where are those sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas young Tom sent me from Chicago?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill laughed. “Have you looked for them?”

“Yes, but I can’t find ’em. Come and help me hunt!”

Two minutes later Mrs. Gaitskill stuck her head into her husband’s room and demanded:

“Where is my silk flowered kimono? Is it in your room?”

“No!”

“I can’t find that kimono anywhere!”

The two began a search, but the missing articles were not found. When finally they abandoned the hunt, Gaitskill sighed in relief:

“I hope those pajamas are gone for good. Young Tom was a fool to send me such a slosh of color as they were--made me look like a soused rainbow!”

IV

A KIMONO-CLAD APPARITION

The next evening, promptly at eight o’clock, the members of the Dunlap Missionary Society began to arrive. Then Colonel Tom Gaitskill became uneasy and sought out his wife:

“Mildred, are you planning to bring that cannibal wench into the drawing-room and show her off?”

“Certainly, Tom,” she replied. “That’s why I invited the ladies here--to see Diada.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“No. How could I? I’ve dressed her nicely, and she’s--well--tolerably presentable.”

“Have you ever heard her say a word?”

“No.”

“Does she appear to understand what you say?”

“No--I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill answered.

Gaitskill rubbed his hand across his forehead, then swept it down his long, white beard.

“All right, Mildred,” he grinned. “It’s your obsequies. But I hope that dear heathen won’t perform any circus stunts.”

The conversation was brought to a close by the arrival of the Reverend Dr. Sentelle, an aged, feeble, badly crippled man, who leaned heavily upon his walking stick as he entered the door.

That walking stick was a curiosity. At the large end it was as big around as an average man’s leg, tapering slightly toward the lower end, and weighing eleven pounds! Thus spoke the owner about it:

“Sir, this stick came from the battlefield of Shiloh. I was wounded in that battle, sir, and as you can observe, have been a cripple ever since. I fell beneath a dogwood tree and lay there for nearly two days. After the surrender, sir, I returned to the battlefield and cut down that tree and have carried it ever since as a walking stick. The tree was fertilized by my blood, sir, and it is only just that it should bear my infirmities.”

While imparting this information, it was the invariable custom of the venerable preacher to catch his stick by the little end and emphasize his remarks by waving it above his auditor’s head. And as he could not stand for any length of time without his cane, it was a common thing to see him during his pulpit discourses reverse his stick and shake it at the heads of his congregation, exactly as many an irate baseball player has punctuated his remarks to the fans in the grand stand by flourishing a bat.

As Dr. Sentelle entered the room upon the arm of Colonel Gaitskill, the guests knew that all were present who had been invited. They stiffened in their seats. They had heard much about Diada since her arrival in Tickfall and they were awed to an electric silence of waiting, holding themselves in smiling readiness for the entrance of the stranger from the cannibal islands of the Pacific Ocean.

The minutes passed. The silence became oppressive. Colonel Gaitskill jiggled his feet. Then through the open window came the voice of Mrs. Gaitskill:

“Hopey, have you seen Diada?”

“No’m. I ain’t saw her. I ain’t pesterin’ my mind ’bout her. Dat nigger ain’t my kind of black folks!”

“Go find Diada at once! Bring her into the drawing-room! Hear me!”

“Yes’m, I’ll fotch her in!”

Twenty minutes later Mrs. Gaitskill entered the drawing-room alone. The situation was embarrassing, but Mrs. Gaitskill was not even slightly flustered. She possessed an immense reserve of coolness which contrasted sharply on this occasion with the painful distraction of her husband.

The minutes passed--leaden minutes. Some of the guests made a pretense of little conversational flurries.

“Our missionaries are so heroic--The lecture was so edifying--How they must love their work--I have often felt a call--Their lives are very lonely--Sacrifice and service--My daughter shows such a fine missionary spirit--I tell Eula--The lovely cannibals--I always say--Of course----”

These hushed, tentative fragments of conversation were interrupted by the triumphant, booming voice of Hopey:

“Hey, dar--you deef ’n’ dum’ nigger! Whut you mean by keepin’ Mis’ Mildred’s comp’ny waitin’? Ain’t you got no manners?”

Still the minutes passed.

Colonel Gaitskill became quite distraught, and excusing himself, slipped up-stairs and helped himself to the contents of a private decanter. He came back to face the same intense, expectant silence which some of the guests attempted to relieve by exchanging seats with other guests. Once more there were scattering efforts at normal talk:

“The Christmas ship to the Belgians--Splendid missionary spirit--I haven’t much to give--I told her God loves the dear cannibals--Home and foreign--All the chickens I took from under the setting hen----”

“Git on up dem front steps!” Hopey howled, as if she were driving a pig. “Go on in dat front do’! Hurry!”

The front door opened and Diada entered, advanced to the center of the drawing-room, and stopped.

It is impossible to describe the peculiar sound which was emitted from the throats of the twenty women at their first sight of Diada.

Her physical ugliness was deplorable and appalling; but that which produced the peculiar utterance from the missionary ladies was this:

Diada was clothed in Mrs. Gaitskill’s light-blue, pink-flowered kimono, and beneath that she wore Colonel Gaitskill’s sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas!

Diada was six feet tall, and the kimono ended just below her knee and flared wide open in front, for two garments of the same size could not have enveloped her. The pajamas ended just above Diada’s black shoes and revealed about four inches of her stocking--the shoes and stockings being all that she now wore of the garments with which Mrs. Gaitskill had originally clothed her for the reception.

Diada stared about her for a moment, then sat down upon the piano seat.

Her ponderous elbow struck the keys with a crashing discord, and Diada gave forth a sound expressive of delight--it sounded like the snort of an elephant. Then using her elbows instead of her hands, the dear immortal heathen proceeded to make the most unheavenly noise that ever vexed the ears of Christian missionaries, home or foreign.

In the midst of this horrifying situation, Hopey entered the drawing-room, her hands resting upon her hips, her mouth bawling voluble apologies:

“My Gawd, Mis’ Mildred! I ain’t to blame fer dis here turr’ble sight! I foun’ Diader settin’ under de pecan tree in de dark, an’ I couldn’t tell whut she had on till she done open dat front do’ an’ went in whar de light wus shinin’. Lawdamussy! Diader favors a scrambled circus band-waggin!”

The ladies of the missionary society covered their faces with their flimsy, transparent handkerchiefs, and kept up that peculiar sound of outraged modesty.

Then Diada broke out in a new place.

Still pounding on the piano with her naked elbows, she began to sing--singing with a voice which caused the tiny threads in the electric-light globes to quiver and grow dim, and wrought such havoc in the ears of the missionary women that they followed Diada’s heathen music with a Christian accompaniment of startling yelps, like the frightened squeaks one hears at the county fair when the unsophisticated village maidens loop the loop or dip the dip or hear the wild man of Borneo roar.

Colonel Tom Gaitskill sprang to his feet, seized Dr. Sentelle’s walking stick by the little end, and flourished it at Hopey.

“Hopey!” he whooped to be heard above the noise, “you take that--infernal--female--wench out of this house. Do it now! I’ll----”

Diada turned around and looked at Colonel Gaitskill. She beheld an immense club flourished threateningly above her head. On the day before, she had seen old Isaiah at the hog-camp waving an ax at her with the same menacing gesture.

With a loud whoop, Diada sprang across the drawing-room, dived headfirst through a large plateglass window, ran across the yard, and departed from Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s hospitable home forever.

V

HITCH ENLISTS THE PARSON’S AID

On the following morning, Mrs. Tom Gaitskill had a real cause for worry: Diada could not be found and was last seen going toward the Little Moccasin Swamp.

This swamp was twelve miles long and eight wide, traversed by winding streams of slow-moving, oily, yellow water, abounding with quagmires, full of poisonous vines and deadly serpents, the feeding range of wild hogs as vicious as wolves. It was a man-trap, a dreadful place to all except the most experienced woodsmen. Many a hunter had led his squirrel-dog into that swamp, and only the dog found his way back home. The man’s friends found him a few days later by watching the spiral flight of the buzzards concentrating at one spot in the jungle.

“Tom,” Mrs. Gaitskill exclaimed in anxious tones, “you must send Hitch Diamond after Diada at once!”

“Let her go!” Gaitskill replied indifferently. “I’m surfeited with her society. Maybe she’ll come back after a while.”

“You know she will not, Tom,” Mrs. Gaitskill protested with glistening eyes. “If she is not captured before she gets too deep in that swamp, she is gone forever.”

“If she took my pajamas with her, I’m fully resigned to the will of the Lord,” Gaitskill grinned. “They’re gone forever, too.”

“Oh, hush!” Mrs. Gaitskill begged, her fine face flushed with mortification. “Oh, those garments in my reception-room--I can’t bear to think of them! But we can’t let her wander off in that swamp and die.”

“I’ll send Hitch after her--if he’ll go,” Gaitskill said, and walked back toward the rear of the house, where he located Hitch, not by sight, but by sound:

“My wife’s strong-minded, She’s double-j’inded, She ain’t tame, Scan’lize my name----”

The negro ceased singing, jerked off his big hat, and sprang to his feet.

“Hitch,” Gaitskill began, “Diada ran away last night. I want you to find her.”

“Yes, suh; Hopey narrate me about dat.”

“Go out into the swamp and find her!” Gaitskill commanded.

Hitch sat down and scratched his head; he plowed up the dirt with the toe of his ponderous boot; he slapped at the flies with his hat. He was trying to think up a plausible lie as an excuse for declining the proffered job.

“Naw, suh, Marse Tom,” he said slowly. “I’s powerful sorry, but I jes’ nachelly, can’t go--er--de lodge meets to-night----”

“You’ll be back before night,” Gaitskill assured him.

“Yes, suh, but I gotter hustle aroun’ an’ git some money to pay my dues----”

“I’ll pay your dues.”

“Yes, suh, but--er--I gotter had my lodge clothes cleaned an’ pressed, an’----”

“Get some nigger to do that for you. I’ll pay him.”

“Yes, suh----”

Hitch stopped. His resources were exhausted. He looked at Gaitskill with a face as expressionless as a glass-eyed doll. “Marse Tom is sho’ a quick ketcher,” he thought. Then he spoke aloud:

“Marse Tom, I jes’ nachelly don’t wanter go atter dat coon! Why don’t you an’ me jes’ let her ramble? Us kind of folks hadn’t oughter pay dat nigger no pertick’ler mind--she ain’t----”

Gaitskill turned and walked away.

He was too much in sympathy with Hitch’s argument to discuss the matter. He salved his conscience with the reflection that he had told Hitch to go, although he was pretty sure that Hitch would slip off down-town, stay hid all day, and return at night to report that he had failed to find Diada.

But contrary to Gaitskill’s expectations, Hitch did some heavy thinking, then sought out the Rev. Vinegar Atts, pastor of the Shoofly church.

“Elder,” he began, “does you b’lieve in cornvertin’ de heathen?”

“Suttinly,” Atts replied, scenting a contribution for foreign missions.

“Well, suh,” Hitch declared, “now is de choosen time to get right nex’ to a shore-’nuff she-heathen. Marse Tom is got her out to his house on a little visit, an’ las’ night de Revun Sentelle an’ all de miss’nary ladies of Marse Tom’s chu’ch was makin’ ’miration over dat coon, an’ I figgers dat us Mef’dis niggers oughter jub’late too.”

“Shorely, shorely!” Vinegar Atts boomed. “Whar is dis here she-heathen at?”

“Her’s gone out fer a walk in de Little Moccasin Swamp,” Hitch informed him. “Ef us walks out to’des de swamp, ’pears to me we mought meet up wid her an’ git real good acquainted.”

“Dat’s good argufyin’,” Vinegar responded, reaching for his hat. “Whut do she look like?”

“Her looks like us niggers--only ’bout fawty’leben times more!” Hitch told him.

“Kin she talk?”

“Yes, suh, but a feller cain’t ketch on to nothin’ she specifies. It’s a kind of jibber-jabber monkeytalk dat lubricates a whole lot, but it don’t show whar at!” Hitch informed him, wondering at the same time how she really did talk--for Hitch had never heard a sound from her throat.

“Ef she cain’t talk to us, an’ we cain’t talk to her, we shore ain’t gwine fuss an’ fall out!” Vinegar declared.

The big, fat, squat-legged preacher trotted along beside the giant prize-fighter toward the swamp, and by the time they turned off the main road on to the bridle-path which led to the Gaitskill hog-camp, Hitch had told the preacher as much about Diada as he thought Vinegar ought to know. Needless to say, he did not mention her ugliness, her size, her love for raw meat, nor his own overwhelming fear of her.

“Whut’s de matter wid dis swamp, Hitch?” Vinegar demanded, gazing at the trees and wiping the copious sweat from his face.

The swamp had suddenly become as hot as an anteroom to hell. The trees had lost their green sparkle, assuming the colors of decay--corpseyellow and livid green, shining with an oily, sickening glitter.

Hitch shuddered. It was easy for him to believe that Diada had conjured the swamp and had caused it to assume this aspect of menace.

“Less hump along to’des de hog-camp, Revun!” he exclaimed. “I’s skeart of dis place. I been talkin’ to hear my tongue rattle, but now I kin shet my mouf an’ hear my jaws rattle.”

Something scared the birds in the jungle and they flew shriekingly from tree to tree, all going in the same direction.

Submerged among the immense trees of the jungle the negroes could not tell what was happening in the heavens, but they noticed that the sun had changed, no longer spraying off of the tops of the trees like falling water, and the path at their feet had become almost invisible in the darkness.

A wind suddenly swept through the forest, cold as a breeze from the arctic icebergs. Every tree and shrub leaned away from that icy blast, and vines which trailed the ground for hundreds of feet slowly rose up and whirled and writhed in the air like long, slim snakes. In twenty seconds that one puff of wind had passed and there was no more, and the scalding heat rose from the ground like steam from the boiling caldrons of Tophet.

At any other time, Hitch Diamond would have known that a Southern rain-storm was coming and would have paid no attention to it except to seek a cleared spot in the forest, where the dead limbs falling from the trees could not impale him to the ground.

But now his fear was superstitious, and it became infectious to Vinegar Atts and the two raced before the storm like catboats on a wind-swept lake.

Then the rain fell--fell exactly as if some great Titan’s hands had lifted up the silver bowl of the Gulf of Mexico and emptied its contents on their heads. The first big drop felt like a bucketful and seemed to wet them all over.

From that moment they stumbled rather than ran, simply fell forward, caught themselves, and fell forward again--who could run under Niagara’s tumbling flood?

And thus they ran blindly into the august presence of Diada!

Just as another icy blast swept through the jungle, lasting for twenty seconds and stopping the rain, the two men looked up and beheld Diada, facing the breeze, standing in their path like a rooted tree. She still wore Mrs. Gaitskill’s light-blue, pink-flowered kimono, and that gaudy garment trailed out behind her and snapped in the breeze, resembling the variegated tail of some enormous tropic bird.

To the astounded men Diada looked as big as a skinned mule.

With a shriek Hitch Diamond dodged around her, leading Vinegar Atts in the flight by a nose, and the two men ran on toward the hog-camp--the falling rain thundering around them like the sound of a troop of cavalry crossing a wooden bridge.

As they plunged across the open clearing in front of the cabin Hitch looked back.

Diada was forty steps behind him, trotting easily, covering incredible space with each step, her horrible mouth twisted into a cannibal grin. But it did not look like a grin to Hitch--those immense, protruding teeth and the repulsively thick lips curled back above and beneath them reminded him of nothing so much as the mouth of an angry, biting jackass.

“Here she comes, Vinegar!” Hitch bawled. “Come in an’ shet de do’!”

But they were too late. Diada’s foot struck the bottom step of the little porch just as Hitch reached the top step. Diada grasped Hitch by the coattail and was towed into the house by that frightened giant who promptly shucked off his coat as he passed through the door and let Diada have it.

Vinegar Atts turned around and took a long look at Diada. He reeled back against the wall, covered his eyes with his hands, and in horror-stricken tones he bellowed:

“Come here, Hitch, an’ he’p me! Somepin’ is done happened to my eyesight--I ain’t seein’ right!”

VI

PLACATING A DERVISH

Outside the wind and rain roared like a hurricane and great lumps of hail struck upon the solid roof of the cabin like brickbats, rolled off, and hit the ground with a loud click.