O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

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"Gennlemen," he said, "Ah sho appreciates yo' good sperit in dis
hyar unfo'tunate affair. But Ah tells you-all hyar an' now dat
Dominique Raffin ain't no mo' Voodoo den Ah is. Now, Ah ain't sayin'
dat he _ain't_ a Voodoo, an' Ah ain't sayin' dat Ah _am_ one. All Ah
says is dat Ah's as _much_ of a Voodoo as he is--an' Ah'm willin' to
prove it!"

"How you-all do dat, Ambrose?" asked somebody.

"Ah'm comin' to dat," replied Ambrose. "If you-all wants to decide
dis mattah beyont all doubt, Ah respekf'ly suggests dat we hold a
_see_-ance in dis hyar room, under any c'nditions dat you-all kin
d'vise. If Ah cain't show yo mo' supernat'ral man'festations dan he
can, Ah gives him fifty dollahs. If it's de oder way 'roun', he
leaves de city within twenty-fo' hours. Is dat fair?"

"Well, it suttinly soun's puff'cly jest," replied Mr. Scott.
"We-all will appint a committee to frame de rules of de _see_-ance,
an' make 'em fair fo' both. You's been willin' to prove yo'-se'f,
Ambrose, an' yo' couldn't do mo'. If dis m'latter Voodoo don't want
to do lak'wise, he can leave dese pahts moughty sudden. Ain't dat so,
gennlemen?"

"Yassuh--he'll leave _quick_!" was the threatening reply.

"All right den, Ambrose," continued the spokesman, "we'll 'range fo'
dis sperit-summonin' contes' jes' as soon as we kin. We'll have it
nex' Satiddy night at lates'. Meanwhile we-all is moughty obleeged
to yo' for yo' willin'-ness to do de right thing."

The great night arrived, and San Juan, dressed in its gala finery,
wended its chattering way to the Senegambian seance. But beneath the
finery and the chatter ran a subtle under-current of foreboding, for
your negro is superstitious, and, well, _Voodoos are Voodoos_!

Dominique Raffin, dressed in somber black, went to the club alone
and unattended save by Miss Aphrodite Tate. San Juan, fearing the
Raffin mulatto and his ghostly powers, had held its respectful
distance ever since the evening when Ambrose and his rage had
revealed them. Familiarity breeding contempt, Miss Aphrodite knew
her man, and feared him not.

They found the rooms of the social club full of excited negroes, for
never before in San Juan's history had such a momentous event been
scheduled. Raffin and Aphrodite were received with a fearsome
respect by Behemoth Scott, who had been appointed master of
ceremonies.

"Jes' make yo'se'f to home," he greeted them. "Mista Travis ain't
come yit; we has ten minutes befo' de contes' styarts."

At last, with a bare minute to spare, Ambrose smilingly entered. He
wore his splendid full-dress suit, a wonderful creation of San
Juan's leading tailor, who, at Ambrose's tasteful suggestion, had
faced the lapels with satin of the most royal purple. Set out by
this background of colourful lapel was a huge yellow chrysanthemum,
while on the broad red band that diagonally traversed his shining
shirt front glittered like a decoration, the insignia from his
Swalecliffe uniform cap.

"Good evenin', folks," was his cheerful greeting. "If you-all is
quite ready fo' dis _see_-ance, an' provided mah--er--wuthy opponent
am ready, Ah'd jes' as soon _pro_ceed."

Miss Aphrodite gazed on the imposing figure of Ambrose with more
than a little admiration. Comparing him with the trembling Raffin,
she found much in his favour.

All but his footwear. Accustomed as she had become to the glistening
patent leathers affected by Raffin, Ambrose's clumsy congress
gaiters somewhat marred his gorgeousness. Nevertheless, she felt her
affections wavering. Her speculations were interrupted by the voice
of the master of ceremonies:

"Ladies an' gennlemen," began Mr. Scott, "we-all has d 'cided to
form a circle of twelve of our membahs wif dese two Voodoo gennlemen
asettin' opp'site each oder in de circle. In o'dah to preclude any
poss'bility of either Mista Travis or Mista Raffin from leavin' dere
places, we has d'cided to tie dem to dere cheers by ropes passed
'roun' dere bodies an' fastened to de backs of de cheers. De lights
will den be distinguished. When he lights is tu'ned out, Mista
Raffin will be given fifteen minutes in which to summon de
supernat'ral proofs--whatevah dey may be--of his bein' Voodoo. Den
Mista Travis will be given his chanct."

Amid the hushed whisperings of the assemblage the committee, six men
and six women, Aphrodite included, took their places in the circle.
Ambrose and the mulatto were seated opposite each other and were
perhaps twelve feet apart. Raffin, nervously licking his lips, sat
bolt upright while members of the committee passed ropes around him
and the back of his chair, and tied his hands. In direct contrast to
his rival, Ambrose slouched down in his seat and joked with the
trembling members as they secured him in his place.

Those not on the committee crowded close to the chair backs of the
circle in order that nothing should escape them. The excitement was
tense, and everyone was breathing hard. When all was ready
Mr. Behemoth Scott took his place in the circle. Drawing a long
breath and grasping his chair for support, he spoke in a hushed
and husky voice: "All raidy, now? Ah asks silence from eve'body.
_Turn out de lights_"!

At the fateful words Stygian darkness enveloped the crowded room.
The shades had been drawn and not the faintest ray from the dim
street lights penetrated the place. It was stifling hot, and the
assembled investigators were perspiring freely....

Silence--black, awe-inspired silence! Two hundred pairs of
superstitious eyes peered into the horrible gloom--two hundred pairs
of ears strained at the tomblike stillness. The suspense was awful,
and none dared move. Occasionally some familiar sound came from the
world outside: the clang of the Tenth Avenue car or the whistle of a
tugboat out in the river, but these sounds were of another
existence--they seemed distant and unfamiliar and wholly out of
place in the mystery and terror of the Voodoo seance.

The minutes slid by, and nothing happened. The suspense was worse
than ever. Something stirred in the circle. Two hundred hearts
missed a beat. Then the whining, terror-stricken voice of the
mulatto broke the stillness: "Let Travis try," he whispered hoarsely.
"My spirits will not come until 'e 'as tried. Let 'im try fo'
fifteen minutes, and when 'e 'as failed I will summon the ghost of
Bula-Wayo, the king of all the tribes of the Niger. But let Travis
try first!" This last almost pleadingly.

A moment more of silence and Ambrose's deep voice boomed forth in
the darkness.

"Ah's willin'," he declared. "Anythin' dat now appears will be mah
doin'--ten minits is all Ah asks. Am dat sat'sfact'ry?"

"Yaas," replied the voice of Behemoth Scott. "Go ahaid wif yo'
sperit-summonin', Mista Travis."

"Ah'll cawncentrate now," replied Ambrose, "an' sho'tly you-all will
witness ample proof of mah bein' a genuine Voo-doo. _Ah's stahtin_'."

Silence more terrible than ever fell upon the waiting negroes.
Then--horror of horrors! a peculiar grating, rustling sound came
from the vicinity of Ambrose--a slight creaking--and again silence.
The investigators held hands of neighbours who trembled from sheer
panic, whose breath came hard and panting from this awful suspense!

Another creaking, as though Ambrose had shifted his weight in his
chair....

Then--baleful--in its green, ghastly glow--a dim, indistinct light
shone in the centre of the circle! Moving slowly, like a newly
awakened spirit, it waved in the very midst of the gasping committee.
Back and forth, up and down, it moved--glowing, vaporous, ghostly.
Two hundred pairs of bulging eyes saw the horror--and realized that
it was an enormous hand, terribly deformed!

Some one moaned with terror--a woman screamed. "De hand ob death!"
shrieked a man. "Run--run fo' yo' lives!"

The stampede was spontaneous! Chairs were overturned and tables
smashed in this frightful panic in the dark. No one thought of
turning on the lights--everyone's sole aim was to leave that
appalling shining hand--and get out!

A crashing on the stairway marked where Raffin, chair and all, was
making his fear-stricken way to the street. In one brief minute the
place was apparently empty save for Ambrose. Still tied to his chair,
he inquired: "Is any one hyar?"

For a second there was silence, then the dulcet tones of Miss
Aphrodite fell on the big negro's ear: "Ah's hyar, Ambrose," she said.

"Well, den"--recognizing her voice--"would you mine lightin' de gas
till Ah can tie mahself loose from dis hyar throne ob glory?"

In a moment a feeble gaslight shone, disclosing Aphrodite--somewhat
disarranged by the panic--standing smiling in front of the erstwhile
Voodoo. She looked down at his feet. There, sure enough, one huge
member was unshod and stockingless; the elastic-slit congress gaiter,
lost in the shuffle, lay out of the radius of Ambrose's long leg.
Miss Aphrodite picked it up and, stooping, slipped it over his
mighty toes, noticing as she did so the thick coating of
phosphorescent paint that still covered them.

"Ambrose," she whispered, "Ah wasn't scaired. No ghos' eber was bohn
dat had han's de size ob yo' feet!"

An embarrassed silence followed; the gas jet flickered weakly; then
Ambrose said: "Untie mah han's, Aphrodite--Ah'd jes' lak to hug you!"

"Oh, Ambrose," she cried coyly. But she untied the rope just the same.

Again came silence, broken only by a certain strange sound. Then
Ambrose's voice came softly through the gloom: "Aphrodite," it said,
"yo' lips am jes' lak plush!"

THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN

BY LEE FOSTER HARTMAN

From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_

To dine on the veranda of the Marine Hotel is the one delightful
surprise which Port Charlotte affords the adventurer who has broken
from the customary paths of travel in the South Seas. On an eminence
above the town, solitary and aloof like a monastery, and deep in its
garden of lemon-trees, it commands a wide prospect of sea and sky.
By day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor,
with a blur of distant islands on the horizon--chief among them
Muloa, with its single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At
night, this smithy of Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing
faintly against the darkness, a capricious and sullen beacon
immeasurably removed from the path of men. Viewed from the veranda
of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the horizon seems hardly more
than an insignificant spark, like the glowing cigar-end of some guest
strolling in the garden after dinner.

It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor
Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows. Her uncle, Major
Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the
respite from the queer business he had involved me in. The two of
us had returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him
in my schooner, the _Sylph_, to seek out Leavitt and make some
inquiries--very important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh's
behalf.

Three days in Muloa, under the shadow of the grim and flame-throated
mountain, while I was forced to listen to Major Stanleigh's
persistent questionnaire and Leavitt's erratic and garrulous
responses--all this, as I was to discover later, at the instigation
of the Major's niece--had made me frankly curious about the girl.

I had seen her only once, and then at a distance across the veranda,
one night when I had been dining there with a friend; but that
single vision of her remained vivid and unforgettable--a tall girl of
a slender shapeliness, crowned by a mass of reddish-gold hair that
smoldered above the clear olive pallor of her skin. With that
flawless and brilliant colouring she was marked for observation--had
doubtless been schooled to a perfect indifference to it, for the slow,
almost indolent, grace of her movements was that of a woman coldly
unmindful of the gazes lingering upon her. She could not have been
more than twenty-six or -seven, but I got an unmistakable impression
of weariness or balked purpose emanating from her in spite of her
youth and glorious physique. I looked up to see her crossing the
veranda to join her uncle and aunt--correct, well-to-do English
people that one placed instantly--and my stare was only one of many
that followed her as she took her seat and threw aside the light
scarf that swathed her bare and gleaming shoulders.

My companion, who happened to be the editor of the local paper,
promptly informed me regarding her name and previous residence--the
gist of some "social item" which he had already put into print; but
these meant nothing, and I could only wonder what had brought her to
such an out-of-the-way part of the world as Port Charlotte. She did
not seem like a girl who was traveling with her uncle and aunt;
one got rather the impression that she was bent on a mission of her
own and was dragging her relatives along because the conventions
demanded it. I hazarded to my companion the notion that a woman like
Miss Stanleigh could have but one of two purposes in this lonely part
of the world--she was fleeing from a lover or seeking one.

"In that case," rejoined my friend, with the cynical shrug of the
newspaper man, "she has very promptly succeeded. It's whispered that
she is going to marry Joyce--of Malduna Island, you know. Only met
him a fortnight ago. Quite a romance, I'm told."

I lifted my eyebrows at that, and looked again at Miss Stanleigh.
Just at that instant she happened to look up. It was a wholly
indifferent gaze; I am confident that she was no more aware of me
than if I had been one of the veranda posts which her eyes bad
chanced to encounter. But in the indescribable sensation of that
moment I felt that here was a woman who bore a secret burden,
although, as my informing host put it, her heart had romantically
found its haven only two weeks ago.

She was endeavouring to get trace of a man named Farquharson, as I
was permitted to learn a few days later. Ostensibly, it was Major
Stanleigh who was bent on locating this young Englishman--Miss
Stanleigh's interest in the quest was guardedly withheld--and the
trail had led them a pretty chase around the world until some clue,
which I never clearly understood, brought them to Port Charlotte.
The major's immediate objective was an eccentric chap named Leavitt
who had marooned himself in Muloa. The island offered an ideal
retreat for one bent on shunning his own kind, if he did not object
to the close proximity of a restive volcano. Clearly, Leavitt did not.
He had a scientific interest in the phenomena exhibited by volcanic
regions and was versed in geological lore, but the rumours about
Leavitt--practically no one ever visited Muloa--did not stop at that.
And, as Major Stanleigh and I were to discover, the fellow seemed to
have developed a genuine affection for Lakalatcha, as the smoking
cone was called by the natives of the adjoining islands. From long
association he had come to know its whims and moods as one comes to
know those of a petulant woman one lives with. It was a bizarre and
preposterous intimacy, in which Leavitt seemed to find a wholly
acceptable substitute for human society, and there was something
repellant about the man's eccentricity. He had various names for the
smoking cone that towered a mile or more above his head: "Old
Flame-eater," or "Lava-spitter," he would at times familiarly and
irreverently call it; or, again, "The Maiden Who Never Sleeps," or
"The Single-breasted Virgin"--these last, however, always in the
musical Malay equivalent. He had no end of names--romantic, splenetic,
of opprobrium, or outright endearment--to suit, I imagine,
Lakalatcha's varying moods. In one respect they puzzled me--they
were of conflicting genders, some feminine and some masculine, as if
in Leavitt's loose-frayed imagination the mountain that beguiled his
days and disturbed his nights were hermaphroditic.

Leavitt as a source of information regarding the missing Farquharson
seemed preposterous when one reflected how out of touch with the
world he had been, but, to my astonishment, Major Stanleigh's clue
was right, for he had at last stumbled upon a man who had known
Farquharson well and who was voluminous about him--quite willingly so.
With the _Sylph_ at anchor, we lay off Muloa for three nights, and
Leavitt gave us our fill of Farquharson, along with innumerable
digressions about volcanoes, neoplatonism, the Single Tax, and what
not. There was no keeping Leavitt to a coherent narrative about the
missing Farquharson. He was incapable of it, and Major Stanleigh and
myself had simply to wait in patience while Leavitt, delighted to
have an audience, dumped out for us the fantastic contents of his
mind, odd vagaries, recondite trash, and all. He was always getting
away from Farquharson, but, then, he was unfailingly bound to come
back to him. We had only to wait and catch the solid grains that now
and then fell in the winnowing of that unending stream of chaff. It
was a tedious and exasperating process, but it had its compensations.
At times Leavitt could be as uncannily brilliant as he was dull and
boresome. The conviction grew upon me that he had become a little
demented, as if his brain had been tainted by the sulphurous fumes
exhaled by the smoking crater above his head. His mind smoked,
flickered, and flared like an unsteady lamp, blown upon by choking
gases, in which the oil had run low.

But of the wanderer Farquharson he spoke with precision and authority,
for he had shared with Farquharson his bungalow there in Muloa--a
period of about six months, it seemed--and there Farquharson had
contracted a tropic fever and died.

"Well, at last we have got all the facts," Major Stanleigh sighed
with satisfaction when the _Sylph_ was heading back to Port Charlotte.
Muloa, lying astern, we were no longer watching. Leavitt, at the
water's edge, had waved us a last good-by and had then abruptly
turned back into the forest, very likely to go clambering like a
demented goat up the flanks of his beloved volcano and to resume
poking about in its steaming fissures--an occupation of which he
never tired.

"The evidence is conclusive, don't you think?--the grave,
Farquharson's personal effects, those pages of the poor devil's diary."

I nodded assent. In my capacity as owner of the _Sylph_ I had merely
undertaken to furnish Major Stanleigh with passage to Muloa and back,
but the events of the last three days had made me a party to the
many conferences, and I was now on terms of something like intimacy
with the rather stiff and pompous English gentleman. How far I was
from sharing his real confidence I was to discover later when Eleanor
Stanleigh gave me hers.

"My wife and niece will be much relieved to hear all this--a family
matter, you understand, Mr. Barnaby," he had said to me when we
landed. "I should like to present you to them before we leave Port
Charlotte for home."

But, as it turned out, it was Eleanor Stanleigh who presented herself,
coming upon me quite unexpectedly that night after our return while
I sat smoking in the shadowy garden of the Marine Hotel. I had dined
with the major, after he had explained that the ladies were worn out
by the heat and general developments of the day and had begged to be
excused. And I was frankly glad not to have to endure another
discussion of the deceased Farquharson, of which I was heartily
tired after hearing little else for the last three days. I could not
help wondering how the verbose and pompous major had paraphrased and
condensed that inchoate mass of biography and reminiscence into an
orderly account for his wife and niece. He had doubtless devoted the
whole afternoon to it. Sitting under the cool green of the
lemon-trees, beneath a sky powdered with stars, I reflected that I,
at least, was done with Farquharson forever. But I was not, for just
then Eleanor Stanleigh appeared before me.

I was startled to hear her addressing me by name, and then calmly
begging me to resume my seat on the bench under the arbor. She sat
down also, her flame-coloured hair and bare shoulders gleaming in
the darkness. She was the soul of directness and candour, and after
a thoughtful, searching look into my face she came to the point at
once. She wanted to hear about Farquharson--from me.

"Of course, my uncle has given me a very full account of what he
learned from Mr. Leavitt, and yet many things puzzle me--this
Mr. Leavitt most of all."

"A queer chap," I epitomized him. "Frankly, I don't quite make him
out, Miss Stanleigh--marooning himself on that infernal island and
seemingly content to spend his days there."

"Is he so old?" she caught me up quickly.

"No, he isn't," I reflected. "Of course, it's difficult to judge
ages out here. The climate, you know. Leavitt's well under forty, I
should say. But that's a most unhealthy spot he has chosen to live in."

"Why does he stay there?"

I explained about the volcano. "You can have no idea what an
obsession it is with him. There isn't a square foot of its steaming,
treacherous surface that he hasn't been over, mapping new fissures,
poking into old lava-beds, delving into the crater itself on
favourable days--"

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"In a way, yes. The volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes
unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to
obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to
spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides--just tamely
subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes.
But Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater,
half strangling himself in its poisonous fumes, scorching the shoes
off his feet, and once, I believe, he lost most of his hair and
eyebrows--a narrow squeak. He throws his head back and laughs at any
word of caution. To my notion, it's foolhardy to push a scientific
curiosity to that extreme."

"Is it, then, just scientific curiosity?" mused Miss Stanleigh.

Something in her tone made me stop short. Her eyes had lifted to
mine--almost appealingly, I fancied. Her innocence, her candour, her
warm beauty, which was like a pale phosphorescence in the starlit
darkness--all had their potent effect upon me in that moment. I felt
impelled to a sudden burst of confidence.

"At times I wonder. I've caught a look in his eyes, when he's been
down on his hands and knees, staring into some infernal vent-hole--a
look that is--well, uncanny, as if he were peering into the bowels
of the earth for something quite outside the conceptions of science.
You might think that volcano had worked some spell over him, turned
his mind. He prattles to it or storms at it as if it were a living
creature. Queer, yes; and he's impressive, too, with a sort of
magnetic personality that attracts and repels you violently at the
same time. He's like a cake of ice dipped in alcohol and set aflame.
I can't describe him. When he talks--"

"Does he talk about himself?"

I had to confess that he had told us practically not a word. He had
discussed everything under heaven in his brilliant, erratic way,
with a fleer of cynicism toward it all, but he had left himself out
completely. He had given us Farquharson with relish, and in infinite
detail, from the time the poor fellow first turned up in Muloa, put
ashore by a native craft. Talking about Farquharson was second only
to his delight in talking about volcanoes. And the result for me had
been innumerable vivid but confused impressions of the young
Englishman who had by chance invaded Leavitt's solitude and had
lingered there, held by some attraction, until he sickened and died.
It was like a jumbled mosaic put together again by inexpert hands.

"Did you get the impression that the two men had very much in common?"

"Quite the contrary," I answered. "But Major Stanleigh should know--"

"My uncle never met Mr. Farquharson."

I was fairly taken aback at that, and a silence fell between us. It
was impossible to divine the drift of her questions. It was as if
some profound mistrust weighed upon her and she was not so much
seeking to interrogate me as she was groping blindly for some chance
word of mine that might illuminate her doubts.

I looked at the girl in silent wonder, yes, and in admiration of her
bronze and ivory beauty in the full flower of her glorious
youth--and I thought of Joyce. I felt that it was like her to have
fallen in love simply but passionately at the mere lifting of the
finger of Fate. It was only another demonstration of the
unfathomable mystery, or miracle, which love is. Joyce was lucky,
indeed favoured of the gods, to have touched the spring in this
girl's heart which no other man could reach, and by the rarest of
chances--her coming out to this remote corner of the world. Lucky
Joyce! I knew him slightly--a straightforward young fellow, very
simple and whole-souled, enthusiastically absorbed in developing his
rubber lands in Malduna.

Miss Stanleigh remained lost in thought while her fingers toyed with
the pendant of the chain that she wore. In the darkness I caught the
glitter of a small gold cross.

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