A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE LITTLE DOLL DIED 97 Dutchman had gone, “Perhaps it looks like one, my friend; but take my word, it’s not the kind you’d have old Santa bring your kiddies for Christmas. “Pull your chair around and I'll tell you about it. It has to do with what we were talking about—Haiti, black magic, zom- bies. Better fortify yourself with a drink. You’re a newspaper man, but I'll lay you two to one you never heard a weirder, more incredible story.” As a graduate of the tabloids I was in- clined to take the bet. At the end, I con- ceded there would have been no doubt— I would have lost. off civilization with a popgun, so to speak, and sometimes makes me wonder whether =a white man’s wisdom is so right after all. | Charlemagne was an educated Haitian —he’d been schooled in France like a lot of the Haitian upper class—and he re- sented the idea of a white American army in Haiti, We had to be there. The Haitian government was a mess; Germany was making threats to invade. We couldn't allow that, and we had to get there first. But Charlemagne didn’t understand that. He went around urging the Haitians to rebellion, and some M. P. heard him —=0 220 1 2 0021 Oe 10 Eh eee 1 0 Haiti—land of voodoo, savages and mystery ... the home of those soulless creatures, the un-dead dead— it was there a leatherneck saw a corpse rise! ———_0 20 0 0 0 0 ee O00 CHAPTER 1 Mummies and Marines T BEGAN (Glennon launched his if story on a gulp of whiskey) up in the mountains behind Cape MHaiti—a jungle outpost called Morne Noir—one of those limberlost Haitian villages where they still have a law that the natives on market day have to wear pants. You don’t find any telephones, tourists or plumbing in that part of the interior. The trails up through the jungle are ter- rible. The village is a pretty good copy of some pest hole in the heart of Africa; mud streets; not lights at night; a clutter of thatch-roofed huts surrounded by mornes with their dark foreheads wp in the clouds. And that’s where Charlemagne Perrault started his Caco Rebellion against the American Marines sent to Haiti in 1916, to bring peace and quiet to an island that hasn’t had any since Columbus waded ashore in 1492. Now Haiti has had a devil of a history, and three years after the Marines landed to bring order, this Charlemagne was writing another bloody chapter, Maybe you don’t remember Charlemagne Per- rault, but we Americans who tried to catch him remember him, He was one of those tragic revolutionaries who tried to stave talking in Cape Haiti and arrested him. If we'd let him go he might've petered out, but one of those pompous white officials had to punish him by putting him in a convict’s uniform in a_ street-sweeping squad. That was a damnfool mistake. For a Paris-educated Haitian to be sweeping the streets was on a par with making the President of Harvard clean a stable, and the story swept Haiti like wildfire, Charle- magne escaped in no time, and the rebel- lion broke like a tropic hurricane, I can tell you, it was tough, Charlemagne was a brilliant leader, and he knew every trick of guerilla warfare. He organized roving bands of guerillas—Caco bandits— and planted the jungle with snipers. He collected all the voodoo priests and called . for a religious war. And got it. All this is in our history books where you can read it; I’m just giving you the background of the story that begins at Morne Noir. I was sent up there with a detachment of Marines to clean the place up and try to locate Charlemagne. That was a large order, brother, and I’m here to say I didn’t succeed. Charlemagne al- most got me, and somebody else finally got Charlemagne. All that’s beside the point. The point is that Morne Noir was a hot-box when I got there. oO (e(0) cS Ecomicboo *