Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

VINGO’S LADY SERPENT. filled with stalking fear. The negro has more of this mystical residue than the white man, and it is more easily stirred. Oh, I could tell you some things! They say there isn’t a remnant of voodooism in this country or Cuba, but I’ve heard the thumbnail on the goatskin drum and I’ve seen spilled blood and the remains of the goat out in the jungles and I’ve seen masses of blacks swaying in a mighty disturbing dance in the moonlight and the drum carrying on, brittle and tantalizing—tum- tum-tum—tumpa-tum-tum! And I’m just as sure that that weird quality in Alvina Barnes brought his frothing to the surface. A week after her arrival in Vingo, the quarters were full of witch doctors— sorcerers. And the pastors of the two colored churches were two mighty worried men, You would have supposed you were somewhere in the heart of Africa instead of being a few miles away from the mile-wide strip of modern luxury that runs down one side of Florida and up the other. All this is not easy to tell. There is so much. For this is the story of what that beautiful red-headed daughter of Satan did to a twenty or twenty-five square mile section of Florida swamps, and what in the end the swamps, striking back with all their fiendish brutality, did to her. IV. Wuat happened to Clem Arthur will serve to illustrate the influence that Alvina Barnes’s presence had on those easy-going negroes. Nothing but her presence, mind you! | Clem Arthur was one of the best be- haved blacks in the quarters. He was a young buck; married, the father of a half- dozen pickaninnies; steady, dependable, in- dustrious and so on. He had qualities just as fine as any white man. He paid his commissary bills promptly; he owned his shanty; he never drank, fought or shot game out of season. He was, in a word, a mighty good citizen. And if you know anything about colored folks, it will mean a great deal when I say that Clem was only twenty-six. Clem was working in a wood cutting gang just north of Vingo when this un- pleasant thing I’m telling about happened. They were getting out fat-wood against the winter demand of the Northern tourists, and Clem was teamed off with another young buck whom everybody called Lightnin’. Lightnin’ was another steady- going young negro; they were both deacons in the same church, the Vingo Baptist. Nearly every male member of the congre- gation was a deacon, but the point I’m making is that both Clem and Lightnin’ were peaceable men before Alvina Barnes came to town. And one morning, a few days after her arrival, Clem came staggering into the commissary with seven knife wounds in his neck and chest. His shirt was soaked with blood and his usually black face was a funny tan-color. Well, Lightnin’ had done the stabbing. Why? No reason at all. No, suh; Lightnin’ had jes’ stepped up to him, whipped out his knife and started to chop him down. In his excited weak state, it took Clem some time to divulge the details. It seemed that the boss-man called them out to start working on a new stand of timber, and an argument had arisen over who was to go back and fetch the axes. They had had a pretty hot argument, and the upshot of it was that Lightnin’ had started knifing him, as described. Were there any witnesses? Yes, suh, sheriff, bofe dese men yuh had been lookin’ on. The tvo negroes who had come in with Clem I knew pretty well. Had Clem been telling the truth? Yes, suh, she’iff, nothin’ else but! Well, you know what liars they are. “ Where’s Lightnin?” I wanted to know. And it appeared that Lightnin’ had sought peace, solitude and tranquillity in the tall timber. I told the two nervous witnesses to hurry out to where Lightnin’ was hiding and to tell him that I wanted him and that if I had to go hunting for him, he would regret it. They returned to the commissary with the culprit in an hour, and I loaded the four of them—plaintiff, defendant and the two witnesses—into my flivver and drove : Eomicbooks: co 365 _