Rebels of Babylon by Owen Parry, Ralph Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

next experienced. The woman’s abode might have been the lair of one of those fakirs who haunt the lanes of Lahore. Stinking it was, with smells ineffable to ourChristian noses. By the lantern’s cast, I saw the skins of every sort of reptile, dangling from the ceiling to dry or nailed to the walls in bunches. Jars and pots of every shape competed for space on tabletop and floor, along with plaster statues not a few of which had strayed from a Catholic church. An advertisement for a steamboat line hung beside a cloth stained red with symbols recalling the village mosques of the Punjab. A newly skinned cat lay over a bench, its black pelt drying beside it.
    Without warning, the woman tossed a handful of dust in my face. Then she began to chant:
     
           “Walk on needles, walk on pins,
       Papa Limba, wash our sins …
        li Grand Zombi, li Zombi Grand,
        vaincre, vaincre, Marie Venin …
        l’homme perdu, l’homme perdu …
      he walk on gilded splinters to you …”
     
    That did not resemble anything Charles Wesley wrote.
    Hardly had she finished her singing than Mr. Barnaby laid seven gold coins on the planks, forming an arrow that pointed toward a back door.
    To my mortification, the two of them undressed me.
    “Begging your pardon,” Mr. Barnaby said, “there ain’t time to be modest.”
    I might have interfered. But my every limb had stiffened and my tongue was beyond speech.
    A devil of a time the two of them had, though. For I had grown stiff as a musket barrel. They had to sweep the dead cat from the bench and lay me down to draw off my shoes and trousers. Impatient with all niceties, Mr. Barnaby took a knife to my underclothing. That was a terrible waste. The garments were almost new.
    The queerest thing it was, though. I seemed literally of two minds. The right and proper part of me dreaded the coursing poison, yet clung to some last instinct of propriety. A darkerside hushed every fear, seduced by a peculiar warmth sweeping my body. Twas almost like dreaming, although I remained awake. I began to feel that dying might not be unpleasant.
    My state was rude and shameful, but it mattered less and less. I could no longer summon much embarrassment, although my parts had grown remarkably stiff.
    “Alors!” the mammy said, after considering me.
    They ferried my rigid form over the gold pieces. After that, Mr. Barnaby tilted me backward while the woman forced a potion into my mouth. Grim enough that was. But she was not finished. She had Mr. Barnaby turn me over so that she might introduce the cure elsewhere.
    “Papa Limba, lif’ the cross,” the woman called ecstatically, “man be saved, the gol’ be lost …”
    Together, they hustled me to the rear door. Then Mr. Barnaby dragged me into the darkness.
    He tied a rope around my naked waist.
    “You’ve really ’ad the finest luck,” he told me. “Couldn’t ’ave picked a better time of year for it. The moccasins is all tucked up—your bathmate, notwithstanding—and the alligators move wonderful slow in the cold. You’ll be in and out before any ’arm can come to you …”
    At that, the fellow heaved me over his shoulder, carried me down a reedy slope and hurled me into a watercourse.
    I sank.
    The thing of it is, I am not much of a swimmer. Even when my limbs do not dissent.
    Icy water closed over me. I seemed to descend forever. Yet, it cannot have been more than a few, crushed seconds. I stopped face down in heavy mud and grasses. With no air in my lungs.
    Something happened. Twas like the slap across the recruit’s face that calls him back to duty on his first battlefield. My arms and legs thrashed back to life. The frenzy was almost miraculous. I fought and splashed and thrust and found my footing.
    Mick Tyrone could doubtless have explained it all, how the shock of the freezing water vanquished my lethargy, how themammy’s potion had conquered the poison through some knack of