this is Mr. Adjaha," said Piquette.

"From where?" demanded Beauregard warily. Surely Piquette would not have led him into a trap set by Northern spies?

Adjaha arose and inclined his head gravely. He was a short man, rather squarely built. Neither he nor Beauregard offered to shake hands.

"Originally from the Ivory Coast of Africa, sir," said Adjaha in a low, mellow voice. "I have lived in the United States ... in the Confederacy ... since several years before the unfortunate outbreak of war."

Beauregard turned to Piquette.

"I don't see the point of this," he said. "Is this man some relative of yours? What does his being here have to do with this crazy talk of ending the war?"

"If you will excuse me, General," said Adjaha, "I overheard your conversation in the hall and, indeed, Piquette already had informed me of the dissension in your heart. You would be fair to my race in the South, yet you fear that if they had equality under the law they would misuse their superiority in numbers."

Beauregard laughed scornfully.

"See here, old man, if you think I'm ripe to lead a peace and surrender movement in the South, you're wasting your time," he said. "The South is committed to this war, and so be it."

"I ask only that you listen for a brief time to words that may be more fruitful than a few hours in a quadroon's bedroom," said Adjaha patiently. "As I said, I am from the Ivory Coast. When the white man set foot in that part of Africa, he found a great but savage kingdom called Dahomey: the ancestral home of most of the slaves who were brought to the South.

"Before Dahomey there was a civilization whose roots struck back to the age when the Sahara bloomed and was fertile. Before the great civilizations of Egypt, of Sumer and of Crete was the greater civilization of the African black man.

"That civilization had a science that was greater than anything that has arisen since. It was not a science of steel and steam and atoms, but a science of men's minds and men's motives. Its decadent recollections would have been called witchcraft in medieval Europe; they have been known in the West as voodoo and superstition."

"I think you're crazy," said Beauregard candidly. "Quette, have you hired a voodoo man to hex me?"

 Prev. P 5/23 next