Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/266

 , then fascinating, and last of all it maddens. To think that such a people should have learned the secret of repeated concussions on a single group of brain-cells"

"You have heard it before?" I interrupted, for I knew all of this he was telling me and wanted his story.

"Yes. It was when I was here five years ago looking for snails. I was crossing on a French boat, and the second day out I met the Doctor and Madame Fouchère. He was a Haytian, a marabout, an Adonis carved out of jet, for you know that breed are of a type magnificent and hold their fineness of skin and feature far into advanced age. He was an intelligent man, highly educated and skilled in his profession. I learned afterwards that he was the left-handed son of a former President by a marabout woman—one of the usual cases of placage of those high in official circles. Fouchère had been educated in France, and after talking with him for a while one forgot that he was black; yet I will [ 250 ]