From her corner rose an eerie chant in broken minors; it swelled louder, and down the lane her people made for her she came dancing.  Her turban was off, her dress torn open to the breasts; she held the child horizontally and above her in both hands.  Her body swayed rhythmically, but she just did not take up the swing of the votive African dance that is as old as Africa.  Up to the foot of the platform she wavered, and there the cripple joined her, laughing as always.  Together they shuffled first to the right and then to the left, their feet marking the earth floor in prints that overlapped like scales.  She laid the baby on the platform, sinking slowly to her knees as she did so; as though at a signal the wordless chant rumbled upward from the entire building, rolled over the platform like a wave, engulfing the white man in its flood.

“Symbolism!  Sacrifice!” Simpson yelled.  “She offers all to God!”

He bent and raised the child at arm’s length above his head.  Instantly the chanting ceased.

“To the grove!” screamed the mamaloi.  She leaped to the platform, almost from her knees it seemed, and snatched the child.  “To the grove!”

The crowd took up the cry; it swelled till Simpson’s ears ached under the impact of it.

“To the grove!”

Doubt assailed him as his mind—­a white man’s mind—­rebelled.

“This is wrong,” he said dully; “wrong.”

Madame Picard’s fingers gripped his arm.  Except for the spasms of the talons which were her fingers she seemed calm.

“No, m’sieu’,” she said.  “You have them now.  Atonement—­atonement, m’sieu’.  You have many times spoken of atonement.  But they do not understand what they cannot see.  They are behind you—­you cannot leave them now.”

“But—­the child?”

“The child shall show them—­a child shall lead them, m’sieu’.  They must see a theatre of atonement—­then they will believe.  Come.”

Protesting, he was swept into the crowd and forward—­forward to the van of it, into the Grand Rue.  Always the thunderous rumble of the mob continued; high shrieks flickered like lightning above it; the name of Christ dinned into his ears from foul throats.  On one side of him the cripple appeared; on the other strode the mamaloi—­the child, screaming with fear, on her hip.  A hymn-tune stirred under the tumult—­rose above it.

  “Le fils de Dieu se va Pen guerre
  Son drapeau rouge comme sang.”

Wild quavers adorned the tune obscenely; the mob marched to it, falling into step.  Torches came, flaming high at the edges of the crowd, flaming wan and lurid on hundreds of black faces.

  “Il va pour gagner sa couronne
  Qui est-ce que suit dans son train?”

“A crusade!” Simpson suddenly shouted.  “It is a crusade!”

Yells answered him.  Somewhere a drum began, reverberating as though unfixed in space; now before them, now behind; now, it seemed, in the air.  The sound was maddening A swaying began in the crowd that took on cadence, became a dance.  Simpson, his brain drugged, his senses perfervid marched on in exultation.  These were his people at last.