Several of the more superstitious onlookers retreated in poor order, their teeth chattering.  Their mammies had told them about the Voodoo Eye.  They remembered the tales whispered in the slave quarters about people being prayed to death by these baleful creatures of ill omen!  They weren’t going to take any chances!

Ambrose, for all his natural courage, was shaken.  He remembered old Tom Blue, the Texas Voodoo, who poisoned twenty-one people and came to life after the white men lynched him.  And now he had laid rough hands on one of the deadly clan; had brought upon himself the wrath of a man who could simply wish him to death!

Trembling, he stooped down and looked at the Devil’s Sign.  He looked again—­closely.  Then he broke out into a ringing peal of wholesome darky laughter.

“Git up!” he shouted, as Dominique showed signs of life.  “Git up, Mr. Voodoo, befo’ Ah gits impatient an’ throws you out de window!”

This recklessness—­this defiance of the dread power—­shocked even the least superstitious of the audience.  By this time they were all under the spell of this mysterious mark.  Those who hadn’t recognized it at once had been quickly enlightened by the others.

Ambrose seized Dominique by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet.  Swaying unsteadily, the mulatto looked around him through eyes closed to snakelike slits.

“Raffin,” said Ambrose, “you-all has on yo’ back de Eye ob Voodoo.  Dese gennlemen hyar thinks yo’ is a Voodoo.  Ah know yo’ ain’t!”

“I am a Voodoo!  An’ you, you sacre cochon,” hissed Raffin, “I’ll make you wish you had nevaire been born!”

“Well, jes’ fo’ de present,” laughed Ambrose, good humour spreading all over his face, “you-all had better git outa my way, an’ stay out!  Git outa hyar quick!”

Dominique, his evil face twitching with fury, picked up the ragged shreds of his coat and walked unsteadily out.

At his exit a dead silence fell upon the remaining members.  Then they gathered together in excited groups and discussed the incident in heated undertones.  Ambrose, quite unconcerned, took up a pack of cards and commenced a game of solitaire.

He wasn’t worrying.  He knew that Dominique was no more a Voodoo than he was.  Startled at first, he had noticed that the eye had not been carved in Dominique’s back, as it should have been, but had been tattooed.  This in itself made the thing doubtful.  But more than this, the marks were the unmistakably accurate work of an electric tattooing machine.

Ambrose had spent his youth on the Galveston water front, and knew tattooing in all its forms.  Electric tattooing on a Voodoo was about as much in keeping with the ancient and awesome dignity of the cult as spangled tights would be on the King of England.  No—­it was ridiculous.  Dominique was not a Voodoo!

Ambrose continued his solitaire, humming as he played.  Occasionally he cast an amused eye at the excited groups across the room, and was not surprised when Mr. Behemoth Scott, president of the club, at last came over to him.