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THE SHIP&039;S BELL mounted in front of Everybody&039;s Grocers tolled six tithened across the island, the Square was filled with people in all ht hues There was , and a couple of the island&039;s rocery&039;s porch, intertwining their delicately sweet rhyth occasionally to an upturned hat used to catch coins

There were tables of goods for Saturday market - bananas, coconuts, papaya, corn, tobacco, a etables - and beneath the shade of a thatched-roof shed there were large ice-filled buckets containing snapper, aed in stacks, and children paid for them by the stick There were cardboard boxes filled with chickens, and hogs grunting and pulling at the rope collars attaching theedback and forth in a rocking chair, telling ghost stories to wide-eyed children who crowded around to hear There was oods, and voices were raised in the babble of haggling for the best price and deterrown to the east or to the north was the sweetest

David Moore, carrying snapper fillets wrapped in newspaper under one arerly through the crowd, in the midst of its furious blare of voices,drinks fro swept up again in the crush of people He saw people he recognized on every side, but no one spoke to hiaze quickly looked ahispering andHe kneas an outcast because he had been the one who had found and freed the U-boat; he could feel the tension in those who looked at hiazes Moore was beginning to understand the fear in their faces after what he iined? Was it iases in that airless tohtmares he experienced over the deaths of his wife and son; didn&039;t he awaken shuddering and sweating fro it to happen? But it had been so very real in the U-boat: the sounds, the s, awful faces Stop it! he told hireen bananas

He had sat up half the night in the hotel&039;s front roo the scorpion paperweight in his left hand and turning it before the bulb of a desk lah the newly polished glass, and the ilow Sitting there, staring at the glass, feeling the warmth of the rum deep in his belly, he wondered what kind of a man had held it before him, in the cavernous darkness of the U-boat Inescapable fate, Moore thought; it had been inescapable fate that those ether into the Abyss, inescapable fate that he had discovered the U-boat some forty years later And now he realized his destiny had becoh time and circumstance He had raised the subli blue surface as surely as if there had been a path cut for hi waves It was after three when he had finished the ru he would sleep The terrible i, as he h the crowd of islanders, he understood their fear of the dark things they associated with the boat&039;s decayingon the island, as if he had brought up sos he&039;d seen in his hallucinations? Juh brackish water like huge dark spiders? He shook the visions off Voodoo superstitions, Moore thought, and not worth a dae of the Square; Moore could see several of the islanders stepping aside as if to make way for someone Heads turned; conversations stopped The wild clatter of laughter and talking began to die, slowly at first, froe of the Square outward, and was replaced by a lohispering andbecause there were too many people around him, so he walked toward a clear spot over by the hut where the fish were being stored A group of islanders parted and Moore saw Boniface approaching, walking slowly, guided by his cane and dressed in a black suit The glass eye around his throat caught the sunlight Thethe others but seees of the crowd grew silent in anticipation, and the druhtly, staring into Moore&039;s face, and did not slow his pace until he was standing a few feet away from the white man Moore saw that the whites of Boniface&039;s eyes were bloodshot, as if he&039;d been either drinking or slasses they appeared as inflamed, deep circles in the ebony face Boniface leaned forward on his cane, both hands clasped at its hilt, and studied Moore in silence Other eyes were on him, from all across the Square, and in the distance he could hear a woroup of children

"You&039;ve been inside it," Boniface said quietly

"That&039;s right," Moore replied, aze

"Are you a fool? A madman, to disdain what I say? God help you! Ah, oui You see it as historical, a curiosity perhaps Would you so peer at the fangs of a snake? And now it sits opened behind those frail wooden walls And tellat all"

"Liar!" Boniface hissed, his expression fierce He looked around at the knot of people behind hiained his control He said in a voice just above a whisper, "I knohat you found there, Moore Do you hear , or in to understand Do not return to that place Leave the boat alone, I warn you!"

"What did I see, Boniface? You tell me"

The man paused for a few seconds, and when he spoke the voice calimpsed Hades, Moore You saw the place of eternal torture and dahts you fail to understand cannot reach you But I tell you they can!" Boniface abruptly turned froaze across the faces around hi away

"Listen!" he said, his voice ringing through the silence that had fallen in the Square "Hear me well, all of you! Sos, but now I beg all of you to listen!" He looked froreat and terrible danger on Coquina, and I urge all who can to pack belongings and get away from this place now, quickly!" There was a startled murmur across the Square

Boniface held up a hand "Wait! Hear s! Board your s, keep your shutters and doors locked! If you have guns, keep them close at hand!" The crowd&039;s uneasiness increased and several people moved about nervously, but none dared turn his back or drop his eyes "Stay off the streets at night," Boniface continued "Watch your wives and children, and do not allow thele"

There was a chorus of angered, fearful responses from some of the e Boniface A woan to mutter wildly, her hands clasped before her

"LISTEN TO ME, YOU FOOLS!" Boniface shouted, the veins standing out in his neck Ilowering The reverend continued softly, "If you value your lives, you will not go down into the boatyard"

This last warning held them breathless The breeze swept over them and on inland; at the rear of the crowd a metal pot was knocked over An elderly lanced at the white man, his eyes pools of fear, and then vanished In another ather up their goods in silence The rasped for their children&039;s hands and pulled thean to empty rapidly

"Are you crazy?" Moore asked Boniface, stepping beside him "This is exactly what the constable didn&039;t want! You&039;ve started a goddamned panic!"

"I&039;ve told them the truth," Boniface said "Kip lies to himself I&039;ll have no blood on rab the frail oldout his bilious secrets into the sand "Tell me what it means," he said after a while

"It may save their lives It may save yours as well"

"But on&039;t you just explain?" Moore was infuriated The islanders had been overpowered by Boniface&039;s voodoo There was nothing Kip could do

Moore, knowing that now the islanders had been overpowered by Boniface&039;s voodoo, watched the few people still left carrying away their goods One of the far, his wife and children switching at their flanks with sticks Another bent to gather up ararcane and throw the Moore&039;s eyes "Stay away from that boat"

"What in God&039;s naain, but the reverend had turned aithout a word, retracing the path by which he&039;d co Square toward Front Street&039;s sand ribbon "WHAT IS IT?" Moore shouted, but thethe clapboard houses

Moore saho held the power; he had seen Mayor Reynard&039;s face a the crowd, and a dozen others he knew None of them had moved, none had spoken; they&039;d been frozen under Boniface&039;s gaze And the , pleading None of his believers could dare to disobey