‘De voice of Mammy Koromantee—of de Obeah woman,’ said the hag; ‘de moder of Paul, your negro, dat you set free. Paul say you die; I bring Obi for you to pray to—Obi great.’
‘Lindsay, Leonard Lindsay,’ gasped Blagrove, ‘come close to me—quick!—I am choking. Keep her away, fling down the strange god—fling Dagon from the high places.’
I now supported his head, and saw that the great change was at hand.
‘Mary, Mary,’ he said faintly; ‘I come, Mary, my wife.’
There passed a spasm over his face, and then his head hung heavy and dead across my arm. Immediately, the negress raised her voice, tremulous with age, and began to chant a sort of song—perhaps it was a dirge, in her own tongue.
‘Go,’ said I, interrupting her lament—‘go to Mr. Pratt’s, and tell them that Blagrove is dead; they will return with you, and I will give you money.’
‘You gib me money,’ said the negress, quickly; ‘oh, den I go to Massa Pratt’s, and I find Obi when de daylight come.’
With this the hag bustled out as speedily as her old limbs would bear her, and in less than an hour Mr. Pratt and some of his people arrived. I paid the old woman her guerdon, and was glad to be relieved from my melancholy post—Mr. Pratt assuring me that all needful attention would be bestowed upon the dead. As for the woman, he said that she was more than half crazed with age and infirmity; but that in coming to the hut he believed that, after her own fashion, she had meant kindly. She was reputed by the negroes to be an Obeah woman, or witch, and the scraps of feathers, rags and egg-shells wherewith she had adorned herself were the means by which she wrought her spells and incantations.