“Oh! Tu Konk, my Tu Konk”
“Send back the black blood.”
“There she is now,” exclaimed Jack and Mr. Dunlap at the same time.
“My black boy who waits at the table told me that the old crone was holding meetings nightly in worship of Voo Doo, and that too in the very suburbs of the city,” said Mr. Dunlap when the sound of old Sybella’s voice died away in the distance.
“Where is Burton tonight?” asked Jack as if recalling something.
“I don’t know. When he does not appear at the established dinner hour I take it for granted that he is at the club in the city or dining with some of his newly made friends. He is quite popular here, being a Haitian himself,” replied the old gentleman.
It was late that night when Walter Burton entered the apartments reserved for his exclusive use in the house of John Dunlap. Throwing off his coat he sat down in a great easy chair in the moonlight by the open window and lighted a cigar.
“I wish that I were free to fly to the mountains and hide myself here in Haiti among my own people forever,” sighed the young man glancing away off to the shadowy outline of the hills against the moonlit sky.
“The sensation of being pitied is humiliating and hateful, and that was what I endured during the voyage from Boston, and have suffered ever since I arrived and have been in enforced association with the Dunlaps. The devoted love for Lucy, my wife, is a source of pain, not pleasure. Her unreasoning antipathy now is more bearable than will surely be the repulsion that must arise if, when restored to reason, she learn that I am the author of the cause of her disappointment, horror and dementia. Woe is mine under any circumstances! The evil consequences of attempted amalgamation of the negro and white races are not borne alone by the white participants but fall as heavily upon those of the negro blood who share in the abortive effort.”