There evidently was something awe-inspiring about the name that he shouted even though the rest of the words were unintelligible to the natives. The man shouted his request in the English language; the natives of Haiti used a jargon of French, English and native dialect difficult to understand and impossible to describe or reproduce in writing.
If, when the man called, a native were passing along the highway, as sometimes happened, he would spring forward so violently as to endanger the safety of the huge basket of fruit or vegetables that he carried upon his head, and glancing over his shoulder with dread in his distended, white and rolling eyes, would break into a run and speed forward as if in mortal terror.
The man had just given utterance to a louder howl than usual when he felt the grip of bony claw-like fingers on his shoulder; with one unearthly yell he sprang to his feet, turned and fell upon his knees before the figure that so silently had stolen to his side.
“Has the yellow dog brought a bone to his mother?” The words were spoken in the patois of the native Haitians with which the man was familiar.
The speaker was a living, animated but mummified black crone of a woman. She leaned upon a staff made of three human thigh bones, joined firmly together by wire. Her fleshless fingers looked like the talons of a vulture as she gripped the top of her horrid prop and bent forward toward the man.
Her age seemed incalculable in decades; centuries appeared to have passed since she was born. The wrinkles in her face were as gashes in black and aged parchment, so deep were they. The skin over her toothless jaws was so drawn and stretched by untold time that the very hinges of the jaw were plainly traced; in cavernous, inky holes dug deep beneath the retreating forehead sparkled, like points of flame, eyes so bright and glittering that sparks of electric fire shot forth in the gaze by which she transfixed the groveling wretch at her feet.
“Answer, Manuel; what have you brought for Mother Sybella?”
Finally the startled and fearful Manuel found courage to reply:
“The coffee, sugar, ham and calico are in that bundle lying over there, Mother Sybella,” and the man pointed to a roll of matting near him.
“And I told you to gather all the gossip and news of Port au Prince. Have you done so?” queried the hag with a menacing gesture.