CHAPTER XIII
THE OBI MAN
When Daniel awoke the sun was climbing swiftly to the zenith, and the full blaze of it burnt upon a tropical tangle of palmetto and mango, plantain and palm. He found himself hidden in a brake of luxuriant vegetation almost at the apex of a lofty hill that overlooked the Caribbean Sea. Strange sounds fell upon his ears, and he perceived that his resting-place was beneath a prickly-pear fence, on the other side of which stood a thatched cottage and extended an acre of cleared land. Beneath stretched the dark green and orange-tawny of the forests; strips of thorny cactus hedge ensured privacy for the clearing, and here a tamarind tree reared its delicate foliage, and here the broad leaves of bananas rustled, with foliage all tattered by the breezes. A goat was tethered to a little pomegranate tree in the garden, and over the cleared soil grew vines of the sweet potato.
A second glance at the hut revealed to Daniel its exceptional character and significance. Before he saw the strange and solitary human being who inhabited it, the sailor guessed that he stood upon the threshold of mystery. As a matter of fact he had intruded into the secret stronghold of Jesse Hagan, the Obi Man. The situation was silent and mysterious; the place was adorned, or made horrible, with fragments of things dead. Two bullocks’ skulls stood at the entrance of Mr Hagan’s dwelling, and round his land bobbed a fantastic ribbon whereon hung empty bottles, bright feathers, and fragments of gaudy rag. Within this zone none dared to enter uninvited, for Obeah is still alive—a creed beyond the power of missionary to shatter or destroy. Fools fear Obi, and wise men find him useful; hence the high priests of that Satanic cult still thrive. A negro would no more speak disrespectfully of them than he would of his own grand-parents.
Suddenly, as Daniel stared and felt a growing inclination to be gone, the mystic himself appeared and stood in the morning light. He appeared profoundly ancient, and his ribs made a gridiron of his lean breast. His limbs were skin and bone; his scanty wool was grey; a tangled network of furrows and deep lines scarred and seamed his face in every direction; and, curiously wide apart, on either side of a huge, flat, Ethiopian nose, the man’s eyes gleamed from his withered headpiece, like the eyes of a toad. Jesse was in extreme undress. Only the ruins of a pair of trousers covered his loins and a band of red cloth circled his throat. Despite his advanced age, no little physical strength remained to him, and now, as Daniel watched, the negro displayed it. Taking an iron spade and seeking a corner of the garden near his unseen visitor, Jesse turned aside the long, creeping fingers of a snake gourd that trailed there under the shade of a citron tree, and began to dig in soft earth. As the old creature worked and sank swiftly downward into the soil, he sang to himself in a piping treble with the usual West Indian whine. The voice was feeble; but the words were sinister and told of evil. A blue bird sat on a thorn and put his head on one side to hear the song; a green lizard, with eyes like Jesse’s own, rustled out from the cactus fence and stopped, with palpitating, tremulous motion of its front paws, to listen also. Then the bird flew and the reptile fled, and Daniel Sweetland was sole, secret audience of the song.
“Low dem lie, low dem lie—
Dey come, dey come, but dey never go by;
And de roots ob de creeping snake-gard know,
Where dey sleep so still in de hole so low—
Obeah-die!