What lie so still in de hole so low—
Obeah-die!
Obeah-do!”
The song rose and sank and seemed to hang in the trees and creep about like an evil presence. The refrain rose into a wail, and its last penetrating note was answered by crisp stridulation of great winged grasshoppers. Jesse’s uncanny melody fitted the place, the man, and the task.
“I never did!” thought Daniel, as his eyes grew round. “If the old devil ban’t digging a grave! And singing rhymes to his beastly self over it too! To think that Johnny Beer ban’t the only verse-maker as I’ve met with in my travels! But Johnny never in all his born days let off such a rhyme as that. I’m sure us never would have stood it. A grave, sure enough—an’ more’n one poor wretch has been buried there seemingly.”
The remark was called forth by an incident, for Mr Hagan suddenly exhumed a skull. It was low and flat-browed. Jesse set it very gravely upon the edge of the pit and then addressed it.
“Who was you, sar?” he asked. “You no answer me, sar? Den you berry rude, imperent young fellow!”
Whereupon he smacked the empty brain-pan with a spade, so that some of the teeth fell out. The man and the skull grinned at each other, then Jesse grew serious and spoke again.
“You larf—eh? You larf! Me Gard, I dunno what you got to larf about! You’s Jephson—dat’s you. I ’member Jephson. Massa Ford, he want Jephson ‘rub out,’ and send him wid a message to ole Jesse. Den ole Jesse ‘rub you out.’ To kill a nigger is only to rub out a black mark. Dey soon gone. And some white folk too. Dey all berry quiet when dey eat and drink poor ole Jesse’s rum and cakes. He, he! Obi Man berry good fren to Massa Ford!”