And she went out, slamming the door behind her.
The world of Seenie's flight was a terrible green. "Me baby chile," she murmured, "me own baby chile." The edge and sweep—wide and far-flung—of leaf and vine, shrub and fruit, flower and sky; the tender flush of the river dawn—brought a barbaric peace to her soul.
Snaky cords tightened in her brain. "Yo' mek up yo' bed, now go lay down on it," Miss Ewing, the Bordeaux sorceress had said to her. And with Captain, with whom the whole thing was a dismal oversight, she had implored on bended knees, to no Christian purpose, for having lost sight of, in a heat of frenzied lust, the fruit of her innocent pride.
III
Coral earth paved the one flake of road in Waakenam. Gathering depth and moss, the water in the gutters beside it was a metallic black. It was a perfumed dawn—the strong odor of fruit and turpentine flavoring it. For it was high up on the Guiana coast, and the wind blew music on the river. Vivid flame it blew on the lips of grape and melon, and ripened, like the lust of a heated love, the udders of spiced mangoes and pears peeping through the luscious grove.
Now and then, by the grace of the rollicking wind, there appeared in the dense forest the sparkle of resin hardening on the bruised trunks of balata. Sometimes, where the water in the gutter streamed, the music on the Essequibo touched fruit and flower and resulted in a flurry of orchids floating on to Calvary.
And in the distance, beyond the violent patches of green, flowing to a reddish upland, smoke—the vapors of boiling syrup—tarnished the white marl-gemmed sky.
On awakening on mornings Seenie indulged in a rite native to the Negroes of the region. She'd slip on a one-piece frock, and go outside to the rain water cask which had a zinc drain pouring off the cabin roof into it. There her toilet was done.
And as sure as the sun rose, there'd be on the dewy ground, on the boughs of mango and pine, lovely, quiescent, a gallant cordon of snakes. Now as she sped forward, the road shone with them. Gorgeously bedecked ones—two inches of blue, two of mauve, two of yellow—two of black. Some, the coral ones, a yard or more in length, lovely crown jewels. Green snakes, black snakes, reaching up to the shady bush and swamp—drowsy on the sandy road.