"Orright, bo," she shrugged, helplessly, "I can't say any mo' to yo'," and he went forth, loftily.
The mare took the road at a jog and a trot, till the huts grew dim, the canes and the hedges bushy. The moon was buried in a lake of blue mist and the marl ate into the animal's hoofs.
The Negro woman's tale excited a magic concern in the buckra.
There was a road opposite the baker shop which led through a dismantled estate, providing a short cut to Waterford. But Bellon remembered that it led over a steep gulley range—a tunnel a mile deep—a rattling river when it rained or stormed—now a rocky cave harboring wild dogs and lame mules, tusky boars and other, mystic finds.
He evaded it—the old Negress' tale ringing in his ears.
Somber, ruthless—the marl. The mare pawed and sieved it, stones soared topwards.
The moon burned the mist. It burned it away, leaving but a white crest of flame fire.
Suddenly, over the earth of gentle winds and sugar canes, balls of crimson fire plagued the sky! Fire hags at night—St. Lucia sluts, obeah ridden, shedding their skins and waltzing forth at night as sheep and goats, on errands of fiery vengeance. Sometimes, on returning, at the end of the eventful night, they would find their skins salted—by the enemy—and, unable to ease back into them, the wretches would inquire, "Skin, skin yo' no know me?" And for the balance of their thwarted lives they'd go about, half-slave, half-free, muttering: "Skin yo' no know me, Skin yo' no know me?"