Once, the master of a vessel, taking a cargo of dry cocoanuts to a mulatto merchant on the other side of the coast, cheated; a few English crowns were at stake. But the trader was a high-priest of the obeah, and was silently aware of it. Forthwith he proceeded to invoke the magic of the obeah against the vessel.
At late dusk the returning vessel hoisted anchor. The festival rites, incident to her voyage, had drawn to the wharf, selling mango and grape, the mulatto courtesans of the river town. And the crew rained on them silver and gold, and bartered till the sun went down.
Upon reaching the vessel's deck the crew—the wine of lust red on their lips—grew noisy and gay at the sinking of the river sun. From below they brought a cask of rum, part of the cheated trader's store, and drank of it. With a calabash they dipped and wallowed in it, finding it sweeter than falernum.
Stars bedecked the night and a torch was lit. The vessel rocked on, falling in with the trade winds.
The rum was a siren, it led one on. The cask was deep, immense, but the liquor shrank till the huskiest of the Islanders had to be pummeled to lean over into it and dip the liquid out. With a score of itching throats there was a limit to the cask's largess, and the bottom was early plumbed. When they got to it, however, it was to find a rum soaked Negro corpse doubled up in the bottom!
The horse came to a dead, rigid stop. It was death dark and they had just entered the heart of the marl gully.
He was already fidgety, and grew urgent. "Come on, Rayside," he shouted, "giddup." But the mare shook, stamped, shuddered.
He stroked her mane, but a strange strong-headedness took hold of her. She flung her ears forward.