The glory of the morning sun neared the cane hills. It burned past the mare's shed, leaving the animal still nervously gazing out it.

Inside the hut there sprawled the dead body of Bellon Prout. With a perforation pecked in its forehead, it was utterly white and bloodless.

On the ground the chamois blanket was curiously empty.


Coming up the hill the mulatto obeah girl who tidied the overseer's hut felt deeply exultant. For she was strangely conscious of the fact—by the crystal glow of the sun, perhaps—that a vampire bat, with its blood-sucking passion, had passed there in the night.


[TROPIC DEATH]

10