"My missy tell me you wish to hear my Obi," she said, abruptly, fixing her eyes on the face of the visitor. "Why you wish? You laugh at Obi."
"I don't particularly wish to learn your Voodoo secrets," answered Jen carelessly. "All I desire to know is why you manufactured that scent with which you saturated a certain handkerchief of your mistress."
"Mother's handkerchief, Dido," explained Isabella, interrupting. "The one you bound round my head."
"Oh, dat a Voodoo smell to drib away de evil spirit," said Dido, solemnly addressing herself more particularly to the major. "My witch-mudder, she learn to make dat in her own land--"
"In Ashantee?"
"Ho! yis. It berry strong, dat smell. Too much of it kill--kill--kill!"
"By means of its odor?"
"No, dat only drib away bad debbils. But you scratch de skin with one leetle bit of it, and you die, die, die!"
"And the scratch is made by means of the wand of sleep?"
"Yis. Dat so," said Dido, with pretended surprise, turning on him sharply. "But you no b'lieve in Obi, massa. What you know of de wand of sleep--de debble-stick?"