“It was to visit my mother and myself, and to see how Salem looks after our stay on it, was it not?”
“Yes, to see your mother and yourself, but chiefly the latter. As for Salem, it looks as though a mastermind had been at work, I see it in everything. The slaves are singing. Listen!”
He held up a finger as though to indicate attention and direction.
“One, two, three,
All de same;
Black, white, brown,
All de same;
All de same.
One, two, three—”
They could hear the words indistinctly.
“What do the words mean?” asked Sheila. “I don’t understand them.”
“No more do I, but I think they refer to the march of pestilence or plague. Numbers, colour, race, nothing matters, the plague sweeps all away. Ah, then, I was right,” he added. “There is the story in other words. Listen again.”
To clapping of hands in unison, the following words were sung:
“New-come buckra,
He get sick,
He tak fever,
He be die;
He be die.
New-come buckra—”
“Well, it may be a chant of the plague, but it’s lacking in poetry,” she remarked. “Doesn’t it seem so to you?”