“Right you are, my boy,” cried Ben, “only it’s not voodoo; but it’s something very like it. It’s obeah.“
“Obeah!” exclaimed Frank, “what on earth is that, Ben?”
“Why, it’s a form of witchcraft used by the ignorant negroes of the West Indies and Bahama islands,” explained Ben. “It’s meant as a warning to any one on whose doorstep it is placed. In this case, as I take it, it means, ‘Don’t come no further.’”
“Well,” laughed Frank, “it will take more than a bottle of dried bugs and old chicken feathers to make us turn back, and anyway, how comes a West Indian negro here? If it was a Seminole now——”
“That’s a puzzle to me too,” remarked Ben. “Then Seminoles don’t use nothing like this that ever I heard of.—What’s that?” he broke off suddenly.
The cause of the interruption was a great fluttering of wings from the edge of the clearing and several herons flapped heavily out of the woods.
“There’s someone in there,” cried Frank.
“Right you are, my boy, and I propose that we put an end to this mystery business and find out who it is. Volunteers for the job.”
Of course everyone was anxious to penetrate the mysterious cause of the birds’ flight, which they felt had something to do with the placing of the bottle and the tapping on the door, and a few minutes later, heavily armed and ready for any surprise that might be sprung on them, the little party sallied across the clearing and into the dark mass of forest.
They had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile or so, and Ben Stubbs had remarked that they must have pretty well reached the limits of the island, when there was a great crashing of the dense undergrowth immediately in front of them and a human figure, bent almost double, was seen darting through the brush with the rapidity of a scared rabbit.