She laughed in my face, revealing gums that were toothless save for one yellow fang that rested on her lower lip.
"Oa, I remember it, Maaster Roger," she said. "Ould Debrah do knaw the curse. La me zee, how do it go?—
His power be given to another,
And he be crushed by younger brother,
Then his son, though born the first,
By the people shall be cursed;
And for generations three
Trewinion's heirs shall cursed be!
The old woman recited these lines glibly, as though they had been often on her lips, and she chuckled as she repeated them.
"Go home," I said, angrily, "and trouble me no longer with your ugly face."
"Iss! Iss! I'll go," she screamed; "but there'll be black days for you. Ah, yer brother'll be wise if you be'ant. Ah, a Trewinion disgraced, starvin', ruined!"
I turned savagely towards her, but old as she was she nimbly stepped out of my way, and pointed to the five-pronged rock.
"The light es gone, and Maaster Roger's hope es gone, unless he do come to Betsy Fraddam's cave at midnight, and there 'ee'll zee strange things."
"You'll suffer for this, Deborah," I said, almost beside myself.
"Zee where you're standin'," she screamed, "and think of what you zeed three years agone, when you went to see the passen."