... When Yé's poor children saw him coming, they wondered what their papa was carrying on his back. They thought it might be a sack of bread or vegetables or perhaps a régime of bananas,—for it was getting dark, and they could not see well. They laughed and showed their teeth and danced and screamed: "Here's papa coming with something to eat!—papa's coming with something to eat!" But when Yé had got near enough for them to see what he was carrying, they yelled and ran away to hide themselves. As for the poor mother, she could only hold up her two hands for horror.
When they got into the cabin the Devil pointed to a corner, and said to Yé:—"Put me down there!" Yé put him down. The Devil sat there in the corner and never moved or spoke all that evening and all that night. He seemed to be a very quiet Devil indeed. The children began to look at him.
But at breakfast-time, when the poor mother had managed to procure something for the children to eat,—just some bread-fruit and yams,—the old Devil suddenly rose up from his corner and muttered:—
—"Manman mò!—papa mò!—touttt yche mò!" (Mamma dead!—papa dead!—all the children dead!)
And he blew his breath on them, and they all fell down stiff as if they were dead—raidi-cadave!. Then the Devil ate up everything there was on the table. When he was done, he filled the pots and dishes with dirt, and blew his breath again on Yé and all the family, and muttered:—
—"Toutt moune lévé!" (Everybody get up!)
Then they all got up. Then he pointed to all the plates and dishes full of dirt, and said to them:—[55]
—"Gobe-moin ça!"
And they had to gobble it all up, as he told them.
After that it was no use trying to eat anything. Every time anything was cooked, the Devil would do the same thing. It was thus the next day, and the next, and the day after, and so every day for a long, long time.