BEL. (suspiciously.) You’ve made short work of it. Why didn’t you call in one of the men to help you?
FATH. C. (fixing the earth.) Sentiment, I suppose.
BEL. (poking the newly broken ground with his stick.) The earth is very sweet and clean for such as this.
FATH. C. (puts out his hand deprecatingly.) My friend—(enter Lizbette.) How is the young lady, Lizbette?
LIZ. Tollable easy, sah.
FATH. C. (sternly.) You haven’t been practicing your voo-doo arts on her?
LIZ. Naw, sah.
FATH. C. Very well. See that you don’t. (exeunt Father Cuthbert and Beluche.)
LIZ. (looking after them.) Huh! I dunno who dat gwine hep ’er, me, if tain Lizbette I done bin ’bliged t’give ’er sometin’ to make ’er sleep. She war plum crazy. En dose white leddies dunno nuttin. Ne mine. Lizbette know. She done put ’er t’sleep ez peaceful z’a lamb, en wen she wake up, she ont remember. (takes an opaque white bottle out of her pocket.) Dish hyar remedy fo, blues ... I knows it, kase iss marked “Cordial” on de bottle an’ issa white bottle. (buries the bottle up to its stopper on one end of the grave.) People say it heps ’em lots. (takes out a black bottle from her pocket.) An’ dish hyar rank pison might z’well season some, too. (enter unperceived by Lizbette, Father Cuthbert; she buries the black bottle up to the stopper in the other end of the grave and exits.)
FATH. C. Up to her same old tricks. (goes to grave; finds the last bottle Lizbette buried; looks for and finds the first; reads.) “Cordial.” I’ll do a little voo-doo work myself. (takes from his pocket an empty flask; pours the contents of the cordial bottle into his flask.) Harmless enough remedies; but her influence becomes dangerous. (pours the poison from the black bottle into the cordial bottle and the blues remedy from his flask into the black bottle; he re-buries the bottles as he found them.) A good thing to nonplus her occasionally in her practices. (exit; re-enter Lizbette with Bella’s locket in her hand.)