“What things?”
We'd seen nothing larger than a mongoose. They may go about at night for all I know, they certainly tore about the grass in the daytime, but I really did not think by the hurried manner in which they declined our acquaintance they'd come very near.
She paused, wriggled again, rubbed first one foot against a neat brown leg and then the other, put her fingers half way down her throat and whispered as she rolled her eyes—
“De duppies.”
No! One couldn't smile, she was so desperately in earnest, so really concerned for the sake of the little helpless baby. We older women might chance things, but she evidently felt it was playing it low down on the baby to expose him to such risks.
“Oh, duppies! There aren't any duppies.”
“Yes, missus,” and her eyes turned towards where, on the shores of the Caribbean, the Montego Bay dead lie resting, sleeping their long last sleep amidst coco-palms and gorgeous flamboyant trees. Oh, a lovely graveyard, and the sea breeze sweeps across it in the daytime, and by night comes whispering the scented wind from the hills. “Dey catch yous”—she grew excited and slurred her words—“tear yous to pieces.”
We are naturally brave. “Oh, Buffer will settle them.” Buffer being the nearest approach to a bull terrier we could get in Jamaica, a powerful and handsome white dog.
Again she shook her head mournfully. “Dey tear him to pieces.”
But in spite of all we slept outside and she shook her head mournfully, “Poor little baby!”