The negro noticed her hesitation.
“Come in!” cried he, repeating his command in the same gruff voice. “You me sabbey—what fo’ you fear?”
“I’se not afraid, Chakra,” replied the woman, though the trembling of her voice contradicted the assertion; “only,” she added, still hesitating, “it’s so dark in there.”
“Well, den—you ’tay outside,” said the other, relenting; “you ’tay dar wha you is; a soon ’trike a light.”
A fumbling was heard, and then the chink of steel against flint, followed by fiery sparks.
A piece of punk was set a-blaze, and from this the flame was communicated to a sort of lamp, composed of the carapace of a turtle, filled with wild-hog’s lard, and having a wick twisted out of the down of the cotton-tree.
“Now you come in, Cynthy,” resumed the negro, placing the lamp upon the floor. “Wha! you ’till afeard! You de dauter ob Juno Vagh’n—you modder no fear ole Chakra. Whugh! she no fear de Debbil!”
Cynthia, thus addressed, might have thought that between the dread of these two personages there was not much to choose: for the Devil himself could hardly have appeared in more hideous guise than the human being who stood before her.
“O Chakra!” said she, as she stepped inside the door, and caught sight of the weird-looking garniture of the walls; “woman may well be ’fraid. Dis am a fearful place!”
“Not so fearful as de Jumbé Rock,” was the reply of the myal-man, accompanied by a significant glance, and something between a smile and a grin.