The few thatched cabins, that comprised the village of Mediavilla, lay not half a mile from the shore. Situated between the savannah and the sea, on the southern side of the island known as Tacarigua (the “burning Tacarigua” of the Poets), its inhabitants were obliged, from lack of communication with the larger island centres, to rely to a considerable extent for a livelihood among themselves. Local Market days, held, alternatively, at Valley Village, or Broken Hill (the nearest approach to industrial towns in the district around Mediavilla), were the chief source of rural trade, when such merchandise as fish, coral, beads, bananas and loincloths, would exchange hands amid much animation, social gossip and pleasant fun.
“Wh’a you say to dis?” she queried as they turned inland through the cane-fields, holding up a fetish known as a “luck-ball,” attached to her throat by a chain.
“Who gib it you?” he shortly demanded, with a quick suspicious glance.
“Mammee, she bring it from Valley Village, an’ she bring another for my lil sister, too.”
“Folks say she attend de Market only to meet de Obi man, who cast a spell so dat your Dada move to Cuna-Cuna.”
“Dat so!”
“Your Mammee no seek ebber de influence ob Obeah?”
“Not dat I know ob!” she replied; nevertheless, she could not but recall her mother’s peculiar behaviour of late, especially upon Market days, when, instead of conversing with her friends, she would take herself off, with a mysterious air, saying she was going to the Baptist Chapel.
“Mammee, she hab no faith in de Witch-Doctor, at all,” she murmured, halting to lend an ear to the liquid note of a Peadove among the canes.
“I no care; me follow after wherebber you go,” he said, stealing an arm about her.