The narrative of the dusky story-teller does not falter at this juncture, for there were always three pairs of eager eyes that were burning into hers. “Zacheus was the hoodoo—the good hoodoo who could steal souls back from the devil!” sang the chorus.
“Um—and when de ole mammy what were his wife lay de gole-worked box in Zacheus’s han’, Zacheus gib er great big laugh, ’case es soon es hit tech his han’ hit turn ter nuffin but er debil’s snuff-box—you know, chillen—one er dem brown spongy things wid dus’ in ’em dat you fin’ in de woods; an’ den de little fly fly up mighty survigrous an’ try ter bite Zacheus on de mouf.”
“An’ dat what de little miss been sleepin’ wid unner her head?” said Zacheus. “De charm Marse Charles gib her? Um, dar’s work for Zacheus!”
Of course the gold snuff-box was never found, though the plantation was searched far and near, and to Demetria no one bemoaned its loss louder than Mammy; but down in the Quarters, when she could steal away, she was watching Zacheus mix his pot of sweet ointment with which to kill the fly, for the fly would not eat.
“I kin kill de fly,” growled Zacheus, “but I don’ wanter ’do’ Marse Charles, so I gotter change de charm.”
Marse Charles, whiter and thinner by reason of sleeplessness, listened to Demetria’s songs with a ringing in his ears, and gorged every common house-fly that he could coax, on sugar, in the vain hope of finding again the devil’s little fly; but the little fly was lying with stiff wings outside of Zacheus’s pot of ointment, and James, the barber, had given Zacheus a lock of Marse Charles’s hair.
The time was up. The devil would return. What then?
Marse Charles hardly remembered how it was, but once again, after a night when sleep would not come, he found himself sitting opposite, in the hazy light, as once before.
“How dare you”—said the devil—“part with my box, to give it as a token, a lover’s toy? You have forfeited your bargain, and I am undone; but the girl is mine!”