ed between them. "I don't know what Mr Ferris or our manager will
say to it; I consider myself fortunate in getting away with a whole
skin. You perhaps, Miss Ferris, have never heard of a Jumby dance; I
had, and wished to see one. Yesterday, one of our assistant overseers,
a mulatto, Bob Kerlie by name, to whom I had rendered some service, told
me that he had heard one was to take place on some wild ground between
this and the next estate; and I persuaded him to act as my guide to the
place. He told me that I must be careful what I said or did, as the
negroes were in a very curious humour and might easily be offended. We
carried our cutlasses, and I stuck a brace of pistols in my belt;
besides which, we were each provided with a stout walking-stick. We
started at sundown, and after leaving the cultivated ground we had no
little difficulty in making our way through the tangled brushwood till
we reached the hut in which the Jumby dance was to be performed. It
stood under a vast cotton-tree, on an open space near the bank of the
river which you see running into the ocean to the westward of this. As
we went along Kerlie told me that the chief performer was a big negro,
Cudjoe, reputed to be a powerful Obeah man; that is, a necromancer, or
what the North American Indians would call a medicine-man. He is
supposed to possess wonderful mysterious powers--to be able to cause the
death of any one who offends him. Bob assured me that there was no
doubt about this, and those he denounces never fail to die shortly
afterwards. If such is the case, Master Cudjoe probably knows how to
use poison to bring about the fulfilment of his predictions, and I am
thankful that he does not belong to us.

"We found upwards of a hundred negroes, mostly men, though there were
some women among them, all decked out in strange and uncouth ornaments,
snakes' heads, dried frogs, various coloured beads forming necklaces
round their throats; their garments were otherwise scanty in the
extreme. They looked surprised and not very well pleased at seeing us,
and Rob had some difficulty in persuading them that I only came for
curiosity and was far too good-natured to say anything about what I
might see which might get them into trouble. The assembly being
pacified agreed to our remaining. I observed that there was a great
deal of talking among them, but as they spoke their native African,
neither Rob nor I could understand what was said. The hut w