nquiry for an explanation.

"Nebber you mind, Massa Courtenay; you will find out all about dat in
good time, sah," answered the leading spirit of the twain; and with that
reply I was perforce obliged to be content for the moment.

Having made me perfectly secure, the two negroes squatted down upon
their haunches, and, with much deliberation, produced from their pockets
a short clay pipe each, a plug of tobacco, and a knife; and, after
carefully shredding their tobacco and charging their pipes, proceeded to
smoke, with much gravity and in perfect silence. It struck me that
possibly they might be waiting for someone, whose appearance upon the
scene would, I hoped, throw some light upon the cause of this
extraordinary outrage, and give me an inkling as to what sort of an end
I might expect to the adventure. Meanwhile, having nothing else to do,
I proceeded to take stock of the place, or at least as much of it as I
could command in my cramped and constrained position.

There was little or nothing, however, in what I saw about me of a
character calculated to suggest an explanation of the motive for my
seizure. The building was simply one of those low, one-storey adobe
structures, thatched with palm leaves, such as then abounded in the
lower quarters of Kingston, and which were usually inhabited by the
negro or half-breed population of the place. The interior appeared to
be divided into two apartments by an unpainted partition of timber
framing, decorated with cheap and gaudy coloured prints, tacked to the
wood at the four corners; and as a good many of these pictures were of a
religious character, in most of which the Blessed Virgin figured more or
less prominently, I took it that the legitimate occupant of the place
was a Roman Catholic. The furniture was of the simplest kind,
consisting of a table in the centre,--upon which burned the cheap,
tawdry, brass lamp that illumined the apartment,--a large, upturned
packing-case, covered with a gaudy tablecloth, and serving as a table
against the rear wall of the building, and three or four old, straight-
backed chairs, that had evidently come down in the world, for they were
elaborately carved, and upholstered in frayed and faded tapestry. A few
more cheap and gaudy coloured prints adorned the walls; a heavy curtain,
so dirty and smoke-grimed that its original colour and pattern was
utterly unrecognisable, shielded the unglazed window; two or three
hanging shelves--one of