h, and my father could not restrain
them. They called out their men, and I called out my men, and I had a
large body, for my name was terrible. But the force raised against me
was twice that of mine, and I retreated to the bush--after a while we
met and fought and I killed many, but my men were too few and were
overpowered--the fetish had been sent out against me, and their hearts
melted; at last I sank down with my wounds, for I bled at every pore,
and I told my men who were about me to take off my feathers, and my
dress and boots, that my enemies might not have my skull: they did so,
and I crawled into the bush to die. But I was not to die; I was
recovering, when I was discovered by those who steal men to sell them: I
was bound, and fastened to a chain with many more. I, a prince and a
warrior, who could show the white skulls of his enemies--I offered to
procure gold, but they derided me; they dragged me down to the coast,
and sold me to the Whites. Little did I think, in my pride, that I
should be a slave. I knew that I was to die, and hoped to die in
battle: my skull would have been more prized than all the gold in the
earth, and my skin would have been stuffed and hung up in a
fetish-house--instead of which, I now boil the kettle for the young
gentlemen."

"Well," replied Jack, "that's better than being killed and stuffed."

"Mayhap it is," replied Mesty, "I tink very different now dan I tink
den--but still, its women's work and not suit me.

"They put me with others into a cave until the ship came, and then we
were sent on board, put in irons, and down in the hold, where you could
not sit upright--I wanted to die, but could not: others died every day,
but I lived--I was landed in America, all bone, and I fetched very
little money--they laughed at me as they bid their dollars: at last a
man took me away, and I was on a plantation with hundreds more, but too
ill to work, and not intending to work. The other slaves asked me if I
was a fetish-man; I said yes, and I would fetish any man that I did not
like: one man laughed, and I held up my finger; I was too weak to get
up, for my blood had long boiled with fever, and I said to him, `_you
shall die_;' for I meant to have killed him, as soon as I was well. He
went away, and in three days he was dead. I don't know how, but all the
slaves feared me, and my master feared me, for he had seen the man die,
and he, although he was a white man, believed in fetish, an