Pourtalès smiled again, this time a more diabolical and sinister smile, as though he were concealing something from Rosina. ‘We doan’t gwine to kill her,’ he answered hastily, with that horrid light illumining once more his cold gray eyes. ‘We gwine to keep de women alive, accordin’ to de word ob de holy prophet: “Have dey not divided de prey? To ebbery man a damsel or two: to Sisera, a prey ob divers colours.” What dat mean, de divers colours, Rosie? Dat no mean you an’ de missy? Ha, ha, ha! you an’ de missy!’ Rosina started back a little surprised at this naive personal effort of exegetical research. ‘How dat, Isaac?’ she screamed out angrily. ‘You lub de missy! You doan’t satisfied wit your fren’ Rosie?’ Isaac laughed again. ‘Ho, ho!’ he said; ‘dat make you jealous, Missy Rosie? Ha, ha, dat good now! Pretty little gal for true, de missy! You tink me gwine to kill him when him is so pretty?’ Rosina gazed at him open-eyed in blank astonishment. ‘You doan’t must kill him,’ she answered stoutly. ‘I lub de missy well meself for true, Isaac. If you kill de missy, I doan’t nebber gwine to speak wit you no more. I gwine to tell de missy all about dis ting ob Delgado’s, I tink, to-morrow.’ Isaac stared her hard in the face. ‘You doan’t dare, Rosie,’ he said doggedly. The girl trembled and shuddered slightly before his steady gaze. A negro, like an animal, can never bear to be stared at straight in the eyes. After a moment’s restless shrinking, she withdrew her glance uneasily from his, but still muttered to herself slowly: ‘I tell de missy—I tell de missy!’ ‘If you tell de missy,’ Pourtalès answered with rough emphasis, seizing her by the shoulder with his savage grasp, ‘you know what happen to you? Delgado send evil one an’ duppy to creep ober you in de dead ob night, an’ chatter obeah to you, an’ tear de heart out ob you when you lyin’ sleepin’. If you tell de missy, you know what happen to me? Dem will take me down to de big court-house in Wes’moreland village, sit on me so try me for rebel, cut me up into little pieces, burn me dead, an’ trow de ashes for rubbish into de harbour. Den I come, when I is duppy, sit at de head ob your pillow ebbery ebenin’, grin at you, make you scream an’ cry an’ wish youself dead, till you dribben to trow youself down de well, or poison youself for fright wit berry ob manchineel bush!’