"I witnessed a curious scene yesterday, which I have not before had an opportunity of describing," he said, after a few other remarks had passed 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.