sunshine. After a moment or so she muttered to herself in negro jargon and clenched her hands.

"Baal! the wand of sleep! the bringer of death!"

"What are you saying, Dido?" asked Battersea, his feeble intellect scared by the fierce gestures and the unknown tongue.

"I say deep things which you no understan'. Look at ole Dido, you white man."

Battersea whimpered, and, rubbing one dirty hand over the other, did as he was requested with manifest unwillingness. With an intensity of gaze, Dido glared at him steadily, and swept her hands twice or thrice across his face. In a moment or so the tramp was in a state of catalepsy, and she made use of his spellbound intelligence to gain knowledge. There was something terrible in her infernal powers being thus exercised in the full sunlight, in the incongruous setting of a homely English landscape.

"De debble-stick! Whar is it?"

"In the house of Major Jen. In a little room, on the wall, with swords and axes."

As he said this in a monotonous tone, Dido looked across the tree-tops to where the red roofs of "Ashantee" showed themselves against a blue July sky. She shook her fist at the distant house, and again addressed herself imperiously to Battersea, commanding:

"Tell ole Dido ob de debble-stick."

"It is green, with a handle of gold, and blue stones set into the gold."

Dido bent forward and touched the tramp on his temples.

"See widin dat stick," she muttered, eagerly. "I wish to see."

"There is a bag in the handle," repeated Battersea, with an effort. "Under the bag a long needle;" then after a pause, "the needle is hollow."

"Is dere poison in de bag, white man?"

"No, the poison is dried up."

"Is dere poison in de hollow ob de needle?"

"No," said Battersea again. "The poison is dried up."

 Prev. P 22/157 next