THE WITCH
All that day I remained in a state of gloom. I was ashamed to think
that I had brought ridicule upon Molly by my clumsy dancing, and I was
gloomy because I understood that Molly must certainly marry some great
man, and that there would be an end of her so far as I was concerned.
I was her servant; I was her faithful servant; what could I want more?
I was never again to attempt the part of a fine gentleman--and she
would live wholly among fine gentlemen. I know now that it was more
than the common gloom of humiliation. That I should have thrown off
with ease. It was the terror of something evil--the consciousness
which seizes the soul without any cause that can be ascertained, and
fills it with trembling and with terror. Certain words--harmless
words--kept recurring to my mind; words uttered by Lord Fylingdale--"Can
a ship be sold like a farm?" or words to that effect. Why did these
simple words disturb me? The captain had no thought of selling any of
the ships. And why, when I thought of these words, did I also remember
the curious change that came over his face when he understood the
great wealth of this young heiress? I seemed to see again the strange
flush of his pale, cold cheek; I seemed to see a strange smile upon
his unbending lips and a strange light in his eyes. There was never,
surely, any gentleman with a face so cold and calm as that of my Lord
Fylingdale. It was as if a perpetual peace reigned in his mind; as if
he was disturbed by none of the passions and emotions of ordinary men.
Therefore the smile and the strange look must have been in my
imagination only.
Was it possible that the captain's secret prayers were to be granted?
They were ambitious prayers. I have heard it said that the Lord
sometimes grants to men the thing they most desire in order that they
may learn how much better it would have been for them had their
prayers been refused. You shall learn how this lesson was driven into
my mind--line upon line--precept upon precept. For my own part, while
I honestly desired for Molly the best of husbands, the thought of her
marrying this cold, stately, proud young nobleman filled me with pity.
And I must tell you, moreover, of a strange thing. It happened some
three or four years before these events, but I have never forgotten
it.
It is connected with Molly's black woman whom we called Nigra. Like
all black women she was esteemed a witch. In earlier times she would
have been burned at the stake for her magic and sorcery. Yet she was
only a white witch, as they call them; it was very well known that she
worked no mischief and cast no spells. Nobody was afraid of her. If a
child fell into fits the mother, so far from thinking Nigra to be the
cause, brought her to the black woman to be cured. Nobody could look
at her kindly, wrinkled old face, which was always smiling through her
white teeth; nobody could see those smiles upon her face, which shone
in the sun as if it was of burnished metal; nobody could talk with
her, I say, and believe that she was of the malignant stuff that makes
the witch of the village. She had a great reputation for telling
fortunes; she could show girls their future husbands; she could find
out lucky days for them, and tell them how to avoid unlucky days; she
could make charms to be hung round the necks of infants which would
keep them from croup, fits, and convulsions, and carry them safely
through measels and whooping cough. She had sovereign remedies against
toothache, chilblains, earache, growing pains, agues, fevers, and all
the diseases of boys and girls, and with the ailments which fall upon
the maids, such as megrims, headache, swoonings, giddiness, vapours,
and melancholy. It was believed that even Dr. Worship himself could
not compare with this black woman from the Guinea coast.
One evening, long before the events that I am relating, I surprised
her while she was engaged in her harmless spells and magic rites. It
was in the kitchen, where she sat alone at a table before the fire.
There was no candle, and the red light of the blazing coal made her
face shine like copper and her eyes like two flames, and transformed
her red cloth turban into rich crimson velvet. She had on the table
before her a string of shells, a monkey's skull--but it looked like
the skull of a baby--a thick round stick, painted with lines of red
and blue, two or three rags of cloth, a cocoanut shell cut in two to
make a cup, and many other tools or instruments which I forget; and,
indeed, it matters nothing, because no one would be any the wiser if I
set down the whole furniture of this old sorceress.
She was bending over the table, arranging in some kind of order these
mysterious means for learning the future, and murmuring the while
gibberish of the kind which serves these poor blacks for their
language. She was so busy that she did not hear my footsteps, till I
stole behind her and clapped both my hands over her eyes.
Then she jumped up with a shriek, letting her magical tools drop, and
turned round. "Shoo!" she cried, bursting into a laugh. "Shoo! It's
Massa Jack. I thought it was de debble come to look on." This was the
way she talked. I believe that if you take a negro as a baby and bring
him up with Christians, so that he hears no word of his own gibberish,
in the end he will always speak in this way. It is part of his nature;
it is one of the things which belong to his race--wool instead of
hair; black skin instead of white; thick speech instead of clear; the
shin rounded instead of the calf; a projecting heel, and a big jaw
with white, strong teeth.
"Does the devil often come here, Nigra?"
"Massa Jack," she replied, with as much solemnity as she could
command, "don't you nebber ask if the debble comes here."
"What is he like, Nigra?"
She sat down and began to laugh. She laughed till her mouth nearly
reached her ears; she laughed till her turban nodded and shook, and
her shoulders shook, and she shook all over. She laughed, I know not
why. "What he like? Ho! Ho! Ho! Massa Jack--what he like?"
"Well, but, Nigra, tell me how you know him when you see him."
"Massa Jack," she became serious as suddenly as she had fallen into
her fit of laughter. "Look ye here. When you see de debble--then you
know de debble." So saying, she turned to the table again and began to
gather up her unholy possessions.
"Well, but Nigra, I am not the devil, and so you may as well tell me
whose fortune you are telling."
"Missy's fortune."
"What is it?"
She shook her head. "Can't tell you, Massa Jack. Mustn't tell you."
"Why not? Come, Nigra, you know that I desire the very best fortune
for her that can be given to any one."
She hesitated. Then she laid her hand on mine. "Massa Jack," she said,
"I tell her fortune your people's way, by the cards, and my people's
way, by the gri-gri and the skull. It's always the same fortune."
"What is it?"
"Always the same. They say--trouble for Missy--great big trouble--she
dunno yet what trouble is. Bimeby she find out, and then all de
trouble go--like as if de sun come out and de rain leave off. All the
same fortune."
"I don't understand it at all, Nigra. Why should trouble come to Miss
Molly?"
"Cards don' tell that. Sometimes, Jack, de head"--she laid her hand on
the skull of the monkey, or was it the skull of a child?--"de head
tells me things. Befo' you come in de head was talking fine. He say,
'Lose to gain; lose to gain. Him no good. Bimeby bery fine man come
along.' Dat's what de head said to-night."
"Nonsense, Nigra--a fleshless skull cannot speak."
"Dat's what de head say to me dis night," she replied, doggedly.
I looked at the skull, but it remained silent, grinning with the
dreadful mockery of the death's head.
"Bimeby--bery fine man come along," Nigra repeated.
I laughed incredulous. Then she laid her hand upon my eyes for a
moment--only for a moment. "Listen, then."
It was like a voice far away. I opened my eyes again. Before me sat,
or stood unsupported, the skull, and nothing else. The room had
vanished, Nigra and her tools and everything. The eyes of the skull
were filled with a bright light, and the teeth moved, and the thing
spoke. It said: "Lose to gain! Lose to gain! By and by a better man
will come."
I shivered and shook. I shut my eyes for the brightness of the light.
I opened them again immediately. Everything was as before; the old
black woman beside me at the table; the skull and the rest of the
things; the red light of the fire.
"Nigra," I cried, "what have you done? You are a witch."
"What did de skull say, Massa Jack?"
"How did you do it? What does it mean?" To this day I know not how she
contrived this witchcraft.
She would talk no more, however. I suppose she read the signs and
tokens according to the rules of her witchcraft, and knew no more. I
am not one of those who believe that these black women can penetrate
the clouds of the future and can foresee, that is, see clearly, before
they happen, the things that are coming. It would be too much to
expect of a mere black. Why should Providence, who has manifestly
created the black man to be the slave of the white, confer upon the
black woman so great a gift as that of prophecy? It is not credible.
All that day, after Lord Fylingdale climbed down by the rope ladder, I
kept hearing over again the words of the black woman, which came back
to me, though I had long forgotten them, "By and by. By and by, a
better man will come."
Some there are who laugh at these things, which they call
superstitions. I have heard my father and the vicar arguing learnedly
that the time for witchcraft has passed away, with that of miracles,
demoniac possessions, and the casting out of devils. Well, it is not
for me to speak of things that belong to the landsman. There may be no
such thing as witchcraft; there may be no overlooking; the moon and
the planets cannot, perhaps, strike children. But as for what the
sailor believes--why, he knows. All the Greek and all the Hebrew in
the world will not shake out of his mind what he knows. He learns new
knowledge with every voyage, and new experience with every gale, and
when those words of poor old Nigra came back to me, and would not
leave me, keeping up a continual sing-song in my head, I knew very
well, indeed, that some trouble was brewing--and that the trouble had
to do with Molly.