It was getting toward evening, and the sky in the west was as red as
blood. I sat down on my bag and waited. Most of the people left on the
dock were laborers who were engaged in unloading the ship's cargo.
Women with heavy loads on their heads, their hands on their shaking
hips, and chattering in a high singsong dialect (I didn't recognize it
for English at first!), passed me. Some of them looked at me curiously,
and one, a terrifying, pock-marked crone, said something to me that I
could not understand.
I saw the sun slipping down in the sky, but it was still as bright and
clear as mid-day. Sitting alone on that Jamaica wharf, I scarcely saw
the shadows deepening as I looked out across the Caribbean Sea, which
shone like a jewel under the fading light. I forgot my surroundings and
my anxiety at the failure of my employer to meet me; I felt no fear,
just a vague sort of enchantment and interest in this new land I had
discovered.
But I started up screaming when I felt a hand on my shoulder, and
looking up in the steadily deepening twilight, I saw a smiling face
approach my own, and the face was black!