The broad road led to the world. Beyond Black Rock, beyond St.
Michael's to Eagle Hall Corner, and Bridgetown. Along it traders from
Low'rd, in landaux and victorias and oxcarts sped to barter sea eggs
Sea egg, sea egg
Tittee Ann tan tan!
Evergreen leaves fell swirling through the dusk upon Ella's face. She
brushed them away, and into her untutored mind came a legend. "Sh,
carrion crow," she cried, "me no dead yet." The evergreen leaves,
caressing her face, brought it vividly to her.... "Sh, carrion crow,
me no dead yet." An old Dutch Guianese had uttered the ghastly words.
Black Portuguese legend.... For sticking his hand in a pork barrel in
a Portuguese grocer's shop, a Negro had been caught and whisked off
to a dark spot in the woods. His hands had been cut off and he had
been buried alive, with only his head sticking out of the ground. That
had happened at night. In the morning the crows had come to gouge the
eyes out of his head. "Sh, carrion crow, me no dead yet...." Evergreen
leaves on Ella's face ... crows swirling around the head of a body
buried on the Guiana mound....
"Dis muss be it," Ella murmured.
Up a greasy embankment, one more leap, and Ella paused, breathing
hard. Words--male words--vied with the wind for position in her alert
consciousness.