A LEGEND OF THE RAVINE.
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but her black eyes had lost none of their brightness : they gleamed from beneath her overhanging brow with a supernatural ray. Her form was bent almost double, and the skin hung about her hands and arms like black and shrivelled parchment. An old blanket partly covered her attenuated person, which she firmly grasped with her long bony fingers; but it afforded her no defence against the inclemency of the evening ; for she shivered and trembled at every blast. Such was Morah, the old Obeah woman,* who was hated, yet dreaded, by nearly all her tribe. " Morah," said the leader of the band, after she had rested for a few minutes, " Morah, dost thou not know me ? hast, thou forgot the purpose for which we have met ? The time is short, remember." "Oh, no, no! me no forget," said the old crone; " me know you very well; you're ' Count,' the negro king, as you call yourself, but your massa call you "Count the Runaway,' " and she laughed demoniacally. " Call me Klaas," shrieked the negro ; " oh ! call me not Count—the name of my servitude—the name those detested whites gave me when, torn from all my heart holds dear, and forced into their ships, they brought me to this country, and sold me, for a miserable pittance, to the man I despise—the man who, for a small fault, had me flogged until the blood gushed down my back. Yes ! flogged me, who was born heir to-a kingdom, and who followed the chase in my own bright land, free as the zephyr which kisses its sunny mountains, until the fortunes of war made me the despised, degraded slave I am. Call me not " Count,' I say ; for every misery I have ever borne is recalled by that hated name. Why was it I spurned poor Nuno from me, and embittered her after life ? Because, in a moment of repose—when the weary toil of the day was over—seated before our hut in the bright moonbeam, I talked to her of Africa, and of my hopes of soon escaping from my degraded state, she raised * A dealer in necromancy. F 2