THE JUMBY'S REVENGE.
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theirs could lead them to gain the intended place of burial. At length, forced on by the jumby, they made up to a negro house, the door of which was shut ; and before they could ask for admittance, the coffin was impelled through . it, breaking it into pieces, and was dashing forwards against the face of a man, the only inmate, who, frightened and horrified at the encounter, was endeavouring to effect his escape. This at length he accomplished, but not before he bore upon his head and face the marks of a jumby's revenge. The open door gained, he fled as if ten thousand demons were hanging upon his steps, while the corpse, satisfied at having pointed out its murderer, bowed itself upon the bearers' shoulders, and then allowed them to carry \ it quietly to its last resting-place. — Time flew on, and no tidings of the murderer were heard, until about six months had elapsed, when a party of negroes went into a copse to cut wood. They had almost penetrated through its tangled mazes, when they thought they saw something lying under the brushwood ; and upon a nearer approach, discovered it to be the man who had fled from the attack of the jumby. He was in a dying condition, and according to the old women who related the circumstance, " He face 'top most like one buckra, all whitey whitey, from de jumby licking he so;" a great compliment to us whites ! But to return to our story. The negroes picked him up, and carried him home, where he lived long enough to confess, that a quarrel having arisen between himself and the deceased woman, he procured "something" from an Obeah man, which he put into some soup, and which caused her death. Like everything else, my story has an end ; and now let me ask my readers what they think of it ? I am sure they will join with me in deploring that superstition has still so many votaries. Oh ! that her reign was at an end ! ' Yet there are some negroes who are getting over the dread of these things. An old woman.remarked one day, “Missis,