, suddenly rushed from
the room like stampeded cattle, and at that moment appeared Palmyre.

"Speak to him," faintly cried the panting invalid.

She went firmly up to her husband and lifted her hand. With an easy
motion, but quick as lightning, as a lion sets foot on a dog, he caught
her by the arm.

"_Bras-Coupe oule so' femme_," he said, and just then Palmyre would have
gone with him to the equator.

"You shall not have her!" gasped the master.

The African seemed to rise in height, and still holding his wife at
arm's length, resumed his malediction:

"May weeds cover the ground until the air is full of their odor and the
wild beasts of the forest come and lie down under their cover."

With a frantic effort the master lifted himself upon his elbow and
extended his clenched fist in speechless defiance; but his brain reeled,
his sight went out, and when again he saw, Palmyre and her mistress were
bending over him, the overseer stood awkwardly by, and Bras-Coupe
was gone.

The plantation became an invalid camp. The words of the voudou found
fulfilment on every side. The plough went not out; the herds wandered
through broken hedges from field to field and came up with staring bones
and shrunken sides; a frenzied mob of weeds and thorns wrestled and
throttled each other in a struggle for standing-room--rag-weed,
smart-weed, sneeze-weed, bindweed, iron-weed--until the burning skies of
midsummer checked their growth and crowned their unshorn tops with rank
and dingy flowers.

"Why in the name of--St. Francis," asked the priest of the overseer,
"didn't the senora use her power over the black scoundrel when he stood
and cursed, that day?"

"Why, to tell you the truth, father," said the overseer, in a discreet
whisper, "I can only suppose she thought Bras-Coupe had half a right
to do it."

"Ah, ah, I see; like her brother Honore--looks at both sides of a
question--a miserable practice; but why couldn't Palmyre use _her_ eyes?
They would have stopped him."

"Palmyre? Why Palmyre has become the best _monture_ (Plutonian medium)
in the parish. Agricola Fusilier himself is afraid of her. Sir, I think
sometimes Bras-Coupe is dead and his spirit has gone into Palmyre. She
would rather add to his curse than take from it."

"Ah!" said the jovial divine, with a fat smile, "castigation would help
her case; the whip is a great sanctifier. I fancy it would even make a
Christian of the inexpugnable Bras-Coupe."

But Bras-