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His arm deals death everywhere." In a moment all took to their heels, including the royal Ocra, but Omar, grasping my arm, whispered excitedly: "Stay. We may now escape." As the words left his lips we caught sight of a weird black figure dressed in long coarse grass, with rams' horns upon his head, his face whitened and a second pair of eyes painted over his own.
"Your queen-mother," he said, "has times without number sent her armed hordes over the border to raid our villages, and it is the fetish that has delivered you, her son, into our hands. The fetish has not sent you hither as a sacrifice, but as a hostage. Therefore your life shall be spared together with that of your white friend, but you shall both be given as slaves to our trusted Ocra Betea.
'Well, Ocra, what now? 'Nothing, sir, only Rachel says she sick can't go to de field to-day. 'Ah, sick, is she? I'll see to her; you may be off. She shall see if I am longer to be fooled with in this way. Here, Christmas, mix these salts bring them to me at the negro house. And seizing his whip, he made off to the negro settlement.
When he had gone I cast myself upon the ground in the shadow beside Omar, saying: "After all, it would have been better if we had died in the woods than to endure this torture of waiting for execution." "Yes," he answered, gloomily. "That Ocra who has just inspected us was Betea, a bitter enemy of my mother. He is certain to revenge himself upon us."
Suddenly the chief executioner took one of his knives which had a human skull upon the hilt, and holding it up, commanded silence. Then spoke the Ocra Betea, who, rising from his stool, waved his hand across the veritable Golgotha, crying: "Behold! Tremble! The King makes the great yam custom. The death-drum beats, and to the fetish we offer sacrifice.
The tall, rather handsome, man who inspected us was an Ocra of the first class, for he wore a massive gold circle like a quoit suspended around his neck by golden chains, and, walking beneath an enormous, gaudily-coloured silken umbrella bearing the crude device of a crouching leopard, was attended by a numerous retinue, who paid him the greatest respect.
'Ocra, said the overseer, one evening, to the driver, 'if any pretend to be sick, send me word allow no lazy wench or fellow to skulk in the negro house. Next morning, a few minutes after the departure of the hands to the field, Ocra was seen hastening to the house of the overseer. He was soon in his presence.
At first we thought some poor wretch was being sacrificed, but again and again it sounded, and all turned pale, even the royal Ocra himself. "What's that, I wonder?" I asked Omar, who, bearing our master's sword, was walking at my side. "The gree-gree!" he gasped, looking round in fear, while at that moment there sounded two ear-piercing blasts upon a horn. "Hark!" cried Betea himself, trembling.
At last, however, we were allowed to retire, and very soon afterwards the great Ocra moved forward into the next court, followed by a couple of youths bearing long knives and a thin, lean-looking wretch with a stool curiously carved from a solid block of cotton wood, richly embellished with gold ornaments.
Another Way. Cut up a large fat chicken; boil it in two gallons of water, adding at the time you put in the chicken the same quantity of ocra, two large onions cut fine; season with pepper, salt, thyme and parsley; and when nearly done, drop in dumplings made of one egg, half a pint of rich milk, and flour sufficient to make them so that they will drop from a spoon.
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