Chapter VI: Placating a Dervish

Outside the wind and rain roared like a hurricane and great lumps of hail struck upon the solid roof of the cabin like brickbats, rolled off, and hit the ground with a loud click.

Large particles of hail, looking as if a number of lumps had met and merged in mid-air, fell down the large open chimney, and rolled out upon the floor. On any other occasion Hitch and Vinegar would have pounced upon them, but now neither moved to pick them up.

The three rain-drenched people stood in the middle of the floor, each in the center of a widening puddle; then they relieved the strain by changing their location and began to drip in a new puddle.

At last Vinegar’s legs sank under him, and he dropped upon a chair.

“Oo-ee!” he sighed. “De good Lawd sho’ is made a mistake when He fotch me into dis here tangle-up. He’s done got my tail caught in a cuttin’-box.”

“Talk to her, Revun!” Hitch begged in an agonized whisper.

“You cornverse her, Hitch,” Vinegar Atts pleaded. “I’ll set right here by you an’ pray constant.”

Diada walked to the fireplace, squatted down, picked up two splinters of wood and rubbed them together. A tiny blue flame curled around the fingers of the woman. Sheltering the flame with her hands, she added more fuel, and in a moment stepped back from a roaring fire.

“Look at dat!” Hitch Diamond exclaimed in tones of wonder and admiration. “Made a fire by rubbin’ two sticks ag’in’ each odder. I done tried dat a thousan’ times, but I didn’t make nothin’ but sweat!”

“Whut you reckin she done built dat fire fer, Hitch?” Vinegar inquired with chattering teeth.

“Mebbe she wants to dry out dem clothes she’s got on,” Hitch surmised.

“I dunno,” Vinegar responded in fearful tones. “It ’pears to me dat it’s mighty nigh dinner-time, an’ I’s done heerd tell dat sometimes dose here she-heathens _eats folks_.”

“Oh, hush, nigger!” Hitch mourned, sinking down upon a bench at the far end of the room. “Don’t start no news like dat! Please, suh, Revun Atts, git yo’ religium wuckin’ ag’in’ her right now!”

“I don’t know how!” Vinegar lamented. “I ain’t never had no expe’unce on dis kind of job.”

“Whut do de Bible say do?” Hitch demanded.

“It say, ‘Watch an’ pray,’” Vinegar told him.

“Dat ain’t gwine do no good in dis case,” Hitch declared with conviction. “You mought as well pour dem advices back into de jug. Leasewise I cain’t figger out how it kin do any good. But ef you wants to try it, you do de prayin’ an’ lemme watch.”

“I’s mos’ too close to dis fire, Hitch,” Vinegar remarked uneasily. “I prefers to pray in de kitchen.”

“I’ll go wid you,” Hitch declared eagerly.

The two men entered the only other room to the log cabin, each blocking the other in his eagerness to be the first to get through the door. Diada promptly followed them, and the two men backed against the wall, looking in vain for some way of escape for Diada was between them and the door.

Hanging from the rafters in the kitchen were half a dozen strings of smoked sausages in skins.

Diada reached up and clawed down one of the strings and proceeded to eat the sausage raw. Like a child chewing a thread, she began at one end and lapped up link after link of the sausage. When that had been devoured, she snatched down another string and began on the end of that. Then she snapped off a link and offered it to Vinegar Atts.

“No’m; thank ’e, mum,” Vinegar said. “I likes to watch you chawin’ it. Fer Gawd’s sake, don’t nibble at dat sausage like dat--_eat a plenty_!”

Hitch Diamond pulled down two more strings of the sausage and handed them to her.

“Honey,” he said in wheedling tones, “don’t encourage no delicate appetite. Fill up--fill up! Wallop up dem sassages till you git whar you cain’t do nothin’ but chaw because yo’ swaller is full up to de top. Den, bless Gawd, dar won’t be no room in yo’ insides fer me!”

“Huh.” Vinegar Atts grunted, “I’d rather had a jackass chaw me dan dat baboon. Look at her toofs!”

At last Diada concluded her feast, tossed the undevoured links of sausage on the floor and started back toward the other room. The two men followed because there was nothing else to do. When they had seated themselves before the fire Vinegar said:

“Hitch, talk to her a little bit an’ git her feelin’ good, an’ mebbe her’ll let us go back to town.”

“I dunno how to begin,” Hitch complained. “Ef a cullud lady won’t talk, seems like I cain’t git no hand-holt to remark nothin’ to her.”

“Ax her inquirements!” Vinegar advised.

There was silence in the cabin while Hitch explored his brain for a suitable question to ask. Outside the raidn fell in a torrent and the jungle roared like thunder. Finally Hitch spoke:

“Diader, does you enjoy yo’ meals in dis country?”

Diada did not answer, but Vinegar Atts did.

“Git away from de subjeck of grub, Hitch. De sausages is done all been et mighty nigh, an’ whut is dis she-heathen got to eat fer supper but _us_?”

“I ain’t gwine be here fer supper!” Hitch informed him.

“Me neither--ef I makes no mistake,” Vinegar replied earnestly. “Go on wid dem inquirements!”

Hitch took a new start:

“Does you had a good time, Diader? Enj’y yo’se’f?”

“Mebbe dat ain’t no polite question to ax dis kind of coon,” Vinegar remarked when Diada made no answer. “Try somepin diffunt, Hitch!”

“How old is you, Diader?” Hitch asked desperately.

A discreet silence on the part of Diada.

“I knowed you pulled de stopper outen de wrong bottle _dat_ time!” Vinegar commented. “Ax her somepin ’bout her kinnery!”

“Wus yo’ maw an’ paw feelin’ tol’able when you seed ’em las’?” Hitch inquired timidly.

To all appearances Diada had not heard.

“Mebbe all her kinnery’s in jail,” Vinegar declared. “Anyway, she don’t wanter talk about ’em. Stop axin’ fool questions, Hitch! You put yo’ foot in it eve’y time you opens yo’ mouf!”

“Looky here, Revun!” Hitch retorted in irate tones. “I fotch you out here wid me to cornvert dis here heathen. You brag yo’ brags dat you could, now lemme see you git at it! You ain’t axed her nothin’ since you come--jes’ been rubber-neckin’ at her like a goggle-eye perch. Now you git busy on dis dam’ ole baboon an’ ’suade her to be a Christian like us is!”

Thus admonished, Vinegar Atts took a big breath, stared timidly at Diada’s feet, and began:

“Diada, does you foller up de chu’ch?”

“Git pussonal, Revun, git pussonal!” Hitch advised, when Diada did not reply. “Stop beatin’ de bush aroun’ de debbil.”

“Diader, does you take up wid religion?” Vinegar inquired. But Diada made no reply.

“Ax her do she _expe’unce_ religion!” the prize-fighter prompted the preacher. “Ax her do she know dat she’s a chile of Gawd!”

“Diader,” Vinegar asked timidly, “is you got any shore an’ certain hopes of heaven?”

“Dat’s right! Git pussonal!” Hitch applauded.

But Diada steadfastly refused to make any confession of faith.

“Ax her is she committed any sins!” Hitch suggested. “Git pussonal!”

“Looky here, Hitch!” the preacher complained. “I don’t know how dis cullud pusson sets her table an’ I’s skeart I’ll fall in de soup. Whut’s de use axin’ pussonal inquirements when a feller don’t git no kind of respondunce nohow?”

He leaned back, his face overshadowed with gloom and fear. He thrust his hand into his pockets, and his face suddenly cleared.

“I got her now, Hitch! Look at dis!”

Vinegar held up a small round mirror with an advertisement on the back. He looked at himself, then passed it to Hitch, who examined his own features carefully, and who then passed the mirror to Diada.

With wondering faces the two men watched the eternal savage feminine to see if it was like the other kind of eternal feminine. It was.

Diada placed the mirror about four inches from one big, protruding eye, squinted into the glass, and then slipped the little mirror into her hair, gave the hair a deft twist, and brought her hands down--empty.

“Dar now!” Vinegar mourned. “My little lookin’-glass is plum’ gone, jes’ as good as ef she’d swallered it!”

“Dat’s right!” Hitch agreed. “Diader shore made a short cut-off.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling in an attitude of religious resignation, and saw Little Bit’s mandolin hanging on a nail above his head. He reached up and took it down.

Seating himself, he swept his fingers across the strings. Diada’s mouth opened in a wide grin.

“I’s got her. Vinegar,” Hitch boomed. “Now I’s gwine fetch her a few lively toons, an’ while I plays you open dat do’. Mebbe I kin sing dis heathen chile to sleep, but ef I cain’t, you keep yo’ eye on me an’ git ready to scoot!”

Hitch got busy with the mandolin, and Vinegar availed himself of the first opportunity and opened the door. The rain had ceased, and from the hot ground a fog had risen like steam so thick and heavy that objects were invisible at a distance of twenty feet.

Hitch sang a few songs, and at the conclusion of each song he moved back from the fire under pretense of being too warm; but he moved every time a little closer to the open door.

Then Diada rose and began a weird, awkward dance, marking the steps by a peculiar guttural sound like a grunt. Under the weight of her ponderous tramping feet the cabin trembled. The negroes trembled, too, but they were having a chill. In a moment their fright had assumed the proportions and powers of a dynamo propelling them out of that cabin.

“Git ready, Vinegar!” Hitch howled, as he madly played and sang. “I’s done got in de notion to skedaddle. When I gives de word, you better do it!”

Diada had begun to whirl like a dancing Dervish. Mrs. Gaitskill’s silk kimono stood straight out from her mighty shoulders and Colonel Gaitskill’s pajamas became a blear of color in her mad gyration.

Vinegar Atts rose and walked toward the door. Hitch Diamond stood up, thumping madly upon the strings of his musical instrument, watching his chance.

Just when the two men were ready to bolt Diada whooped, sprang through the door, leaped into the open space in front of the porch, and continued her mad rotary dance. There was a flash of steel, and from somewhere on her person Diada produced what Hitch recognized as Mrs. Gaitskill’s pearl-handled paper-cutter, and the large steel carving-knife which Hopey used in the kitchen.

Then began a dance of steel which filled the negroes with horror.

Diada tossed the knives in the air where they whirled like steel wheels, and beneath them she continued her wild gyrations; with wonderful skill, she kept the two blades in the air above her, catching them unerringly when they fell and tossing them up again, while a strange, guttural shriek emanated from her throat, curdling the blood in the veins of Vinegar Atts and Hitch Diamond.

Suddenly Hitch Diamond bellowed:

“Good-by ma honey! I’ve run out of money
Good-by, ma honey--I’m _gone_!”

Before the mandolin, which Hitch hurled from him, had struck the ground, he and Vinegar were half-way across the clearing and a race-horse could not have caught them for their first mile of travel back to town.

Pounding up the street toward the Tickfall courthouse, Hitch Diamond spoke for the first time in seven miles:

“Elder Atts, I don’t b’lieve you really favors furin missions!”