There, on the yellow back before him, reaching from shoulder to
shoulder, was tattooed the likeness of a great human eye!
Everyone saw it now. To some--the Northern darkies--it meant nothing.
But to the old-school Southern negroes it meant mystery--magic--death.
_It was the sign of the Voodoo_!
Several of the more superstitious onlookers retreated in poor order,
their teeth chattering. Their mammies had told them about the Voodoo
Eye. They remembered the tales whispered in the slave quarters about
people being prayed to death by these baleful creatures of ill omen!
They weren't going to take any chances!
Ambrose, for all his natural courage, was shaken. He remembered old
Tom Blue, the Texas Voodoo, who poisoned twenty-one people and came
to life after the white men lynched him. And now he had laid rough
hands on one of the deadly clan; had brought upon himself the wrath
of a man who could simply _wish_ him to death!
Trembling, he stooped down and looked at the Devil's Sign. He looked
again--closely. Then he broke out into a ringing peal of wholesome
darky laughter.
"Git up!" he shouted, as Dominique showed signs of life. "Git up,
Mr. Voodoo, befo' Ah gits impatient an' throws you out de window!"
This recklessness--this defiance of the dread power--shocked even
the least superstitious of the audience.
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