Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/300

 290 Obeah in the West Indies.

hand in but could not, so he cut the boy's chest further. Mon- toute was speaking English to the boy when he was closing his mouth at the house, but I do not understand what he said, for I do not understand English. When Montoute could get his hand inside he felt and felt about till he found the heart. When Mon- toute had taken out the heart he cut the boy's two wrists. We buried the boy. Montoute said to St. Luce, 'Why did you not take the head, as you said you would, to bury in the mill ? ' I said to St. Luce, ' No, you have committed one sin ; that is enough.' Then St. Luce said, ' There is only a piece of new line wanting.' Then we went to the house. Montoute got St. Luce to pound some salt St. Luce had there. Montoute said to St. Luce he would send him some other stuff to sprinkle over it. Montoute told St. Luce he would procure him a new glove, and another for myself also. Montoute said that we should have to procure a piece of coffin pall. I said it would be difficult to do so. Montoute said he had already commissioned some one in Barbados to get a piece for him. While we were digging the hole, — St. Luce and I, — I asked him if he had known Montoute before he had gone from St. Lucia, and St. Luce replied that they had been comrades from the time they were boys. Up to now Montoute had not told us what he intended doing with the heart and hands. I don't think St. Luce himself knows up to now. They say that I alone killed the boy. I am not the only one. They could not have sat down there while I alone did the killing. If I had been the only one to do the killing I would have carried ' the things ' to my house. Up to now not even a crooked pin has been found at my house. The book was found on Montoute ; the parts of the boy at St. Luce's house ; nothing has been found on me or my place, so I cannot be the only one who killed the boy. St. Luce could not have sat down with Montoute while I alone killed the boy. We all three did it. That's all."

The simple directness of this horrible narrative could scarcely have failed to carry conviction of its truth ; but at his trial, however, when he was defended by counsel, St. Hill repudiated what he had said before the magistrate, and stated before the Court that Montoute had some time