The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-09-07

accommodated the corps of serv. ants.
 This place, here?" Barry re- peated, in response to Mona's tim i'd query. She still felt ill at ease with him and the conversation be- tween them had never veered from generalities. He looked about af- fectionately at the huge house flank ed with it's verit;.ble Eden. "Oh, it's just an old plantation house. They used to raise sugar here for the market, when there was one. Too much dieting nowadays!" "Well," said Lottie, maybe We diet but you like us better. don't you. than if we looked like Miss Oracle 2"
 Miss Oracle was a recent inn portation from Port of Spain invited out of deference to conven- tions. She was a sort of official chaperon ,the siser of college professor with a family of in- structor sons. At the moment the house was in her capable hands. Seated on the terrace, they could hear Miss Oracle giving orders to the servants who adored her.
 Maybe buccaneers lived in the house." Barry went on. "I don't know. Anyhow 1t has been pretty much g. one mans island all the while."
 They were seated on the terrace at the tea hour which brought the four together, refreshed and fresh- ly garbed. after the exigencies of the morning.
 Barry gazed with pride at the house, rising above the surround ing shrubbery, house wide- roomed, ample and high-towered. Overlooking the sea as 1t did in a wide sweep. buccaneers of old might we'll have set their watch there.
 "Whoever lived here kept slaves" Steve said idly. Its @ funny thing. I could live in New York all my life and study at school about the slaves in the south but no visit to Harlem ever got me very much excited. But here! Just the thought of slaves working under this broiling sun burns me up."
 "The slave owner here." Barry went on, "resorted to that rotten trick they learned in St Lucia and in Martinique. They brought over the fer-de-lance to keep the slaves from running away!"
 Running away!" Lottie's eyes were wide. "How could they do that? Where would they run to"
 They'd run mostly to the high bush. That section pretty well grown up, that you see for miles beyond the golf course. There are waterfalls in there, they tell me, though we've never come upon one. We'll, the slave owners thought the slaves would streak for the bush. They were always supersti- tious too, believed the slaves had superhuman ways of getting mess ages to each other from island to island. But they couldn't work any of their magic here in plain sight on the sugar cane fields so the snake, the fer-de-lance, was plant ed in the bush."
 ''The snake was supposed to drive them back?" asked Mona.
 ITO frighten them back! To keep them out of the bush entirely. It was a bad move, though. The fer de-lance killed more white men than it did slaves. They had to bring over the mongoose to destroy it."
 Are there any of them left?" asked Lottie fearfully.
 Now? I don't believe so. The man who sold us this island said his father had seen one years ago and the butcher at Barbuda. where we sometimes go for supplies, said that the father had died from a hffo a aft1ra I1v while nnOntfatin a sale our man didn't tell us that!"
 Lottie's eyes were on the hori- zon following traile of smoke lyin gout against 'the water like gauge blown by the wind.
 "Then there may be some here yet," she said casually. And you live here!"
 "I've lived in Florida" Barry an- swered. "yet there are snakes there."
 "Lottie!" Steve turned to her If asked you very po- litely to come with me to the high bush now would you go?"
 But would you ask me?" Lottie retorted, cooking her head. "I'm q dangerous blond. l might compro- mise you" 1
 Maybe I wouldn't mind"
 Lottie's eyes roved to Barry. Ap- he had not heard this ban ter. It was the first personal tinge to enter the conversation. Or per- haps Barry had heard! Now he rose, stretched . bit. 'and. taking leave of the others with a brief nod. nauntered toward the house
 Lottie and Steve unheeding. were once more adrift in gay banter.