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self. " And were these all his reasons ?" I en- 

 quired. " No ; when he married, Edward was very 

 angry at the loss of his mistress, and had said that 

 they never would live well and happily together ; 

 and they never had lived happily and well toge- 

 ther." 



This last argument quite got the better of my 

 gravity. By parity of reasoning, I thought that 

 almost every married couple in Great Britain must 

 be under the influence of Obeah ! I endeavoured 

 to convince the fellow of his folly and injustice, 

 especially as the person accused was the identical 

 man who had detected the Obeah priest harboured 

 in one of my negro huts last year, had seized him 

 with his own hands, and delivered him up to my 

 agent, who had prosecuted and transported him. 

 It was, therefore, improbable in the highest degree, 

 that he should be an Obeah man himself ; and all 

 the bystanders, black and white, joined me in 

 ridiculing Pickle for complaints so improbable and 

 childish. But anger, argument, and irony were 

 all ineffectual. I offered to christen him, and expel 

 black Obeah by white, but in vain ; the fellow 

 persisted in saying, that " he had a pain in his side, 

 and, therefore, Edward must have given it to him;" 

 and he went back to his hospital, shaking his head 

 all the way, sullen and unconvinced. He is a 

 young strong negro, perfectly well disposed, and 

 doing his due portion of work willingly ; and it 



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