“My honor!” She practically shrieked with laughter.

“Say nothing.… My friends … make Luis go back to Cárdenas … doctor … cannot go back there … Tío … looking for you … must pretend some more, Elvira, until we’re far away … only my side, say that … Comprende?”

“Sí, sí. Comprendo. I have some herbs in my bag. They will help until we get to Havana. Ah, Will, my Will …” She took his face in her hands and kissed him once more. “I will take care of you, but dica mi, why is it that good things must always end badly?”

“This … not ended yet. Let us see how it ends.”

She prepared some kind of poultice, a sack of ground herbs that she laid over the wound. It would draw out the poisons, she said, and then, reaching into the straw bag that contained the letter and all she owned, took her one spare dress and tore it into strips for bandages. She tied one over the poultice and around his stomach, singing a Lucumi chant, which drew the Braithwaites to the cuddy.

“Will? Will?” asked Nat, outside. “What the hell’s going on in there?”

It was dusk now, and the cuddy was so small that Elvira, with her back to the hatchway, blocked all view of its interior.

Will put on as ordinary a voice as possible.

“Under excellent care, Natters.”

“What’s all that weird singing?”

“Eliot … Ask him.…”

“It’s witch-doctor stuff,” he heard Eliot tell his older brother. “But I guess it works. My hand’s better, anyhow.”

Will suspected that that was due to the natural process of healing and not to the influence of African spirits. If those orishas had curative powers, they were probably reserved for people who believed in them, not for Eliot Braithwaithe, a white Congregationalist from Boston, or for Will Terhune, a white Episcopalian from Boston.

Elvira finished, laid a damp cloth over his forehead, and withdrew, kissing him lightly on the mouth.

“I will pray for you,” she said in an undertone, and, as if to make sure she had all the bases covered, made the sign of the cross.