sympathetic giggle, and piccaninnies ran out to meet me as I
returned in quest of one missing inmate in a house of fifty. For
the few laborers still uncaught I took to coming after dark. But
West Indians rarely own lamps, not even the brass tax-numbers
above the doors were visible, and as for a negro in the dark--

Absurd rumors had begun early to circulate among the darker
brethren. In all negrodom the conviction became general that this
individual detailed catechising and house-branding was really a
government scheme to get lists of persons due for deportation,
either for lack of work as the canal neared completion or for
looseness of marital relations. Hardly a tenement did I enter but
laughing voices bandied back and forth and there echoed and
reechoed through the building such remarks as:

"Well, dey gon' sen' us home, Penelope," or "Yo an' Percival
better hurry up an' git married, Ambrosia."

Several dusky females regularly ran away whenever I approached;
one at least I came a-seeking in vain nine times, and found her
the tenth behind a garbage barrel. Many fancied the secret marks
on the "enumerated" tag--date, and initials of the enumerator--
were intimately concerned with their fate. So strong is the fear
of the law imbued by the Zone Police that they dared not tear down
the dreaded placard, but would sometimes sit staring at it for
hours striving to penetrate its secret or exorcise away its power
of evil, and now and then some bolder spirit ventured out--at
midnight--with a pencil and put tails and extra flourishes on the
penciled letters in the hope of disguising them against the fatal
day.