Here the clear surface of the water, into which he was steadfastly looking, was gradually contracted to a small round spot about an foot in diameter, by the settling back of the green floating matter that he had skimmed aside. His countenance became very pale; he appeared even more excited than he had hitherto been.
“By heavens! look in that water, if the green covering of it has not arranged itself round the clear spot into the shape of a medallion—into her features! I had dreamed of such things before, but now it is a palpable reality—it is her face—her straight nose—her Grecian upper lip—her beautiful forehead, and her very bust!—even,
‘As when years apace
Had bound her lovely waist with woman’s zone.’
Oh, Elizabeth—Elizabeth!”
Here his whole frame shook with the most intense emotion, but at length tears, unwonted tears, did come to his relief, and he hid his face in his hands and wept bitterly. I was now convinced he was mad, but I durst not interrupt him. At length he slowly removed his hands, by which time, however, a beautiful small black diver, the most minute species of duck that I ever saw—it was not so big as my fist—but which is common in woodland ponds in the West Indies, had risen in the centre of the eye of the fountain, while all was so still that it floated quietly like a leaf on the water, apparently without the least fear of us.
“The devil appeared in paradise under the shape of a cormorant,” said Mr Bang, half angrily, as he gazed sternly at the unlooked-for visitor; “what imp art thou?”
Tip—the little fellow dived; presently it rose again in the same place, and, lifting up its little foot scratched the side of its tiny yellow bill and little red-spotted head, shook its small wings, bright and changeable as shot silk, with a snow-white pen-feather in each, and then tipped up its little purple tail, and once more disappeared.
Aaron’s features were gradually relaxing; a change was coming over the spirit of his dream. The bird appeared for the third time, looked him in the face, first turning up one little sparkling eye, and then another, with its neck changing its hues like a pigeon’s. Aaron began to smile; he gently raised his stick—”Do you cock your fud at me, you tiny thief, you?”—and thereupon he struck at it with his stick. Tip—the duck dived, and did not rise again; and all that he got was a sprinkling shower in the face, from the water flashing up at his blow, and once more the green covering settled back again, and the bust of his dead love, or what he fancied to be so, disappeared. Aaron laughed outright, arose, and began to shout to the black guide, who, along with Pegtop, had taken the beasts into the wood in search of provender. “Ayez le bonté de donner moi mon cheval. Bringibus the horsos, Massa Bungo—venga los quadrupedos— make haste, vite, mucho, mucho.”
Come, there is my Massa Aaron once more, at all events, thought I; but oh, how unlike the Aaron of five minutes ago!
“So now let us mount, my boy,” said he, and we shoved along until the evening fell, and the sun bid us good-by very abruptly. “Cheep, cheep,” sang the lizard—”chirp, chirp,” sang the crickets—”snore, snore,” moaned the tree-toad—and it was night.
“Dame Nature shifts the scene without much warning here, Thomas,” said Massa Aaron; “we must get along. Dépêchez, mon cher—dépêchez; diggez votre spurs into the flankibus of votre cheval, mon ami,” shouted Aaron to our guide.
“Oui, monsieur,” replied the man, “mais—”
I did not like this ominous “but,” nevertheless we rode on. No more did Massa Aaron. The guide repeated his mais again. “Mais, mon filo,” said Bang, “mais—que meanez-vous by baaing comme un sheep, eh? Que vizzy-vous, eh?”
We were at this time riding in a bridle-road, to which the worst sheep-paths in Westmoreland would have been a railway, with our horses every now and then stumbling and coming down on their noses on the deep red earth, while we as often stood a chance of being pitched bodily against some tree on the pathside. But we were by this time all alive again, the dulness of repletion having evaporated; and Mr Bang, I fancied, began to peer anxiously about him, and to fidget a good deal, and to murmur and grumble something in his gizzard about “arms—no arms,” as, feeling in his starboard holster, he detected a regular long cork of claret, where he had hoped to clutch a pistol, while in the larboard, by the praiseworthy forethought of our guide, a good roasted capon was ensconced. “I say Tom—tohoo—mind I don’t shoot you,” presenting the bottle of claret. “If it had been soda-water, and the wire not all the stronger, I might have had a chance in this climate; but we are somewhat caught here, my dear—we have no arms.”
“Poo,” said I, “never mind; no danger at hand, take my word for it.”
“Maybe not, maybe not—but, Pegtop, you scoundrel, why did you not fetch my pistols?”
“Eigh, you go fight, massa?
“Fight! no, you booby; but could not your own numskull—the fellow’s a fool—so come—ride on, ride on.”
Presently we came to an open space, free of trees, where the moon shone brightly; it was a round precipitous hollow, that had been excavated apparently by the action of a small clear stream or spout of water, that sparkled in the moonbeams like a web of silver tissue, as it leaped in a crystal arch over our heads from the top of a rock about twenty feet high, that rose on our right hand, the summit clearly and sharply defined against the blue firmament, while, on the left, there was a small hollow or ravine, down which the rivulet gurgled and vanished; while ahead the same impervious forest prevailed, beneath which we had been travelling for so many hours.
The road led right through this rugged hollow, crossing it about the middle, or, if anything, nearer the base of the cliff; and the whole clear space between the rock and the branches of the opposite trees might have measured twenty yards. In front of us, the path took a turn to the left, as if again entering below the dark shadow of the wood; but towards the right, with the moon shining brightly on it, there was a most beautiful bank, clear of underwood, and covered with the finest short velvet grass that could be dreamed of as a fitting sward to be in the centre of the open space.
“See how the moonlight sleeps on yonder bank!” said I.
“I don’t know what sleeps there, Tom,” said Aaron; “but does that figure sleep, think you?” pointing to the dark crest of the precipitous eminence on the right hand, from which the moonlight rill was gushing, as if it had been smitten by the rod of the prophet.
I started, and looked—a dark half-naked figure, with an enormous cap of the shaggy skin of some wild creature, was kneeling on one knee, on the very pinnacle, with a carabine resting across his thigh. I noticed our guide tremble from head to foot, but he did not speak.
“Vous avez des arms?” said Bang, as he continued, with great fluency, but little grammar; “ayez le bonté de cockez votre pistolettes?”
The man gave no answer. We heard the click of the carabine lock.
“Zounds!” said Aaron, with his usual energy when excited, “if you won’t use them, give them to me;” and forthwith he snatched both pistols from our guide’s holsters. “Now, Tom, get on. Shove t’other blackie ahead of you, Pegtop, will you? Confound you for forgetting my Mantons, you villain! I will bring up the rear.”
“Well, I will get on,” said I; “but here, give me a pistol.”
“Ridez-vous en avant, blackimoribus ambos—en avant, you black rascals—laissez le capitan and me pour fightez,” shouted Bang, as the black guide, guessing his meaning, spurred his horse against the moonlight bank.
“Ah-ah!” exclaimed the man, as he wheeled about, after he had ridden a pace or two under the shadow of the trees—”Voila ces autres brigands là.”
“Where?” said I.
“There,” said the man, in an ecstasy of fear—”there” and, peering up into the forest, where the checkering dancing moonlight was flickering on the dun, herbless soil, as the gentle night-breeze made the leaves of the trees twinkle to and fro, I saw three dark figures advancing upon us.
“Here’s a catastrophe, Tom, my b
oy,” quoth Aaron, who, now that he had satisfied himself that the pistols were properly loaded and primed, had resumed all his wonted coolness in danger. “Ask that fellow who is enacting the statue on the top of the rock what he wants. I am a tolerable shot, you know; and if he means evil, I shall nick him before he can carry his carabine to his shoulder, take my word for it.”
“Who is there, and what do you want?” No answer; the man above us continued as still as if he had actually been a statue of bronze. Presently one of the three men in the wood sounded a short snorting note on a bullock’s born.
It would seem that until this moment their comrade above us had not been aware of their vicinity, for he immediately called out in the patois of St Domingo, “Advance, and seize the travellers;” and thereupon was in the act of raising his piece to his shoulder, when—crack—Bang fired his pistol. The man uttered a loud hah, but did not fall.
“Missed him, by all that is wonderful!” said my companion. “Now, Tom, it is your turn.”
I levelled, and was in the very act of pulling the trigger, when the dark figure fell over slowly and stiffly on his back, and then began to struggle violently, and to cough loudly as if he were suffocating. At length he rolled over and down the face of the rock, where he was caught by a strong clump of brushwood, and there he hung, while the coughing and crowing increased, and I felt a warm shower, as of heated water, sputter over my face. It was hot hot, and salt—God of my fathers! it was blood. But there was no time for consideration; the three figures by this time had been reinforced by six more, and they now, with a most fiendish yell, jumped down into the hollow basin and surrounded us.
“Lay down your arms,” one of them shouted.
“No,” I exclaimed; “we are British officers, and armed, and determined to sell our lives dearly; and if you do succeed in murdering us, you may rest assured you shall be hunted down by bloodhounds.”
I thought the game was up, and little dreamed that the name of Britain would, amongst the fastnesses of Hayti, have proved a talisman; but it did so. “We have no wish to injure you, but you must follow us and see our general,” said the man who appeared to take the lead amongst them. Here two of the men scrambled up the face of the rock, and brought their wounded comrade down from where he hung, and laid him on the bank; he had been shot through the lungs, and could not speak. After a minute’s conversation, they lifted him on their shoulders; and as our guide and Monsieur Pegtop had been instantly bound, we were only two to nine armed men, and accordingly had nothing for it but to follow the bearers of the wounded man, with our horses tumbling and scrambling up the river-course, into which, by their order, we had now turned.
We proceeded in this way for about half a mile, when it was evident that the jaded beasts could not travel farther amongst the twisted trunks of trees and fragments of rock with which the river-course was now strewed. We therefore dismounted, and were compelled to leave them in charge of two of the brigands, and immediately began to scramble up the hill-side through a narrow foot-path, in one of the otherwise most impervious thickets that I had ever seen. Presently a black savage, half-naked like his companions, hailed, and told us to stand. Some password that we could not understand was given by our captors, and we proceeded, still ascending, until, turning sharp off to the left, we came suddenly round a pinnacle of rock, and looked down into a deep dell, with a winding path leading to the brink of it. It was a round cockpit of a place, surrounded with precipitous limestone rocks on all sides, from the fissures of which large trees and bushes sprang, while the bottom was a level piece of ground, covered with long hay-like grass, evidently much trodden down. Close to the high bank, right opposite, and about thirty yards from us, a wood fire was sparkling cheerily against the grey rock; while, on the side next us, the roofs of several huts were visible, but there was no one moving about that we could see. The moment, however, that the man with the horn sounded a rough and most unmelodious blast, there was a buzz and a stir below, and many a short grunt arose out of the pit, and long yawns, and eigh, eighs! while a dozen splinters of resinous wood were instantly lit, and held aloft, by whose light I saw fifty or sixty half-naked but well-armed blacks, gazing up at us from beneath, their white eyes and whiter teeth glancing. Most of them had muskets and long knives, and several wore the military shako, while others had their heads bound round with the never-failing handkerchief. At length a fierce-looking fellow, dressed in short drawers, a round blue jacket, a pair of epaulets, and a most enormous cocked hat, placed a sort of rough ladder, a plank with notches cut in it with a hatchet, against the bank next us, and in a loud voice desired us to descend. I did so with fear and trembling, but Mr Bang never lost his presence of mind for a moment; and, in answer to the black chief’s questions, I again rested our plea on our being British officers, despatched on service from a squadron (and as I used the word, the poor little Wave and solitary corvette rose up before me) across the island to Jacmel, to communicate with another British force lying there. The man heard me with great patience; but when I looked round the circle of tatterdemalions, for there was ne’er a shirt in the whole company—Falstaff’s men were a joke to them—with their bright arms sparkling to the red glare of the torches, that flared like tongues of flame overhead, while they grinned with their ivory teeth, and glared fiercely with their white eyeballs on us I felt that our lives were not worth an hour’s purchase.
At length the leader spoke—”I am General Sanchez, driven to dispute President Petion’s sway by his injustice to me—but I trust our quarrel is not hopeless; will you, gentlemen, on your return to Port-au-Prince, use your influence with him to withdraw his decree against me?”
This was so much out of the way—the idea of our being deputed to mediate between such great personages as President Petion and one of his rebel generals was altogether so absurd, that, under other circumstances, I would have laughed in the black fellow’s face. However, a jest here might have cost us our lives; so we looked serious, and promised.
“Upon your honours!” said the poor fellow.
“Upon our words of honour,” we rejoined.
“Then embrace me”—and the savage thereupon, stinking of tobacco and cocoa-nut oil, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks, and then did the agreeable in a similar way to Mr Bang. Here the coughing and moaning of the wounded man broke in upon the conference.
“What is that?” said Sanchez. One of his people told him. “Ah!” said he, with a good deal of savageness in his tone”—”Aha! Blood?”
We promptly explained how it happened; for a few moments, I did not know how he might take it.
“But I forgive you,” at length, said he; “however, my men may revenge their comrade. You must drink and eat with them.”
This was said aside to us, as it were. He ordered some roasted plantains to be brought, and mixed some cruel bad tafia with water in an enormous gourd. He ate, and then took a pull himself—we followed; and he then walked round the circle, and carefully observed that every one had tasted also. Being satisfied on this head, he abruptly ordered us to ascend the ladder and to pass on our way.
The poor fellow was mad, I believe. However, some time afterwards, the president hunted him down, and got hold of him, but I believe he never punished him. As for the wounded man
“Whether he did live or die,
Tom Cringle does not know.”
We were reconducted by our former escort to where we left our horses, remounted, and, without further let or hindrance, arrived by day-dawn at the straggling town of Jacmel. The situation is very beautiful; the town being built on the hill-side, looking out seaward on a very safe roadstead, the anchorage being defended to the southward by bright blue shoals, and white breakers, that curl and roar over the coral-reefs and ledges. As we rode up to Mr S——’s, the principal merchant in the place, and a Frenchman, we were again struck with the dilapidated condition of the houses, and the generally ruinous state of the town. The brown and black population appeared to be lounging about in
the most absolute idleness; and here, as at Port-au-Prince, every second man you met was a soldier. The women sitting in their little shops, nicely set out with a variety of gay printed goods, and the crews of the English vessels loading coffee, were the only individuals who seemed to be capable of any exertion.
“I say, Tom,” quoth Massa Aaron, “do you see that old fellow there?”
“What! that old grey-headed negro sitting in the arbour there?”
“Yes; the patriarch is sitting under the shadow of his own Lima bean.”
And so in very truth he was. The stem was three inches in diameter, and the branches had been trained along and over a sparred arch, and were loaded with pods.
Tom Cringle's Log Page 59