Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  The conch sounded to summon the negroes to their morning’s work. It happened this day, that Mr. Edwards, who was continually intent upon increasing the comforts and happiness of his slaves, sent his carpenter, while Caesar was absent, to fit up the inside of his cottage; and when Caesar returned from work, he found his master pruning the branches of a tamarind tree that over-hung the thatch. “How comes it, Caesar,” said he, “that you have not pruned these branches?”

  Caesar had no knife. “Here is mine for you,” said Mr. Edwards. “It is very sharp,” added he, smiling; “but I am not one of those masters who are afraid to trust their negroes with sharp knives.”

  These words were spoken with perfect simplicity: Mr. Edwards had no suspicion, at this time, of what was passing in the negro’s mind. Caesar received the knife without uttering a syllable; but no sooner was Mr. Edwards out of sight than he knelt down, and, in a transport of gratitude, swore that, with this knife, he would stab himself to the heart sooner than betray his master!

  The principle of gratitude conquered every other sensation. The mind of Caesar was not insensible to the charms of freedom: he knew the negro conspirators had so taken their measures that there was the greatest probability of their success. His heart beat high at the idea of recovering his liberty: but he was not to be seduced from his duty, not even by this delightful hope; nor was he to be intimidated by the dreadful certainty that his former friends and countrymen, considering him as a deserter from their cause, would become his bitterest enemies. The loss of Hector’s esteem and affection was deeply felt by Caesar. Since the night that the decisive conversation relative to Mr. Edwards passed, Hector and he had never exchanged a syllable.

  This visit proved the cause of much suffering to Hector, and to several of the slaves on Jefferies’ plantation. We mentioned that Durant had been awakened by the raised voice of Hector. Though he could not find any one in the cottage, yet his suspicions were not dissipated; and an accident nearly brought the whole conspiracy to light. Durant had ordered one of the negroes to watch a boiler of sugar: the slave was overcome by the heat, and fainted. He had scarcely recovered his senses when the overseer came up, and found that the sugar had fermented, by having remained a few minutes too long in the boiler. He flew into a violent passion, and ordered that the negro should receive fifty lashes. His victim bore them without uttering a groan; but, when his punishment was over, and when he thought the overseer was gone, he exclaimed, “It will soon be our turn!”

  Durant was not out of hearing. He turned suddenly, and observed that the negro looked at Hector when he pronounced these words, and this confirmed the suspicion that Hector was carrying on some conspiracy. He immediately had recourse to that brutality which he considered as the only means of governing black men: Hector and three other negroes were lashed unmercifully; but no confessions could be extorted.

  Mr. Jefferies might perhaps have forbidden such violence to be used, if he had not been at the time carousing with a party of jovial West Indians, who thought of nothing but indulging their appetites in all the luxuries that art and nature could supply. The sufferings which had been endured by many of the wretched negroes to furnish out this magnificent entertainment were never once thought of by these selfish epicures. Yet so false are the general estimates of character, that all these gentlemen passed for men of great feeling and generosity! The human mind, in certain situations, becomes so accustomed to ideas of tyranny and cruelty, that they no longer appear extraordinary or detestable: they rather seem part of the necessary and immutable order of things.

  Mr. Jefferies was stopped, as he passed from his dining-room into his drawing-room, by a little negro child, of about five years old, who was crying bitterly. He was the son of one of the slaves who were at this moment under the torturer’s hand. “Poor little devil!” said Mr. Jefferies, who was more than half intoxicated. “Take him away; and tell Durant, some of ye, to pardon his father — if he can.”

  The child ran, eagerly, to announce his father’s pardon; but he soon returned, crying more violently than before. Durant would not hear the boy; and it was now no longer possible to appeal to Mr. Jefferies, for he was in the midst of an assembly of fair ladies, and no servant belonging to the house dared to interrupt the festivities of the evening. The three men, who were so severely flogged to extort from them confessions, were perfectly innocent: they knew nothing of the confederacy; but the rebels seized the moment when their minds were exasperated by this cruelty and injustice, and they easily persuaded them to join the league. The hope of revenging themselves upon the overseer was a motive sufficient to make them brave death in any shape.

  Another incident, which happened a few days before the time destined for the revolt of the slaves, determined numbers who had been undecided. Mrs. Jefferies was a languid beauty, or rather a languid fine lady who had been a beauty, and who spent all that part of the day which was not devoted to the pleasures of the table, or to reclining on a couch, in dress. She was one day extended on a sofa, fanned by four slaves, two at her head and two at her feet, when news was brought that a large chest, directed to her, was just arrived from London.

  This chest contained various articles of dress of the newest fashions. The Jamaica ladies carry their ideas of magnificence to a high pitch: they willingly give a hundred guineas for a gown, which they perhaps wear but once or twice. In the elegance and variety of her ornaments, Mrs. Jefferies was not exceeded by any lady in the island, except by one who had lately received a cargo from England. She now expected to outshine her competitor, and desired that the chest should be unpacked in her presence.

  In taking out one of the gowns, it caught on a nail in the lid, and was torn. The lady, roused from her natural indolence by this disappointment to her vanity, instantly ordered that the unfortunate female slave should be severely chastised. The woman was the wife of Hector; and this fresh injury worked up his temper, naturally vindictive, to the highest point. He ardently longed for the moment when he might satiate his vengeance.

  The plan the negroes had laid was to set fire to the canes, at one and the same time, on every plantation; and when the white inhabitants of the island should run to put out the fire, the blacks were to seize this moment of confusion and consternation to fall upon them, and make a general massacre. The time when this scheme was to be carried into execution was not known to Caesar; for the conspirators had changed their day, as soon as Hector told them that his friend was no longer one of the confederacy. They dreaded he should betray them; and it was determined that he and Clara should both be destroyed, unless they could be prevailed upon to join the conspiracy.

  Hector wished to save his friend, but the desire of vengeance overcame every other feeling. He resolved, however, to make an attempt, for the last time, to change Caesar’s resolution.

  For this purpose, Esther was the person he employed: she was to work upon his mind by means of Clara. On returning to her cottage one night, she found suspended from the thatch one of those strange fantastic charms with which the Indian sorceresses terrify those whom they have proscribed. Clara, unable to conquer her terror, repaired again to Esther, who received her first in mysterious silence; but, after she had implored her forgiveness for the past, and with all possible humility conjured her to grant her future protection, the sorceress deigned to speak. Her commands were that Clara should prevail upon her lover to meet her, on this awful spot, the ensuing night.

  Little suspecting what was going forward on the plantation of Jefferies, Mr. Edwards that evening gave his slaves a holiday. He and his family came out at sunset, when the fresh breeze had sprung up, and seated themselves under a spreading palm-tree, to enjoy the pleasing spectacle of this negro festival. His negroes were all well clad, and in the gayest colours, and their merry countenances suited the gaiety of their dress. While some were dancing, and some playing on the tambourine, others appeared amongst the distant trees, bringing baskets of avocado pears, grapes, and pine-apples, the produce of their own provis
ion-grounds; and others were employed in spreading their clean trenchers, or the calabashes, which served for plates and dishes. The negroes continued to dance and divert themselves till late in, the evening. When they separated and retired to rest, Caesar, recollecting his promise to Clara, repaired secretly to the habitation of this sorceress. It was situated in the recess of a thick wood. When he arrived there, he found the door fastened; and he was obliged to wait some time before it was opened by Esther.

  The first object he beheld was his beloved Clara, stretched on the ground, apparently a corpse! The sorceress had thrown her into a trance by a preparation of deadly nightshade. The hag burst into an infernal laugh, when she beheld the despair that was painted in Caesar’s countenance. “Wretch!” cried she, “you have defied my power: behold its victim!”

  Caesar, in a transport of rage, seized her by the throat: but his fury was soon checked.

  “Destroy me,” said the fiend, “and you destroy your Clara. She is not dead: but she lies in the sleep of death, into which she has been thrown by magic art, and from which no power but mine can restore her to the light of life. Yes! look at her, pale and motionless! Never will she rise from the earth, unless, within one hour, you obey my commands. I have administered to Hector and his companions the solemn fetish oath, at the sound of which every negro in Africa trembles! You know my object.”

  “Fiend, I do!” replied Caesar, eyeing her sternly; “but, while I have life, it shall never be accomplished.”

  “Look yonder!” cried she, pointing to the moon; “in a few minutes that moon will set: at that hour Hector and his friends will appear. They come armed — armed with weapons which I shall steep in poison for their enemies. Themselves I will render invulnerable. Look again!” continued she; “if my dim eyes mistake not, yonder they come. Rash man, you die if they cross my threshold.”

  “I wish for death,” said Caesar. “Clara is dead!”

  “But you can restore her to life by a single word.” Caesar, at this moment, seemed to hesitate. “Consider! Your heroism is vain,” continued Esther. “You will have the knives of fifty of the conspirators in your bosom, if you do not join them; and, after you have fallen, the death of your master is inevitable. Here is the bowl of poison, in which the negro knives are to be steeped. Your friends, your former friends, your countrymen, will be in arms in a few minutes; and they will bear down every thing before them — Victory, Wealth, Freedom, and Revenge, will be theirs.”

  Caesar appeared to be more and more agitated. His eyes were fixed upon Clara. The conflict in his mind was violent: but his sense of gratitude and duty could not be shaken by hope, fear, or ambition; nor could it be vanquished by love. He determined, however, to appear to yield. As if struck with panic, at the approach of the confederate negroes, he suddenly turned to the sorceress, and said, in a tone of feigned submission, “It is in vain to struggle with fate. Let my knife, too, be dipped in your magic poison.”

  The sorceress clapped her hands with infernal joy in her countenance. She bade him instantly give her his knife, that she might plunge it to the hilt in the bowl of poison, to which she turned with savage impatience. His knife was left in his cottage, and, under pretence of going in search of it, he escaped. Esther promised to prepare Hector and all his companions to receive him with their ancient cordiality on his return. Caesar ran with the utmost speed along a bye-path out of the wood, met none of the rebels, reached his master’s house, scaled the wall of his bedchamber, got in at the window, and wakened him, exclaiming, “Arm — arm yourself, my dear master! Arm all your slaves! They will fight for you, and die for you; as I will the first. The Koromantyn yell of war will be heard in Jefferies plantation this night! Arm — arm yourself, my dear master, and let us surround the rebel leaders while it is yet time. I will lead you to the place where they are all assembled, on condition that their chief, who is my friend, shall be pardoned.”

  Mr. Edwards armed himself and the negroes on his plantation, as well as the whites; they were all equally attached to him. He followed Caesar into the recesses of the wood.

  They proceeded with all possible rapidity, but in perfect silence, till they reached Esther’s habitation: which they surrounded completely, before they were perceived by the conspirators.

  Mr. Edwards looked through a hole in the wall; and, by the blue flame of a cauldron, over which the sorceress was stretching her shrivelled hands, he saw Hector and five stout negroes standing, intent upon her incantations. These negroes held their knives in their hands, ready to dip them into the bowl of poison. It was proposed, by one of the whites, to set fire immediately to the hut, and thus to force the rebels to surrender. The advice was followed; but Mr. Edwards charged his people to spare their prisoners. The moment the rebels saw that the thatch of the hut was in flames, they set up the Koromantyn yell of war, and rushed out with frantic desperation.

  “Yield! You are pardoned, Hector,” cried Mr. Edwards, in a loud voice.

  “You are pardoned, my friend!” repeated Cæsar.

  Hector, incapable at this instant of listening to anything but revenge, sprang forwards, and plunged his knife into the bosom of Cæsar. The faithful servant staggered back a few paces: his master caught him in his arms. “I die content,” said he. “Bury me with Clara.”

  He swooned from loss of blood as they were carrying him home; but when his wound was examined, it was found not to be mortal. As he recovered from his swoon, he stared wildly round him, trying to recollect where he was, and what had happened. He thought that he was still in a dream, when he saw his beloved Clara standing beside him. The opiate, which the pretended sorceress had administered to her, had ceased to operate; she wakened from her trance just at the time the Koromantyn yell commenced. Cæsar’s joy! — we must leave that to the imagination.

  In the mean time, what became of the rebel negroes, and Mr. Edwards?

  The taking the chief conspirators prisoners did not prevent the negroes upon Jefferies’ plantation from insurrection. The moment they heard the war-whoop, the signal agreed upon, they rose in a body; and, before they could be prevented, either by the whites on the estate, or by Mr. Edwards’ adherents, they had set fire to the overseer’s house, and to the canes. The overseer was the principal object of their vengeance — he died in tortures, inflicted by the hands of those who had suffered most by his cruelties. Mr. Edwards, however, quelled the insurgents before rebellion spread to any other estates in the island. The influence of his character, and the effect of his eloquence upon the minds of the people, were astonishing: nothing but his interference could have prevented the total destruction of Mr. Jefferies and his family, who, as it was computed, lost this night upwards of fifty thousand pounds. He was never afterwards able to recover his losses, or to shake off his constant fear of a fresh insurrection among his slaves. At length, he and his lady returned to England, where they were obliged to live in obscurity and indigence. They had no consolation in their misfortunes but that of railing at the treachery of the whole race of slaves. Our readers, we hope, will think that at least one exception may be made, in favour of THE GRATEFUL NEGRO. {Empty page}

  TO-MORROW

  “Oh this detestable To-morrow! — a thing always expected, yet never found.” — JOHNSON.

  CHAPTER I.

  It has long been my intention to write my own history, and I am determined to begin it to-day; for half the good intentions of my life have been frustrated by my unfortunate habit of putting things off till to-morrow.

  When I was a young man, I used to be told that this was my only fault; I believed it, and my vanity or laziness persuaded me that this fault was but small, and that I should easily cure myself of it in time.

  That time, however, has not yet arrived, and at my advanced age I must give up all thoughts of amendment, hoping, however, that sincere repentance may stand instead of reformation.

  My father was an eminent London bookseller: he happened to be looking over a new biographical dictionary on the day when I was b
rought into the world; and at the moment when my birth was announced to him, he had his finger upon the name Basil; he read aloud—”Basil, canonized bishop of Caesarea, a theological, controversial, and moral writer.”

  “My boy,” continued my father, “shall be named after this great man, and I hope and believe that I shall live to see him either a celebrated theological, controversial, and moral author, or a bishop. I am not so sanguine as to expect that he should be both these good things.”

  I was christened Basil according to my father’s wishes, and his hopes of my future celebrity and fortune were confirmed, during my childhood, by instances of wit and memory, which were not perhaps greater than what could have been found in my little contemporaries, but which appeared to the vanity of parental fondness extraordinary, if not supernatural. My father declared that it would be a sin not to give me a learned education, and he went even beyond his means to procure for me all the advantages of the best modes of instruction. I was stimulated, even when a boy, by the idea that I should become a great man, and my masters had for some time reason to be satisfied; but what they called the quickness of my parts continually retarded my progress. The facility with which I learned my lessons encouraged me to put off learning them till the last moment; and this habit of procrastinating, which was begun in presumption, ended in disgrace.

  When I was sent to a public school, I found among my companions so many temptations to idleness, that notwithstanding the quickness of my parts, I was generally flogged twice a week. As I grew older, my reason might perhaps have taught me to correct myself, but my vanity was excited to persist in idleness by certain imprudent sayings or whisperings of my father.

  When I came home from school at the holidays, and when complaints were preferred against me in letters from my school-master, my father, even while he affected to scold me for my negligence, flattered me in the most dangerous manner by adding — aside to some friend of the family—”My Basil is a strange fellow! — can do any thing he pleases — all his masters say so — but he is a sad idle dog — all your men of genius are so — puts off business always to the last moment — all your men of genius do so. For instance, there is —— , whose third edition of odes I have just published — what an idle dog he is! Yet who makes such a noise in the world as he does? — put every thing off till to-morrow, like my Basil — but can do more at the last moment than any man in England — that is, if the fit seizes him — for he does nothing but by fits — has no application — none — says it would ‘petrify him to a dunce.’ I never knew a man of genius who was not an idle dog.”