A Roving Commission Part 14

"Do you think that they would join the blacks?"

"I have no doubt at all about it--I feel sure they have done so. I saw three of them talking together yesterday; they were paying no attention to the slaves, and I thought then that it was rather peculiar. Besides, we know that these lower cla.s.s of mulattoes are as hostile to the whites as the negroes are, if not more so, and I have no doubt they have had a good deal to do with exciting the slaves to revolt. And now, Madame d.u.c.h.esne, I will go down through the woods and get you some sugar-cane, and look for a stream."

Madame d.u.c.h.esne protested, but she was accustomed to have every want supplied as soon as expressed, and she was suffering much from thirst after the excitement and effort.

"You really require something," Nat went on. "You see, if I go down after dark I may be away for two or three hours, and were you to wait till then you would be in a fever with thirst. It is evident that the negroes have all left the wood, therefore there can be no risk in my going down and cutting a dozen of the young canes."

"If you go," she said firmly, sitting up as she spoke, "you must leave me two of your pistols--they are double-barrelled, are they not?"

"Yes, madame."

"Well, leave two. If the negroes come and begin to search this place I shall shoot Myra first and then myself, for death would be a thousand times preferable to falling into the hands of these wretches."

"I think you are right there," Nat said gravely, "and if I thought that there would be the slightest fear of their coming I would not leave you.

I shall not be away a quarter of an hour. I will leave my jacket and cap here, and tie a handkerchief round my head, so that should I by any chance come across a searcher, he will not recognize me until I am close enough to silence him. I shall take the sword as well as the other brace of pistols; it will be useful for cutting down the canes."

Taking off his jacket and waistcoat, and tying his handkerchief round his head, he made his way through the bushes, and then started at a fast run down the hill, keeping, however, a sharp look-out as he went. As he expected, there were no signs of the blacks. As he reached the edge of the wood, and cut the canes, he could hear the sound of distant yells in the direction of the house.

"The brutes have got at the rum," he said. "If I had but half a dozen blue-jackets, I believe I could clear the lot out. I do hope," he went on, as he started on his way back, "I shall be able to lay my hand on something to eat, and get hold of a bottle or two of wine. Madame will never be able to get on on yams and sugar-canes, accustomed as she has been to every luxury. Myra will be all right, she is a regular young brick." As he neared the clump of bushes he cried out cheerily: "All right, madame, I have got the canes, and have not caught sight of a negro." An exclamation of relief followed. Madame d.u.c.h.esne and Myra were both standing as he entered, each with a pistol in her hand.

"I was not alarmed by your footstep," she said, "for anyone who was searching for us would come along slowly and stealthily; but I thought you might be pursued."

"If I had been," Nat laughed, "you may be very sure I should not have brought them this way, but would have given them a dance all over the place, and then slipped away and come back here."

"I know that," she said earnestly, "but I am nervous and shaken."

"Very naturally, too," Nat said: "you felt very much as I did when, after that explosion, I went on board the other pirate to drown the magazine. I believe that if anyone had given a shout close to me I should have tumbled headlong down on the deck. I think, now, we are perfectly safe till to-morrow. By the noises I heard down by the house I should say that most of the slaves are drunk already, and you may be sure that they will not think of starting to look for us till to-morrow.

Now, if you will take my advice, you will try to sleep a bit."

Accustomed to sleep for two or three hours during the heat of the day, Madame d.u.c.h.esne was indeed feeling so drowsy that she could with difficulty keep her eyes open, and she now in the course of a few minutes was breathing quietly and regularly.

"Now, Myra, do you watch by your mother while I go and look for water.

That tiny stream that crosses the road a quarter of a mile above your house must come down not far from here, and it is essential that we should be near it."

"But it is near water that they are most likely to look for us."

"I did not think of that, Myra; of course it is. Well, then, we must move over this hill and hide up in the next little valley we come to.

There is a road that turns off half a mile above your house. I never went far along it, but it seems to go right up into the heart of the hills."

"I never went up it either, Nat, but I have heard my father say there were a good many small clearings up among the hills, some with twenty slaves, some with only two or three."

"Then, when I come back from seeing how things are going on at the house, we had better make for that road, keeping along down at the end of the plantation until we come to it. It will be much better to keep straight along there till we pa.s.s some little valley where there is a stream, than to wander about in the wood; and we shall be farther away from those who may be looking after us. If your mother sleeps for two or three hours she will be able to go some little distance to-night."

Myra shook her head doubtingly.

"We must get her on," he added, "even if we have to carry her. It is all very well for us, because I am as hard as nails, and you do a lot of walking for a white girl here, but your mother is not strong. You saw how terribly exhausted she was when she got here, and it is quite likely that she may knock up altogether; therefore it is essential to get her into shelter. We are safe for to-day, but to-morrow we may have the negroes all over the hills, and it will have to be a wonderfully good hiding-place to escape their search."

"But do you feel sure that they have risen on all the other plantations?"

"I have not the least doubt that they have risen on every plantation in this neighbourhood. Your slaves were wonderfully well treated, and would not have joined unless they had known that it was a general rising. You know the old nurse said that it was to have been on the twenty-fifth, which means, of course, that it was a great plot all over the island.

Of course in some places they may not have got the news yet, and may not rise for a day or two, but you may be sure that all around here it has been general."

"But why should they want to kill us?"

"Because they are really nothing but savages. Though they have in many cases been slaves for generations, still there are always fresh slaves arriving; and the others know that their fathers, like these, were captured and sold to the whites, that they had terrible times in the slave-ships, and are on some plantations treated like dogs, and are bought and sold just like cattle. I don't wonder at it that, now they have got a chance, as they think, they should take vengeance for all the ills they have suffered. When they are at war with each other in Africa they kill or enslave all who fall into their hands--men, women, or children--and you may be sure that they will show no mercy here. When I was down at the edge of the wood to cut those canes I could see smoke rising from a dozen points lower down. It is possible that some besides ourselves got warning in time, but I am afraid very few can have escaped; for you see, once beyond the line of wood, which does not go more than a mile or two further, there will be no hiding-places for them. There is only one comfort, and that is, the news must have got down to the town in a very short time, and there is no fear of your father driving out and being taken by surprise. My greatest hope lies in that old nurse of yours. She could do more in the way of helping us than we could do ourselves. She could go and get things, and hear what is going on. She is old, but she is a strong woman still, and could help to carry your mother, and attend to her if she is ill."

"Do you think she is going to be ill?" Myra asked anxiously, looking at her mother.

"I sincerely trust not, Myra, but I own that I am afraid of it. She is breathing faster than she did, and she has moved restlessly several times while we have been talking, and has a patch of colour on each cheek, which looks like fever. However, we must hope for the best.

Anyhow, I shall bring Dinah up here if possible."

So they talked till the sun went down. Madame d.u.c.h.esne still slept, but her breathing was perceptibly faster. She occasionally muttered to herself, and scarcely lay still for a moment.

"I will be going now," Nat said at last; "it will be pitch dark by the time I get down to the house; it is dark already here. You have the pistols, Myra, but you may be quite sure that no one will be searching now. I may have some difficulty in finding these bushes when I come back, but I will whistle, and when I do, do you give a call. I hope I shall bring Dinah back with me."

"Oh, I do hope you will. She would be a comfort to us."

Nat heard a quaver in her voice, which showed that she was on the point of breaking down.

"You must not give way, Myra," he said. "You have been very plucky up to now, and for your mother's sake you must keep up a brave heart and hope always for the best. I rely upon you greatly. We may have many dangers to go through, but with G.o.d's help we may hope to rejoin your father.

But we must be calm and patient. We have been marvellously fortunate so far, and shall, I hope, be so until the end. When I find out what the negroes intend to do we shall be able to decide upon our course. It may be that they will pour down from all the plantations within thirty or forty miles round and attack the town, or it may be that they will march away into the mountains in the interior of the island, in which case the road to the town will be open to us. Now, good-bye; I will be back as soon as I can."

"Do not hurry," she said. "I will try to be brave, and I don't mind waiting, because I shall know that you are trying to get nurse, and of course it may be difficult for you to find her alone."

"Good-bye, then," he said cheerfully, and pa.s.sing through the bushes he went rapidly down the hill.

On reaching the cane-field he again took off his shoes. He did not hurry now. It was a tremendous responsibility that he had upon his shoulders.

He thought nothing of the danger to himself, but of how Madame d.u.c.h.esne and her daughter were to be sheltered and cared for if, as he feared, the former was on the edge of an attack of fever, which might last for days, and so prostrate her that weeks might elapse before she would be fit to travel.

"I must get Dinah at all costs," he said to himself. "She knows what will be wanted, and will be a companion to Myra when I have to be away."

As he neared the place where the house had stood he heard sounds of shouting and singing coming from a spot near the storehouses, where a broad glow of light showed that a great bonfire was burning. He kept in the shrubbery until near the house, and then stepped out on to the gra.s.s. The house was gone, and a pile of still glowing embers alone marked where it had stood. Nat approached this, found a piece of charred timber that had fallen a short distance from it, and proceeded to blacken his face and hands. Then he turned towards the fire. As he had expected, it was not long before he came across the figure of a prostrate man, who was snoring in a drunken sleep. The stars gave sufficient light for him to see as he bent over him that he was a negro.

He had attired himself in what when he put them on were a clean nankeen jacket and trousers, a part of the spoil he had taken in the sack of the house. Without ceremony Nat turned him over, and with some trouble removed the garments and put them on over his own. Then he took the red handkerchief that the negro had bound round his head and tied it on, putting his own bandana in his pocket.

"Now," he said to himself, "I shall do, provided I keep away from the light of that fire. The first point is to find where Dinah has gone. I know she has a daughter and some grandchildren down at the slaves' huts.

I should think I have most chance of finding her there."

Turning off, he went to the huts, which lay two or three hundred yards away from the house. As he did so he pa.s.sed near the houses in which the mulatto overseers lived. There were lights here, and he could hear the sound of voices through the open windows.

"I will come back to them later on," he said, "I may hear something of their plans; but Dinah is the most important at present."

He was soon among the slave huts. No one was about, the women being mostly up at the fire with the men. He looked in at the door of each hut he pa.s.sed. As he was still without shoes his movements were noiseless.

In a few of them women were cooking, or putting their children to bed.

At the last hut of the first row which he visited an old negro woman was rocking herself in great grief, and two or three children were playing on the floor. Nat knew that he had come to the end of his search, by the blue cotton dress with large white spots that the woman wore. He went in and touched her.

"Dinah," he whispered, "come outside!"

She gave a little start of surprise, and then said to the children: