Tom Cringle's Log Part 20

Next night I was awakened out of my first sleep by a peculiar sort of tap, tap, on the floor, as if a cat with walnut sh.e.l.ls had been moving about the room. The feline race, in all its varieties, is my detestation, so I slipped out of bed to expel the intruder; but the instant my toe touched the ground, it was seized as if by a smith's forceps. I drew it into bed, but the annoyance followed it; and in an agony of alarm and pain, I thrust my hand down, when my thumb was instantly manacled to the other suffering member. I now lost my wits altogether, and roared murder, which brought a servant in with a light, and there I was, thumb and toe, in the clinch of a land-crab.

I had been exceedingly struck with the beauty of the negro villages on the old settled estates, which are usually situated in the most picturesque spots, and I determined to visit the one which lay on a sunny bank full in view from my window, divided on two sides from the cane pieces by a precipitous ravine, and on the other two by a high logwood hedge, so like hawthorn, that I could scarcely tell the difference, even when close to it.

At a distance it had the appearance of one entire orchard of fruit trees, where were mingled together the pyramidal orange, in fruit and in flower, the former in all its stages from green to dropping ripe,--the citron, lemon, and lime-trees, the stately, glossy-leaved star-apple, the golden shaddock and grape-fruit, with their slender branches bending under their ponderous yellow fruit,--the cashew, with its apple like those of the cities of the plain, fair to look at, but acrid to the taste, to which the far-famed nut is appended like a bud,--the avocada, with its brobdignag pear, as large as a purser's lantern,--the bread-fruit, with a leaf, one of which would have covered Adam like a bishop's ap.r.o.n, and a fruit for all the world in size and shape like a blackamoor's head; while for underwood you had the green, fresh, dew-spangled plantain, round which in the hottest day there is always a halo of coolness,--the coco root, the yam and granadillo, with their long vines twining up the neighbouring trees and shrubs like hop tendrils,--and peas and beans, in all their endless variety of blossom and of odour, from the Lima bean, with a stalk as thick as my arm, to the mouse pea, three inches high,--the pineapple, literally growing in, and const.i.tuting, with its p.r.i.c.kly leaves, part of the hedgerows,--the custard-apple, like russet bags of cold pudding,--the cocoa and coffee bushes, and the devil knows what all, that is delightful in nature besides; while aloft, the tall graceful cocoa-nut, the majestic palm, and the gigantic wild cotton-tree, shot up here and there like minarets far above the rest, high into the blue heavens.

I entered one of the narrow winding footpaths, where an immense variety of convolvuli crept along the penguin fences, disclosing their delicate flowers in the morning freshness, (all that cla.s.s here shut shop at noon,) and pa.s.sion flowers of all sizes, from a soup plate to a thumb ring.

The huts were substantially thatched with palm leaves, and the walls woven with a basket-work of twigs, plastered over with clay, and whitewashed; the floors were of baked clay, dry and comfortable. They all consisted of a hall and a sleeping-room off each side of it: in many of the former I noticed mahogany sideboards and chairs, and gla.s.s decanters, while a whole lot of African drums and flutes, and sometimes a good gun, hung from the rafters; and it would have gladdened an Irishman's heart to have seen the adjoining piggeries. Before one of the houses an old woman was taking care of a dozen black infants, little naked, glossy, black guinea pigs, with party coloured beads tied round their loins, each squatted like a little Indian paG.o.d in the middle of a large wooden bowl, to keep it off the damp ground.

While I was pursuing my ramble, a large conch-sh.e.l.l was blown at the overseer's house, and the different gangs turned in to dinner; they came along, dancing and shouting, and playing tricks on each other in the little paths, in all the happy antic.i.p.ation of a good dinner, and an hour and a half to eat it in, the men well clad in Osnaburg frocks and trowsers, and the women in baize petticoats and Osnaburg shifts, with a neat printed calico short gown over all.

"And these are slaves," thought I, "and this is West Indian bondage! Oh that some of my well-meaning anti-slavery friends were here, to judge from the evidence of their own senses!"

The following night there was to be a grand play or wake in the negro houses, over the head cooper, who had died in the morning, and I determined to be present at it, although the overseer tried to dissuade me, saying that no white person ever broke in on these orgies, that the negroes were very averse to their doing so, and that neither he, nor any of the white people on the estate, had ever been present on such an occasion. This very interdict excited my curiosity still more; so I rose about midnight, and let myself gently down through the window, and shaped my course in the direction of the negro houses, guided by a loud drumming, which, as I came nearer, every now and then sunk into a low murmuring roll, when a strong ba.s.s voice would burst forth into a wild recitative; to which succeeded a loud piercing chorus of female voices, during which the drums were beaten with great vehemence; this was succeeded by another solo, and so on. There was no moon, and I had to thread my way along one of the winding footpaths by starlight. When I arrived within a stone-cast of the hut before which the play was being held, I left the beaten track, and crept onwards, until I gained the shelter of the stem of a wild cotton-tree, behind which I skulked unseen.

The scene was wild enough. Before the door a circle was formed by about twenty women, all in their best clothes, sitting on the ground, and swaying their bodies to and fro, while they sung in chorus the wild dirge already mentioned, the words of which I could not make out; in the centre of the circle sat four men playing on gumbies, or the long drum formerly described, while a fifth stood behind them, with a conch-sh.e.l.l, which he kept sounding at intervals. Other three negroes kept circling round the outer verge of the circle of women, naked all to their waist cloths, spinning about and about with their hands above their heads, like so many dancing dervishes. It was one of these three that from time to time took up the recitative, the female chorus breaking in after each line. Close to the drummers lay the body in an open coffin, supported on two low stools or trestles; a piece of flaming resinous wood was stuck in the ground at the head, and another at the feet; and a lump of kneaded clay, in which another torchlike splinter was fixed, rested on the breast. An old man, naked like the solo singer, was digging a grave close to where the body lay. The following was the chant:--

"I say, broder, you can't go yet."

THEN THE CHORUS OF FEMALE VOICES

"When de morning star rise, den we put you in a hole."

CHORUS AGAIN

"Den you go in a Africa, you see Fetish dere."

CHORUS

"You shall nyam goat dere, wid all your family."

CHORUS

"Buccra can't come dere; say, dam rascal, why you no work?"

CHORUS

"Buccra can't catch Duppy, no, no."

CHORUS

Three calabashes, or gourds, with pork, yams, and rum, were placed on a small bench that stood close to the head of the bier, and at right angles to it.

In a little while, the women, singing-men, and drummers, suddenly gave a loud shout, or rather yell, clapped their hands three times, and then rushed into the surrounding cottages, leaving the old grave-digger alone with the body.

He had completed the grave, and had squatted himself on his hams beside the coffin, swinging his body as the women had done, and uttering a low moaning sound, frequently ending in a loud pech, like that of a paviour when he brings down his rammer.

I noticed he kept looking towards the east, watching, as I conjectured, the first appearance of the morning star, but it was yet too early.

He lifted the gourd with the pork, and took a large mouthful.

"How is dis? I can't put dis meat in Quacco's coffin, dere is salt in de pork; Duppy can't bear salt," another large mouthful--"Duppy hate salt too much,"--here he ate it all up, and placed the empty gourd in the coffin.

He then took up the one with boiled yam in it, and tasted it also.

"Salt here too--who de debil do such a ting?--must not let Duppy taste dat." He discussed this also, placing the empty vessel in the coffin as he had done with the other. He then came to the calabash with the rum.

There is no salt there, thought I.

"Rum! ah, Duppy love rum--if it be well strong, let me see Ma.s.sa Niger, who put water in a dis rum, eh? Duppy will never touch dat"--a long pull--"no, no, never touch dat." Here he finished the whole, and placed the empty vessel beside the others; then gradually sunk back on his hams with his mouth open, and his eyes starting from the sockets, as he peered up into the tree, apparently at some terrible object. I looked up also, and saw a large yellow snake, nearly ten feet long, let itself gradually down directly over the coffin, between me and the bright glare, (the outline of its glossy mottled skin glancing in the strong light, which gave its dark opaque body the appearance of being edged with flame, and its glittering tongue, that of a red hot wire,) with its tail round a limb of the cottontree, until its head reached within an inch of the dead man's face, which it licked with its long forked tongue, uttering a loud hissing noise.

I was fascinated with terror, and could not move a muscle; at length the creature slowly swung itself up again, and disappeared amongst the branches.

Quashie gained courage, as the rum began to operate, and the snake to disappear. "Come to catch Quaccols Duppy, before him get to Africa, sure as can be. De metody parson say de debil old sarpant--dat must be old sarpant, for I never see so big one, so it must be debil."

He caught a glimpse of my face at this moment; it seemed that I had no powers of fascination like the snake, for he roared out, "Murder, murder, de debil, de debil, first like a sarpent, den like himself; see him white face behind de tree; see him white face behind de tree;" and then, in the extremity of his fear, he popt, head foremost, into the grave, leaving his quivering legs and feet sticking upwards, as if he had been planted by the head, like a forked parsnip reversed.

At this uproar, a number of negroes ran out of the nearest houses, and, to my surprise, four white seamen appeared suddenly amongst them, who, the moment they got sight of my uniform, as I ran away, gave chase, and having overtaken me, as I stumbled in the dark path, immediately pinioned me.

They were all armed, and I had no doubt were part of the crew of the smuggling schooner, and that they had a depot amongst the negro houses.

"Yo ho, my hearty, heave-to, or here goes with a brace of bullets."

I told them who I was, and that curiosity alone brought me there.

"Gammon, tell that to the marines; you're a spy, messmate, and on board you go with us, so sure as I be Paul Brandywine."

Here was a change with a vengeance. An hour before I was surrounded by friends, and resting comfortably, in my ward bed, and now I was a prisoner to a set of brigands, who were smugglers at the best, and what might they not be at the worst? I had no chance of escape by any sudden effort of strength or activity, for a piece of a handspike had been thrust across my back, pa.s.sing under both of my arms, which were tightly lashed to it, as if I had been trussed for roasting, so that I could no more run, with a chance of escape, than a goose without her pinions. After we left the negro houses, I perceived, with some surprise, that my captors kept the beaten tract, leading directly to, and past the overseer's dwelling.

"Come, here is a chance, at all events," argued I to myself. "If I get within hail, I will alarm the lieges, if a deuced good pipe don't fail me."

This determination had scarcely been framed in my mind, when, as if my very thoughts had been audible, the smuggler next me on the right hand drew a pistol, and held it close to my starboard ear.

"Friend, if you tries to raise the house, or speaks to any Niger, or other person we meets, I'll walk through your skull with two ounces of lead."

"You are particularly obliging," said I; "but what do you promise yourselves by carrying me off? Were you to murder me, you would be none the richer; for I have no valuables about me, as you may easily ascertain by searching me."

"And do you think that freeborn Americans like we have kidnapped you for your dirty rings, and watch, and mayhap a few dollars, which I takes you to mean by your waluboles, as you calls them?"

"Why, then, what, in the devil's name, have you kidnapped me for?" And I began to feel my choler overpowering my discretion, when Mr Paul Brandywine, who I now suspected to be the mate of the smuggler, took the small liberty of jerking the landyard, that had been made fast to the middle of the handspike, so violently, that I thought both my shoulders w ere dislocated; for I was fairly checked down on my back, just as you may have seen a pig-merchant on the Fermoy road bring an uproarious boar to his marrowbones; while the man who had previously threatened to blow my brains out, knelt beside me, and civilly insinuated, that "if I was tired of my life, he calculated I had better speak as loud again."

There was no jest in all this; so I had nothing for it but to walk silently along with my escort, after having gathered myself up as well as I could. We crept so close under the windows of the overseer's house, where we picked up a lot of empty ankers, slung on a long pole, that I fancied I heard, or really did hear, some one snore--oh how I envied the sleeper! At length we reached the beach, where we found two men lying on their oars, in what, so far as I could distinguish, appeared to be a sharp swift-looking whale boat, which they kept close to, with her head seaward, however, to be ready for a start should any thing suspicious appear near to them.

The boat-keeper hailed promptly, "Who goes there?" as they feathered their oars.

"The tidy little Wave," was the answer.

No more words pa.s.sed, and the men who had, in the first instance, pulled a stroke or two to give the boat way, now backed water, and tailed her on to the beach, when we all stepped on board.

Two of my captors now took each an oar; we shoved off, and glanced away through the darkness, along the smooth surface of the sparkling sea, until we reached the schooner, by this time hauled out into the fairway at the mouth of the cove, where she lay hove short, with her mainsail hoisted up, riding to the land-wind, and apparently all ready to cants and be off the moment the boat returned.