The departure of the young Englishman, under the conduct of Quaco, was a
signal for the black band to disperse.
At a word from their chief, they broke up into knots of two or three
individuals each; and went off in different directions--disappearing
amid the underwood as silently as they had emerged from it.
Cubina alone remained in the glade, the captured runaway cowering upon a
log beside him.
For some minutes, the Maroon captain stood resting upon his gun--which
one of his followers had brought up--his eyes fixed upon the captive.
He appeared to be meditating what course he should pursue in relation to
the unfortunate slave; and the shadow upon his countenance told that
some thought was troubling him.
The Maroon captain felt himself in a dilemma. His duty was in conflict
with his desires. From the first, the face of the captive had
interested him; and now that he had time to scan it more narrowly, and
observe its noble features, the idea of delivering him up to such a
cruel master, as he whose initials he bore upon his breast, became all
the more repugnant.
Duty demanded him to do so. It was the law of the land--one of the
terms of the treaty by which the Maroons were bound--and disobedience to
that law would be certain to meet with punishment stringent and severe.
True, there was a time when a Maroon captain would have held obedience
to this law more lightly; but that was before the conquest of Trelawney
town--or rather its traitorous betrayal--followed by the basest
banishment recorded among men.
That betrayal had brought about a change. The Maroons who had avoided
the forced exile, and still remained in the mountain fastnesses, though
preserving their independence, were no longer a powerful people--only a
mere remnant, whose weakness rendered them amenable, not only to the
laws of the island, but to the tyranny and caprice of such
planter-justices as might choose to persecute them.
Such was the position of Cubina and his little band, who had established
themselves in the mountains of Trelawney.
With the Maroon captain, therefore, it was a necessity as well as a
duty, to deliver up the runaway captive. Failing to do so, he would
place his own liberty in peril. He knew this, without the threat which
Ravener had fulminated in such positive terms.
His interest also lay in the line of his duty. This also he could
understand. The captive was a prize for which he would be entitled to
claim a reward--the _bounty_.
Not for a moment was he detained by this last consideration. The
prospect of the reward would have had no weight with him whatever; it
would not even have cost him a reflection, but that, just then, and for
a very singular purpose, Cubina required money.
This purpose was revealed in a soliloquy that at that moment escaped
from his lips.
"_Crambo_!" he muttered, using an exclamation of the Spanish tongue,
still found in a corrupted form among the Maroons; "if it wasn't that I
have to make up the purchase-money of Yola--_Por Dios_! he is as like to
Yola as if he was her brother! I warrant he is of the same nation--
perhaps of her tribe. Two or three times he has pronounced the word
_Foolah_. Besides, his colour, his shape, his hair--all like hers. No
doubt of it, he's a Foolah."
The last word was uttered so loud as to reach the ear of the runaway.
"Yah! Foolah, Foolah!" he exclaimed, turning his eyes appealingly upon
his captor. "No slave--no slave!" added he, striking his hand upon his
breast as he repeated the words.
"Slave! no slave!" echoed the Maroon, with a start of surprise; "that's
English enough. They've taught him the ugly word."
"Foolah me--no slave!" again exclaimed the youth, with a similar gesture
to that he had already made.
"Something curious in this," muttered the Maroon, musingly. "What can
he mean by saying he is no slave--for that is certainly what he is
trying to say? Slave he must be; else how did he get here? I've heard
that a cargo has been just landed, and that the old Jew got most or all
of them. This young fellow must be one of that lot. Very likely he's
picked up the words aboard ship. Perhaps he is speaking of what he was
in his own country. Ah, poor devil! he'll soon find the difference
here!
"_Santos Dios_!" continued the Maroon, after a pause, in which he had
been silently regarding the countenance of the newly-arrived African.
"It's a shame to make a slave of such as he--a hundred times more like a
freeman than his master. Poor fellow! it's a hard row he'll have to
hoe. I feel more than half-tempted to risk it, and save him from such a
fate."
As this half-determination passed through the mind of the Maroon, a
noble and proud expression came over his features.
"If they had not seen him in my possession;" he continued to reflect;
"but the overseer and those Spanish poltroons know all, and will--Well,
let them!--at all events I shall not take him back till I've seen Yola.
No doubt she can talk to him. If he's Foolah she can. We'll hear what
he's got to say, and what this `no slave' means."
On saying this, the speaker turned his eyes upward; and appeared for
some moments to scan the sun.
"Good," he exclaimed. "It is near the hour. I may expect her at any
moment. Oh! I must have him out of sight, and these dead dogs, too, or
my timid pet will be frayed. There's been so much doing about here--
blood and fire--she will scarcely know the old trysting-place. Hark
you, Foolah! Come this way, and squat yourself in here till I call you
out again."
To the runaway the gestures of his captor were more intelligible than
his words. He understood by them that he was required to conceal
himself between the buttresses of the _ceiba_; and, rising from the log,
he readily obeyed the requisition.
The Maroon captain seized the tail of one of the dead bloodhounds; and,
after trailing the carcase for some distance across the glade, flung it
into a covert of bushes.
Returning to the _ceiba_, in a similar manner he removed the other; and
then, once more cautioning the runaway to remain silent in his
concealment, he awaited the approach of her who had given him
assignation.
Volume One, Chapter XXXV.