After passing beyond the precincts of his own plantation, and traversing
for some distance a by-road known as the Carrion Crow, Mr Vaughan at
length reached the main highway, which runs between Montego Bay on the
north and Savanna-la-Mer on the southern side of the Island.
Here, facing southward, he continued his route--Savanna-la-Mer being the
place where he intended to terminate his journey on horseback. Thence
he could proceed by sea to the harbour of Kingston, or the Old Harbour,
or some other of the ports having easy communication with the capital.
The more common route of travel from the neighbourhood of Montego Bay to
Spanish Town, when it is desired to make the journey by land, is by the
northern road to Falmouth Harbour, and thence by Saint Ann's, and across
the Island. The southern road is also travelled at times, without the
necessity of going to the port of Savanna, by Lacovia, and the parish of
Saint Elizabeth. But Mr Vaughan preferred the easier mode of transit--
on board ship; and knowing that coasting vessels were at all times
trading from Savanna to the ports on the southern side, he anticipated
no difficulty in obtaining a passage to Kingston. This was one reason
why he directed his course to the seaport of Savanna.
He had another motive for visiting this place, and one that influenced
him to an equal or greater extent. Savanna-la-Mer, as already stated,
was the _assize town_ of the western district of the Island--otherwise
the county of Cornwall--including under its jurisdiction the five great
parishes of Saint James, Hanover, Westmoreland, Trelawney, and Saint
Elizabeth, and consequently the town of Montego Bay. Thus constituted,
Savanna was the seat of justice, where all plaints of importance must be
preferred. The process which Mr Vaughan was about to institute against
the Jew was one for the consideration of a full court of assize. A
surreptitious seizure of twenty-four slaves was no small matter; and the
charge would amount to something more than that of mere malversation.
Loftus Vaughan had not yet decided on the exact terms in which the
accusation was to be made; but the assize town being not only the seat
of justice, but the head-quarters of the legal knowledge of the county,
he anticipated finding there the counsel he required.
This, then, was his chief reason for travelling to Spanish Town _via_
Savanna-la-Mer.
For such a short distance--a journey that might be done in a day--a
single attendant sufficed. Had he designed taking the land route to the
capital, then it would have been different. Following the fashion of
the Island, a troop of horses, with a numerous escort of servants, would
have accompanied the great Custos.
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The day turned out to be one of the hottest, especially after the hour
of noon; and the concentrated rays of the sun, glaring down upon the
white chalky road, over which the traveller was compelled to pass,
rendered the journey not only disagreeable, but irksome.
Added to this, the Custos, not very well on leaving home, had been
getting worse every hour. Notwithstanding the heat, he was twice
attacked by a severe chill--each time succeeded by its opposite extreme
of burning fever, accompanied by thirst that knew no quenching. These
attacks had also for their concomitants bitter nausea, vomiting, and a
tendency towards cramp, or _tetanus_.
Long before night, the traveller would have stopped--had he found a
hospitable roof to shelter him. In the early part of the day he had
passed through the more settled districts of the country, where
plantations were numerous; but then, not being so ill, he had declined
making halt--having called only at one or two places to obtain drink,
and replenish the water canteen carried by his attendant.
It was only late in the afternoon that the symptoms of his disease
became specially alarming; and then he was passing through an
uninhabited portion of the country--a wild corner of Westmoreland
parish, where not a house was to be met with for miles alone: the
highway.
Beyond this tract, and a few miles further on the road, he would reach
the grand sugar estate of Content. There he might anticipate a
distinguished reception; since the proprietor of the plantation, besides
being noted for his profuse hospitality, was his own personal friend.
It had been the design of the traveller, before starting out, to make
Content the halfway house of his journey, by stopping there for the
night. Still desirous of carrying out this design, he pushed on,
notwithstanding the extreme debility that had seized upon his frame, and
which rendered riding upon horseback an exceedingly painful operation.
So painful did it become, that every now and then he was compelled to
bring his horse to a halt, and remain at rest, till his nerves acquired
strength for a fresh spell of exertion.
Thus delayed, it was sunset when he came in sight of Content. He did
get sight of it from a hill, on the top of which he had arrived just as
the sun was sinking into the Caribbean Sea, over the far headland of
Point Negriee. In a broad valley below, filled with the purple haze of
twilight, he could see the planter's dwelling, surrounded by its
extensive sugar-works, and picturesque rows of negro cabins, so near
that he could distinguish the din of industry and the hum of cheerful
voices, borne upward on the buoyant air; and could see the forms of men
and women, clad in their light-coloured costumes, flitting in mazy
movement about the precincts of the place.
The Custos gazed upon the sight with dizzy glance. The sounds fell
confusedly on his ear. As the shipwrecked sailor who sees land without
the hope of ever reaching it, so looked Loftus Vaughan upon the valley
of Content. For any chance of his reaching it that night, without being
carried thither, there was none: no more than if it had been a hundred
miles distant--at the extreme end of the Island. He could ride no
further. He could no longer keep the saddle; and, slipping out of it,
he tottered into the arms of his attendant!
Close by the road-side, and half hidden by the trees, appeared a hut--
surrounded by a kind of rude inclosure, that had once been the garden or
"provision ground" of a negro. Both hut and garden were ruinate--the
former deserted, the latter overgrown with that luxuriant vegetation
which, in tropic soil, a single season suffices to bring forth.
Into this hovel the Custos was conducted; or rather carried: for he was
now unable even to walk.
A sort of platform, or _banquette_, of bamboos--the usual couch of the
negro cabin--stood in one corner: a fixture seldom or never removed on
the abandonment of such a dwelling. Upon this the Custos was laid, with
a horse-blanket spread beneath, and his camlet cloak thrown over him.
More drink was administered; and then the attendant, by command of the
invalid himself, mounted one of the horses, and galloped off to Content.
Loftus Vaughan was alone!
Volume Three, Chapter XVIII.