"Jake!"
"Dat me, Mass' Tom."
"Have you heard the gun fire yet?"
"Golly, no, Mass' Tom."
"Then you must go up the hill at once and see whether the mail steamer
has been signalled or not. She ought to have been in sight by now; for,
she's been expected since early this morning, and we're all anxious
about the news from England."
"All right, Mass' Tom, me go for see, suah."
"Look alive then, Jake, and lose no more time in starting. Let me just
see how quickly you can get up to the Battery and back again; and mind,
Jake, if the packet should be in, you can saddle my pony when you return
for me to ride into town."
"Berry well, Mass' Tom. I'se spec, railly for true, um go dere in brace
of shakes, an' back 'gain hyar 'fore dat lazy ole niggah Pomp fetch him
cutlash out o' stable an' go in bush to cut him guinea-grass for de
hosses. Golly, dat so, Mass' Tom--see if um don't for suah, yah, yah!"
Jake broke off into a huge guffaw, as he shouted out these hurried words
in high glee, laughing with all that hearty abandon which was such a
strong characteristic of his genuine African nature. Such was the
intensity of his merriment, indeed, that he opened his wide red-lipped
mouth almost from ear to ear, disclosing a brilliant set of shining
teeth, whose ivory whiteness contrasted conspicuously with the jetty
blackness of his sable skin. The willing fellow then went off on his
mission at a slinging jog-trot, evidently determined to make his promise
good of outstripping his more lethargic rival Pompey, whom he was
absurdly jealous of and ever eager to surpass in every way he could.
I watched him on his onward way from the raised terrace, laid out as an
ornamental garden, in front of our square, one-storied, shingle-roofed,
verandah-encircled West Indian home--which lay nestled in a gorgeous
wealth of tropical foliage and was perched half-way up the side of a
mountain peak that protected it from hurricane blasts in the rear; and,
I could see Jake spinning rapidly along the winding carriage drive,
bordered with cocoa-nut trees and grou-grou palms in lieu of the oaks
and elms of old England. In another second, ere the sound of his merry
chuckle had ceased to re-echo in the distance, he had passed through the
swing-gate that gave admittance to the grounds.
The lawn sloped downwards from the house, following the curve of the
hill, and was studded with orange-trees, whose golden fruit peeped
through their shining green leaves, shaddocks, and mangosteen, with many
a stately palmiste rearing its tall feathery head above the others;
while, in addition, the wild locust, or iron-wood tree, the mammee
apple, the pomme-rose and the guava bush flourished between huge blocks
of stone, with flat table surfaces and of probable volcanic origin, that
seemed to have been thrown at random upon the surface of the grassy
expanse, where they now rested, monoliths of the past.
As the gate swung back upon its hinges with a clang, Jake's woolly head,
surmounted by the veriest wisp of a ragged red handkerchief, disappeared
behind the thick and impenetrable hedge of thorny cactus and spike-
guarded prickly-pear that inclosed the plantation, separating it from
the main-road forming its boundary and leading, some four miles or so
beyond, over mountain and gully to Saint George's, the capital town of
Grenada, the most southern of the group of the Windward Islands--a spot
where the earlier days of my rather adventurous life were passed and
which is endeared to me by all the vivid associations of youth, the fond
recollections of memory.
Our place was aptly named "Mount Pleasant," and well do I remember every
salient feature of it--the forest of lofty silk-cotton trees, bordered
on the left by a row of the curious _bois immortel_, with its blood-red
branches that had blossomed into flowers; the mountain slope covered
with green waving guinea-grass at the back; and in front the park-like
lawn already described. To the right was a long range of negro huts and
stabling; and, beyond these again the kitchen-garden or "provision
ground," prolific of sweet-potatoes, yams, and tanias, with plantain and
banana trees laden with pendent bunches of their sausage-shaped fruit
and hedged round with pine-apples. Stretching away still further in the
distance was the cocoa plantation, a sea of verdure, interspersed with
the darker green foliage of the nutmeg and wax-like clove-tree. Here
reigned in all its majesty the bread-fruit tree, with broad serrated
leaves, like a gigantic horse-chestnut, sheltering the more fragile
trees that grow only beneath its shadow, and acting as the "mother of
the cocoa"--el madre del cacao--as the Spaniards call it.
But, I wish to go back now to the memorable day when Jake set off so
briskly on his errand to see if the English mail steamer had arrived,
leaving me on the terrace in front of our house wondering, as he speeded
on his way, whether the packet was in sight; and, if she had been
signalled, trying to surmise what news she would bring.
I was really very anxious about the matter, and I will tell you the
reason why.
My father was an officer of the royal navy, who found it a hard thing,
with an increasing family, to make both ends meet in the mother country
on his half-pay. At last, sick of waiting for active employment afloat
during the long stagnation in the service occasioned by the interregnum
of peace that lasted almost from Waterloo up to the time of the Crimean
war, he determined, like Cincinnatus, to "beat his sword into a
ploughshare." In other words, he abandoned the fickle element on which
he had passed the early days of his manhood and emigrated to the West
Indies, to see whether he might not improve his fortunes by investing
what little capital he had in a coffee and cocoa plantation in the
island where my scene opens. A couple of months or so before, he had
taken a trip across the Atlantic to arrange some money matters with his
London agent, and we were now expecting his return by every mail.
Beyond this, my father had more than half-hinted that, as soon as he got
back to Grenada, he would send me over to England in my turn to go to
school, when, most likely, I would have to bid adieu to my West Indian
home for good and all; for, my fervent desire was to follow in dad's
footsteps and enter the navy as soon as I was able to pass the admiralty
examination--a desire to which dad, in spite of the scurvy way in which
he had been treated by an ungrateful country, did not say nay, his
ambition being that I should succeed where he failed if possible, for he
was a true sailor and hankered after the sea yet.
It was not surprising, therefore, that I was so eager to learn whether
the packet had come in, albeit her arrival would naturally bring to an
end the little brief authority which I had been so proud to assume
during dad's absence as the protector of my mother and sisters, besides
being regarded by all the negro hands as "um lilly massa of um
plantashun." Really, I esteemed myself at that period to be a most
important and highly dignified person, being only a boy of thirteen
years old then, and small-grown for my age at that!
Jake had scarcely been out of sight five minutes when I began to look
out for his return. My impatience, indeed, quite got the better of my
reason, for I ought to have known well enough, if I had only considered,
that he could not have yet half accomplished the journey to the signal
station on Richmond Hill, much less thought even of coming back, the
willing darkey being as unable as anyone else to annihilate distance or
space!
It was a terribly hot day, being close on to the noontide hour, the
thermometer under the shade of the verandah where I stood marking over a
hundred degrees; while, goodness only knew what it was out in the open,
where the sun's blistering rays produced such intense heat that the
paintwork of the green jalousie shutters outside the windows of the
house fairly frizzled up in liquid blotches!
The air, too, was oppressively close and warm, just as when the door of
an oven is opened in one's face, not a breath of wind stirring to
agitate the still atmosphere; but, neither did this fact, nor did the
blazing power of the glowing orb of day, which looked like a globe of
fire in the centre of the heavens, affect the wild luxuriance of nature
at Mount Pleasant.
As I gazed around, everything appeared to be invigorated instead of
prostrated by the high temperature.
This seems to be the natural order of things in the tropics, that is, in
respect of everything and everyone accustomed to broiling weather, like
hot-house flowers and coloured gentry of the kidney of Jake and his
sable brethren, whose ancestors, having been born under the sweltering
equator, handed down to their descendants constitutions of such a nature
that they seem fairly to revel in the heat, and appear to be all the
healthier and happier the hotter it is!
Ruby-throated humming-birds, with breasts of burnished gold, fluttered
about the garden on the terrace in front of me in dainty flight, or else
poised themselves in mid-air opposite the sweet-smelling blossoms of the
frangipanni, their little wings moving so rapidly as to make them appear
without motion; broad-backed butterflies, with black stripes across
their yellow uniforms, floated lazily about, purposelessly, doing
nothing, as if they could not make up their minds to anything; and the
scent of heliotropes and of big cabbage roses, that blossomed in
profusion on trees larger than shrubs, almost intoxicated the senses.
The eye, too, was charmed at the same time by the pinky prodigality of
the "Queen of Flowers," and the purple profusion of the convolvulus,
their colours contrasting with the soft green foliage of the bay-tree;
while great masses of scarlet geranium, and myriad hues of different
varieties of the balsam and Bird of Paradise plant were harmonised by
the snowy chastity of the Cape jessamine and a hundred other sorts of
lilies, of almost every tint, which encircled a warm-toned hibiscus,
that seemed to lord it over them, the king of the floral world.
I was watching a little procession of "umbrella ants," as they are
called, that were promenading across the marble flooring of the
verandah, each of the tiny insects carrying above its head a tinier
piece of the green leaf of some plant, apparently for the purpose of
shielding itself from the sun, for they held up their shades just in the
same way as a lady carries her parasol; when, all at once, I heard a
heavy step outside, advancing along the terrace from the direction of
the stables.
Without turning my head, or consulting watch or clock--or, even without
looking up at the scorching sun overhead, had my eyes been sufficiently
glare-proof to have stood the ordeal--I knew who the intruder was, and
could have also told you that it was exactly mid-day.
Why?--you may ask perhaps.
You will learn in a moment.
The heavy footstep came a pace nearer, and then paused; when, looking
round, I beheld an old negro, with a withered monkey-like face, clad in
the ordinary conventional costume of an African labourer in the West
Indies. His dress consisted of a loose pair of trousers and shirt of
blue cotton check; and, on the top of his white woolly head was fixed on
in some mysterious fashion a battered fragment of a straw hat, just of
the sort that would be used by an English farmer as a scarecrow to
frighten off the birds from his fields.
This was Pompey, Jake's rival; and, as he politely doffed his ragged
head-gear with one hand, in deference to my dignity as "the young
massa," he held out to me with his other paw a wine-glass whose foot, if
ever it had one, had been broken-off at some remote period of time.
I knew what Pompey wanted as well as he did himself, but for my own
amusement, and in order to hear him make his usual stereotyped
announcement, I asked him a leading question.
"Well, what is it?" I said.
"U'm come, rum!" was his laconic rejoinder--nothing more, but the
sentence was sufficiently expressive.
Every day of the week, with the exception of Sundays, it had been always
Pompey's privilege to have a quartern of rum served out to him, as if he
were on board ship, at twelve o'clock, the ordinary grog-time; and,
punctually at that hour every day, in the wet season or dry, he never
failed to come up to the house for his allowance, bringing with him the
footless wine-glass to receive the grateful liquor. His appearance,
consequently, was an unfailing token that the sun had crossed the zenith
and that it was time to "make it eight bells."
Unlike the majority of his dark-complexioned brethren, who are generally
loquacious in the extreme, Pompey was singularly reticent of speech,
never varying this parrot-like formula of his when coming at twelve
o'clock for his daily stimulant, without which he would never set about
his afternoon work.
"U'm come, rum!" was all he would say ever since he had been taken over
by my father with the other belongings of the plantation; and, as he was
an old "hand," the former proprietor related, and had always been
similarly indulged with a quartern of rum at mid-day as far back as he
could recollect, old Pompey--and precious old he must have been by this
reckoning--had evidently grown into the habit, so that it was part of
himself.
Entering the house through one of the low window-less windows which
opened out on to the verandah, like the ports in the side of a ship--
ventilation being everything in the tropics and closed doors and shut-up
rooms unheard of, as everybody was free to walk in and out of the
different apartments just as they pleased--I soon brought out a case-
bottle from the sideboard where it stood handy for the purpose. Then,
filling the old darkey's footless wine-glass, which he held with a
remarkably steady hand considering his age, he tossed off the contents
without drawing breath, the fiery liquor disappearing down his throat
with a sort of gurgling "gluck, gluck," as if it had been decanted into
the capacious orifice, Pompey not even winking once during the
operation.
"Tank you, Mass' Tom," said he, when he had sucked in the last drop;
when, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stalked off across
the terrace again towards the stable to fetch his cutlass to cut the
guinea-grass for the horses, according to his usual habit at this time
of day. This Jake well knew, by the bye, when he said he thought he
would be able to return from his mission before the old fellow should
have started, Pompey being as regular as clockwork in his movements,
carrying out his daily routine most systematically.
I did not expect to see him again until later on in the afternoon on his
return from the mountain at the back of the house, laden with a bale of
provender for the stable, which he had charge of; but, what was my
surprise a few minutes afterwards, to see him hurrying up again to the
house, without his customary companion the cutlass and in a state of
great excitement most unaccountable in one generally so phlegmatic.
"Hullo, Pompey! what's the matter now?" I called out as he began to
ascend the steps leading up to the terrace, his boots coming down with a
heavy stamp on the marble surface. He was a most peculiar old fellow;
for, unlike again most of the negroes, who only wear any foot covering
on Sundays, when they torture themselves horribly by squeezing their
spreading toes into patent leather pumps if they can get them by hook or
by crook, the old darkey invariably stalked about in a tall pair of
Wellington boots that made him walk as gingerly as a cat with its paws
in walnut shells.
"Hey, Mass' Tom, look smart," he sang out in response. "Um big 'guana
down by de stable; come quick an' bring 'tick an' we kill him togedder!"
An iguana? This was something to make one excited; for, harmless though
the reptile is, one does not come across one everyday. Besides, it is
capital eating, tasting just like a chicken, and that of the tenderest:
you could not tell the difference between the two when well cooked.
Catching up a thick stick, I was after Pompey in a minute, forgetting
alike the heat of the sun's rays in the open--although but a short
period before I had been forced to retreat under the shade of the
verandah--and my anxious watch for Jake with news of the mail steamer,
about whose delay I had been so impatient.
I soon overtook the darkey, who never could make much headway in his
boots. They were so big for him that I believe his feet used to have a
quiet walk inside them on their own account!
"Where's the 'guana?" I said.
"Just dere, Mass' Tom," he replied, pointing with one of his lean, bony,
mottled fingers, the black colour of which seemed to have been worked
off them by years of rough usage.
"Where?" I repeated, for I could not see the animal as yet anywhere.
"Dere, on manure heap--see?"
"Yes, I see now," I replied, as, getting nearer to the stables, I
noticed something on the top of a mound of straw rubbish. It was a
creature like a gigantic lizard, some five or six feet long and as broad
about the head as a decent-sized pig.
"Yah, yah, dere he is, dere he is!" shouted out Pompey. "Golly, Mass'
Tom, he am big 'guana, too! Give me de 'tick, and dis niggah will soon
'top um runnin' 'way."
The green-looking creature had been basking in the sun, enjoying itself
all the more, probably, from the warmth of the manure heap on which it
lay; but now, on our nearer approach, it raised its serpent-like head
and, puffing out its creamy throat, grew in an instant to double its
former size, while the beautiful iridescent colouring of its skin became
more conspicuous.
Pompey raised the stick I had handed to him, and the iguana, as if
likewise springing to arms to resist attack, elevated a sort of spiny
fringe, resembling a mane, that reached from the crest of its head to
the shoulders. At the same time, it slung round its tail, in crocodile
fashion, as if to give a blow with it to its assailant.
The old darkey, however, was not frightened at the motion. Stepping up
to the animal's side, he gave it one smart stroke on the nose, whereupon
the iguana was incontinently settled, turning over on its back a second
afterwards. The brightness at once faded from its green and gold skin,
while the rich cream-coloured throat changed to a dirty-white in the
hues of death, in the same way that a dolphin alters its colour when
taken from its native element.
"Guess um well kill' now, nohow," said Pompey grimly, taking up the
animal by the tail; but it was such a big one that he couldn't lift it,
so he had to drag it along the ground towards the quarters of himself
and the other negroes. Here it would, I knew, ere long be skinned and
dressed in a very savoury way, known only to African cooks, when a
portion of the banquet would be sent in anon to "the big house," for the
kindly acceptance of the white folks there--my mother, and sisters, and
myself--elegantly dished up in plantain leaves with red peppers for
dressing.
While I stood for a second watching old Pompey making off with his prey
in high good-humour, looking in the distance, as he climbed the slope of
the hill up to the huts, uncommonly like a lean monkey dragging away a
centipede, the intense glare of the tropical noontide, of which I was
for the moment oblivious, changed in an instant to a deep gloom
resembling the blackness of night. It seemed as if some interposing
body had suddenly been placed between the sun and the earth.
Then came a tremendous crash of thunder, like the sound of heaven's dome
breaking in, it was so fearfully loud and awesome; and the reverberating
roar was accompanied by a vivid flash of forked lightning, whose zigzag
stream struck a tall tamarind-tree standing in front of me, splintering
the trunk from top to bottom with a scrunching noise like that made in
rending timber!
I turned and ran back to the house for shelter as fast as I could,
anticipating what was coming, such storms being of frequent occurrence
in the tropics after exceptional heat and when there is no wind to
agitate the pent-up air; but, ere I could ascend the half dozen steps
leading up to the terrace, the rain-cloud overhead burst and a sheet of
water came down as if poured over the side of some giant reservoir in
the sky, wetting me to the skin by the time I had gained the shelter of
the verandah.
My mother was just coming out of the drawing-room to see where I was,
when Jake came up racing behind me, shouting out at the pitch of his
voice, above the sound of the sluicing rain, "De packet am in, Mass'
Tom! De packet am in!"