Ariel.--Safely in harbour,
Is the king’s ship; in the deep nook, where, once,
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew,
From the still--vexed Bermoothes--there she’s hid.
The Tempest, I. ii 227--29.
The spirit had indeed fled--the ethereal essence had departed--and the
poor wasted and blood-stained husk which lay before us, could no longer
be moved by our sorrows, or gratified by our sympathy. Yet I stood
riveted to the spot, until I was aroused by the deep-toned voice of
Padre Carera, who, lifting up his hands towards heaven, addressed the
Almighty in extempore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister
who had just departed. The unusualness of this startled me.--“As the
tree falls, so must it lie,” had been the creed of my forefathers, and
was mine; but now for the first time I heard a clergyman wrestling in
mental agony, and interceding with the God who hath said, “Repent before
the night cometh, in which no man can work,” for a sinful creature,
whose worn-out frame was now as a clod of the valley. But I had little
time for consideration, as presently all the negro servants of the
establishment set up a loud howl, as if they had lost their nearest and
dearest. “Oh, our poor dear young mistress is dead! She has gone to
the bosom of the Virgin! She is gone to be happy!”--“Then why the deuce
make such a yelling?” quoth Bang in the other room, when this had been
translated to him. Clad to leave the chamber of death, I entered the
large hall, where I had left our friend.
“I say, Tom--awful work. Hear how the rain pours, and murder--such a
flash! Why, in Jamaica, we don’t startle greatly at lightning, but
absolutely I heard it hiss--there, again”--the noise of the thunder
stopped further colloquy, and the wind now burst down the valley with a
loud roar.
Don Ricardo joined us. “My good friends--we are in a scrape here--what
is to be done?--a melancholy affair altogether.”--Bang’s curiosity here
fairly got the better of him.
“I say, Don Ricardibus--do--beg pardon, though--do give over this
humbugging outlandish lingo of yours--speak like a Christian, in your
mother tongue, and leave off your Spanish, which now, since I know it is
all a bam, seems to sit as strangely on you as my grandmother’s toupe
would on Tom Cringle’s Mary.”
“Now do pray, Mr Bang,” said I, when Don Ricardo broke in “Why, Mr Bang,
I am, as you now know, a Scotchman.”
“How do I know any such thing--that is, for a certainty--while you keep
cruising amongst so many lingoes, as Tom there says?”
“The docken, man,” said I.--Don Ricardo smiled.
“I am a Scotchman, my dear sir; and the same person who, in his youth,
was neither more nor less than wee Richy Cloche, in the long town of
Kirkaldy, and in his old age Don Ricardo Campana of St Jago de Cuba.
But more of this anon,--at present we are in the house of mourning, and
alas the day! that it should be so.”
By this time the storm had increased most fearfully, and as Don Ricardo,
Aaron, and myself, sat in the dark damp corner of the large gloomy hall,
we could scarcely see each other, for the lightning had now ceased, and
the darkness was so thick, that had it not been for the light from the
large funeral wax tapers, which had been instantly lit upon poor Maria’s
death, in the room where she lay, that streamed through the open door,
we should have been unable to see our very fingers before us.
“What is that?” said Campana; “heard you nothing, gentlemen?”
“By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water-wraith was shrieking;
And in the scowl of heaven each face,
Grew dark as they were speaking.”
In the lulls of the rain and the blast, the same long low cry was heard
which had startled me by Maria’s bedside, and occasioned the sudden and
fatal exertion which had been the cause of the bursting out afresh of
the blood vessel.
“Why,” said I, “it is little more than three o’clock in the afternoon
yet, dark as it is; let us sally out, Mr Bang, for I verify believe that
the hollo we have heard is my Captain’s voice, and, if I conjecture
rightly, he must have arrived at the other side of the river, probably
with the Doctor.”
“Why, Tom,” quoth Aaron, “it is only three in the afternoon, as you say,
although by the sky I could almost vouch for its being midnight,--but I
don’t like that shouting--Did you ever read of a water-kelpie, Don
Richy?”
“Poo, poo, nonsense,” said the Don; “Mr Cringle is, I fear, right
enough.” At this moment the wind thundered at the door and window
shutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring trees and round the roof,
as if it would have blown the house down upon our devoted heads. The
cry was again heard, during a momentary pause.
“Zounds!” said Bang, “it is the skipper’s voice, as sure as fate--he
must be in danger--let us go and see, Tom.”
“Take me with you,” said Campana,--the foremost always when any good
deed was to be done----and, in place of clapping on his great-coat to
meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, he began to disrobe
himself, all to his trowsers and large straw hat. He then called one of
the servants, “Trae me un lasso.” The lasso, a long thong of plaited
hide, was forthwith brought; he coiled it up in his left hand. “Now,
Pedro,” said he to the negro servant who had fetched it, (a tall
strapping fellow,) “you and Caspar follow me. Gentlemen, are you
ready?” Caspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one
hand and a thong similar to Don Ricardo’s in the other, he as well as
his comrade being stark naked all to their waistcloths. “Ah, well done,
my sons,” said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes prepared to follow him.
So off we started to the door, although we heard the tormenta raging
without with appalling fury. Bang undid the latch, and the next moment
he was flat on his back, the large leaf having flown open with
tremendous violence, capsizing him like an infant.
The Padre from the inner chamber came to our assistance, and by our
joint exertions we at length got the door to again and barricaded, after
which we made our exit from the lee-side of the house by a window.
Under other circumstances, it would have been difficult to refrain from
laughing at the appearance we made. We were all drenched in an instant
after we left the shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked
to the waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down his
back, like a mandarin of twenty buttons. Next followed his two black
assistants, naked as I have described them, all three with their coils
of rope in their hands, like a hangman and his deputies; then advanced
friend Bang and myself, without our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs
tied round our heads, and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as
strongly as we could.
But the planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his
way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella,
which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most
unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and tore it from
the staff, so that, on the impulse of the moment, he had to clutch the
flying red silk and thrust his head through the centre, where the stick
had stood, as if he had been some curious flower. As we turned the
corner of the house, the full force of the storm met us right in the
teeth, when flap flew Don Ricardo’s hat past us; but the two blackamoors
had taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong
grass lanyard. We continued to work to windward, while every now and
then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and louder, until it
guided us to the fording which we had crossed on our first arrival. We
stopped there;--the red torrent was rushing tumultuously past us, but we
saw nothing save a few wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side,
who had sheltered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in
attempting to light a fire. The holloing continued.
“Why, what can be wrong?” at length said Don Ricardo, and he shouted to
the people on the opposite side.
He might as well have spared his breath, for, although they saw his
gestures and the motion of his lips, they no more heard him than we did
them, as they very considerately in return made mouths at us, bellowing
no doubt that they could not hear us.
“Don Ricardo--Don Ricardo!” at this crisis sung out Caspar, who had
clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him--“Ave Maria--Alla son
dos pobres, que peresquen pronto, si nosotros no pueden Hydros.”
“Whereabouts?” said Campana--“whereabouts? speak, man, speak.”
“Down in the valley--about a quarter of a league, I see two men on a
large rock, in the middle of the stream; the wind is in that direction,
it must be them we heard.”
“God be gracious to us! true enough--true enough--let us go to them
then, my children.” And we again all cantered off after the excellent
Don Ricardo. But before we could reach the spot, we had to make a
detour, and come down upon it from the precipitous brow of the beetling
cliff above, for there was no beach nor shore to the swollen river,
which was here very deep and surged, rushing under the hollow bank with
comparatively little noise, which was the reason why we heard the cries
so distinctly.
The unfortunates who were in peril, whoever they might be, seemed to
comprehend our motions, for one of them held out a white handkerchief,
which I immediately answered by a similar signal, when the shouting
ceased, until, guided by the negroes, we reached the verge of the cliff,
and looked down from the red crumbling bank on the foaming water, as it
swept past beneath. It was here about thirty yards broad, divided by a
rocky wedge like islet, on which grew a profusion of dark bushes and one
large tree, whose topmost branches were on a level with us where we
stood. This tree was divided, about twelve feet from the root, into two
limbs in the fork of which sat, like a big monkey, no less a personage
than Captain Transom himself, wet and dripping, with his clothes
besmeared with mud, and shivering with cold. At the foot of the tree
sat in rueful mood, a small antique beau of an old man in a coat which
had once been blue silk, wearing breeches, the original colour of which
no man could tell, and without his wig, his clear bald pate shining
amidst the surrounding desolation like an ostrich’s egg. Beside these
worthies stood two trembling way-worn mules with drooping heads, their
long ears hanging down most disconsolately. The moment we came in
sight, the skipper hailed us.
“Why, I am hoarse with bawling, Don Ricardo, but here am I and el Doctor
Pavo Real, in as sorry a plight as any two gentlemen need be. On
attempting the ford two hours ago, blockheads as we were beg pardon, Don
Pavo”--the doctor bowed, and grinned like a baboon--“we had nearly been
drowned; indeed, we should have been drowned entirely, had we not
brought up on this island of Barataria here.--But how is the young lady?
tell me that,” said the excellent-hearted fellow, even in the midst of
his own danger.
“Mind Yourself, my beautiful child,” cried Bang. “How are we to get you
on terra firma?”
“Poo--in the easiest way possible,” rejoined he, with true seamanlike
self-possession. “I see you have ropes--Tom Cringle, heave me the end
of the line which Don Ricardo carries, will you?”
“No, no--I can do that myself,” said Don Ricardo, and with a swing he
hove the leathern noose at the skipper, and whipped it over his neck in
a twinkling. The Scotch Spaniard, I saw, was pluming himself on his
skill, but Transom was up to him, for in an instant he dropped out of
it, while in slipping through he let it fall over a broken limb of the
tree.
“Such an eel--such an eel!” shouted the attendant negroes, both expert
hands with the lasso themselves.
“Now, Don Ricardo, since I am not to be had, make your end of the thong
fast round that large stone there.” Campana did so. “Ah, that will do.”
And so saying, the skipper warped himself to the top of the cliff with
great agility. He was no sooner in safety himself, however, than the
idea of having left the poor doctor in peril flashed on him.
“I must return--I must return! If the river rises, the body will be
drowned out and out.”
And notwithstanding our entreaties, he did return as he came, and
descending the tree, began apparently to argue with the little Medico,
and to endeavour to persuade him to ascend, and make his escape as he
himself had done; but it would not do. Pavo Real--as brave a little man
as ever was seen--made many salaams and obeisances, but move he would
not. He shook his head repeatedly, in a very solemn way, as if he had
said, “My very excellent friends, I am much obliged to you, but it is
impossible; my dignity would be compromised by such a proceeding.”
Presently Transom appeared to wax very emphatic, and pointed to a
pinnacle of limestone rock, which had stood out like a small steeple
above the surface of the flashing, dark red eddies, when we first
arrived on the spot, but now only stopped the water with a loud gurgle,
the top rising and disappearing as the stream surged past, like, buov
jangling in a tideway. The small man still shook his head, but the
water now rose so rapidly, that there was scarcely dry standing room for
the two poor devils of mules, while the doctor and the skipper had the
greatest difficulty in finding a footing for themselves.
Time and circumstances began to press, and Transom, after, another
unavailing attempt to persuade the doctor, began apparently to rouse
himself, and muster his energies. He first drove the mules forcibly
into the stream at the side opposite where we stood, which was the
deepest water, and least broken by rocks and stones, and we had the
pleasure to see them scramble out safe and sound; he then put his hand
to his mouth, and hailed us to throw him a rope, it was done--he caught
it, and then by a significant gesture to Campana, gave him to understand
that now was the time. The Don, comprehending him, hove his noose with
great precision, right over the little doctor’s head, and before he
recovered from his surprise, the captain slipped it under his arms, and
signed to haul taught, while the Medico kicked, and spurred, and backed
like a restive horse. At one and the same moment, Transom made fast a
guy round his waist, and we hoisted away, while he hauled on the other
line, so that we landed the Lilliputian Esculapius safe on the top of
the bank, with the wind nearly out of his body, however, from his
violent exertions, and the running of the noose.
It was now the work of a moment for the Captain to ascend the tree and
again warp himself ashore, when he set himself to apologize with all his
might and main, pleading strong necessity; and having succeeded in
pacifying the offended dignity of the doctor, we turned towards the
house.
“Look out there,” sung out Campana sharply.
Time indeed, thought I, for right ahead of us, as if an invisible
gigantic ploughshare had passed over the woods, a valley or chasm was
suddenly opened down the hill-side with a noise like thunder, and
branches and whole limbs of trees were instantly torn away, and
tossed into the air like straws.
“Down on your noses, my fine fellows,” cried the skipper. We were all
flat in an instant except the Medico, the stubborn little brute, who
stood until the tornado reached him, when in a twinkling he was cast on
his back, with a violence sufficient, as I thought, to have driven his
breath for ever and aye out of his body. While we lay we heard all
kinds of things hurtle past us through the air, pieces of timber,
branches of trees, coffee-bushes, and even stones. Presently it lulled
again, and we got on end to look round us.
“How will the old house stand all this, Don Ricardo?” said the drenched
skipper. He had to shout to be heard. The Don was too busy to answer,
but once more strode on towards the dwelling, as I expected something
even worse than we had experienced to be still awaiting us. By the time
we reached it, it was full of negroes, men, women, and children, whose
huts had already been destroyed, poor, drenched, miserable devils, with
scarcely any clothing and to crown our comfort, we found the roof
leaking in many places. By this time the night began to fall, and our
prospects were far from flattering. The rain had entirely ceased, nor
was there any lightning, but the storm was most tremendous, blowing in
gusts, and veering round from east to north with the speed of thought.
The force of the gale, however, gradually declined, until the wind
subsided altogether, and every thing became quite still. The low
murmured conversation of the poor negroes who environed us, was heard
distinctly; the hard breathing of the sleeping children could even be
distinguished. But I was by no means sure that the hurricane was over,
and Don Ricardo and the rest seemed to think as I did, for there was not
a word interchanged between us for some time.
“Do you hear that?” at length said Aaron Bang, as a low moaning sound
rose wailing into the night air. It approached and grew louder.
“The voice of the approaching tempest amongst the higher branches of the
trees,” said the Captain.
The rushing noise overhead increased, but still all was so calm where we
sat, that you could have heard a pin drop. Poo, thought I, it has
passed over us after all--no fear now, when one reflects how completely
sheltered we are. Suddenly, however, the lights in the room where the
body lay were blown out, and the roof groaned and creaked as if it had
been the bulkheads of a ship in a tempestuous sea.
“We shall have to cut and run from this anchorage presently, after all,”
said I; “the house will never hold on till morning.”
The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when, as if a thunderbolt had
struck it, one of the windows in the hall was driven in with a roar, as
if the Falls of Niagara had been pouring overhead, and the tempest
having thus forced an entrance, the roof of that part of the house where
we sat was blown up, as if by gunpowder--ay, in the twinkling of an eye;
and there we were with the bare walls, and the angry heaven overhead,
and the rain descending in bucketfuls. Fortunately, two large joists or
couples, being deeply embedded in the substance of the walls, remained,
when the rafters and ridgepole were torn away, or we must have been
crushed in the ruins.
There was again a deathlike lull, the wind fell to a small melancholy
sough amongst the tree-tops, and once more, where we sat, there was not
a breath stirring. So complete was the calm now, that after a light had
been struck, and placed on the floor in the middle of the room, showing
the surrounding group of shivering half-naked savages, with fearful
distinctness, the flame shot up straight as an arrow, clear and bright,
although the distant roar of the storm still thundered afar off as it
rushed over the mountain above us.
This unexpected stillness frightened the women even more than the
fierceness of the gale when at the loudest had done.
“We must go forth,” said Senora Campana; “the elements are only
gathering themselves for a more dreadful hurricane than what we have
already experienced. We must go forth to the little chapel in the wood,
or the next burst may, and will, bury us under the walls;” and she moved
towards Maria’s room, where, by this time, lights had again been placed.
“We must move the body,” we could hear her say; “we must all proceed to
the chapel; in a few minutes the storm will be raging again louder than
ever.”
“And my wife is very right,” said Don Ricardo; “so, Caspar, call the
other people; have some mats, and quatres, and mattresses carried down
to the chapel, and we shall all remove, for, with half of the roof gone,
it is but tempting the Almighty to remain here longer.”
The word was passed, and we were soon under weigh, four negroes leading
the van, carrying the uncoffined body of the poor girl on a sofa; while
two servants, with large splinters of a sort of resinous wood for
flambeaux, walked by the side of it. Next followed the women of the
family, covered up with all the cloaks and spare garments that could be
collected; then came Don Picador Cangrejo, with Ricardo Campana, the
skipper, Aaron Bang, and myself; the procession being closed by the
household negroes, with more lights, which all burned steadily and
clear.
We descended through a magnificent natural avenue of lofty trees (whose
brown moss-grown trunks and fantastic boughs were strongly lit up by
the blaze of the torches; while the fresh white splinter-marks where
the branches had been tom off by the storm, glanced bright and clear,
and the rain-drops on the dark leaves sparkled like diamonds) towards
the river, along whose brink the brimful red-foaming waters rushed past
us, close by the edge of the path, now ebbing suddenly a foot or so, and
then surging up again beyond their former bounds, as if large stones or
trunks of trees above, were from time to time damming up the troubled
waters, and then giving way. After walking about four hundred yards, we
came to a small but massive chapel, fronting the river, the back part
resting against a rocky bank, with two superb cypress-trees growing,
one on each side of the door; we entered, Padre Carera leading the way.
The whole area of the interior of the building did not exceed a
parallelogram of twenty feet by twelve. At the eastern end, fronting
the door, there was a small altar-piece of hard-wood, richly
ornamented with silver, and one or two bare wooden benches standing on
the tiled floor; but the chief security we had that the building would
withstand the storm, consisted in its having no window or aperture
whatsoever, excepting two small ports, one on each side of the altar
piece, and the door, which was a massive frame of hardwood planking.
The body was deposited at the foot of the altar, and the ladies, having
been wrapped up in cloaks and blankets, were safely lodged in quatres,
while we, the gentlemen of the comfortless party, seated ourselves,
disconsolately enough, on the wooden benches.
The door was made fast, after the servants had kindled a blazing wood
fire on the floor; and although the flickering light cast by the wax
tapers in the six large silver candlesticks which were planted beside
the bier, as it blended with the red glare of the fire, and fell strong
on the pale uncovered features of the corpse, and on the anxious faces
of the women, was often startling enough, yet being conscious of a
certain degree of security from the thickness of the walls, we made up
our minds to spend the night where we were, as well as we could.
“I say, Tom Cringle,” said Aaron Bang, “all the females are snug there,
you see; we have a blazing fire on the hearth, and here is some comfort
for we men slaves;” whereupon he produced two bottles of brandy. Don
Ricardo Campana, with whom Bang seemed now to be absolutely in league,
or, in vulgar phrase, as thick as pickpockets, had brought a goblet of
water, and a small silver drinking cup, with him, so we passed the
creature round, and tried all we could to while away the tedious night.
But, as if a sudden thought had struck Aaron, he here tucked the brandy
bottle under his arm, and asking me to carry the vessel with the water,
he advanced, cup in hand, towards the ladies.
“Now, Tom, interpret carefully.”
“Ahem--Madam and Senoras, this is a heavy night for all of us, but the
chapel is damp--allow me to comfort you.”
“Muchisimos gracias,” was the gratifying answer, and Bang accordingly
gave each of our fair friends a heart-warming taste of brandy and
water. There was now calm for a full hour, and the Captain had stepped
out to reconnoitre; on his return he reported that the swollen stream
had very much subsided.
“Well, we shall get away, I hope, tomorrow morning, after all,”
whispered Bang.
He had scarcely spoken when it began to pelt and rain again, as if a
waterspout had burst overhead, but there was no wind.
“Come, that is the clearing up of it,” said Cloche.
At this precise moment the priest was sitting with folded arms, beyond
the body, on a stool or trestle, in the alcove or recess where it lay.
Right overhead was one of the small round apertures in the gable of the
chapel, which, opening on the bank, appeared to the eye a round black
spot in the whitewashed wall. The bright wax lights shed a strong
lustre on the worthy Clerigo’s figure, face, and fine bald head which
shone like silver, while the deeper light of the embers on the floor was
reflected in ruby tints from the large silver crucifix that hung at his
waist. The rushing of the swollen river prevented me hearing
distinctly, but it occurred to me once or twice, that a strange!
gurgling sound proceeded from the aforesaid round aperture. The Padre
seemed to hear it also, for every now and then he looked up, and once he
rose and peered anxiously through it; but apparently unable to
distinguish any thing, he sat down again. However, my attention, had
been excited, and half asleep as I was, I kept glimmering in the
direction of the Clerigo.
The Captain’s deep snore had gradually lengthened out, so as to vouch
for his forgetfulness, and Bang, Ricardo, Dr Pavo Real, and the ladies,
had all subsided into the most perfect quietude, when I noticed, and I
quaked and trembled like an aspen leaf as I did so, a long black paw,
thrust through, and down from the dark aperture immediately over Padre
Carera’s head, which, whatever it was, it appeared to scratch sharply,
and then giving the caput a smart cuff, vanished. The Priest started,
put up his hand, and rubbed his head, but seeing nothing, again leant
back, and was about departing to the land of nod, like the others, once
more. However, in a few minutes, the same paw again protruded, and this
time a peering black snout, with two glancing eyes, was thrust through
the hole after it. The paw kept swinging about like a pendulum for a
few seconds, and was then suddenly thrust into the Padre’s open mouth as
he lay back asleep, and again giving him another smart crack, vanished
as before.
“Hobble, gobble,” gurgled the Priest, nearly choked.
“Ave Maria purissima, que bocado--what a mouthful!--What can that be?”
This was more than I knew, I must confess, and altogether I was
consumedly puzzled, but, from a disinclination to alarm the women, I
held my tongue. Padre Carera this time moved away to the other side
from beneath the hole, but still within two feet of it--in fact, he
could not get in this direction farther for the altar-piece--and being
still half asleep, he lay back once more against the wall to finish his
nap, taking the precaution, however, to clap on his long shovel hat,
shaped like a small canoe, crosswise, with the peaks standing out from
each side of his head, in place of wearing it fore and aft, as usual.
Well, thought I, a strange party certainly; but drowsiness was fast
settling down on me also, when the same black paw was again thrust
through the hole, and I distinctly heard a nuzzling, whining, short
bark. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but before I was quite awake, the
head and neck of a large Newfoundland dog was shoved into the chapel
through the round aperture, and making a long stretch, with the black
paws thrust down and resting on the wall, supporting the creature, the
animal suddenly snatched the Padre’s hat off his head, and giving it an
angry worry--as much as to say, “Confound it--I had hoped to have had
the head in it”--it dropped it on the floor, and with a loud yell,
Sneezer, my own old dear Sneezer, leaped into the midst of us,
floundering amongst the sleeping women, and kicking the firebrands
about, making them hiss again with the water he shook from his shaggy
coat, and frightening all hands like the very devil.
“Sneezer, you villain, how came you here!” I exclaimed, in great
amazement--“How came you here, sir?” The dog knew me at once, and when
benches were reared against him, after the women had huddled into a
corner, and every thing was in sad confusion, he ran to me, and leaped
on my neck, gasping and yelping; but finding that I was angry, and in no
mood for toying, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of
the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and no one
could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he sat so quiet
and motionless. “Sneezer, my boy, what have you to say--where have you
come from?” He looked in the direction of the door, and then walked
deliberately towards it, and tried to open it with his paws.
“Now,” said the Captain, “that little scamp, who would insist on riding
with me to St Jago, to see, as he said, if he might not be of use in
fetching the surgeon from the ship in case I could not find Dr Bergara,
has come back, although I desired him to stay on board. The puppy must
have returned in his cursed troublesome zeal, for in no other way could
your dog be here. Certainly, however, he did not know that I had fallen
in with Dr Pavo Real;” and the good-natured fellow’s heart melted, as
he continued--“Returned--why, he may be drowned--Cringle, take care
little Reefpoint be not drowned.”
Sneezer lowered his black snout, and for a moment poked it into the
white ashes of the fire, and then raising it and stretching his neck
upwards to its full length, he gave a short bark, and then a long loud
howl.
“My life upon it, the poor boy is gone,” said I.
“But what can we do?” said Don Ricardo; “it is as dark as pitch.”
And we again set ourselves to have a small rally at the brandy and
water, as a resolver of our doubts, whether we should sit still till
daybreak, or sally forth now and run the chance of being drowned, with
but small hope of doing any good; and the old priest having left the
other end of the chapel, where the ladies were once more reposing, now
came to join our council of war, and to have his share of the agua
ardiente.
The noise of the rain increased, and there was still a little puff of
wind now and then, so that the Padre, taking an alfombra, or small mat,
used to kneel on, and placing it on the step where the folding doors
opened inwards, took a cloak on his shoulders, and sat himself down with
his back against the leaves, to keep them closed, as the lock or bolt
was broken, and was in the act of swigging off his cupful of comfort,
when a strong gust drove the door open, as if the devil himself had
kicked it, capsized the Padre, blew out the lights once more, and
scattered the brands of the fire all about us. Transom and I started
up, the women shrieked; but before we could get the door to again, in
rode little Reefpoint on a mule, with the doctor of the Firebrand behind
him, bound, or lashed, as we call it, to him by a strong thong. The
black servants and the females took them for incarnate fiends, I fancy,
for the yells and shrieks they set up were tremendous.
“Yo, ho!” sung out little Reefy; “don’t be frightened, ladies--Lord love
ye, I am half drowned, and the doctor here is altogether so quite
entirely drowned, I assure you.--I say, Medico, an’t it true?” And the
little Irish rogue slewed his head round, and gave the exhausted doctor
a most comical look.
“Not quite,” quoth the doctor, “but deuced near it. I say, Captain,
would you have known us? why, we are dyed chocolate colour, you see, in
that river, flowing not with milk and honey, but with something
miraculously like pea soup, water I cannot call it.”
“But Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man?” said Bang.
“You may say that, sir,” responded wee Reefy; “but our mule was knocked
up, and it was so dark and tempestuous, that we should have perished by
the road if we had tried back for St Jago; so seeing a light here, the
only indication of a living thing, and the stream looking narrow and
comparatively quiet--confound it, it was all the deeper though--we
shoved across.”
“But, bless me, if you had been thrown in the stream, lashed together as
you are, you would have been drowned to a certainty,” said the Captain.
“Oh,” said little Reefy, “the doctor was not on the mule in crossing
no, no, Captain, I knew better--I had him in tow, sir; but after we
crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash myself to him to
keep him from sliding over the animal’s counter, and walk he could not.”
“But, Master Reefpoint, why came you back? did I not desire you to
remain on board of the Firebrand, sir?”
The midshipman looked nonplussed. “Why, Captain, I forgot to take my
clothes with me, and--and--in truth, sir, I thought our surgeon would be
of more use than any outlandish Gallipot that you could carry back.”
The good intentions of the lad saved him farther reproof, although I
could not help smiling at his coming back for his clothes, when his
whole wardrobe on starting was confined to the two false collars and a
toothbrush.
“But where is the young lady?” said the doctor.
“Beyond your help, my dear doctor,” said the skipper; “she is dead--all
that remains of her you see within that small railing there.”
“Ah, indeed!” quoth the Medico, “poor girl--poor girl--deep decline,
wasted, terribly wasted,” said he, as he returned from the railing of
the altar-piece, where he had been to look down upon the body; and
then, as if there never had been such a being as poor Maria Olivera in
existence, he continued, “Pray, Mr Bang, what may you have in that
bottle?”
“Brandy, to be sure, doctor,” said Bang.
“A thimbleful then, if you please.”
“By all means”--and the planting attorney handed the black bottle to the
surgeon, who applied it to his lips, without more circumlocution.
“Lord love us!--poisoned--Oh, gemini!”
“Why, doctor,” said Transom, “what has come over you?”
“Poisoned, Captain--only taste.”
The bottle contained soy. It was some time before we could get the poor
man quieted; and when at length he was stretched along a bench, and the
fire stirred up, and new wood added to it, the fresh air of early
morning began to be scented. At this time we missed Padre Carera, and,
in truth, we all fell fast asleep; but in about an hour or so
afterwards, I was awoke by some one stepping across me. The same cause
had stirred Transom. It was Aaron Bang who had been to look out at the
door.
“I say, Cringle, look here--the Padre and the servants are digging a
grave close to the chapel--are they going to bury the poor girl so
suddenly?”
I stepped to the door; the wind had entirely fallen--but it rained very
fast--the small chapel door looked out on the still swollen, but
subsiding river, and beyond that on the mountain, which rose abruptly
from the opposite bank. On the side of the hill facing us was situated
a negro village, of about thirty huts, where lights were already
twinkling, as if the inmates were preparing to go forth to their work.
Far above them, on the ridge, there was a clear cold streak towards the
east, against which the outline of the mountain, and the large trees
which grew on it, were sharply cut out; but overhead, the firmament was
as yet dark and threatening. The morning star had just risen, and was
sparkling bright and clear through the branches of a magnificent tree,
that shot out from the highest part of the hill; it seemed to have
attracted the Captain’s attention as well as mine.
“Were I romantic now, Mr Cringle, I could expatiate on that view. How
cold, and clear, and chaste, every thing looks! The elements have
subsided into a perfect calm, every thing is quiet and still, but there
is no warmth, no comfort in the scene.”
“What a soaking rain!” said Aaron Bang; “why, the drops are as small as
pin points, and so thick!--a Scotch mist is a joke to them. Unusual all
this, Captain. You know our rain in Jamaica usually descends in
bucketfuls, unless it be regularly set in for a week, and them, but then
only, it becomes what in England we are in the habit of calling a
soaking rain. One good thing, however,--while it descends so quietly,
the earth will absorb it all, and that furious river will not continue
swollen.”
“Probably not,” said I.
“Mr Cringle,” said the skipper, “do you mark that tree on the ridge of
the mountain, that large tree in such conspicuous relief against the
eastern sky?”
“I do, Captain. But--heaven help us!--what necromancy is this! It
seems to sink into the mountain-top--why, I only see the uppermost
branches now. It has disappeared, and yet the outline of the hill is as
distinct and well defined as ever; I can even see the cattle on the
ridge, although, they are running about in a very incomprehensible way
certainly.”
“Hush!” said Don Ricardo, “hush!--the Padre is reading the funeral
service in the chapel, preparatory to the body being brought out.”
And so he was. But a low grumbling noise, gradually increasing was now
distinctly audible. The monk hurried on with the prescribed form--he
finished it--and we were about moving the body to carry it forth--Bang
and I being in the very act of stooping down to lift the bier, when the
Captain sung out sharp and quick,--“Here, Tom!” the urgency of the
appeal abolishing the Mister--“Here!--zounds, the whole hill-side is in
motion!” And as he spoke I beheld the negro village, that hung on the
opposite bank, gradually fetch way, houses, trees, and all, with a loud,
harsh, grating sound.
“God defend us!” I involuntarily exclaimed.
“Stand clear,” shouted the skipper; “the whole hill-side opposite is
under weigh, and we shall be bothered here presently.”
He was right--the entire face of the hill over against us was by this
time in motion, sliding over the substratum of rock like a first rate
gliding along the well-greased ways at launching--an earthy avalanche.
Presently the rough, rattling, and crashing sound, from the disrupture
of the soil, and the breaking of the branches, and tearing up by the
roots of the largest trees, gave warning of some tremendous incident.
The lights in the huts still burned, but houses and all continued to
slide down the declivity; and anon a loud startled exclamation was heard
here and there, and then a pause, but the low mysterious hurtling sound
never ceased.
At length a loud continuous yell echoed along the hillside. The noise
increased--the rushing sound came stronger and stronger the river rose
higher, and roared louder; it overleaped the lintel of the door--the
fire on the floor hissed for a moment, and then expired in smouldering
wreaths of white smoke--the discoloured torrent gurgled into the chapel,
and reached the altar-piece; and while the cries from the hillside were
highest, and bitterest, and most despairing, it suddenly filled the
chapel to the top of the low doorpost; and although the large tapers
which had been lit near the altar-piece were as yet unextinguished,
like meteors sparkling on a troubled sea, all was misery and
consternation.
“Have patience, and be composed, now,” shouted Don Ricardo. “If it
increases, we can escape through the apertures here, behind the altar
piece, and from thence to the high ground beyond. The heavy rain has
loosened the soil on the opposite bank, and it has slid into the river
course, negro houses and all. But be composed, my dears nothing
supernatural in all this; and rest assured, although the river has
unquestionably been forced from its channel, that there is no danger, if
you will only maintain your self-possession.”
And there we were--an inhabitant of a cold climate cannot go along with
me in the description. We were all alarmed, but we were not chilled
cold is a great daunter of bravery. At New Orleans, the black
regiments, in the heart of the forenoon, were really the most efficient
corps of the army; but in the morning, when the hoarfrost was on the
long wire-grass, they were but as a broken reed. “Him too cold for
brave today,” said the sergeant of the grenadier company of the West
India regiment, which was brigaded in the ill-omened advance, when we
attacked New Orleans; but here, having heat, and seeing none of the
women egregiously alarmed, we all took heart of grace, and really there
was no quailing amongst us.
Senora Campana and her two nieces, Senora Cangrejo and her angelic
daughter, had all betaken themselves to a sort of seat, enclosing the
altar in a semicircle, with the pea soup-coloured water up to their
knees. Not a word--not an exclamation of fear escaped from them,
although the gushing eddies from the open door showed that the soil from
the opposite hill was fast settling down, and usurping the former
channel of the river.
“All very fine this to read of,” at last exclaimed Aaron Bang. “Zounds,
we shall be drowned. Look out, Transom; Tom Cringle, look out; for my
part, I shall dive through the door, and take my chance.”
“No use in that,” said Don Ricardo; “the two round openings there at the
west end of the chapel, open on a dry shelf, from which the ground
slopes easily upward to the house; let us put the ladies through them,
and then we males can shift for ourselves as we best may.”
At this moment the water rose so high, that the bier on which the corpse
of poor Maria Olivera lay stark and stiff, was floated off the trestles,
and turning on its edge, after glancing for a moment in the light cast
by the wax tapers, it sank into the thick brown water, and was no more
seen.
The old priest murmured a prayer, but the effect on us was electric.
“Sauve qui peut” was now the cry; and Sneezer, quite in his element,
began to cruise all about, threatening the tapers with instant
extinction.
“Ladies, get through the holes,” shouted Don Ricardo. “Captain, get you
out first.”
“Can’t desert my ship,” said the gallant fellow; “the last to quit where
danger is, my dear sir. It is my charter; but, Mr Cringle, go you, and
hand the ladies out.”
“I’ll be d----d if I do,” said I. “Beg pardon, sir; I simply mean to say,
that I cannot usurp the pas from you.”
“Then,” quoth Don Ricardo--a more discreet personage than any one of us
“I will go myself;” and forthwith he screwed himself through one of the
round holes in the wall behind the altar-piece. “Give me out one of
the wax tapers--there is no wind now,” said Don Ricardo “and hand out my
wife, Captain Transom.”
“Ave Maria!” said the matron, “I shall never get through that hole.”
“Try, my dear madam,” said Bang, for by this time we were all deucedly
alarmed at our situation. “Try, madam;” and we lifted her towards the
hole--fairly entered her into it head foremost, and all was smooth, till
a certain part of the excellent woman’s earthly tabernacle stuck fast.
We could hear her invoking all the saints in the calendar on the
outside to “make her thin;” but the flesh and muscle were obdurate
through she would not go, until--delicacy being now blown to the winds,
Captain Transom placed his shoulder to the old lady’s extremity, and
with the regular “Oh, heave oh!” shot her through the aperture into her
husband’s arms. The young ladies we ejected much more easily, although
Francesca Cangrejo did stick a little too. The priest was next passed,
then Don Picador; and so we went on, until in rotation we had all made
our exit, and were perched shivering on the high bank. God defend us!
we had not been a minute there when the rushing of the stream increased
the rain once more fell in torrents several large trees came down with
a fearful impetus in the roaring torrent, and struck the corner of the
chapel. It shook--we could see the small cross on the eastern gable
tremble. Another stump surged against it--it gave way--and in a minute
afterwards there was not a vestige remaining of the whole fabric.
“What a funeral for thee, Maria!” said Don Ricardo.
Not a vestige of the body was ever found.
There was nothing now for it. We all stopped, and turned, and looked,
there was not a stone of the building to be seen--all was red
precipitous bank, or dark flowing river--so we turned our steps towards
the house. The sun by this time had risen. We found the northern range
of rooms still entire, so we made the most of it; and, by dint of the
Captain’s and my nautical skill, before dinner-time, there was rigged a
canvass jury-roof over the southern part of the fabric, and we were
once-more seated in comparative comfort at our meal. But it was all
melancholy work enough. However, at last we retired to our beds; and
next morning, when I awoke, there was the small stream once more
trickling over the face of the rock, with the slight spray wafting into
my bedroom, a little discoloured certainly, but as quietly as if no
storm had taken place.
We were kept at Don Picador’s for three days, as, from the shooting of
the soil from the opposite hill, the river had been dammed up, and its
channel altered, so that there was no venturing across. Three Negroes
were unfortunately drowned, when the bank shot, as Bang called it. But
the wonder passed away; and by nine o’clock on the fourth morning, when
we mounted our mules to proceed, there was little apparently on the fair
face of nature to mark that such fearful scenes had been. However, when
we did get under weigh, we found that the hurricane had not passed over
us without leaving fearful evidences of its violence.
We had breakfasted--the women had wept--Don Ricardo had blown his nose--
Aaron Bang had blundered and fidgeted about and the bestias were at the
door. We embraced the ladies.
“My son,” said Senora Cangrejo, “we shall most likely never meet again.
You have your country to go to--you have a mother. Oh, may she never
suffer the pangs which have wrung my heart But I know--I know that she
never will.” I bowed. “We may never indeed, in all likelihood we shall
never meet again!” continued she, in a rich, deep-toned, mellow voice;
“but if your way of life shall ever lead you to Cordova, you will be
sure of having many visitors, and many a door will open to you, if you
will but give out that you have shown kindness to Maria Olivera, or to
any one connected with her.” She wept--and bent over me, pressing both
her hands on the crown of my head. “May that great God, who careth not
for rank or station, for nation or for country, bless you, my son--bless
you!”
All this was sorry work. She kissed me on the forehead, and turned
away. Her daughter was standing close to her, “like Niobe, all tears.”
“Farewell, Mr Cringle--may you be happy!” I kissed her hand--she turned
to the Captain. He looked inexpressible things, and taking her hand,
held it to his breast; and then, making a slight genuflection, pressed
it to his lips. He appeared to be amazingly energetic, and she seemed
to struggle to be released. He recovered himself, however--made a
solemn bow----the ladies vanished. We shook hands with old Don Picador,
mounted our mules, and bid a last adieu to the Valley of the Hurricane.
We ambled along for some time in silence. At length the skipper dropped
astern, until he got alongside of me. “I say, Tom”--I was well aware
that he never called me Tom unless he was fou, or his heart was full,
honest man--“Tom, what think you of Francesca Cangrejo?”
Oh ho! sits the wind in that quarter? thought I. “Why, I don’t know,
Captain--I have seen her to disadvantage--so much misery fine woman
though--rather large to my taste--but....”
“Confound your buts,” quoth the Captain. “But, never mind push on, push
on.”--I may tell the gentle reader in his ear, that the worthy fellow,
at the moment when I send this chapter to the press, has his flag, and
that Francesca Cangrejo is no less a personage than his wife.
However, let us get along. “Doctor Pavo Real,” said Don Ricardo,.now
since you have been good enough to spare us a day, let us get the heart
of your secret out of you. Why, you must have been pretty well
frightened on the island there.’
“Never so much frightened in my life, Don Ricardo; that English captain
is a most tempestuous man--but all has ended well; and after having seen
you to the crossing, I will bid you good-by.”
“Poo--nonsense.” “Come along--here is the English Medico, your brother
Esculapius; so, come along, you can return in the morning.” “But the
sick folk in Santiago....”
“Will be none the sicker for your absence, Doctor Pavo Real,” responded
Don Ricardo.
The little Doctor laughed, and away we all cantered--Don Ricardo
leading, followed by his wife and nieces, on three stout mules, sitting,
not on side-saddles, but on a kind of chair, with a foot-board on the
larboard side to support the feet--then followed the two Calens, and
little Reefpoint, while the Captain and I brought up the rear. We had
not proceeded five hundred yards, when we were brought to a stand-still
by a mighty tree, which had been thrown down by the wind fairly across
the road. On the right hand there was a perpendicular rock rising up to
a height of five hundred feet; and on the left an equally precipitous
descent, without either ledge or parapet to prevent one from falling
over. What was to be done? We could not by any exertion of strength
remove the tree; and if we sent back for assistance, it would have been
a work of time. SO we dismounted, got the ladies to alight, and Aaron
Bang, Transom, and myself, like true knights-errant, undertook to ride
the mulos over the stump.
Aaron Bang led gallantly, and made a deuced good jump of it, Transom
followed, and made not quite so clever an exhibition--I then rattled at
it, and down came mule and rider. However, we were accounted for on the
right side.
“But what shall become of us?” shouted the English doctor.
“And as for me, I shall return,” said the Spanish Medico.
“Lord love you, no,” said little Reefpoint; “here, lash me to my beast,
and no fear.” The doctor made him fast, as desired, round the mule’s
neck with a stout thong, and then drove him at the barricade, and over
they came, man and beast, although, to tell the truth, little Reefy
alighted well out on the neck with a hand grasping each ear. However,
he was a gallant little fellow, and in nowise discouraged, so he
undertook to bring over the other quadrupeds; and in little more than a
quarter of an hour we were all under weigh on the opposite side, in full
sail towards Don Ricardo’s property. But as we proceeded up the valley,
the destruction caused by the storm became more and more apparent.
Trees were strewn about in, all directions, having been tom up by the
roots--road there was literally none; and by the time we reached the
coffee estate, after a ride, or scramble, more properly speaking, of
three hours, we were all pretty much tired. In some places the road
at the best was but a rocky shelf of Limestone not exceeding twelve
inches in width, where, if you had slipped, down you would have gone a
thousand feet. At this time it was white and clean, as if it had been
newly chiselled, all the soil and sand having been washed away by the
recent heavy rains.
The situation was beautiful; the house stood on a platform scraped out
of the hillside, with a beautiful view of the whole country down to St
Jago. The accommodation was good; more comforts, more English comforts,
in the mansion than I had yet seen in Cuba; and as it was built of solid
slabs of limestone, and roofed with strong hardwood timbers and rafters,
and tiled, it had sustained comparatively little injury, as it had the
advantage of being at the same time sheltered by the overhanging cliff.
It stood in the middle of a large platform of hard sun-dried clay,
plastered over, and as white as chalk, which extended about forty feet
from the eaves of the house, in every direction, on which the coffee was
cured. This platform was surrounded on all sides by the greenest grass
I had ever seen, and overshadowed, not the house alone, but the whole
level space, by one vast wild fig-tree.
“I say, Tom, do you see that Scotchman hugging the Creole, eh?”
“Scotchman!” said I, looking towards Don Ricardo, who certainly did not
appear to be particularly amorous; on the contrary, we had just
alighted, and the worthy man was enacting groom.
“Yes,” continued Bang, “the Scotchman hugging the Creole; look at that
tree--do you see the trunk of it?”
I did look at it. It was a magnificent cedar, with a tall straight
stem, covered over with a curious sort of fretwork, wove by the branches
of some strong parasitical plant, which had warped itself round and
round it, by numberless snakelike convolutions, as if it had been a
vegetable Laocoon. The tree itself shot up branchless to the uncommon
height of fifty feet; the average girth of the hunk being four-and
twenty feet, or eight-feet in diameter. The leaf of the cedar is
small, not unlike the ash; but when I looked up, I noticed that the
feelers of this ligneous serpent had twisted round the larger boughs,
and blended their broad leaves with those of the tree, so that it looked
like two trees grafted into one; but, as Aaron Bang said, in a very few
years the cedar would entirely disappear, its growth being impeded, its
pith extracted, and its core rotted, by the baleful embraces of the wild
fig, of “this Scotchman hugging the Creole.” After we had fairly shaken
into our places, there was every promise of a very pleasant visit. Our
host had a tolerable cellar, and although there was not much of style in
his establishment, still there was a fair allowance of comfort, every
thing considered. The evening after we arrived was most beautiful. The
house, situated on its white plateau of barbicues, as the coffee
platforms are called, where large piles of the berries in their red
cherry like husks had been blackening in the sun the whole forenoon, and
on which a gang of negroes was now employed covering them up with
tarpawlins for the night, stood in the centre of an amphitheatre of
mountains, the front box, as it were, the stage part opening on a bird’s
eye-view of the distant town and harbour, with the everlasting ocean
beyond it, the currents and flaws of wind making its surface look like
ice, as we were too distant to discern the heaving of the swell, or the
motion of the billows. The fast falling shades of evening were deepened
by the sombrous shadow of the immense tree overhead, and all down in the
deep valley was now becoming dark and undistinguishable, through the
blue vapours that were gradually floating up towards us. To the left,
on the shoulder of the Horseshoe Hill, the sunbeams still lingered, and
the gigantic shadows of the trees on the right hand prong were strongly
cast across the valley on a red precipitous bank near the top of it.
The sun was descending beyond the wood, flashing through the branches,
as if they had been on fire. He disappeared. It was a most lovely
still evening--the air--but hear the skipper.
“It is the hour when from the boughs,
The nightingale’s high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers vows,
Seem sweet in every whisper’d word;
And gentle winds and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf is browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
Which follows the decline of day,
When twilight melts beneath the moon away.”
“Well recited, skipper,” shouted Bang. “Given as the noble poet’s
verses should be given. I did not know the extent of your
accomplishments; grown poetical ever since you saw Francesca Cangrejo,
eh?”
The darkness hid the gallant captain’s blushes, if blush he did.
“I say, Don Ricardo, who are those?”--half-a-dozen well-clad negroes
had approached the house by this time--“Ask them, Mr Bang; take your
friend Mr Cringle for an interpreter.”
“Well, I will. Tom, who are they? Ask them--do.”
I put the question, “Do you belong to the property?”
The foremost, a handsome Negro answered me, “No, we don’t, sir; at
least, not till tomorrow.”
“Not till tomorrow?”
“No, sir; somos caballeros hoy” (we are gentlemen to-day.)
“Gentlemen today; and, pray, what shall you be tomorrow?”
“Esclavos otra ves,” (slaves again, sir,) rejoined the poor fellow,
nowise daunted.
“And you, my darling,” said I to a nice well-dressed girl, who seemed
to be the sister of the spokesman, “.what are you today, may I ask?”
She laughed--“Esclava, a slave to-day, but to-morrow I shall be free.”
“Very strange.”
“Not at all, senor; there are six of us in a family, and one of us is
free each day, all to father there,” pointing to an old grey-headed
negro, who stood by, leaning on his staff--“he is free two days in the
week; and as I am going to have a child,”--a cool admission,--“I want to
buy another day for myself too--but Don Ricardo will tell you all about
it.”
The Don by this time chimed in, talking kindly to the poor creatures;
but we had to retire, as dinner was now announced, to which we sat down.
Don Ricardo had been altogether Spanish in Santiago, because he lived
there amongst Spaniards, and every thing was Spanish about him; so with
the tact of his countrymen he had gradually been merged into the society
in which he moved, and having married a very high caste Spanish lady, he
at length became regularly amalgamated with the community. But here, in
his mountain retreat, sole master, his slaves in attendance on him, he
was once more an Englishman, in externals, as he always was at heart,
and Richie Cloche, from the Lang Toon of Kirkaldy, shone forth in all
his glory as the kind hearted landlord. His head household servant was
an English, or rather a Jamaica negro; his equipment, so far as the
dinner set out was concerned, was pure English; he would not even speak
any thing but English himself.
The entertainment was exceedingly good,--the only thing that puzzled us
uninitiated subjects, was a fricassee of Macaca worms, that is, the worm
which breeds in the rotten trunk of the cotton-tree, a beautiful little
insect, as big as a miller’s thumb, with a white trunk and a black head
in one word, a gigantic caterpillar.
Bang fed thereon--he had been accustomed to it in Jamaica in some Creole
families where he visited, he said--but it was beyond my compass.
However, all this while we were having a great deal of fun, when Senora
Campana addressed her husband--“My dear, you are now in your English
mood, so I suppose we must go.” We had dined at six, and it might now be
about eight. Don Ricardo, with all the complacency in the world, bowed,
as much as to say, you are right, my dear, you may go, when his youngest
niece addressed him.
“Tio--my uncle,” said she, in a low silver-toned voice, “Juana and I
have brought our guitars”--
“Not another word to be said,” quoth Transom--“the guitars by all
means.”
The girls in an instant, without any preparatory blushing, or other
botheration, rose, slipped their heads and right arms through the black
ribbons that supported their instruments, and stepped into the middle of
the room.
“The Moorish Maid of Granada,” said Senora Campana. They nodded.
“You shall take Fernando, the sailor’s part,” said Senora Candalaria,
the youngest sister, to Juana, “for your voice is deeper than mine, and
I shall be Anna.”
“Agreed,” said Juana, with a lovely smile, and an arch twinkle of her
eye towards me, and then launched forth in full tide, accompanying her
sweet and mellow voice on that too much neglected instrument, the
guitar. It was a wild, irregular sort of ditty, with one or two
startling arabesque bursts in it. As near as may be, the following
conveys the meaning, but not the poetry.
The Moorish Maid of Granada
FERNANDO
The setting moon hangs over the hill;
On the dark pure breast of the mountain lake
Still trembles her greenish silver wake,
And the blue mist floats over the rill.
And the cold streaks of dawning appear,
Giving token that sunrise is near;
And the fast clearing east is flushing,
And the watery clouds are blushing;
And the day-star is sparkling on high,
Like the fire of my Anna’s dark eye.
The ruby-red clouds in the east
Float like islands upon the sea,
When the winds are asleep on its breast;
Ah, would that such calm were for me!
And see, the first streamer-like ray
From the unrisen god of day,
Is piercing the ruby-red clouds,
Shooting up like golden shrouds:
And like silver gauze falls the shower,
Leaving diamonds on bank, bush, and bower,
Amidst many unopened flower.
Why walks the dark maid of Granada?
ANNA
At evening when labour is done,
And cool’d in the sea is the sun;
And the dew sparkles clear on the rose,
And the flowers are beginning to close,
Which at nightfall again in the calm.
Their incense to God breathe in balm;
And the bat flickers up in the sky,
And the beetle hums moaningly by;
And to rest in the brake speeds the deer,
While the nightingale sings loud and clear.
Scorched by the heat of the sun’s fierce light,
The sweetest flowers are bending most
Upon their slender stems;
More faint are they than if tempest tost,
Till they drink of the sparkling gems
That fall from the eye of night.
Hark! from lattices guitars are tinkling,
And though in heaven the stars are twinkling,
No tell-tale moon looks over the mountain,
To peer at her pale cold face in the fountain;
And serenader’s mellow voice,
Wailing of war, or warbling of love,
Of love, while the melting maid of his choice,
Leans out from her bower above.
All is soft and yielding towards night,
When blending darkness shrouds all from the sight;
But chaste, chaste, is this cold, pure light,
Sang the Moorish maid of Granada.
After the song, we all applauded, and the ladies having made their
conges, retired. The Captain and I looked towards Aaron Bang and Don
Ricardo; they were tooth and nail at something which we could not
understand. So we wisely held our tongues.
“Very strange all this,” quoth Bang.
“Not at all,” said Ricardo. “As I tell you, every slave here can have
himself or herself appraised, at any time they may choose, with liberty
to purchase their freedom day by day.”
“But that would be compulsory manunmission,” quoth Bang.
“And if it be,” said Ricardo, “what then? The scheme works well here
why should it not do so there--I mean with you, who have so many
advantages over us?”
This is an unentertaining subject to most people, but having no bias
myself, I have considered it but justice to insert in my log the
following letter, which Bang, honest fellow, addressed to me, some years
after the time I speak of.
MY DEAR CRINGLE,
“Since I last saw you in London, it is nearly, but not quite, three
years ago. I considered at the time we parted, that if I lived at the
rate of L3000 a-year, I was not spending one-half of my average
income, and on the faith of this I did plead guilty to my house in Park
Lane, and a carriage for my wife,----and, in short, I spent my L3000 a
year. Where am I now? In the old shop at Mammee Gully--my two eldest
daughters, little things, in the very middle of their education, hastily
ordered out, shipped as it were, like two bales of goods to Jamaica--my
eldest nephew, whom I had adopted, obliged to exchange from the--Light
Dragoons, and to enter a foot regiment, receiving the difference, which
but cleared him from his mess accounts. But the world says I was
extravagant. Like Timon, however--No, d----n Timon. I spent money when I
thought I had it, and therein I did no more than the Duke of Bedford, or
Lord Grosvenor or many another worthy peer; and now when I no longer
have it, why, I cut my coat by my cloth, have made up my mind to
perpetual banishment here, and I owe no man a farthing.”
But all this is wandering from the subject. We are now asked in direct
terms to free our slaves. I will not even glance at the injustice of
this demand, the horrible infraction of rights that it would lead to;
all this I will leave untouched; but, my dear fellow, were men in your
service or the army to do us justice, each in his small sphere in
England, how much good might you not do us? Officers of rank are, of
all others, the most influential witnesses we could adduce, if they,
like you, have had opportunities of judging for themselves. But I am
rambling from my object. You may remember our escapade into Cuba, a
thousand years ago, when you were a lieutenant of the Firebrand. Well,
you may also remember Don Ricardo’s doctrine regarding the gradual
emancipation of the negroes, and how we saw his plan in full operation
at least I did, for you knew little of these matters. Well, last year I
made a note of what then passed, and sent it to an eminent West India
merchant in London, who had it published in the Courier, but it did not
seem to please either one party or the other; a signal proof, one would
have thought, that there was some good in it. At a later period, I
requested the same gentleman to have it published in Blackwood, where it
would at least have had a fair trial on its own merits, but it was
refused insertion. My very worthy friend, who acted for old Kit at that
time as secretary of state for colonial affairs, did not like it, I
presume; it trenched a little, it would seem, on the integrity of his
great question; it approached to something like compulsory manumission,
about which he does rave. Why will he not think on this subject like a
Christian man? The country--I say so--will never sanction the retaining
in bondage of any slave, who is willing to pay his master his fair
appraised value.
Our friend----injures us, and himself too, a leetle by his ultra
notions. However, hear what I propose, and what, as I have told you
formerly, was published in the Courier by no less a man than Lord----.
Scheme for the gradual Abolition of Slavery.
The following scheme of redemption for the slaves in our colonies is
akin to a practice that prevails in some of the Spanish settlements.
We have now bishops, (a most excellent measure,) and we may presume that
the inferior clergy will be much more efficient than heretofore. It is
therefore proposed,--That every slave, on attaining the age of twenty
one years, should be, by act of Parliament, competent to apply to his
parish clergyman, and signify his desire to be appraised. The
clergyman’s business would then be to select two respectable appraisers
from amongst his parishioners, who should value the slave, calling in an
umpire if they disagreed.
As men even of good principles will often be more or less swayed by the
peculiar interests of the body to which they belong, the rector should
be instructed, if he saw any flagrant swerving from an honest
appraisement, to notify the same to his bishop, who, by application to
the governor, if need were, could thereby rectify it. When the slave
was thus valued, the valuation should be registered by the rector, in a
book to be kept for that purpose, an attested copy of which should be
annually lodged amongst the archives of the colony.
We shall assume a case, where a slave is valued for L120, Jamaica
currency. He soon, by working by-hours, selling the produce of his
provision grounds, etc. Acquires L20; and how easily and frequently
this is done, every one knows, who is at all acquainted with West India
affairs.
He then shall have a right to pay to his owner this L20 as the price of
his Monday for ever, and his owner shall be bound to receive it. A
similar sum would purchase him his freedom on Tuesday; and other four
instalments, to use a West India phrase, would buy him free altogether.
You will notice, I consider that he is already free on the Sunday. Now,
where is the insurmountable difficulty here? The planter may be put to
inconvenience, certainly, great inconvenience, but he has compensation,
and the slave has his freedom--if he deserves it; and as his
emancipation in nine cases out of ten would be a work of time, he would,
as he approached absolute freedom, become more civilized, that is, more
fit to be free; and as he became more civilized, new wants would spring
up, so that when he was finally free, he would not be content to work a
day or two in the week for subsistence merely. He would work the whole
six to buy many little comforts, which, as a slave suddenly emancipated,
he never would have thought of.
As the slave becomes free, I would have his owner’s allowance of
provisions and clothing decrease gradually.
It may be objected--suppose slaves partly free, to be taken in
execution, and sold for debt. I answer, let them be so. Why cannot
three days of a man’s labour be sold by the deputy marshal as well as
six?
Again--Suppose the gang is mortgaged, or liable to judgments against the
owner of it. I still answer, let it be so--only, in this case let the
slave pay his instalments into court, in place of paying them to his
owners, and let him apply to his rector for information in such a case.
By the register I would have kept, every one could at once see what
property an owner had in his gang--that is, how many were actually
slaves, and how many were in progress of becoming free. Thus well
disposed and industrious slaves would soon become freemen. But the idle
and worthless would still continue slaves, and why the devil shouldn’t
they?
(Signed) A. B----.
There does seem to be a rough, yet vigorous sound sense in all this.
But I take leave of the subject, which I do not profess to understand;
only I am willing to bear witness in favour of my old friends, so far as
I can, conscientiously.
We returned next day to Santiago, and had then to undergo the bitterness
of parting. With me it was a slight affair, but the skipper! However, I
will not dwell on it. We reached the town towards evening. The women
were ready to weep, I saw; but we all turned in, and next morning at
breakfast we were moved, I will admit--some more, some less. Little
Reefy, poor fellow, was crying like a child; indeed he was little more,
being barely fifteen.
“Oh! Mr Cringle, I wish I had never seen Miss Candalaria de los
Dolores; indeed I do.”
This was Don Ricardo’s youngest niece.
“Ah, Reefy, Reefy,” said I, “you must make haste, and be made post, and
then....”
“What does he call her?” said Aaron.
“Senora Tomassa Candalaria de los Dolores Gonzales y Vallejo,” blubbered
out little Reefy.
“What a complicated piece of machinery she must be!” gravely rejoined
Bang.
The meal was protracted to a very unusual length, but time and tide wait
for no man. We rose. Aaron Bang advanced to make his bow to our kind
hostess; he held out his hand, but she, to Aaron’s great surprise
apparently, pushed it on one side and regularly closing with our friend,
hugged him in right earnest. I have before mentioned that she was a very
small woman; so, as the devil would have it, the golden pin in her hair
was thrust into Aaron’s eye, which made him jump back, wherein he lost
his balance, and away he went, dragging Madama Campana down on the top
of him. However, none of us could--laugh now; we parted, jumped into
our boat, and proceeded straight to the anchorage, where three British
merchantmen were by this time riding all ready for sea. We got on
board. “Mr Yerk,” said the Captain, “fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter
at the fore. Loose the foretopsail.” The masters came on board for
their instructions; we passed but a melancholy evening of it, and next
morning I took my last look of Santiago de Cuba.