(THE RISING CURTAIN)
In that year, 1848, this unrest was much increased. King Christian had
lately proclaimed a gradual emancipation of all slaves in his West
Indian colonies. A squad of soldiers had marched through the streets,
halting at corners and beating a drum--"beating the protocol," as it
was termed--and reading the royal edict. After twelve years all slaves
were to go free; their owners were to be paid for them; and meantime
every infant of a slave was to be free at birth.
I suppose no one knows better than the practical statesman how
disastrous measures are apt to be when designed for the _gradual_
righting of a public evil. They rarely satisfy any class concerned.
In this case the aged slaves bemoaned a promised land they might never
live to enter; younger ones dreaded the superior liberty of free-born
children; and the planters doubted they would be paid, even if
emancipation did not bring fire, rapine, and death.
One day, along with all "West-En'," as the negroes called
Fredericksted--Christiansted was "Bass-En',"--I saw two British
East-Indiamen sail into the harbor. Such ships never touched at
Fredericksted; what could the Britons want?
"Water," they said, "and rest"; but they stayed and stayed! their
officers roaming the island, asking many questions, answering few.
What they signified at last I cannot say, except that they became our
refuge from the black uprising that was near at hand. Likely enough
that was their only errand.
Sunday, the 2d of July, was still and fair. To me the Sabbath was
always a happy day. High-stepping horses prancing up to the
church-gates brought friends from the plantations. The organ pealed,
the choir chanted, the rector read, and read well; the mural tablets
told the virtues of the churchyard sleepers, and out through the
windows I could gaze on the clouds and the hills. After church came
the Sunday-school. Its house was on a breezy height where the wind
swept through the room unceasingly, giving wings to the children's
voices as we sang, "Now be the gospel banner."
But this Sunday promised unusual pleasure. I was to go with Aunt
Marion to dine soon after midday with a Danish family, in real Danish
West Indian fashion, and among the guests were to be some officers of
the East-Indiamen. I carried with me one fear--that we should have
pigeon-pea soup. Whoever ate pigeon-pea soup, Si' Myra said, would
never want to leave the island, and I longed for those ships to go.
But in due time we were asked:
"Which soup will you have--guava-berry or pigeon-pea?"
Hoping to be imitated I chose the guava-berry; but without any
immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other.
After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou
and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red
groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the
juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating
islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas
crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before
each draft the men lifted their glasses high to right and left and
cried: "Skoal! Skoal!" As the company finally rose, our host and
hostess shook hands with all, these again saluting each other, each two
saying: "Vel be komme"--"May this feast do you good."
There was strange contrast in store for us. Late in the afternoon we
started home. On the way two friends, a lady and her daughter,
persuaded us to turn and take a walk on the north-side road, at the
town's western border. It drew us southward toward "the lagoon," near
to where this water formed a kind of moat behind the fort, and was
spanned by a slight wooden bridge. While we went the sun slowly sank
through a golden light toward the purple sea, among temples, towers,
and altars of cloud.
As we neared this bridge two black men crossing it from opposite ways
stopped and spoke low:
"Yes, me yerry it; dem say sich t'ing' as nebber bin known befo' goin'
be done in West-En' town to-night."
"Well, you look sharp, me frien'----"
Seeing us, they parted abruptly, one troubled, the other pleased and
brisk. Our friends drew back: "What does he mean, mother?"
"Oh, some meeting to make Christmas songs, I suppose."
"I think not," said Aunt Marion. "Let's go back; my mother's alone."
Just then Gilbert, young son of an intimate neighbor, appeared, saying
to the four of us: "I've come to find you and see you home. The
thing's on us. The slaves rise to-night. Some free negroes have
betrayed them. At eight o'clock they, the slaves, are to attack the
town."
Our home was reached first. Grandmamma heard the news calmly. "We're
in God's hands," she said. "Gilbert, will you stop at Mr. Kenyon's"
[another neighbor] "and send Anna and Marcia home?"
Mr. Kenyon came bringing them and begging that we all go and pass the
night with him. But grandmamma thought we had better stay home, and he
went away to propose to the neighborhood that all the women and
children be put into the fort, that the men might be the freer to
defend them.
"Marion," said grandmamma, "let us have supper and prayers."
The meal was scarcely touched. Aunt Marcia put Bible and prayer-book
by the lamp and barred all the front shutters. When grandmamma had
read we knelt, but the prayer, was scarcely finished when Aunt Marcia
was up, crying: "The signal! Hear the signal!"
Out in the still night a high mournful note on a bamboo pipe was
answered by a conch, and presently the alarm was ringing from point to
point, from shells, pipes and horns, and now and then in the solemn
clangor of plantation bells. It came first from the south, then from
the east, swept around to the north, and answered from the western
cliffs, springing from hilltop to hilltop, long, fierce, exultant. We
stood listening and, I fear, pale. But by and by grandmamma took her
easy chair.
"I will spend the night here," she said.
Aunt Anna took a rocking-chair beside her. Aunt Marcia chose the sofa.
Aunt Marion spread a pallet for me, lay down at my side, and bade me
not fear but sleep. And I slept.