(REVOLT AND RIOT)
Suddenly I was broad awake. Distant but approaching, I heard horses'
feet. They came from the direction of the fort. Aunt Marcia was
unbarring the shutters and fastening the inner jalousies so as to look
out unseen.
"It's nearly one o'clock," some one said, and I got up, wondering how
the world looked at such an hour. All hearkened to the nearing sound.
"Ah!" Aunt Marcia gladly cried, "the troopers!"
There were only some fifty of them. Slowly, in a fitful moonlight,
they dimly came, hoofs ringing on the narrow macadam, swords clanking,
and dark plumes nodding over set faces, while the distant war-signal
from shell, reed, and horn called before, around, and after them.
Still later came a knock at the door, and Mr. Kenyon was warily
readmitted. He explained the passing of the troopers. They had
hurried about the country for hours, assembling their families at
points easy to defend and then had come to the fort for ammunition and
orders; but the captain of the fort, refusing to admit them without the
governor's order, urged them to go to their homes.
"But," Mr. Kenyon had interposed, "a courier can reach the governor in
an hour and a half."
"One will be sent as soon as it is light," was the best answer that
could be got.
Our friend, much excited, went on to tell us that the town militia were
without ammunition also. He believed the fort's officers were
conniving with the revolt. Presently he left us, saying he had met one
of our freed servants, Jack, who would come soon to protect us.
Shortly after daybreak Jack did appear and mounted guard at the front
gate. "Go sleep, ole mis's. Miss Mary Ann" [Marion], "you-all go
sleep. Chaw! wha' foo all you set up all night? Si' Myra, you go draw
watah foo bile coffee."
The dreadful signals had ceased at last, and all lay down to rest; but
I remained awake and saw through the great seaward windows the
wonderful dawn of the tropics flush over sky and ocean. But presently
its heavenly silence was broken by the gallop of a single horse, and a
Danish orderly, heavily armed, passed the street-side windows, off at
last for Christiansted.
Soon the conchs and horns began again. With them was blent now the
tramp of many feet and the harsh voices of swarming insurgents. Their
long silence was explained; they had been sharpening their weapons.
Their first act of violence was to break open a sugar storehouse. They
mixed a barrel of sugar with one of rum, killed a hog, poured in his
blood, added gunpowder, and drank the compound--to make them brave.
Then with barrels of rum and sugar they changed a whole cistern of
water into punch, stirring it with their sharpened hoes, dipping it out
with huge sugar-boiler ladles, and drinking themselves half blind.
Jack dashed in from the gate: "Oh, Miss Marcia, go look! dem a-comin'!
Gin'ral Buddoe at dem head on he w'ite hoss."
We ran to the jalousies. In the street, coming southward toward the
fort, were full two thousand blacks. They walked and ran, the women
with their skirts tied up in fighting trim, and all armed with
hatchets, hoes, cutlasses, and sugar-cane bills. The bills were fitted
on stout pole handles, and all their weapons had been ground and
polished until they glittered horridly in their black hands and above
the gaudy Madras turbans or bare woolly heads and bloodshot eyes.
"Dem goin' to de fote to ax foo freedom," Jack cried.
At their head rode "Gin'ral Buddoe," large, powerful, black, in a
cocked hat with a long white plume. A rusty sword rattled at his
horse's flank. As he came opposite my window I saw a white man, alone,
step out from the house across the way and silently lift his arms to
the multitude to halt.
They halted. It was the Roman Catholic priest. For a moment they gave
attention, then howled, brandished their weapons, and pressed on. Aunt
Marcia dropped to her knees and in tears began to pray aloud; but we
cried to her that Rachel, a slave woman, was coming, who must not see
our alarm. Indeed, both Rachel and Tom had already entered.
"La! Miss Mary Ann, wha' fur you cryin'? Who's goin' tech you?"
Rachel held by its four corners a Madras kerchief full of sugar. "Da
what we done come fur, to tell Miss Paula" [grandmamma] "not be
frightened."