"Well, Miss Paula! ain't I gwine hab my sheah w'en dem knock de head'
out dem hogsitt' an' tramp de sugah under dah feet an' mix a whole
cisron o' punch?"
Rachel told the events of the night. But as she talked a roar without
rose higher and higher, and I, running with Jack to the gate, beheld
two smaller mobs coming round a near corner. The foremost was dragging
along the ground by ropes a huge object, howling, striking, and hacking
at it. The other was doing the same to something smaller tied to a
stick of wood, and the air was full of their cries:
"To de sea! Frow it in de sea! You'll nebber hole obbe" [us] "no mo'!
You'll be drownded in de sea-watah!" Their victims were the
whipping-post and the thumbscrews.
Tom returned to say: "Dem done to'e up de cote-house and de Jedge's
house, an' now dem goin' Bay Street too tear up de sto'es."
Gilbert came up from the fort telling what he had seen. The blacks had
tried to scale the ramparts, on one another's shoulders, howling for
freedom and defying the garrison to fire. But the commander had not
dared without orders from the governor, and his courier had not
returned. A leading merchant standing on the fort wall was less
discreet: "Take the responsibility! Fire! Every white man on the
island will sustain you, and you'll end the whole thing here!"
Upon that word off again up-town had gone the whole black swarm, had
sacked the bold merchant's store, and seemed now, by the noises they
made, to be sacking others. "I come," Gilbert said, "with an offer of
the ship-captains to take the white people aboard the ships."
As he turned away groups of negroes began to dash by laden with all
sorts of "prog" [booty] from the wrecked stores. Grandmamma had lain
down, my aunts were trying to make up some sort of midday meal, and I
was standing alone behind the jalousies, when a ferocious-looking negro
rattled them with his bill.
"Lidde gal, gi' me some watah."
"Wait a minute," I said, and left the room. If I hid he might burst in
and murder us. So I brought a bowl of water.
"Tankee, lidde missee," he said, returned the bowl, and went away. Tom
was thereupon set to guard the gate, which he did poorly. Another
negro slipped in and sat down on our steps. He looked around the
pretty enclosure, gave a tired grunt, and said:
"Please, missee, lemme res'; I done bruk up." He held in his hands the
works of a clock, fell to studying them, and became wholly absorbed.
Rachel asked him who had broken it. He replied:
"Obbe" [our] "Ca'lina. She no like de way it talkin'. She say: 'W'at
mek you say, night und day, night und day?' Un' she tuk her bill un'
bruk it up. Un' Georgina chop' up de pianneh, 'caze it wouldn' talk
foo her like it talk too buckra. Da shame!"
But now came yells and cheers in the street, the rush and trample of
hundreds, and the cry:
"De gub'nor! de gub'nor a-comin'!"