Майн Рид
The Maroon

Volume One – Chapter Nineteen
A Surly Reception

After the young Creole had disappeared within the entrance, Herbert remained in a state of indecision as to how he should act.

He no longer needed an interview with his uncle, for the sake of having an explanation. This new slight had crowned his convictions that he was there an unwelcome guest; and no possible apology could now retrieve the ill-treatment he had experienced.

He would have walked off on the instant without a word; but, stung to the quick by the series of insults he had received, the instinct of retaliation had sprung up within him, and determined him to stay – at all events, until he could meet his relative face to face, and reproach him with his unnatural conduct. He was recklessly indifferent as to the result.

With this object, he continued in the kiosk – his patience being now baited with the prospect of that slight satisfaction.

He knew that his uncle might not care much for what he should say: it was not likely such a nature would be affected by reproach. Nevertheless, the proud young man could not resist the temptation of giving words to his defiance – as the only means of mollifying the mortification he so keenly felt.

The tones of a harp, vibrating through the far interior of the dwelling, faintly reached the kiosk; but they fell on his ear without any soothing effect. Rather did they add to his irritation: for he could almost fancy the music was meant to mock him in his misery.

But no; on second thoughts, that could not be. Surely, that sweet strain was not intended to tantalise him. He caught the air. It was one equally appropriate to the instrument and to his own situation. It was the “Exile of Erin.”

Presently a voice was heard accompanying the music – a woman’s voice – easily recognisable as that of Kate Vaughan.

He listened attentively. At intervals he could hear the words. How like to his own thoughts!

 
“‘Sad is my fate,’ said the heart-broken stranger;
‘The wild deer and wolf to the covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger —
A home and a country remain not to me!’”
 

Perhaps the singer intended it as a song of sympathy for him? It certainly exerted an influence over his spirits, melting him to a degree of tenderness.

Not for long, however, did this feeling continue. As the last notes of the lay died away in the distant corridor, the rough baritones of the planter and his guest were heard joining in loud laughter – perhaps some joke at the expense of himself, the poor exile?

Shortly after, a heavy footstep echoed along the passage. The door opened; and Herbert perceived it was his uncle, who had at length found time to honour him with an interview.

Though so joyous but the moment before, all traces of mirth had disappeared from the countenance of Loftus Vaughan, when he presented himself before the eyes of his nephew. His face, habitually red, was fired with the wine he had been drinking to the hue of scarlet. Nevertheless, an ominous mottling of a darker colour upon his broad massive brow foretold the ungracious reception his relative was likely to have at his hands.

His first words were uttered in a tone of insolent coolness: —

“So you are my brother’s son, are you?” There was no extending of the hand, no gesture – not even a smile of welcome!

Herbert checked his anger, and simply answered, —

“I believe so.”

“And pray, sir, what errand has brought you out to Jamaica?”

“If you have received my letter, as I presume you have, it will have answered that question.”

“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed Mr Vaughan, with an attempt at cynicism, but evidently taken down by the unexpected style of the reply. “And what, may I ask, do you purpose doing here?”

“Have not the slightest idea,” answered Herbert, with a provoking air of independence. “Have you any profession?”

“Unfortunately, not any.”

“Any trade? – I suppose not.”

“Your suppositions are perfectly correct.”

“Then, sir, how do you expect to get your bread?”

“Earn it, the best way I can.”

“Beg it, more likely, as your father before you: all his life begging it, and from me.”

“In that respect I shall not resemble him. You would be the last man I should think of begging from.”

“S’death! sirrah, you are impertinent. This is fine language to me, after the disgrace you have already brought upon me!”

“Disgrace?”

“Yes, sir, disgrace. Coming out here as a pauper, in the steerage of a ship! And you must needs boast of your relationship – letting all the world know that you are my nephew.”

“Boast of the relationship!” repeated Herbert, with a smile of contempt. “Ha! ha! ha! I suppose you refer to my having answered a question asked me by this pretty jack-a-box you are playing with. Boast of it, indeed! Had I known you then as well as I do now, I should have been ashamed to acknowledge it!”

“After that, sir,” shouted Mr Vaughan, turning purple with rage – “after that, sir, no more words! You shall leave my house this minute.”

“I had intended to have left it some minutes sooner. I only stayed to have an opportunity of telling you what I think of you.”

“What is that, sir? what is that?”

The angry youth had summoned to the top of his tongue a few of the strongest epithets he could think of, and was about to hurl them into his uncle’s teeth, when, on glancing up, he caught sight of an object that caused him to change his intention. It was the beautiful face of the young creole, that appeared through the half-open lattice of the window opposite. She was gazing down upon him and his uncle, and listening to the dialogue with an anguished expression of countenance.

“He is her father,” muttered Herbert to himself; “for her sake I shall not say the words;” and, without making any reply to the last interrogatory of his uncle, he strode out of the kiosk, and was walking away.

“Stay, sir!” cried the planter, somewhat taken aback by the turn things had taken. “A word before you go – if you are going.”

Herbert turned upon his heel and listened.

“Your letter informs me that you are without funds. It shall not be said that a relative of Loftus Vaughan left his house penniless and unprovided. In this purse there are twenty pounds currency of the island. Take it; but on the condition that you say nothing of what has occurred here; and, furthermore, that you keep to yourself that you are the nephew of Loftus Vaughan.”

Without saying a word, Herbert took the proffered purse; but, in the next moment, the chink of the gold pieces was heard upon the gravel walk as he dashed the bag at the feet of his uncle.

Then, turning to the astonished planter, and measuring him with a look that scorned all patronage, he faced once more to the path, and walked proudly away.

The angry “Begone, sir!” vociferated after him, was only addressed to his back, and was altogether unheeded. Perhaps it was even unheard: for the expression in the eyes of the young man told that at that moment his attention was occupied elsewhere.

As he walked towards the house – with the design of going round it to get upon the front avenue – his glance was directed upwards to the window where that beautiful face had been just seen. The lattice was now closed; and he endeavoured to pierce the sombre shadows behind it. The face was no longer there. No eyes met his.

He glanced back towards the kiosk to see if he might linger a moment. His uncle was in a bent attitude, gathering the scattered pieces of gold. In this position the shrubbery concealed him.

Herbert was about to glide nearer to the window, and summon his cousin by name, when he heard his own pronounced, in a soft whisper, and with the endearing prefix “cousin.”

Distinctly he heard “Cousin Herbert!” and as if spoken around the angle of the building.

He hastened thither: for that was his proper path by which to arrive at the front of the house.

On turning the wall, he looked up. He saw that another window opened from the same chamber. Thence came the sweet summons, and there appeared the fair face for which he was searching.

“Oh, cousin Herbert! do not go in anger! Papa has done wrong – very wrong, I know; but he has been taking much wine – he is not – Good cousin, you will pardon him?”

Herbert was about to make reply, when the young Creole continued: —

“You said in your letter you had no money. You have refused father’s – you will not refuse mine? It is very little. It is all I have. Take it!”

A bright object glistened before his eyes, and fell with a metallic chink at his feet. He looked down. A small silk purse containing coin, with a blue ribbon attached, was seen lying upon the ground.

The young man raised it, and, holding it in one hand, hesitated for a moment – as if he had thoughts of accepting it. It was not that, however, but another thought that was passing in his mind.

His resolve was soon taken.

“Thanks!” said he. “Thanks, cousin Kate!” he added, with increasing warmth. “You have meant kindly, and though we may never meet again – ”

“Oh, say not so!” interrupted the young girl, with an appealing look.

“Yes,” continued he, “it is probable we never shall. Here there is no home for me. I must go hence; but, wherever I may go, I shall not soon forget this kindness. I may never have an opportunity of repaying it – you are beyond the necessity of aught that a humble relative could do for you; but remember, Kate Vaughan! should you ever stand in need of a strong arm and a stout heart, there is one of your name who will not fail you!

“Thanks!” he repeated, detaching the ribbon from the bag, and flinging the latter, with its contents, back through the open window. Then, fastening the ribbon to the breast-button of his coat, he added: “I shall feel richer with the possession of this token than with all the wealth of your father’s estate. Farewell! and God bless you, my generous cousin!”

Before the young Creole could repeat her offer, or add another word of counsel or consolation, he had turned the angle of the building, and passed out of sight.

Volume One – Chapter Twenty
The Jew’s Penn

While these scenes were transpiring upon the plantation of Mount Welcome, others of a still more exciting nature were being enacted on that which adjoined it – the property of Jacob Jessuron, slave-merchant and penn-keeper.

Besides a “baracoon” in the Bay, where his slaves were usually exposed for sale, the Jew was owner of a large plantation in the country, on which he habitually resided. It lay contiguous to the estate of the Custos Vaughan – separated from the latter by one of the wooded ridges already mentioned as bounding the valley of Mount Welcome.

Like the latter, it had once been a sugar estate, and an extensive one; but that was before Jessuron became its owner. Now it was in the condition termed ruinate. The fields where the golden cane had waved in the tropic breeze were choked up by a tangled “second growth,” restoring them almost to their primitive wildness. With that quickness characteristic of equatorial vegetation, huge trees had already sprung up, and stood thickly over the ground – logwoods, bread-nuts, cotton, and calabash trees, which, with their pendent parasites, almost usurped dominion over the soil. Here and there, where the fields still remained open, instead of cultivation, there appeared only the wild nursery of nature – glades mottled with flowering weeds, as the Mexican horn-poppy, swallow-worts, West Indian vervains, and small passiflorae.

At intervals, where the underwood permitted them to peep out, might be seen stretches of “dry wall,” or stone fence, without mortar or cement, mostly tumbled down, the ruins thickly trellised with creeping plants – as convolvuli, cereus, and aristolochia; cleome, with the cheerful blossoming lantana; and, spreading over all, like the web of a gigantic spider, the yellow leafless stems of the American dodder.

In the midst of this domain, almost reconquered by nature, stood the “great house” – except in size, no longer deserving the appellation. It consisted rather of a pile than a single building – the old “sugar works” having been joined under the same roof with the dwelling – and negro cabins, stables, offices, all inclosed within an immense high wall, that gave to the place the air of a penitentiary or barrack, rather than that of a country mansion. The enclosure was a modern construction – an afterthought – designed for a purpose very different from that of sugar-making.

Garden there was none, though evidence that there had been was seen everywhere around the building, in the trees that still bloomed: some loaded with delicious fruits, others with clustering flowers, shedding their incense on the air. Half wild, grew citrons, and avocado pears, sop and custard apples, mangoes, guavas, and pawpaws; while the crown-like tops of cocoa-palms soared high above the humble denizens of this wild orchard, their recurvant fronds drooping as in sorrow at the desolation that surrounded them.

Close to the buildings stood several huge trees, whose tortuous limbs, now leafless, rendered it easy to identify them. They were the giants of the West Indian forest – the silk-cotton-tree (Eriodendron anfractuosum). The limbs of these vegetable monsters – each itself as large as an ordinary tree – were loaded with parasites of many species; among which might be distinguished ragged cactacae, with various species of wild pines, from the noble vriesia to the hoary, beard-like “Spanish moss,” whose long streaming festoons waved like winding-sheets in the breeze – an appropriate draping for the eyrie of the black vultures (John-Crows) that might at all times be seen seated in solemn silence upon the topmost branches.

In the olden time, this plantation had borne the name of “Happy Valley”; but during the ownership of Jessuron, this designation – perhaps deemed inappropriate – had been generally dropped; and the place was never spoken of by any other name than that of the “Jew’s Penn.”

Into a “penn” (grazing farm) Jessuron had changed it, and it served well enough for the purpose: many of the old sugar fields, now overgrown by the valuable Guinea grass, affording excellent pasturage for horses and cattle.

In breeding and rearing the former for the use of the sugar estates, and fattening the latter for the beef markets of the Bay, the industrious Israelite had discovered a road to riches, as short as that he had been travelling in the capacity of slave-dealer; and of late years he had come to regard the latter only as a secondary calling.

In his old age, Jessuron had become ambitious of social distinction; and for this reason, was desirous of sinking the slave-merchant in the more respectable profession of penn-keeper. He had even succeeded so far in his views as to have himself appointed a justice of the peace – an office that in Jamaica, as elsewhere, is more distinctive of wealth than respectability.

In addition to penn-keeper, the Jew was also an extensive spice-cultivator, or rather spice-gatherer: for the indigenous pimento forests that covered the hills upon his estate required no cultivation – nothing further than to collect the aromatic berries, and cure them on the barbacoa.

Though changed from a plantation to a penn, the estate of Jacob Jessuron was not less a scene of active industrial life.

In the fields adjacent to the house, and through the glades of Guinea grass, horses and half wild cattle might be seen in turns neighing and bellowing, pursued by mounted herdsmen, black and half-naked.

Among the groves of pimento on the hills, gangs of negro wenches could be heard screaming and chattering continually, as they picked the allspice berries from the branches; or, with the filled baskets poised on their heads, marched in long, chanting files towards the barbacoa.

Outside the gate-entrance, upon the broad avenue leading to the main road, negro horse-tamers might every day be seen, giving their first lessons to rough colts fresh caught from the pastures; while inside the grand enclosure, fat oxen were being slaughtered to supply the markets of the Bay – huge, gaunt dogs holding carnival over the offal – while black butchers, naked to the waist, their brown arms reeking with red gore, stalked over the ground, brandishing blood-stained blades, and other instruments of their sanguinary calling.

Such scenes might be witnessed diurnally on the estate of Jacob Jessuron; but on the day succeeding that on which the slave-merchant had made his unsuccessful errand to Mount Welcome, a spectacle of a somewhat rarer kind was about to be exhibited at the penn.

The scene chosen for this exhibition was an inner inclosure, or courtyard, contiguous to the dwelling – the great house itself forming one side of this court, and opening upon it by a broad verandah, of a dingy, dilapidated appearance.

Vis-à-vis with the dwelling was another large building which shut in the opposite side of the court – the two being connected by high massive walls, that completed the quadrangle. A strong double gate, opening near the centre of one of these walls, was the way out – that is, to the larger enclosure of the cattle-penn.

From the absence of chimneys and windows, as well as from its plain style of architecture, the building that stood opposite the dwelling-house might have been taken for some large granary or barn. But a peep into its interior at once controverted this idea. Inside could be seen groups of human beings, of all colours, from ebony black to jaundice yellow, in all attitudes – seated, standing, or lying upon the floor – and not a few of them, in pairs, manacled to one another. Their attitudes were not more various than the expressions upon their faces. Some looked sad and sullen; some glanced fearfully around, as if waking from horrid dreams, and under the belief that they were realities; others wore the vacant stare of idiotcy; while here and there a group – apparently regardless of past, present, or future – chattered in their barbaric language with an air of gaiety that bespoke the most philosophic insouciance.

The building that contained them was the baracoon – the storehouse of the slave-merchant. Its occupants were his stores!

The “stock” had been just replenished by the cargo of the slave-ship, though there were also some old “bales” on hand; and these were in the act of entertaining the new comers, and initiating them into the ways of the place. Their means, of showing hospitality had been limited – as testified by the empty calabashes and clean-scraped wooden platters that lay scattered over the floor. Not a grain of rice, not a spoonful of the pepper-pot, not a slice of plantain, was left. The emptiness of the vessels showed that the rations had been as short as the viands were coarse and common.

Outside, in the yard, were many groups, happier to escape from the stifled atmosphere of their crowded quarters; though that was freedom when compared with the ’tween-decks of the middle passage.

Each group was gathered around some old hand – some compatriot who had preceded them across the great sea – and who, himself initiated into slavery under a western sky, was giving them some notions of what they had to expect. Eager looks of all, from time to time, directed towards the verandah, told that they were awaiting some event of more than ordinary interest.

There were white men in the courtyard – three of them. Two were of dark complexion – so swarth that many of the coloured slaves were as fair-skinned as they. These two men were lounging by the stairway of the verandah – one of them seated upon the steps. Both were sparely clad in check shirts and trousers, having broad-brimmed palmetto hats on their heads, and rough buskins on their feet and ankles.

Each carried a long, rapier-like blade – a macheté– hanging over his hip in its leathern sheath; while a brace of fierce dogs – looped in cotton-rope leashes, attached to belts worn around their waists – crouched upon the ground at their feet.

The faces of these men were clean-shaven – a pointed chin-tuft, or “bigote,” alone being left; and the hair on the heads of both was close-cropped. Their sharp, angular features were thus fully displayed, denoting a high order of intelligence; which might have produced a pleasing effect, but for the pronounced expression of cruelty which accompanied it.

The exclamations that from time to time escaped from their lips, with the few words of conversation that passed between them, bespoke them of Spanish race. Their costume – their arms and accoutrements – their comrades, the fierce dogs – plainly proclaimed, their calling, as well as the country from whence they came. They were caçadores de negros– negro-hunters from the Island of Cuba.

The third white man who appeared in the courtyard differed essentially from these – not so much in colour, for he was also of swarth complexion – but in size, costume, and calling. A pair of horse-skin riding-boots reached up to his thighs, on the heels of which appeared heavy spurs, with rowels three inches in diameter. A sort of monkey-jacket of thick cloth – notwithstanding its unsuitableness to the climate – hung down to his hips; under which appeared a waistcoat of scarlet plush, with tarnished metal buttons, and a wool comforter of the same flaming colour. Crowning all was a felt hat; which, like the other articles of his dress, gave evidence of exposure to all weathers – sun and rain, storm and tornado.

A thick shock of curling hair, so dark in colour as to pass for black; a heavy beard, jet-black, and running most of the way around his mouth; amber-coloured eyes, with a sinister, shining light that never seemed to pale; lips of an unnatural redness gleaming through the black beard; and a nose of aquiline oblique, were the points in the personal appearance of this man that most prominently presented themselves.

The effect of this combination was to impress you with the conviction, that the individual in question belonged to the same nationality as the proprietor of the penn. Such was in reality the case: for the bearded man was another of the race of Abraham, and one of its least amiable specimens. His name was Ravener, his calling that of overseer: he was the overseer of Jessuron. The symbol of his profession he carried under his arm – a huge cart-whip. He had it by him at all hours – by night, as by day – for by night, as by day, was he accustomed to make use of it. And the victims of his long lash were neither oxen nor horses – they were men and women!

No sparing use made he of this hideous implement. “Crack, crack!” was it heard from morn to eve; “crack, crack!” from eve to midnight; if need be, from midnight to morning again: for some said that the overseer of Jessuron never slept. “Crack, crack!” did he go through the courtyard, apparently proud of exhibiting his power before the newly-arrived negroes – here and there swinging his long bitter lash among the groups, as if to break up and scatter them in sheer wantonness.