A Roving Commission: or, Through the Black Insurrection at Hayti

"Here, dearie," she said, "Dinah brought you water and wine and tings to eat. Here is a cup of water, I am sure you want it. Let me lift you up to drink it."

She lifted her and placed the cup in her hands, and she drank it off eagerly.

"Is that your voice, Dinah?" she said after a pause.

"Yes, madame; I'se come up to help to take care ob you. Marse Glober come and tell me whar you were, so you may be suah that me lose no time, just wait to get a few tings dat you might want and den start up."

"I think I am not very well, Dinah."

"Jess a little poorly you be. Bery funny if you not poorly abter sich wicked doings. Now de best ting dat you can do is to go to sleep and not worry."

"Give me another drink, Dinah."

"Here it is, dis time a little wine wid de water and a little 'tuff to make you sleep quiet. Den me double up a blanket for you to lie on and put anober over you, and a bundle under your head, and den you go to sleep firm. No trouble to-night; to-morrow morning we go on."

Madame Duchesne drank off the contents of the cup. She was made as comfortable as circumstances would permit, and it was not long before her regular breathing showed that the medicine that Dinah had administered had had the desired effect.

"Now, Myra," Nat said, "we will investigate the contents of the basket. I am beginning to get as hungry as a hunter, and I am sure that you must be so too."

"I am thirsty," the girl said, "but I do not feel hungry."

"You will, directly you begin. Now, Dinah, what have you brought us?"

"Dere am one roast chicken dar, Marse Glober. Dat was all I could get cooked. Dere are six dead ones. I caught dem and wrung their necks jest before I started. Dey no good now. Dere is bread baked fresh dis morning before de troubles began, and dere is two pine-apples and a big melon."

"Bravo, Dinah! You have got knives?"

"Yes, sah, four knibes and forks."

"We could manage without the forks, Dinah, but it is more comfortable having them. Now we will cut the chicken up into three. It looks a fine bird."

"I'se had my dinner, sah; no want more."

"That is all nonsense, Dinah," he said. "I am quite sure that you did not eat much dinner to-day, and you will want your strength to-morrow."

Dinah could not affirm that she had eaten much, and indeed she had scarcely been able to swallow a mouthful in the middle of the day. The meal was heartily enjoyed, and they made up with bread and fruit for the shortness of the meat ration.

"Now you two lie down," Nat said after they had chatted for an hour. "I am accustomed to night watches and can sleep with one ear open, but I am convinced that there is not the slightest need for any of us keeping awake. When the lantern is out, which it will be as soon as you lie down, if all the negroes came up into the woods to search for us I should have no fear of their finding us."

Dinah, however, insisted upon taking a share in watching, saying that she was constantly sitting up at night with sick people.

Finding that she was quite determined, Nat said: "Very well, Dinah. It is ten o'clock now. I will watch till one o'clock, and then you can watch till four. We shall be able to start then."

"It won't be like light till five. No good start troo wood before that. I'se sure to wake at one o'clock. I'se accustomed to wake any hour so as to give medicines."

"Very well, Dinah; I suppose you must have your way."

Myra and the nurse therefore lay down, while Nat sat thinking over the events of the day and the prospects of the future. He had said nothing to the negress of the conversation that he had overheard, as on the way from the house they had walked one behind the other and there had been no opportunity for conversation, and he would not on any account have Myra or her mother know the fate that these villains had proposed for them. He wondered now whether he had done rightly in abstaining from shooting one of them, but after thinking it over in every way he came to the conclusion that it was best to have acted as he did, for they clearly intended to do all in their power to save mother and daughter from being massacred at once by the negroes.

"Even if the worst comes to the worst," he said to himself, "they have pistols, and I know will, as a last resource, use them against themselves."

CHAPTER VIII

A TIME OF WAITING

Dinah woke two minutes before one o'clock, and Nat at once lay down and, resolutely refusing to allow himself to think any more of the situation, was soon fast asleep.

"It am jess beginning to get light, Marse Glober," the negress said when, as it seemed to him, he had not been five minutes asleep. However, he jumped up at once.

"It is very dark, still, Dinah."

"It am dark, sah, but not so dark as it was. Bes' be off at once. Must get well away before dem black fellows wake up."

"How is Madame Duchesne?"

"She sleep, sah; she no wake for another tree or four hours. Dinah give pretty strong dose. Bes' dat she should know noting about it till we get to a safe place."

"But is there any safe place, Dinah?"

"Yes, massa; me take you where dey neber tink of searching, but good way off in hills."

Myra by this time was on her feet also.

"Have you slept well, Myra?"

"Yes, I have slept pretty well, but in spite of the two blankets under us it was awfully hard, and I feel stiff all over now."

"How shall we divide the things, Dinah?"

"Well, sah, do you tink you can take de head of de barrow? Dat pretty heaby weight."

"Oh, nonsense!" Nat said. "Madame Duchesne is a light weight, and if I could get her comfortably on my back I could carry her any distance."

"Dat bery well before starting, Marse Glober, you tell anoder story before we gone very far."

"Well, at any rate, I can carry a good deal more than one end of the barrow."

"Well, sah, we put all de blankets on de barrow before we put madame on it, and put de bundle of clothes under her head. Den by her feet we put de basket and oder tings. Dat divide de weight pretty fair."

"But what am I to carry, nurse, may I ask?"

"You just carry yourself, dearie; dat quite enough for you. It am a good long way we hab to go, and some part of it am bery rough. You do bery well if you walk dat distance."

"That is right, Myra," Nat agreed. "We don't want to have to carry both you and your mother, and though you have walked a good deal more than most of the girls of your own class you have never done anything like this."

In a few minutes the preparations were completed. Madame Duchesne was laid on the barrow, and the basket and other things packed near her feet. Dinah took up the two front handles, Nat those behind, and, with Myra walking by the side, they started.

"Which way are we going, Dinah?"