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

With a shriek the mulatto fell backwards. Before the others could recover from their surprise Nat fired again, and Christophe fell forward on his face in the water. He passed the pistol back to Myra, and grasped another. He had expected that the negroes would at once fly, and two of them had turned to do so, when the highest climber shouted down:

"Come on, all ob you! what you want run away for? Perhaps only one man here, he want to keep de cabe all to himself; we soon settle with him. Dis cabe de only safe place."

Nat could easily have shot the man, but he determined to direct his fire against those below. If he shot those climbing the others would escape, and it was of the greatest importance that no one should do so. The negroes had snatched the pistols from the belts of the fallen mulattoes, and several shots were fired at the bush. Nat drew back for a moment as the negroes raised their arms, and then discharged the two barrels of his pistol with as deadly an effect as before, and seized the third weapon. The remaining negro below dropped behind a fallen rock. At the same moment the man who was evidently the leader of them sprang on to the ledge. Nat's pistol was ready, and as the negro bounded forward he fired. The ball struck him in the chest, and he fell like a log over the precipice.

In his fall he struck one of his comrades, and carried him down on to the rocks below. The other seemed paralysed with fear, and uttered a shriek for mercy as Nat, who from his position could not see him, sprang to his feet; but the tales that he had heard from Dinah of the atrocities perpetrated had steeled his heart to all thoughts of mercy, and taking a deliberate aim Nat shot him through the head. He had still a pistol left charged. Myra had not yet loaded the first he had handed to her, for it was but some twenty seconds from the time that the first shot had been fired. Nat caught up the sword, and at once made his way down the steps. He ran towards the rock behind which the last of the negroes had thrown himself. As he did so the man leapt to his feet, and the two pistols cracked at the same moment. Nat felt a sharp pain in his side. His own shot had missed, and a moment later the negro was rushing at him with uplifted knife.

For the moment Nat forgot that he had another shot left, and, dropping the pistol, shifted his sword to the right hand, and before the negro's knife could fall he ran him through the body. There was now but one foe left. He lay stunned below his fallen comrade, and Nat saw from the manner in which one of his legs was doubled under him that it was broken. He could do no harm, but he would assuredly die if left there alone. Nat pressed his lips together, and having picked up his pistol, he put it close to the man's head and fired. Looking up, he saw Myra run out with a pistol in her hand.

"It is all right, Myra. Thank God none of them have got away."

"Are you hurt?" she asked, breathlessly.

"I will come up," he said; "I am hit in the side, but I don't think that it is at all serious."

He found, however, as he ascended the steps, that it gave him acute pain every time he moved. The girl was white and trembling when he joined her.

"Don't be frightened, Myra," he said, "I am sure that it is nothing serious. It struck a rib and glanced off, I think, and at the worst it has only broken the bone. You go in and attend to your mother."

"I shall not do anything of the sort," she said. "You come in, and I will look at it; it must want bandaging, anyhow."

Nat felt that this was true, and, following her into the cave, he let her take off his jacket. The wound was a few inches below the arm.

"It is lucky that it was not a little more to the right," he said; "it would have done for me. Don't look so white, Myra, a miss is as good as a mile. It is as I thought, is it not? – just a glancing wound."

"Yes," the girl said.

He felt along the rib.

"Yes," he said, "there is no doubt that it is broken; I can feel the ends grate, and it hurts me every time I breathe. This is where it is, just where the cut begins; the wound itself is nothing."

"What shall I do?" she asked quietly.

"Tear a strip or two off the bottom of your petticoat, then sew the ends together to make a long bandage, and roll a little piece, so as to make a wad about an inch wide. Is the wound bleeding?"

"Yes, very much."

"Fold a piece four or five thick, and lay over that the other wad so as to go up and down across the rib. Now, if you will give me a little warm water and a piece of rag, I will bathe the wound while you are making the bandage."

"I will bathe it," the girl said. "I am sure it would hurt you to get your hand round."

In ten minutes the operation was completed.

"I am so sorry that I cannot help," Madame Duchesne murmured, as Myra sat down to sew the strips together.

"There is nothing that you could do, thank you," Nat said cheerfully. "Myra is getting on capitally. I shall soon be all right again."

When everything was done, he said, "You are a trump, Myra, you have done it first-rate." Then the girl, who had gone on as quietly as if she had been accustomed to such work all her life, broke down, and, bursting into a fit of crying, threw herself down by the side of her mother. Nat would have attempted to soothe her, but her mother said, "Leave her to me, she will be all the better for a good cry." Nat went down again to the stream, picked up the four pistols the Creoles had carried and unwound their sashes, thinking that these would be better than the make-shift that he wore. As he did so two small bags dropped out. He opened them; both contained jewels, some of which he had seen Madame Duchesne wearing.

"That is a bit of luck," he said to himself. "No doubt directly they entered the house these scoundrels made one of the women show them where madame's jewel-case was, and divided the contents between them. When Dinah comes we must get these bodies down the stream. I could do it myself were it not for this rib, but it would not be safe to try experiments. What a plucky girl Myra is! Most girls would have been ready to faint at the sight of blood. I will wait a few minutes before I go up so as to give her time to pull herself together."

In ten minutes he went up again. "Madame," he said, "I have something that I am sure you will be very glad to get back again. I took off the sashes of those rascally mulattoes, and these two bags fell out of them. What do you think they contain? Some of your jewels."

Madame Duchesne and Myra both uttered exclamations of pleasure. "They are family jewels," Myra said, "and my father and mother both prize them very much. How strange they should have been on these men!"

"The two mulattoes were two of your overseers, and no doubt ran straight up and seized them directly they entered the house."

She saw that her mother wished to speak, and leaned down over her, for Madame Duchesne could not as yet raise her voice above a whisper.

"Turn them out," she said, "and see how many are missing."

Although Nat had seen Madame Duchesne in full evening dress two or three times when parties of friends had assembled at the house, and had noticed the beauty of her jewels, he was surprised at the number of bracelets, necklaces, brooches, and rings that poured out from the bags. Some of the larger articles, which he supposed were ornaments for the hair, were bent and crumpled up so as to take up as little space as possible. Myra held them up one by one before her mother's eyes.

"They are all there, every one of them," the latter whispered. "Your father will be pleased."

"The greater part of these," Myra said to Nat, "were brought over when the Baron Duchesne, our ancestor, came over here first, but a great many have been bought since. I have heard mamma say that each successor of the name and estate has made it a point of honour to add to the collection, of which they were very proud, as it was certainly the finest in the island; and besides, it was thought that if at any time Hayti should be captured, either by the Spanish or your people, or if there should be trouble with the blacks, it would be a great thing to have valuables that could be so easily hidden or carried away."

"Then they have thought all along that there might be a rising here some day?"

"Yes. I have heard my father say that when he was a boy he has heard his grandfather talk the matter over with others, and they thought that the number of slaves in the island was so great that possibly there might some day be a revolt. They all agreed that it would be put down, but they believed that the negroes might do terrible damage before enough troops could be brought from France to suppress it."

"They thought rightly," Nat said, "though it has been a long time coming; and the worst of it is that even if it is put down it may break out again at any time. It is hardly reasonable that, when they are at least ten to one against the whites and mulattoes together, men should submit to be kept in slavery."

"But they were very well off," Myra said. "I am sure they were much better off than the poorer whites."

"From what I have seen of them I think they were," Nat replied, "but you see people do not know when they are well off. I have no doubt that if the last white man left the island, and slavery were abolished for ever, the negroes would be very much worse off than they were before, and I should think they would most likely go back to the same idle, savage sort of life that they live in Africa. Still, of course, at present they have no idea of that. They think they will be no longer obliged to work, and suppose that somehow they will be fed and clothed and have everything they want without any trouble to themselves. You see it is just the same thing that is going on in France."

"Well, now, what are you going to do next, Nat?"

"I shall load the pistols. I have got four more now. Then I shall take my place at the mouth of the cave again. I hope that when Dinah comes she will bring us news that will enable us to move away. The fact that this party was coming here for refuge shows that the blacks are growing alarmed, and perhaps have already suffered a defeat, in which case the way will be clear for us. If not, I must get her to help me clear the place down below, it will not be difficult. What have you got on the fire?"

"There is a fowl that I have been stewing down to make the broth for mother. I have another cut up ready for grilling."

Two hours later Nat, to his surprise, saw Dinah hurrying down the ravine, for he had not expected her until evening. He stood up at once. She paused when she caught sight of the bodies lying below the cave.

"It is all right, Dinah," he shouted. "We have had a bit of a fight, but it only lasted for a minute or two, and except that I got a graze from a pistol-ball, we are unhurt."

"De Lord be blest, sah!" she said as she came up. "Eight ob dem, and you kill dem all, sah?"

"Yes; one could hardly miss them at that distance. I am glad to say that none of them got away. You are back earlier than I expected."

"Yes, sah; me found out all de news in good time, and den, as eberyone say hurricane come on, I hurry all de way to get here before he come."

"Well, come up, Dinah. Madame is going on very well. You know those two mulattoes?"

"Me know dem, sah; dey bery bad men, dey lead de black fellows to de attack."

"Well, it is well that they came up here, for they had, hidden in their sashes, all madame's jewels."