Chapter Seventeen.
The Attack on Bella Vista.
Some twenty-five minutes later Don Luis returned; and so colourless were his lips, so wild his eyes, so dreadfully agitated his entire appearance that I saw in a moment something had gone very radically wrong somewhere. Doña Inez saw it too, and approaching, laid her hand soothingly upon his arm as she anxiously asked:
“What is it, Luis? What is the matter, mi querido? Tell me; I can bear it.”
“I could never have believed it!” ejaculated Don Luis, clasping his hands in front of him and wringing them, in his distress and disappointment. “I have always believed every one of my negroes to be absolutely faithful to me; yet now, upon the news that the outlaws are out, more than half of them have left me, and quite possibly will, an hour or two hence, be joining in the attack upon this house. The ungrateful wretches, the—!”
“Precisely,” I cut in; “they are all that and more. But what about those who remain? Are any of them trustworthy enough to be permitted to assist us; or must we do the best we can without them?”
“Oh no,” answered Don Luis emphatically. “Thank God, I can trust every one of those who remain. And, as for the forty-nine whom I have chosen to come into the house to help us—well, I am going to demonstrate the extent of my faith in them by placing all our lives at their mercy. Oh yes; I have no shadow of doubt, so far as they are concerned.”
“Very well, then,” said I; “in that case they had better be admitted at once, for all our defences have still to be made. What are you going to do with those who are not wanted?”
“I have given them instructions to go away and conceal themselves in the woods until we have beaten off the attack,” answered Don Luis. “Then they will return and help us to put right whatever damage may have been done during the fight.”
“Will they?” thought I. “I very much doubt it!” But I kept my doubts to myself, and turned instead to another matter.
“The next thing that we have to consider is the safety of the ladies,” said I. “What is to be done with them during the fight?”
Don Luis looked at me rather blankly.
“The ladies!” he ejaculated. “But surely, my dear Don Ricardo, they will be more safe in this house than anywhere else, will they not?”
“It all depends,” I answered. “If you think it would be safe for them to start on horseback for the nearest town, either alone or escorted by a few of the most trusty of your negroes—”
“Oh no, no!” exclaimed Doña Inez and Doña Christina in the same breath; “you must not propose anything of that kind, Don Ricardo. We will not be separated from our husbands. If they are to face danger, we will face danger with them.”
Then Don Luis broke in. “I do not altogether like your suggestion that the ladies should attempt to make their way to the nearest town,” he said. “For, you see, we have no means of knowing what is the state of the intervening country. An hour ago I might have deemed the suggestion an excellent one, but now, after the shameless desertion of half my own ‘boys,’ I know not what to think.”
“I suppose there is no snug, secret place of concealment, such as a cave, or something of that sort, the existence of which is known only to yourselves?” I suggested.
“The very thing!” exclaimed Don Luis enthusiastically. “There is such a place, and its existence and locality are known to absolutely no one but Doña Inez and myself—”
“It is useless to speak of it,” interrupted Doña Inez in a tone of finality. “I will not go there, or anywhere else; I remain here with you, Luis. If Doña Christina, or Doña Eugenia would like to go, let them do so by all means.”
But Doña Christina and Doña Eugenia were quite as emphatic as their hostess in their determination not to be separated from their men-folk; so that question was very soon settled. After that there was nothing to be done but to call up our black auxiliaries, and put the house in as efficient a state of defence as the means at our disposal permitted; and this we at once proceeded to do.
Don Luis seemed naturally to look to me to take the lead in our warlike preparations; and this I as naturally did, finding that he had only very hazy notions of how to set to work. In the first place, the house itself was excellently adapted for defence, the outside walls being built of stone, and about two feet thick, to keep out the heat, while the roof was tiled; there was consequently very little danger of the place being set on fire from the outside, and ourselves burnt out of it. Its chief weakness consisted in the exceptionally large size of the door and window openings; but I thought I could see a way to minimise that evil. While out walking with Don Luis and his wife, I had noticed a spot that I remarked at the time might be very easily converted into an excellent sand and gravel pit; while only a few days prior to the eventful morning when Don Esteban de Meñdouça and his party had burst in upon us with the news of the negro outbreak, Don Luis had received a large consignment of new sacks destined to receive the crop of coffee, cocoa, and other products that were at that moment coming forward upon the estate.
Now, the moment that the question of defending the house was raised, these sacks and the sand pit came into my mind. The first thing I did, therefore, was to get hold of the six overseers, instruct them to organise into gangs the blacks who still remained on the estate: equip one party of them with pick and shovel; set a second party to bring the sacks from the store, as required; a third party to fill the sacks with the gravel and sand as excavated; and the remainder to carry the filled sacks up to the house on hand-barrows and arrange them in the door and window openings under my direction. While this was being done, Don Luis produced his stock of firearms and ammunition; then he, Don Esteban, and Don Pedro set to work to clean them, oil the locks, and generally put the weapons in reliable working order; while Don Silvio, aided by his sister and Doña Inez, lighted a fire in the dining-room and went to work upon the task of casting bullets for the pistols, it proving upon examination that only a very small stock of these remained on hand. And, lastly, while Mama Elisa and Teresita busied themselves in the detached kitchen, cooking an ample supply of food for the little garrison, Doña Christina so far laid aside her dignity as to prepare the dining-room table and set it for breakfast; for day was by this time breaking, and we had decided that it would be sound policy to snatch a meal, if possible, before the fight began.
My scheme of defence consisted in blocking up all the door and window openings throughout the building with a good substantial wall of sand-bags, leaving here and there small loopholes just wide enough to admit of a musket being pointed through them. My musketrymen would be stationed at these loopholes, each man having an assistant who would stand by to pass him a fresh cartridge and bullet as soon as his weapon was discharged; and of course the musketrymen and their assistants would be moved from room to room as required, according to the point against which the attack was most strongly directed. I considered that we ought to stand a very good chance of making an effective defence, because it would be exceedingly difficult for our assailants to force a way into the building so long as our sand-bag walls stood firmly, and I believed it would require more courage than a negro possessed to charge home to them and overthrow them in the face of such a fire as we could direct upon them from the advantageous position which we should occupy. Moreover, we should possess the important advantage of being almost completely protected from their fire, and consequently should be able to take aim coolly and collectedly, while they would be fully exposed, there being no better cover for them than a few scattered bushes here and there, which I determined to remove, should there be time after our more important defences were complete.
At length, after some two hours of the most strenuous work that those negroes had ever performed in their lives, we had done everything that it was possible to do; so, first stationing a dozen of our best men at various commanding points, to act as pickets and give us timely warning of the approach of the enemy, we went to breakfast, most of us with excellent appetites, although I am bound to admit that the ladies did not eat much. When the meal was over, without any news from our pickets, I went out through an opening that we had purposely left in the front door barricade, and took a good look round. Passing from picket to picket, I questioned each man closely as to whether he had seen any signs of the enemy; but they all replied in the negative. Indeed, although I carefully scanned every open space I could see, even examining it with the telescope, not the faintest indication of lurking danger could I anywhere discover, although Montpelier was by this time a mere smouldering ruin, to all appearance utterly deserted.
I was about to return to the house to inquire whether, after all, we might not have taken too much for granted in assuming as a certainty that Bella Vista would be attacked, when one of the pickets uttered a shout and, raising his hand, pointed. I looked in the direction indicated, and there, sure enough, I beheld a party of negroes marching confidently toward the house. How many there were I could not tell—for they were just then winding their way through thick detached masses of scrub beyond the boundaries of the estate—but the confident manner of their approach led me to suppose that they believed they were quite strong enough to achieve an easy conquest of the place.
Raising a whistle to my lips, I blew a shrill call, not only as a warning to those in the house to be on the qui vive, but also as a signal for the pickets to fall back; then, when I had made sure that the latter were all on the run toward the house, I brought my telescope to bear upon the approaching party, with the view of learning a little more concerning their equipment and, if possible, their numbers.
The first thing that impressed me with regard to them was that they were a remarkably fine, stalwart-looking set of men, hard, wiry, and full of endurance, as indeed might be expected from the history of them which I had gathered by snatches from Don Luis during our preparations that morning. It appeared that they were practically all runaway slaves, or the descendants of such, who had made good their escape from the various plantations on the island before slavery was abolished a few years prior to the date of this story. These men had established themselves in mountain fastnesses, so difficult of approach and so easy to defend that, although the attempt had often been made, it had been found impossible to dislodge them. In those mountain fastnesses they had increased and multiplied prodigiously, raising their own cattle, growing their own corn, and supporting themselves generally in a state of comfort, if not of actual luxury, that to those who had not seen it, seemed incredible. To them fled every criminal, for every desperate character in the island found welcome and a safe sanctuary among them. Of course, they were all outlaws; their hand against every man, and every man’s hand against them; and of late—that is to say, within a year or so of the time of which I am now writing—they had adopted a policy of sallying forth from their mountain retreats at irregular intervals, attacking isolated plantations, looting and destroying the buildings, and either murdering or carrying off captive the whites; their avowed intention being to terrorise and drive every white person off the island and make it their own. Although most of them had been brought up in the Catholic religion, it was said that they had all reverted to heathenism, and were addicted to the practice of voodooism, snake worship, and other hideous barbaric rites.
But although the physique of the men was good enough, I did not think very much of their equipment. It appeared that about every fourth man of them carried a firearm of some kind, with powder flask suspended by a cord round his neck, and bullet pouch attached to his belt, while the remainder carried cutlasses, pikes, and, in some cases, axes, cane knives, or even scythe blades lashed to the end of long poles.
Having learned as much of the approaching enemy as it was possible for me to ascertain without exposing myself to the risk of capture by having my retreat cut off, I retired in good order to the house, pausing at the detached kitchen on my way, and ordering Mama Elisa and Teresita to hasten at once to the house, with such provisions as they had been able to prepare. I waited until they were fairly on the way, and then set fire to the place, for it was within about sixty yards of the house, and would have afforded excellent cover for a dozen sharpshooters who, from its shelter, might have galled us rather severely. It was a flimsy structure, the walls built of wattles plastered with mud, while the roof was of thatch; by the time, therefore, that I reached the house it was blazing furiously, and a quarter of an hour later was a mere heap of smouldering ashes.
The sight of the blazing kitchen caused the approaching outlaws to raise a shout of triumph—possibly they were under the impression that the building had been fired by some of the negroes belonging to the estate who were about to join forces with them and had already begun the work of destruction—but when they saw me retiring toward the house their shouts quickly changed their note from triumph to anger, and several of them who carried guns halted, dropped on one knee, and proceeded to take pot shots at me. A few of their bullets came quite near—indeed, much too near to be pleasant; but the bulk of them flew wide, and I made good my retreat to the house, untouched, and was at once admitted by my friends, who immediately proceeded to block up with sand-bags the aperture by which I had entered.
The moment that the motley army of our assailants came close enough to the house to enable them to see that it had been put into a state of defence, they halted, and some half-a-dozen of them clustered about an immensely tall and powerful-looking negro who was attired in the stained and somewhat tattered uniform of a Spanish infantry colonel, and wore a sword buckled about his waist, with a pair of big horse pistols thrust into his belt. Apparently they were conferring together as to what was to be done under the unexpected circumstances; for it now appeared that, so completely had they succeeded in terrorising the whites, serious resistance to their raids had practically become a thing of the past.
The appearance among the attacking force of the big negro above-mentioned seemed to fill Don Luis and Don Esteban with consternation, for they recognised him at once as the chief of the outlaws, and a man with a reputation for ruthless savagery that had caused his name to become a word of terror among the whites on the island, only to be mentioned with bated breath.
“It is Petion himself!” gasped Don Esteban in accents of dismay, “and if we should be so unfortunate as to fall into his hands after resisting him, our fate will be too dreadful for description! Would it not be better,” he suggested, with quivering ashen lips, “that we should surrender at discretion, without attempting resistance? If we do so we shall probably be shot, out of hand; but even that would be preferable to being carried off into the mountains, and there dying a lingering death by torture, as we know that many other whites have done who have dared to resist Petion.”
“No, certainly not!” answered Don Luis with decision. “I will never agree to it. Our young friend, Don Ricardo, here, seems to be of opinion that the house is capable of being defended effectively, and he ought to know, since fighting is his trade. And I do not suppose that the mere fact of Petion’s appearance among our assailants is going to make him alter his opinion. Is it, Don Ricardo?”
“By no means,” said I. “Rather the other way about. For if we can only contrive to bowl over Mister Petion—”
Don Esteban uttered an ejaculation of horror. “Kill Petion!” he exclaimed. “My good sir, I most fervently hope that no one in this house will be so ill-advised as to attempt Petion’s life. For if anything were to happen to him his followers would be so incensed, so utterly maddened with fury, that they would simply pull the place down about our ears, and drag us out from among the ruins to die a death of unimaginable horror!”
“My dear Don Esteban,” I retorted, “do you really believe that those fellows will fight any the more courageously if their leader happens to be slain? Because I do not; on the contrary, I am firmly convinced that if the head is destroyed the body will also lose vitality, and very speedily collapse. Therefore I, for one, shall make it a point of honour to do my best to kill Petion, if he will only afford me the chance, and I very strongly recommend that the rest should do the same. If Petion falls, his followers will very soon be discouraged.”
“Yes, yes, I quite agree with you, Don Ricardo,” exclaimed Don Luis. “Nothing is so likely to discourage those fellows as to see their leader fall, therefore let us kill Petion, if we can—although he is popularly believed to bear a charmed life.”
“It will need a very much more potent charm than any that he is at all likely to possess to stop a bullet, if I can only get a fair shot at him,” I exclaimed. “But, come, gentlemen, let us get back to our posts. We must watch their every move now, or they may take us unawares and play us some very ugly trick.”
Our dialogue had lasted less than five minutes; but, brief as it was, it had outlasted the consultation between Petion and his lieutenants, who, I was annoyed to find upon returning to my point of observation, had retired and were now out of sight.
A period of suspense lasting nearly ten minutes now ensued, at the end of which a whistle sounded shrilly from somewhere, and at the sound of it the whole band of outlaws, numbering somewhere about four hundred, suddenly broke cover and, with a yell, came charging down upon all sides of the house, firing as they ran. Their aim was not bad, considering that none of them paused to bring their pieces up to the shoulder, but just pointed the weapon in the direction of the house and pulled the trigger while still on the run. But although we heard several of the bullets strike the walls and roof, not one came through our loopholes, or penetrated to the interior of the house, and none of us were hit. The next second an irregular, straggling sort of volley rattled out from the house by way of reply; but I could not see that anybody was a penny the worse for it, at least on that side of the house where I was stationed. So far as I was concerned, I had not attempted to fire, having made up my mind that I would not pull trigger during the fight until I could be certain of making a hit; but the negro who had been told off to help in the defence of the window at which I was stationed had simply thrust his musket through his loophole and blazed away, apparently without taking the trouble even to sight along the barrel.
“My friend,” I said, digging him savagely in the ribs, “which of those fellows was it that you aimed at?”
“Which of them, Señor?” he echoed in astonishment. “I did not aim at any one in particular; I simply fired my piece, believing that the bullet would be certain to hit some one.”
“Just so,” I retorted. “Well, that is not at all the way to win a fight, for, you see, your bullet has hit no one. Next time you shoot, aim straight at some particular individual, and make sure that your gun is pointing straight before you pull the trigger. For example—you see that big man running straight toward us, the man with the scythe on the end of a pole? Well, keep your eye on him for a moment, and see what happens.”
The man in question was coming straight for our window, with the intention, probably, of attempting to dislodge some of the sand-bags and force his way into the house. He was only about ten yards away when, having carefully covered his chest with my two sights, I gently pressed the trigger. When the smoke blew away the fellow was lying motionless upon his face, and some twenty others who had been following him had come to an abrupt halt, and were gazing with indecision, first at the house and next at him.
“Another cartridge, quick!” I whispered, thrusting my hand out behind me. A small, soft hand met mine, thrusting a cartridge between my fingers, and glancing hastily over my shoulder, in some surprise, I saw that it was Teresita who had established herself as my assistant. The next moment I had bitten off the end of the cartridge, poured the powder down the barrel, thrust the empty paper after it by way of a wad, and was ramming a bullet home on top of all. Then, peeping through the loophole as I cocked the lock, I saw that a party of four of his comrades had picked up the stricken man, and were just about to carry him away, while the others were in full retreat for a clump of bushes not very far away, probably for the purpose of securing cover while they reloaded their weapons. The four bearers, however, were still within easy range, and, taking careful aim for a moment, I caught one of them fair between the shoulders, and down he went on top of the man who was being carried away. The other three at once took to their heels and ran, but did not finally get away scot free, for I snatched the now reloaded musket from my assistant’s hand and was lucky enough to bring one of them down with a shot in the leg, though he was up and limping away the next instant.
“There,” I said to the negro who was supposed to be helping me; “you see how it is done? Very well; see to it, my friend, that you make no more misses.” And he did not; or, at least, not very often. Meanwhile, the firing from the other rooms had been proceeding pretty briskly, though with what results, so far as the other three sides of the house were concerned, I could not tell. But it had been fairly effective on my side of the building; for, in addition to the three men for whom I had accounted, there were five motionless figures lying on the grass within view of my loophole, while I had seen others go staggering away palpably hit. I imagined that the outlaws were somewhat disconcerted at finding so many guns in the house, and had not very much stomach for a fight, wherein it was possible that a good many of them might get very seriously hurt. Hitherto, it appeared, the utmost resistance which they had met with had amounted to nothing more formidable than a few hasty, ill-aimed shots, followed by the immediate retreat of the defending party. But this adventure upon which they were now engaged was quite a different matter. Here was a good, solidly built house, constructed of materials which it was scarcely possible to set fire to from the outside, well barricaded, and evidently full of resolute men quite determined to sell their lives dearly. Oh yes, this was quite different, and it looked as though they did not half like it, for, having failed in that first rush, they had now withdrawn out of range and were apparently discussing some new scheme of operations. During this pause I visited the other rooms in succession to see how the occupants had been faring, and what measure of success they had met with. The result of my inspection was the discovery that twenty-seven of the attacking party had lost that number of their mess, while nearly double as many had been more or less seriously hurt in that first rush; which was quite as good as could reasonably have been expected; and it seemed fully to account for the shyness which the enemy was now exhibiting. I stated what had happened at my own window, urged every man individually to keep quite cool, and to take careful aim before pulling trigger; and then returned to my post, just in time to see some sixty negroes emerge from the bush bearing the trunk of a palm-tree which they had cut down, and which they were apparently about to employ as a battering-ram with which to batter in some of our defences. The men in the adjoining room saw it at the same moment, and instantly, in spite of the warning which I had so recently given, two shots rang out from the window at which they were stationed. The range, however, was too long, and nobody was hurt. Hurrying from my own room into the one from which the shots had come, I found that it was occupied by one of the overseers and a negro. I was engaged in giving them as severe a lecture as my knowledge of Spanish permitted, when there was a sudden call for all hands from the front of the house, and, rushing round, I saw that a party of about a hundred of the enemy were charging across the lawns in open order, leaping from side to side as they came, in a manner admirably adapted to render our aim utterly ineffective. A man was crouching at every loophole in the room, with the barrel of his piece projecting through it, and even as I entered one of the pieces spoke, ineffectively. The man who fired was Don Pedro, and he turned from the loophole with a savage execration at his failure.
“It is not of the slightest use to attempt to pick them off at long range while they are jumping about in that fashion,” I exclaimed. “Wait until they are so close that you can make sure of them, and then shoot. To drop them at twenty yards, or even ten, or five, is just as effective as though you bowled them over at a hundred. And as each man fires, let him step aside and make room for another.”
While I was thus exhorting my companions I stepped to the loophole which had just been vacated by Don Pedro, and thrust the muzzle of my weapon through it, sighting along the barrel. There was an individual coming toward me, jumping from side to side like the rest, first to the right, then to the left. I watched him for a moment or two, and noticed that each spring of his to the left brought him exactly in line with a tall, slender tree stem, some distance in his rear; I, therefore, aimed straight for this stem, and then waited until he made his next spring to the left, when I pulled the trigger, and down he toppled. Almost at the same instant three or four other shots rang out, and each proved sufficiently well aimed to reach its mark. A few seconds later another half-dozen shots followed, and down went four more of the charging negroes. The effect was instantaneous; at least half of them halted, in manifest indecision, some wheeled abruptly round and fled, and only about a dozen of the boldest maintained their rush. Another quick discharge brought even these to a halt, with the loss of four of their number; and while they stood, hesitating whether to advance or retreat, we peppered them again, to their manifest astonishment and consternation—possibly they thought that, with our guns empty, they were reasonably safe for a minute or so—whereupon they turned and fled, leaving six of their comrades prostrate on the ground. At this moment a cry from Teresita sent us all with a rush, helter-skelter, to the room which I had originally undertaken to defend; and here we found a critical state of affairs indeed. For while we had all been engaged in checking the rush upon the front of the house, the party with the palm-tree battering-ram had, under cover of various patches of vegetation, stolen up to within a hundred yards of the side, and were now manifestly preparing to make a rush across the open, bearing their battering-ram with them. Thanks, however, to Teresita’s warning cry, we were just in good time to pour in a brisk fire upon them almost before they had fairly started upon their rush, and three or four men went down, throwing the others into momentary confusion, which afforded us the opportunity to treat them to a second volley. As this second volley crashed out I, having reloaded my weapon, stepped forward to take my place at a loophole just vacated by some one else, and as I did so I observed that the whole party had been thrown into great confusion by the second volley, the tree trunk having fallen to the ground, or been dropped. That, however, was not all; the negro dressed in Spanish infantry uniform had come to the front and was standing stock still, with his back toward the house, haranguing the battering-ram contingent and apparently urging them to pick up the tree again and make another attempt. The opportunity was too good to be lost, for he was within long range, and it was quite worth while to throw away a shot on the chance of hitting him; I therefore levelled my piece, aiming steadily at an imaginary point about two inches immediately above his head—feeling certain that, with this amount of elevation, I should get him somewhere—and pulled the trigger. The smoke of the discharge obscured my view for a second or two, but a wild shout of triumph from those in the next room told me that my shot had been successful; and then, as the smoke drifted away, I saw the fellow lying prone on the ground, with his men standing staring at him, as though fascinated, yet seemingly afraid to approach and attempt to raise him. As I stood, still peering through the loophole at the scene, my empty piece was gently withdrawn from my hand by some one behind me, and a loaded one substituted for it, whereupon I chose another mark and fired, bringing that man down also. This second casualty, at such long range, seemed to galvanise the party into sudden life; for, raising their weapons, they poured in a straggling, irregular, but ineffective volley, as though in obedience to an order, and then turned and raced for the nearest cover, followed by a few dropping shots, which at least served to freshen their way, if it did nothing else.
The entire attacking party now took cover, and opened fire upon the house at long range. Apparently they possessed little or no skill in the use of firearms, for, although a few shots struck the house, not one of them came anywhere near the loopholes, and every one of the garrison remained unscathed. Our foes were amply strong enough to have carried the building by assault had they but possessed the courage and resolution to charge across the open, right up to the house, and tear down but a single one of our barricades; but they had already learned by experience that this meant certain death to some of them; and while, if report did not belie them, they were all ready enough to take the lives of others with every accompaniment of the most atrocious cruelty, there was apparently none among them willing to contribute to the success of his party by sacrificing his own. This innocuous fusillade of the house continued for nearly two hours, during which we made no pretence of reply except when some individual, in a temporary access of courage, attempted to slip across from one piece of cover to another situated a few yards nearer the house, when he was immediately subjected to a volley that either laid him low, or sent him scuttling back, like a scared rabbit, to his former place of refuge.