A Roving Commission; Or, Through the Black Insurrection at Hayti

by G. A. Henty

"Not at first, sah. She 'tupid for a bit, abter dat it depend on feber. If feber strong, she no sensible, talk to herself just as if dreaming; if feber not very strong she know us, but more likely not know us for some time. Me got feber medicine, neber fear. Feber come on too quick to be bery strong. When feber come on slow, den it seem to poison all ober, take long time to get well; when it come on sudden like this, not like to be bery bad."

"Well, we must have patience, Dinah, and hope for the best. Now I will go down with you and fetch all the things up."

As soon as these were all housed in the cave, Nat said to Myra, "I will explore down the stream and see what chance there is of anyone coming up that way. Dinah evidently thinks that there is no fear of it, but I should like to see for myself."

Fifty yards farther on there was a sharp widening of the ravine, and here some trees and thick undergrowth had taken root, and so overhung the little stream that Nat had difficulty in making his way through them. He remembered Dinah's warning, and advanced cautiously. Suddenly he stopped. The stream fell away abruptly in front of him, and, advancing cautiously to that point, he stood at the edge of an abrupt fall. A wall of almost perpendicular rock rose on each side, and the streamlet leaped sheer down fifty feet into a pool; as far as he could see the chasm remained unbroken.

"Splendid," he said to himself; "no one coming up here would be likely to try farther. The bushes regularly interlace over the water, and there seems no possible way of climbing up, at any rate, within a quarter of a mile of this place, and for aught I know this ravine may go on for another mile. Any party coming up would certainly conclude that no slave could approach this way, and they would have to make a tremendous detour over the hills and get to the point where the valley comes down to the cave. It is certainly a grand hiding-place. I suppose when it was first discovered those bushes did not grow in front of it; likely enough they were planted on purpose to hide the entrance, and the place may have been used by escaped slaves ever since the Spaniards first landed on the island and began to persecute the unfortunate natives. Unless some of the negroes who know of it put the mulattoes up to the secret, they may search as much as they like but will never find us. I must ask Dinah whether there are many who know of it."

On returning to the cave he found that Madame Duchesne had wakened from her long sleep. She was, however, quite unconscious; her eyes were opened, and she was muttering rapidly to herself. Myra was sitting beside her with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"You must not be alarmed," he said. "Dinah told me she would be so when she woke up, but she thinks that though the attack of fever will be a sharp one, it will not last very long. It is not, as is the case with new-comers on the island, the result of malaria, or anything of that sort, but of agitation and fatigue."

"Hab you been down de stream, Marse Glober?" Dinah asked.

"Yes, and you were quite right. There is no fear whatever of any one coming to look for us from that direction. Are there many negroes who know the secret of this place?"

"Bery few," she said. "It am tole only to men who are going to take to de hills, and who can't go farder, 'cause perhaps dey been flogged till dey too weak to travel many miles. Each man who is tole has to take a great oath dat he suah tell no one except anober slabe running away, or someone who hab to go to take food to him; dat is how I came to know. Jake had been tole when dey knew he going to run away. He tole his broder, my husband, cause he had been flogged so bad he could not go to de mountains. Den my husband tole me, 'cause he could not get away wid de food. I neber tell anyone till now, cause dere no occasion for it; slabes treated too well at our plantation to want to run away. But dere am no doubt dat dere am slabes in oder plantations dat know of him, but me no tink dey tell. In de first place dey take big oath, and dey suah to die ef dey break dat; in de next place, because dey no tell dem mulattoes, because some day perhaps dese will be oberseers again, and den de secret of de cave be no longer ob use."