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.