“Beg pardon, shipmates, no damage done, I hope. I ought to have kept a better lookout when crowding sail to the extent—why—why—no, it can’t be; and yet—hang me if it ain’t, after all. Well, this is a pleasant surprise, and no mistake. Cap’n, how are ye? And you, Tom, how did them damned slave-drivers treat you?”
It was Mr Bowen, the late chief mate of the Aurora. He was dressed in the somewhat rough garb of the mate of a coasting schooner, but was looking well and hearty nevertheless, and certainly had nothing of the appearance of a man who had recently been suffering the horrors of slavery.
George and Tom both shook hands heartily with their old friend, and then Mr Bowen—who seemed to be pretty well acquainted with the town—led the way into a quiet, respectable tavern near the water-side.
Having called for some sangaree in honour of the unexpected and very agreeable meeting, George, at his friend’s request, proceeded to recount all that had happened since the eventful morning when they were separated (for life, as each then feared) in the square at Havana. When he had finished the story, he added—
“And now, Bowen, my dear old friend, let us know how you fared among the Dons.”
“Badly enough, cap’n, badly enough,” was the reply. “But you shall hear the whole story, such as ’tis. Maybe you happen to remember the chap as bought me—a tall, thin feller, with a nose like the beak of an eagle, and a wicked look in his glittering black eyes. Well, as soon as this here Don Christoval—that was his name—as soon as he’d bought all the slaves he wanted, we was all chained together, and started on a march to the south’ard. We travelled the whole width of that cursed island, taking two days over the trip, and was then shipped across in a little flat-bottomed sailin’-boat to the Isle de Pinos, where this here Christoval had a big ’baccy plantation. It took us a whole day, after we’d landed on the Isle of Pines, to reach the place, and on the following morning we were set to work.
“As it happened, I was the only white slave on the plantation, and, whether ’twas on this account, or whether ’twas because I was an Englishman, I can’t tell, but I soon found out that all hands, from Don Christoval downwards, had a special spite against me, and seemed determined to make the place as hot as they could for me. I was put to all the heaviest and dirtiest work about the place, and if there was a job that had to be done after knockin’-off time, I was the man that had to do it.
“There was nothing but Spanish spoke about the place, so I very soon got acquainted with the lingo, whether I liked it or not; and almost the first thing I understood was that Mr Don Christoval had boasted that, fierce as I was, he’d tame me so that in six months I wouldn’t dare to say my soul was my own.
“Well, you may be sure that my temper hadn’t grown much more amiable from being made a slave of, and this palaver about taming just made me worse than ever. I vowed by all that was holy I wouldn’t be tamed, let ’em do what they would, and a pretty miserable time of it this stupid vow and my own obstinacy brought me. They used to amuse themselves by seein’ what they could do to rouse me; the overseers, as they were riding by, would pull up and begin to abuse and scoff at me, flicking at me with their whips all the time, and I dare say you know pretty well how clever those same overseers are with their whips—they’ll hit a fly twenty feet off. And when they’d see my eyes begin to sparkle, they’d just let out with the infernal whip, fetching me a regular ‘stinger’ across the shoulders, and gallop off, laughing. I can tell you, they made a regular devil of me before all was done.
“Well, one morning there was a regular rumpus on the estate. Don Christoval had sold some cattle the day before, and had been paid for ’em. The money was stowed carefully away by him when he turned in that night, and next morning ’twas gone—somebody’d crept into the house during the night, and had stole it. Well, as there was nobody about the estate but the regular hands, it was clear enough that some of these must have got hold of the cash, and the lying scoundrels had the impudence to say that I was the thief. They came down, two of the overseers did, and searched my hut fore and aft, from deck to keelson; but, of course, they didn’t find it, for the simple reason that I hadn’t took it. Hows’ever, they would insist that I knew where ’twas, and at last they dragged me up to the house, and told the Don that I’d took it, but that they couldn’t find it because I’d hid it away somewhere.