“If,” answered Pedro, “you have an opportunity to gather them only a few hours before you wish to use them, so that they are perfectly fresh, all that you have to do is to bruise and crush them, so that their juice shall be free to escape, and then rub them well all over your feet. This imparts the odour of the plant to the skin, and so ‘hides the scent’ that the dogs are quite unable to follow it. But if the leaves have been gathered so long that they have become dry, you must put them in water to soak until they become soft once more; then first wash your feet in the water, and afterwards rub them thoroughly with the leaves. Only, in the latter case, you will require a much larger quantity of leaves.”
“Thanks, Pedro, I shall remember that,” answered George. “One more question, and I have done. Where is this plant to be found?”
“Ah! now you have given me a puzzle,” exclaimed the black. “The plant is very scarce, and is growing daily more so, for the reason that the slave-owners carefully root it up and destroy it wherever they find it. They are fully acquainted with its peculiar properties, they know that it has freed many a persecuted slave from the bondage of a cruel and tyrannical master, and that, if allowed to flourish, it would free many more; so it is carefully sought out, and ruthlessly dug up when found. Notwithstanding which, a plant is to be found here and there by diligently searching after it. It grows generally in wet or marshy ground, and in such spots you will have to seek for it, if ever you need it. Now, I must go; it is close upon the time for the head overseer to go his rounds, and I want him to see me in my own cabin. As soon as he is once more fairly out of the way I shall be off. Good-night—and good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” answered George, grasping the negro’s proffered hand; “good-bye, and thank you for your valuable secret. I heartily wish you good luck; and if they get up a hunt, and take me to help, I’ll do what I can to throw them off the scent. Which way do you go?”
“You had better know nothing about that,” answered Pedro cautiously. “All I ask is, that if you catch sight of me, or observe any sign of my having passed, you will simply keep quiet about it. And now, once more, good-bye.”
Ten minutes later the head overseer, going his rounds, on looking into Pedro’s cabin, found that individual apparently fast asleep on the floor, with his back against the wall, and such an utterly fagged, worn-out look pervading his entire personality that the man was almost betrayed into a momentary feeling of pity for “the poor boy.”
His surprise was therefore proportionally great when, on the following morning, it became apparent that Pedro had succeeded, in spite of the dogs, in making good his escape from the estate.
A slave-hunt was at once organised, and about nine o’clock, as George was hard at work in the fields, he saw the hunters—some half a dozen in number, mounted, and accompanied each by a bloodhound—pass down the main road through the estate and out on to the open ground beyond. Here the party divided, half going in one direction, and half in the other, to encircle the estate, and endeavour to pick up the trail. They were absent the whole day, but when they returned at about midnight, the unfortunate Pedro was with them, handcuffed, and secured by a rope round his neck to the saddle of one of the horsemen. It afterwards transpired that he had been perfectly successful, not only in evading the dogs during his actual escape from the estate, but also in “hiding the scent” from them; and his capture was due to the unfortunate circumstance of his having been met by a friend of his master’s who, an hour afterwards, encountered the party in pursuit of him, and so put them upon his track. Next morning the unhappy wretch was “made an example of,” by being flogged so severely in the presence of all the other slaves belonging to the plantation that at first it seemed doubtful whether he would ever recover from the effects of it; and, though he did eventually, it was nearly three months before he was again fit for work.
This incident of Pedro’s escape and its unfortunate failure was naturally the chief topic of conversation among the slaves for a long time afterwards, and George heard so much of the many difficulties attending such attempts, that he often felt upon the very brink of despair. The obstacles were so great as to be almost insurmountable when those who made the attempt were strong, healthy, thoroughly inured to fatigue, and had all their faculties about them; but when it came to not only making good one’s own escape, but also that of a feeble and weakly companion of unsettled reason, the task seemed so utterly hopeless, so thoroughly impracticable, that it appeared almost worse than madness to dream of undertaking it.
Yet, in spite of all this, and notwithstanding the terrible example which had been made of the unhappy Pedro, George clung tenaciously to the idea, and never let slip an opportunity to do anything which in ever so slight a degree might contribute to his success when the time should come for the effort to be made. As time passed on, and his knowledge of the Spanish language became perfected, his uniform industry and good conduct procured him many little indulgences; such as a few hours of release from field-labour now and then, in order that he might instead be despatched, duly provided with a “pass,” on some errand or message, either to a neighbouring plantation or to Havana itself. These little journeys not only afforded him an opportunity—of which he made the most—of studying the physical geography of the island, but also of hunting for the precious plant by means of which he hoped to successfully hide his trail; and in this latter quest he was so far fortunate that he found at different times as many as eight of them, five of which he successfully transplanted to a favourable spot on the estate itself in such an out-of-the-way locality that he fervently hoped they would escape discovery.