After a halt during mid-day in the thickets, we pushed on by a circuitous route towards a cleft or gorge in the mountains named the Dos d'Ane, which guarded the passage into Cabesterre, the more level and fertile part of the isle, and there the outpost of Scipio's black band was last seen, as our quadroon guide assured me. The French are said to have given the hill its name from a fancied resemblance to the form of an ass. The ascent was steep and rugged, as the narrow path over which we toiled in heavy marching order, with arms loaded and bayonets fixed—for we knew not the moment we might be attacked—was encumbered by masses of fallen rock; by deep rents and rifts in the cliffs of limestone and basalt, and through these runnels of warm and sulphureous water were trickling under the broad and fibrous leaves of the giant tropical weeds. Thick vapours rose here and there from stagnant pools which were shrouded by dwarf mangroves; but beyond this gorge which was so gloomy, that one might fancy it led to the putrid lake of Avernus, rose mountain slopes covered by velvet-green, and trees of every kind.
A profound and melancholy silence reigned here; at least, we heard only the croak of the huge frogs that squatted in the marshy pools, or the voice of the mocking-bird in a grove of fern-palms; and now as evening began to fall, and we penetrated deeper into the gloomy gorge of the Dos d'Ane, our guide warned me that we were within a short distance of the camp of the black insurgents—less than a mile, he thought.
A few hundred yards further on we found a deep and wooded ravine opening to the right of the narrow path. Therein I concealed the whole company, and so soon as the dusk favoured, went forward to reconnoitre, leaving my men orders to maintain the strictest silence until my return. Guided by the quadroon, I advanced through the cleft in the mountains, and ere long, by the various strange and tumultuous sounds which woke their echoes, I found that we were approaching the camp of Scipio.
Lest the guide might play me false—for we had no great faith in men of colour—I had shown him significantly a pair of loaded pistols, that were stuck somewhat ostentatiously in my waist-belt; but the poor fellow proved every way faithful, and here, for the benefit of the uninitiated, I may mention that a quadroon is the child of a white and a mulatto, who is the child of a pure black and a European; but there are also black as well as white Creoles—the former being the children of slaves, born and reared in degradation and slavery.
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE WORSHIPPERS OF THE DEVIL.
A lurid light that played and wavered on the rocks and tufted trees of the deep pass, indicated to us distinctly the camp of the enemy, who were evidently engaged in some orgy, ceremony, or sacrifice—we knew not which, amid their fancied security, and under the shadow of night.
The quadroon led me up the face of the rock, by a path known apparently only to himself and the monkeys of that locality, it was so steep and dangerous; but after creeping forward on our hands and knees, I suddenly found myself overlooking a very singular and startling scene.
About fifty yards below me lay the camp of the negroes, on a green plateau, which they had rudely but strongly fortified by palisades of palms and bamboos, pegged or wattled together, and banked up within and without to form a species of breastwork. In the centre of this arena, a vast fire was blazing, and by its light the whole place and its inhabitants were visible as distinctly as they might have been at noon-day. The circular camp seemed to swarm with woolly heads and black forms, glowing redly in the flames, which, as they were blown to and fro by the passing breeze, imparted to every object a weird and unearthly aspect. Amid this sable crowd, gleamed bayonets, muskets, pikes, sabres, and agricultural implements, which had been sharpened and fashioned into impromptu weapons. When I saw their numbers, the ferocity of their black features, their bloodshot eyes and white teeth, as they jabbered and grinned; and when I heard their war-songs, their horrible yells and screams, the smallness of the force under my command, and the desperation of the duty on which I had been sent, came painfully and vividly before me.
Moreover I became aware that if the safety of the abducted M. de Thoisy was to be achieved, there was no time to be lost in attacking them, as preparations for a deed of horror were in rapid progress within the camp.