Before he could say a word to express his astonishment, a gesture, followed by a muttered speech from the Maroon, enjoined him to silence.
“Hush! not a word, Master Vaughan!” spoke the latter, in a half whisper, at the same time that he glanced significantly along the corridor. “Slip out of your hammock, get your hat, and follow me into the forest. I have news for you—important! Life and death! Steal out; and, for your life, don’t let him see you!”
“Who?” inquired Herbert, also speaking in a whisper.
“Look yonder!” said the Maroon, pointing to the sleeper in the chair.
“All right! Well?”
“Meet me in the glade. Come at once—not a minute to be lost! Those who should be dear to you are in danger!”
“I shall come,” said Herbert, making a motion to extricate himself from the hammock.
“Enough! I must be gone. You will find me under the cotton-tree.”
As he said this, the Maroon forsook his seat, so long and irksomely preserved—and, sliding down the slender trunk of the palm, like a sailor descending the mainstay of his ship, he struck off at a trot, and soon disappeared amid the second growth of the old sugar plantation.
Herbert Vaughan was not slow to follow upon his track. Some disclosures of recent occurrence—so recent as the day preceding—had prepared him for a somewhat bizarre finale to the fine life he had of late been leading; and he looked to the Maroon for enlightenment. But that strange speech of Cubina stimulated him more than all. “Those who should be dear to you are in danger!”