Cynthia was not slow in responding to the summons of the Jew, who possessed an influence over her which, if not so powerful, was also less mysterious than that wielded by the myal-man, since it was the power of money. The mulatta liked money, as most people do, and for the same reason as most—because it afforded the means for indulging in dissipation, which with Cynthia was a habit.
Very easily did she find an opportunity for paying a visit to the penn—the more easily that her master was absent. But even had he been at home, she would have had but little difficulty in framing an excuse, or, rather, she would have gone without one.
In the days of which we write, slavery had assumed a very altered phase in the West Indies—more especially in the Island of Jamaica. The voices of Wilberforce and Clarkson had already reached the remotest corners of the Island, and the plantation negroes were beginning to hear the first mutterings of the emancipation. The slave trade was doomed; and it was expected that the doom of slavery itself would soon be declared.
The black bondsmen had become emboldened by the prospect; and there was no longer that abject submission to the wanton will of the master, and the whip of the driver, which had existed of yore. It was not uncommon for slaves to take “leave of absence” without asking it—often remaining absent for days; returning without fear of chastisement, and sometimes staying away altogether. Plantation revolts had become common, frequently ending in incendiarism and other scenes of the most sanguinary character; and more than one band of “runaways” had established themselves in the remote fastnesses of the mountains; where, in defiance of the authorities, and despite the preventive service—somewhat negligently performed by their prototypes, the Maroons—they preserved a rude independence, partly sustained by pilfering, and partly by freebooting of a bolder kind. These runaways were, in effect, playing a rôle, in complete imitation of what, at an earlier period, had been the métier of the original Maroons; while, as already stated, the Maroons themselves, employed upon the sage but infamous principle of “set a thief to catch a thief,” had now become the detective police of the Island.
Under such conditions of slavery, the bold Cynthia was not the woman to trouble herself about asking leave of absence, nor to be deterred by any slight circumstance from taking it; therefore, at an early hour of the day, almost on the heels of Blue Dick, the messenger, she made her appearance at the penn.
Her conference with Jessuron, though it threw no light either on the whereabouts of the missing book-keeper, or on the cause of his absence, was not without interest to the Jew, since it revealed facts that gave him some comfort.
He had already learnt from Blue Dick that the Custos had started on his journey, and from Cynthia he now ascertained the additional fact, that before starting he had taken the spell. It had been administered in his stirrup-cup of “swizzle.”
This intelligence was the more gratifying, in view of the apprehensions which the Jew was beginning to feel in regard to his Spanish employés. If the spell should do its work as quickly as Chakra had said, these worthies would be anticipated in the performance of their dangerous duty.
Another important fact was communicated by Cynthia. She had seen Chakra that morning—just after her master had taken his departure. There had been an arrangement between her and the myal-man to meet at their usual trysting-place—contingent on the setting out of the Custos. As this contingency had transpired, of course the meeting had taken place—its object being that Cynthia might inform Chakra of such events as might occur previous to the departure.
Cynthia did not know for certain that Chakra had followed the Custos. The myal-man had not told her of his intention to do so. But she fully believed he had. Something he had let fall during their conference guided her to this belief. Besides, on leaving her, Chakra, instead of returning towards his haunt in the Duppy’s Hole, had gone off along the road in the direction of Savanna.