Latitude 19° / A Romance of the West Indies in the Year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Twenty

by Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield

He said that these natives had all come from the eastward. That we ourselves had walked toward the eastward when we started out. That the temple was west of all the native homes on that part of the shore. That the vaudoux worshippers had come down from the back-lying districts, and from the southeast. That there had been an uprising against Christophe, and, from what he could learn, that the people from the east, who were on Christophe's side, had been told that the vaudoux sect who had captured us were inimical to Christophe, and, without asking any questions, they had attacked them, their whereabouts and their collecting together having been discovered and told by one of their native spies. I never tried to understand why the people of the island rose against each other. They had been rising from time immemorial, and one tribe or hamlet had as good reason as another. Sometimes it was because they did not like the French, who had ruled the island for a long time, and were part and parcel of it until Toussaint's massacre. Now they had returned to conquer it again. Sometimes it was a fight by the blacks against the mulattoes, sometimes the griffe against the white, sometimes the quarteron against any one of the three. They had been subjected to French rule, and Toussaint's rule, and Dessaline's, and Regaud's, and Pétion's, and Christophe's, and fifty others, and I learned from the Smith that there was no settled conviction about anything. And as to one's duties toward his neighbour, it was summed up in one word, None! The Smith told me that we had seen nothing as yet of the island, as we would discover later. I told him that my discoveries had been extended enough to suit me, and that my one hope was that we should find a ship standing off and on one fair morning ready to take us home. But the Smith did not encourage me in this. He said that the cave was commonly supposed to be haunted, and that was why no one ever came near it but the pirates. Even if they had heard the stories, they would not be afraid. If the ghosts of the people whom they had killed did not rise to haunt them, they need not fear the spirits of the island.

As we talked we walked onward. Now, as we rose the hill, we came to the place where the great rock had slid downward and closed the cavern door.

"So that devil's hole is shut to the world," said the Smith, "but there is another entrance."

I said nothing. I was willing to let him believe that the gallery of which he knew nothing did not exist.

We struck into the path at the top of the hill which led to the new house. I can not forget, even though I must recall it across the vast chasm of years, the feelings with which I approached the place where my dear girl was waiting for me. No, not waiting for me, that I knew; but she was there, and all that I asked was that she should be there alive and well. It seemed to me as if I had been away a year. So many events and happenings had been crowded into the night between the hour when we set out to snare the cooing doves and the present moment, that I could not believe that it was at the most, eight or nine hours since I had seen Cynthia retire to her room with her constant and devoted companion Lacelle.

"See!" said I to the Smith, as we walked along, "there is where we cut the palms for the laying of our floor. This is where we got the thatch." A little farther on: "That is where we cut the uprights, and it was of those straight young trees that we made our walls. Up that slight ascent we go; 'tis but a few steps more, and then we are on the crown of the hill. There we may stand and look directly down upon our house."

The poor Smith was breathless, for my thoughts and desires sent my legs spinning ahead of him, and he could hardly keep up with me. Yes, there was the old palm. Now we had passed the ironwood. Here, at last, was the mahogany which crowned the slope.

"We shall have some breakfast, at all events," ejaculated the Smith, "for I see even now the smoke of their fire."

"Down this way," said I; but even as I spoke I knew my disaster. We ran down the slope toward the open space that we had cleared with our eager hands, but a hotter, swifter hand had come to undo our work. I stood riveted to the spot.

"Is that your house?" asked the Smith, with pity in his voice.