Some time after his arrival in the West Indies, the junior clerk in Mr M'Donald's counting-house died; and the latter, having found Duncan an active, smart, and scrupulously honest lad, and, moreover, possessing the qualification of writing a fair hand, together with that of a pretty competent knowledge of figures, he at once proposed to him to take the place of the deceased clerk.
Duncan readily closed with the proposal, threw off his livery, laid down his towel, and mounted the stool, quill in hand. In this situation, he remained for three years, discharging his duties greatly to the satisfaction of his employer. At the end of the period above named, the clerk immediately above him also died, and Duncan, as a matter of course, stepped into his place, in which he continued to distinguish himself by his steadiness and abilities, and by the general excellence of his moral character—virtues which eventually raised him, step by step, to the responsible situation of head clerk of the firm.
Two or three years after he had attained this promotion, however, an event occurred that gave him a much more rapid lift than was likely to proceed from the ordinary course of events.
Having, about the end of the period alluded to, gone into the interior of the island on some business of his employer, an insurrection of the negroes had in the meantime occurred, and involved the whole country in terror and alarm. When Mr M'Arthur left home, all was quiet, and nothing of the kind suspected; nor indeed did he know anything of it, until some ruinous sugar-mills and deserted plantations, which he passed on his way homewards, informed him of the fearful event. As yet, he had seen none of the insurgents themselves—a fortunate circumstance for him; for, if they had fallen in with him, they would, to a certainty, have murdered him. Aware of this, and also guessing at the general state of the country, Mr M'Arthur hastened homewards with all speed; but his journey was considerably lengthened by the necessity he was under of taking by-paths and circuitous routes, to avoid any straggling parties of the insurgents who might be wandering about. Notwithstanding all the haste he could make, therefore, and though well mounted, night overtook him long before he could reach Kingston, the place of his destination; and, to make matters worse, he was benighted in a wild and remote woody strath, at the base of the Blue Mountains, which had long been famous as the haunt of runaway negroes, and where, from the inaccessible nature of the surrounding heights, they were enabled to defy all the force that
could be brought against them.
It was now pitch dark, and Mr M'Arthur, not well knowing his way, was guiding his horse slowly and cautiously through the intricacies of the place, when a wild whooping and yelling, which he knew to proceed from an assemblage of negroes, suddenly struck on his ear, and filled him with apprehensions for his safety, as he was totally unarmed—although this was, perhaps, a matter of no great importance, for resistance would have been vain against such odds as he had no doubt the number of the negroes presented.
On hearing the cries alluded to, and which seemed to proceed from persons at no great distance, Mr M'Arthur reined in his horse, and advanced still more warily than before. His progress, however, slow as it was, brought him round the base of the high projecting rock that covered the entrance to an extensive green hollow, from the upper end of which again rose a precipitous wall of rock, on whose summit, a kind of natural platform, were assembled the negroes whose cries he had heard. They had kindled a large fire, and around this they were capering and dancing with a wildness of glee, to which—as Mr M'Arthur judged, from the outrageous and unsteady manner of most of them—rum had largely contributed.
The sight was an alarming one to a person in Mr M'Arthur's situation; but he was a man of strong nerve and singular resolution, and he therefore determined to ascertain precisely what the negroes were about, and, if possible, whose they were. That they were a party of the insurrectionists he had no doubt; and he therefore thought it not unlikely that, if he could approach them without being perceived, he might gather some information regarding their intended future proceedings, or regarding what they had already done, that might be turned to good account.
Having come to this resolution, he dismounted, secured his horse to a tree, and advanced cautiously on foot to the bottom of the rocks on the summit of which the negroes were assembled. On reaching the position, he looked upward, and saw that the ascent was both a difficult and a dangerous one; but not having yet forgot the practice he had had in such feats in the Highlands, he determined on attempting it; and this he did with such success, that he, in a very short time, found himself—his head, at any rate—on a level with the ground occupied by the negroes, and within a very few yards of them. On obtaining a view over the edge of the cliff, the first thing that attracted Mr M'Arthur's attention was a naked cutlass lying on the grass, and fully within his reach. Of this weapon he determined to possess himself; and, by watching a fitting opportunity, he succeeded in getting hold of it unobserved, when he drew it gently towards him, and found his confidence greatly increased by the timeous acquisition. The most remarkable object that presented itself to the daring adventurer's notice, was a slender female figure, wrapped up in a large, light-coloured cashmere shawl, and who was wildly but vainly struggling to free herself from the grasp of a stout, ferocious-looking negro, who had thrown his arms around her, and was evidently forcing himself on her as a lover, grinning hideously in her face, as he sputtered away at the gibberish which he intended for the language of love.
Mr M'Arthur saw at once that the lady—for such she had every appearance of being—was a captive in the hands of the ruffians; probably, he thought, the daughter of some of their masters, whose property they had laid waste; and his blood boiled within him at witnessing the indignities to which the unfortunate girl was exposed; and he determined on making a desperate effort to save her.