Twilight, the beautiful serene tropical twilight, was just gathering on Wednesday evening, when the negroes of all the surrounding country, fresh from their daily work in the cane-pieces, with cutlasses and sticks and cudgels in their hands, began to assemble silently around Louis Delgado’s hut, in the bend of the mountains beside the great clump of feathery cabbage-palms. A terrible and motley crowd they looked, bareheaded and bare of foot, many of them with their powerful black arms wholly naked, and thrust loosely through the wide sleeve-holes of the coarse sack-like shirt which, with a pair of ragged trousers, formed their sole bodily covering. Most of the malcontents were men, young and old, sturdy and feeble; but among them there were not a few fierce-looking girls and women, plantation hands of the wildest and most unkempt sort, carelessly dressed in short ragged filthy kirtles, that reached only to the knee, and with their woolly hair tangled and matted with dust and dirt, instead of being covered with the comely and becoming bandana turban of the more civilised and decent household negresses. These women carried cutlasses too, the ordinary agricultural implement of all sugar-growing tropical countries; and one had but to glance at their stalwart black arms or their powerful naked legs and feet, as well as at their cruel laughing faces, to see in a moment that if need were, they could wield their blunt but heavy weapons fully as effectively and as ruthlessly in their own way as the resolute, vengeful men themselves. So wholly unsexed were they, indeed, by brutal field-labour and brutal affections, that it was hard to look upon them closely for a minute and believe them to be really and truly women.
The conspirators assembled silently, it is true, so far as silence under such circumstances is ever possible to the noisy demonstrative negro nature; but in spite of the evident effort which every man made at self-restraint, there was a low undercurrent of whispered talk, accompanied by the usual running commentary of grimaces and gesticulations, which made a buzz or murmur hum ceaselessly through the whole crowd of five or six hundred armed semi-savages. Now and again the women especially, looking down with delightful anticipation at their newly whetted cutlasses, would break out into hoarse ungovernable laughter, as they thought to themselves of the proud white throats they were going to cut that memorable evening, and the dying cries of the little white pickaninnies they were going to massacre in their embroidered lace bassinettes.
‘It warm me heart, Mistah Delgado, sah,’ one white-haired, tottering, venerable old negro mumbled out slowly with a pleasant smile, ‘to see so many good neighbour all come togedder again for kill de buckra. It long since I see fine gadering like dis. I mind de time, sah, in slavery day, when I was young man, just begin for to make lub to de le-adies, how we rise all togedder under John Trelawney down at Star-Apple Bottom, go hunt de white folk in de great insurrection. Ha, dem was times, sah—dem was times, I tellin’ you de trut’, me fren’, in de great insurrection. We beat de goomba drum, we go up to Mistah Pourtalès—same what flog me mudder so unmerciful dat de buckra judges even fine him—an’ we catch de massa himself, an’ we beat him dead wit stick an’ cutlass. Ha, ha, dem was times, sah. Den we catch de young le-adies, an’ we hack dem all to pieces, an’ we burn de bodies. Den we go on to odder house, take all de buckra we find, shoot some, roast some same we roast pig, an’ burn some in deir own houses. Dem was times, sah—dem was times. I doan’t s’pose naygur now will do like we do when I is young man. But dis is good meeting, fine meeting: we cry “Colour for colour,” “Buckra country for us,” an’ de Lard prosper us in de work we hab in hand! Hallelujah!’
One of the women stood listening eagerly to this thrilling recital of early exploits, and asked in a hushed voice of the intensest interest: ‘An’ what de end ob it all, Mistah Corella? What come ob it? How you no get buckra house, den, for youself lib in?’
The old man shook his head mournfully, as he answered with a meditative sigh: ‘Ah, buckra too strong for us—too strong for us altogedder; come upon us too many. Colonel Macgregor, him come wit plenty big army, gun an’ bay’net, an’ shoot us down, an’ charge us ridin’; so we all frightened, an’ run away hide in de bush right up in de mountains. Den dem bring Cuban bloodhound, hunt us out; an’ dem hab court-martial, an’ dem sit on Trelawney, an’ dem hang him, hang him dead, de buckra. An’ dem hang plenty. We kill twenty—twenty-two—twenty-four buckra; an’ buckra kill hundred an’ eighty poor naygur, to make tings even. For one buckra, dem kill ten, fifteen, twenty naygur. But my master hide me till martial law blow ober, because I is strong, hearty young naygur, an’ can work well for him down in cane-piece. Him say: “Doan’t must kill valuable property!” An’ I get off dat way. So dat de end ob John Trelawney him rebellion.’
If the poor soul could only have known it, he might have added with perfect truth that it was the end of every other negro rebellion too; the white man is always too strong for them. But hope springs eternal in the black breast as in all others, and it was with a placid smile of utter oblivion that he added next minute: ‘But we doan’t gwine to be beaten dis time. We too strong ourselbes now for de soldier an’ de buckra. Delgado make tings all snug; buy pistol, drill naygur, plan battle, till we sure ob de victory. De Lard wit us, an’ Delgado him serbant.’
At that moment, Louis Delgado himself stepped forward, erect and firm, with the unmistakable air of a born commander, and said a few words in a clear low earnest voice to the eager mob of armed rioters. ‘Me fren’s,’ he said, ‘you must obey orders. Go quiet, an’ make no noise till you get to de buckra houses. Doan’t turn aside for de rum or de trash-houses; we get plenty rum for ourselbes, I tellin’ you, when we done killed all de buckra. Doan’t set fire to de house anywhere; only kill de male white folk; we want house to lib in ourselbes, when de war ober. Doan’t burn de factories; we want factory for make sugar ourselves when de buckra dribben altogedder clean out ob de country. Doan’t light fire at all; if you light fire, de soldiers in Port-ob-Spain see de blaze directly, an’ come up an’ fight us hard, before we get togedder enough black men to make sure ob de glorious victory. Nebber mind de buckra le-ady; we can get dem when we want dem. Kill, kill, kill! dat is de watchword. Kill, kill, kill de buckra, an’ de Lard delibber de rest into de hands ob his chosen people.’ As he spoke, he raised his two black hands, palm upwards, in the attitude of earnest supplication, towards the darkening heaven, and flung his head fervently backward, with the whites of his big eyes rolling horribly, in his unspoken prayer to the God of battles.
The negroes around, caught with the contagious enthusiasm of Delgado’s voice and mutely eloquent gesture, flung up their own dusky hands, cutlasses and all, with the self-same wild and expressive pantomime, and cried aloud, in a scarcely stifled undertone: ‘De Lard delibber dem, de Lard delibber dem to Louis Delgado.’
The old African gazed around him complacently for a second at the goodly muster of armed followers, to the picked men among whom Isaac Pourtalès was already busily distributing the pistols and the cartridges. ‘Are you ready, me fren’s?’ he asked again, after a short pause. And, like a deep murmur, the answer rang unanimously from that great tumultuous black mass: ‘Praise de Lard, sah, we ready, we ready!’
‘Den march!’ Delgado cried, in the loud tone of a commanding officer; and suiting the action to the word, the whole mob turned after him silently, along the winding path that led down by tortuous twists from the clump of cabbage-palms to the big barn-like Orange Grove trash-houses.