“Did he tell her this himself in her own language?”
“He tell his wife to tell her. His wife speaks Spanish, too. His wife is up there with him now at Ultimo Retiro. He tell his wife that she was a liar. He took the child from the woman and he gave it to an Indian, one of the Indians who had been collected to work rubber. ‘Cut this child’s head off!’ he say, and he did so.”
“How did the Indian cut the child’s head off?”
“He held it by the hair and chop its head off with a machete. It was a little child walking behind its mother.”
“Was it a boy or a girl?”
“It was a boy. He left the child and the head in the same place, everything there, on the path. He went on then; he take the two women with him, but the woman was crying for her child. Well, sir, we got a little ways more inside the wood; walking, we met an Indian man—a strong young fellow he was, too. That is, after we gets over to near the Caguetá. Jiménez say he wanted to go to the next side—the other side—of the Caquetá, but he do not know where he would get a boat, a canoe, to go over. So this time he tell his woman, his wife, to ax the Indian to tell where the boat is. Well, sir, the Indian say he do not know where it is. By that time Jiménez say the Indian lie—he was a liar, and he got a rope and he tie the Indian’s hands like that behind his back. It was in the same way with the post across between two trees. He made the Indians tie a post across between two trees, and he haul the Indian, like that, up to the post. His feet could not touch the ground, and he call for some dry leaves, and tell the boys to bring some dry leaves, same as the old woman. He put the leaves under his feet, and he take a box of matches out of his pocket. The man was there shouting out, greeting. Jiménez draw a match and light the leaves, and this time, sir, the Indian start to burn, big bladders going out from his skin. The Indian was there burning, with his head hanging like that—moaning, he was. Jiménez say: ‘Well, you will not tell me where the canoe, where the boat is,’ he says, ‘so you must bear with that.’ Well, the Indian was not quite dead, but was there with his head hanging, and Jiménez he tell the capitán, by name José Maria, a Boras Indian [he is chief capitán of the Abisinia muchachos]; he says, ‘Give him a ball!’ he says, and the Indian took his carbine and give him a ball here, shooting him in the chest. Well, sir, after I saw how the blood started, I ran. It was awful to see, and he left the Indian hanging up there with the rope and everything on him.”
“Was the Indian dead?”
“Yes, sir, he was dead with the ball, and we left him there in the same place. That’s all.”
“Sealey states that he had reported these things to his fellow-countryman, John Brown, who when he had reached Chorrera had become the servant of a Captain Whiffen, an English officer who had arrived there. He hoped that Captain Whiffen, hearing of it, might be able to do something and so told John Brown.[127] Sealey states that Chase was with him on the expedition.”
Another Barbados man’s (Westerman Leavine’s) examination includes the following:—