Our quarters at Ou Trou.—My asthmatic companion.—Illness and death of Captain Williams.—The melancholy burial-ground.—Try to kill time, but it kills most of my companions.—Startling news.—Life in the village.—Our condition becomes worse.—Death of more of my companions.—Orders for our release arrive.
Our mansion at Ou Trou consisted of three rooms, for which the liberal-minded copper-coloured owner insisted on our paying nineteen dollars a month. This was to serve as the habitation of twenty officers ranking as lieutenants. The midshipmen had another house appropriated to them of much the same character. Ours had out-houses connected with it, rather more extensive than the building itself, and as it was impossible for us all to stowaway in the house, especially in such a climate as that of Saint Domingo, we came to the resolution of drawing lots to determine who should occupy the outer buildings. An inspection of a comfortable barn in England will give no idea of these unattractive edifices. To increase their undesirableness as abodes for men, most of them were already occupied by mules or horses or cows or donkeys. When we gave signs of our intention to dispossess them, the owner asserted that we had no power to do so; they were the first tenants, and had the right of occupation in their favour.
“Now, gentlemen, are you all ready?” exclaimed the senior officer present; “we must settle this important matter. Four persons in each room is as many as they can possibly contain, the remainder must abide by the lot which falls to them. Two in the stable where the old horse now lives, two in the cow-shed, two in the tumble-down barn, and two in the large stable, where the mules and donkeys have till lately held their revels.”
This last edifice was in tolerable repair, and, provided its four-legged inhabitants were turned out, we considered would make a very tolerable abode. One after the other of us drew lots. Lieutenant Manby of the Minerva found himself the occupier of the shed with the old horse, and I was beginning to hope that I might obtain a berth in the house, when, lo and behold! I found that I was destined to share my abode with him. He was, as everybody who knew him would agree, a first-rate excellent fellow, so with regard to my human companion I had reason to consider myself fortunate; but the old horse, with the thermometer often at a hundred, was a considerable drawback to any comfort we might hope to find in our abode. Our landlord probably suspected that we should turn him out, so the very first night that we retired to our new abode the fellow made his appearance and told us to remove him at our peril.
“But the horse may eat us!” urged Manby.
“More likely that you will eat the horse,” answered the Frenchman, who was a bit of a naturalist. “He is graminivorous; you are carnivorous. He can’t eat you, but you can him.”
“He may bite, though!” I suggested.
“No, he has no teeth; he is too old for that,” replied the Frenchman, laughing.
“Ah! but his odour; that isn’t pleasant to delicate olfactories,” I observed humbly.
“Oh, that’s nothing when you are accustomed to it,” replied the tyrant, grinning from ear to ear. “You are too particular. Just let him take his side of the building, and do you take the other, and you will be completely at your ease.”