“A paradise it might have been when the fields were better cultivated and more mines were worked; but the people have chosen to die off, and those who remain are idle and lazy, and will not work,” answered the corregidor, with a scornful laugh.
“They have lately taken to care very little for religion either,” observed Padre Diogo, the family chaplain, who now joined the speakers. “When we go among them with the saints to collect offerings, our boxes come back not a quarter full.”
Just then a servant, pale with terror, rushed up to his master.
“What is the matter?” asked the corregidor. “Speak, fool, speak!” for the man could only utter some unintelligible sounds.
“The Indians! the Indians!” cried the man, at length finding his voice. “The house is surrounded by thousands of them!”
“Impossible!” exclaimed the corregidor. “The slaves would not dare—”
Just then an unearthly cry rent the air. The music ceased, and the strangers hurried to go—the ladies clasping their partners’ arms, and the children clinging to their mothers. Some of the men went to the windows. What the servant had reported was too true. On each side were seen, by the beams of the pale moon, dense masses of armed savages, forming an impenetrable barrier round the house; while others kept arriving from every direction.
“What means all this?” exclaimed the corregidor. “I will go out and order the slaves to disperse.”
“O stay, stay!” cried his wife, clinging to him with an air of despair, which showed her too true forebodings of evil. “They are exasperated against you, and may do you harm. Let Padre Diogo go; he has influence with the people, and may persuade them to depart.”
The corregidor was easily persuaded to follow his wife’s counsel, for his conscience told him that the Indians had just cause to hate him. One of the strangers suggested that efforts should instantly be made to barricade the house, and prepare for defending it, should the Indians be assembled with any hostile intention. The corregidor was about to give orders to that effect, when another loud unearthly shriek paralysed the nerves of all the inmates.