Part 16 (1/2)
Moreover, we should possess the important advantage of being almost completely protected from their fire, and consequently should be able to take aim coolly and collectedly, while they would be fully exposed, there being no better cover for them than a few scattered bushes here and there, which I determined to remove, should there be time after our more important defences were complete.
At length, after some two hours of the most strenuous work that those negroes had ever performed in their lives, we had done everything that it was possible to do; so, first stationing a dozen of our best men at various commanding points, to act as pickets and give us timely warning of the approach of the enemy, we went to breakfast, most of us with excellent appet.i.tes, although I am bound to admit that the ladies did not eat much. When the meal was over, without any news from our pickets, I went out through an opening that we had purposely left in the front door barricade, and took a good look round. Pa.s.sing from picket to picket, I questioned each man closely as to whether he had seen any signs of the enemy; but they all replied in the negative. Indeed, although I carefully scanned every open s.p.a.ce I could see, even examining it with the telescope, not the faintest indication of lurking danger could I anywhere discover, although Montpelier was by this time a mere smouldering ruin, to all appearance utterly deserted.
I was about to return to the house to inquire whether, after all, we might not have taken too much for granted in a.s.suming as a certainty that Bella Vista would be attacked, when one of the pickets uttered a shout and, raising his hand, pointed. I looked in the direction indicated, and there, sure enough, I beheld a party of negroes marching confidently toward the house. How many there were I could not tell--for they were just then winding their way through thick detached ma.s.ses of scrub beyond the boundaries of the estate--but the confident manner of their approach led me to suppose that they believed they were quite strong enough to achieve an easy conquest of the place.
Raising a whistle to my lips, I blew a shrill call, not only as a warning to those in the house to be on the _qui vive_, but also as a signal for the pickets to fall back; then, when I had made sure that the latter were all on the run toward the house, I brought my telescope to bear upon the approaching party, with the view of learning a little more concerning their equipment and, if possible, their numbers.
The first thing that impressed me with regard to them was that they were a remarkably fine, stalwart-looking set of men, hard, wiry, and full of endurance, as indeed might be expected from the history of them which I had gathered by s.n.a.t.c.hes from Don Luis during our preparations that morning. It appeared that they were practically all runaway slaves, or the descendants of such, who had made good their escape from the various plantations on the island before slavery was abolished a few years prior to the date of this story. These men had established themselves in mountain fastnesses, so difficult of approach and so easy to defend that, although the attempt had often been made, it had been found impossible to dislodge them. In those mountain fastnesses they had increased and multiplied prodigiously, raising their own cattle, growing their own corn, and supporting themselves generally in a state of comfort, if not of actual luxury, that to those who had not seen it, seemed incredible. To them fled every criminal, for every desperate character in the island found welcome and a safe sanctuary among them.
Of course, they were all outlaws; their hand against every man, and every man's hand against them; and of late--that is to say, within a year or so of the time of which I am now writing--they had adopted a policy of sallying forth from their mountain retreats at irregular intervals, attacking isolated plantations, looting and destroying the buildings, and either murdering or carrying off captive the whites; their avowed intention being to terrorise and drive every white person off the island and make it their own. Although most of them had been brought up in the Catholic religion, it was said that they had all reverted to heathenism, and were addicted to the practice of voodooism, snake wors.h.i.+p, and other hideous barbaric rites.
But although the physique of the men was good enough, I did not think very much of their equipment. It appeared that about every fourth man of them carried a firearm of some kind, with powder flask suspended by a cord round his neck, and bullet pouch attached to his belt, while the remainder carried cutla.s.ses, pikes, and, in some cases, axes, cane knives, or even scythe blades lashed to the end of long poles.
Having learned as much of the approaching enemy as it was possible for me to ascertain without exposing myself to the risk of capture by having my retreat cut off, I retired in good order to the house, pausing at the detached kitchen on my way, and ordering Mama Elisa and Teresita to hasten at once to the house, with such provisions as they had been able to prepare. I waited until they were fairly on the way, and then set fire to the place, for it was within about sixty yards of the house, and would have afforded excellent cover for a dozen sharpshooters who, from its shelter, might have galled us rather severely. It was a flimsy structure, the walls built of wattles plastered with mud, while the roof was of thatch; by the time, therefore, that I reached the house it was blazing furiously, and a quarter of an hour later was a mere heap of smouldering ashes.
The sight of the blazing kitchen caused the approaching outlaws to raise a shout of triumph--possibly they were under the impression that the building had been fired by some of the negroes belonging to the estate who were about to join forces with them and had already begun the work of destruction--but when they saw me retiring toward the house their shouts quickly changed their note from triumph to anger, and several of them who carried guns halted, dropped on one knee, and proceeded to take pot shots at me. A few of their bullets came quite near--indeed, much too near to be pleasant; but the bulk of them flew wide, and I made good my retreat to the house, untouched, and was at once admitted by my friends, who immediately proceeded to block up with sand-bags the aperture by which I had entered.
The moment that the motley army of our a.s.sailants came close enough to the house to enable them to see that it had been put into a state of defence, they halted, and some half-a-dozen of them cl.u.s.tered about an immensely tall and powerful-looking negro who was attired in the stained and somewhat tattered uniform of a Spanish infantry colonel, and wore a sword buckled about his waist, with a pair of big horse pistols thrust into his belt. Apparently they were conferring together as to what was to be done under the unexpected circ.u.mstances; for it now appeared that, so completely had they succeeded in terrorising the whites, serious resistance to their raids had practically become a thing of the past.
The appearance among the attacking force of the big negro above-mentioned seemed to fill Don Luis and Don Esteban with consternation, for they recognised him at once as the chief of the outlaws, and a man with a reputation for ruthless savagery that had caused his name to become a word of terror among the whites on the island, only to be mentioned with bated breath.
”It is Petion himself!” gasped Don Esteban in accents of dismay, ”and if we should be so unfortunate as to fall into his hands after resisting him, our fate will be too dreadful for description! Would it not be better,” he suggested, with quivering ashen lips, ”that we should surrender at discretion, without attempting resistance? If we do so we shall probably be shot, out of hand; but even that would be preferable to being carried off into the mountains, and there dying a lingering death by torture, as we know that many other whites have done who have dared to resist Petion.”
”No, certainly not!” answered Don Luis with decision. ”I will never agree to it. Our young friend, Don Ricardo, here, seems to be of opinion that the house is capable of being defended effectively, and he ought to know, since fighting is his trade. And I do not suppose that the mere fact of Petion's appearance among our a.s.sailants is going to make him alter his opinion. Is it, Don Ricardo?”
”By no means,” said I. ”Rather the other way about. For if we can only contrive to bowl over Mister Petion--”
Don Esteban uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of horror. ”Kill Petion!” he exclaimed. ”My good sir, I most fervently hope that no one in this house will be so ill-advised as to attempt Petion's life. For if anything were to happen to him his followers would be so incensed, so utterly maddened with fury, that they would simply pull the place down about our ears, and drag us out from among the ruins to die a death of unimaginable horror!”
”My dear Don Esteban,” I retorted, ”do you really believe that those fellows will fight any the more courageously if their leader happens to be slain? Because I do not; on the contrary, I am firmly convinced that if the head is destroyed the body will also lose vitality, and very speedily collapse. Therefore I, for one, shall make it a point of honour to do my best to kill Petion, if he will only afford me the chance, and I very strongly recommend that the rest should do the same.
If Petion falls, his followers will very soon be discouraged.”
”Yes, yes, I quite agree with you, Don Ricardo,” exclaimed Don Luis.
”Nothing is so likely to discourage those fellows as to see their leader fall, therefore let us kill Petion, if we can--although he is popularly believed to bear a charmed life.”
”It will need a very much more potent charm than any that he is at all likely to possess to stop a bullet, if I can only get a fair shot at him,” I exclaimed. ”But, come, gentlemen, let us get back to our posts.
We must watch their every move now, or they may take us unawares and play us some very ugly trick.”
Our dialogue had lasted less than five minutes; but, brief as it was, it had outlasted the consultation between Petion and his lieutenants, who, I was annoyed to find upon returning to my point of observation, had retired and were now out of sight.
A period of suspense lasting nearly ten minutes now ensued, at the end of which a whistle sounded shrilly from somewhere, and at the sound of it the whole band of outlaws, numbering somewhere about four hundred, suddenly broke cover and, with a yell, came charging down upon all sides of the house, firing as they ran. Their aim was not bad, considering that none of them paused to bring their pieces up to the shoulder, but just pointed the weapon in the direction of the house and pulled the trigger while still on the run. But although we heard several of the bullets strike the walls and roof, not one came through our loopholes, or penetrated to the interior of the house, and none of us were hit.
The next second an irregular, straggling sort of volley rattled out from the house by way of reply; but I could not see that anybody was a penny the worse for it, at least on that side of the house where I was stationed. So far as I was concerned, I had not attempted to fire, having made up my mind that I would not pull trigger during the fight until I could be certain of making a hit; but the negro who had been told off to help in the defence of the window at which I was stationed had simply thrust his musket through his loophole and blazed away, apparently without taking the trouble even to sight along the barrel.
”My friend,” I said, digging him savagely in the ribs, ”which of those fellows was it that you aimed at?”
”Which of them, Senor?” he echoed in astonishment. ”I did not aim at any one in particular; I simply fired my piece, believing that the bullet would be certain to hit some one.”
”Just so,” I retorted. ”Well, that is not at all the way to win a fight, for, you see, your bullet has. .h.i.t no one. Next time you shoot, aim straight at some particular individual, and make sure that your gun is pointing straight before you pull the trigger. For example--you see that big man running straight toward us, the man with the scythe on the end of a pole? Well, keep your eye on him for a moment, and see what happens.”