The Maroon

Her costume was in keeping with her caste. A frock of cotton print of flaunting pattern, half-open at the breast: a toque of Madras kerchief of gaudy hues – these were all she wore, excepting the chemise of scarcely white calico, whose embroidered border showed through the opening of her dress.

She was a woman of large form, and bold, passionate physiognomy; possessing a countenance not altogether unlovely, though lacking in delicacy of feature – its beauty, such as it was, being of a purely sensual character.

Whatever errand she was on, both her step and glance bespoke courageous resolve. It argued courage – her being upon the “Mountain,” and so near the Jumbé Rock, at that unusual hour.

But there are passions stronger than fear. Even the terror of the supernatural fades from the heart that is benighted with love, or wrung by jealousy. Perhaps this lone wanderer of the forest path was the victim of one or the other?

A certain expression of nervous anxiety – at times becoming more anguished – would have argued the latter to be the passion which was uppermost in her mind. Love should have looked more gentle and hopeful.

Though it was evident that her errand was not one of ordinary business, there was nothing about her to betray its exact purpose. A basket of palm wickerwork, suspended over her wrist, appeared to be filled with provisions: the half-closed lid permitting to be seen inside a congeries of yams, plantains, tomatoes, and capsicums; while the legs of a guinea-fowl protruded from the opening.

This might have argued a certain purpose – an errand to market; but the unusual hour, the direction taken, and, above all, the air and bearing of the mulatta, as she strode up the mountain path, forbade the supposition that she was going to market. The Jumbé Rock was not a likely place to find sale for a basket of provisions.

After all, she was not bound thither. On arriving within sight of the summit, she paused upon the path; and, after looking around for a minute or two – as if making a reconnoissance – she faced to the left, and advanced diagonally across the flank of the mountain.

Her turning aside from the Jumbé Rock could not have been from fear: for the direction she was now following would carry her to a place equally dreaded by the superstitious – the Duppy’s Hole.

That she was proceeding to this place was evident. There was no distinct path leading thither, but the directness of her course, and the confidence with which she kept it, told that she must have gone over the ground before.

Forcing her way through the tangle of vines and branches, she strode courageously onward – until at length she arrived on the edge of the cliff that hemmed in the cavernous hollow.

The point where she reached it was just above the gorge – the place where the tree stairway led down to the lagoon.

From her actions, it was evident that the way was known to her; and that she meditated a descent into the bottom of the valley.

That she knew she could accomplish this feat of herself, and expected some one to come to her assistance, was also evident from her proceeding to make a signal as soon as she arrived upon the edge of the cliff.

Drawing from the bosom of her dress a small white kerchief, she spread it open upon the branch of a tree that grew conspicuously over the precipice; and then, resting her hand against the trunk, she stood gazing with a fixed and earnest look upon the water below.

In the twilight, now fast-darkening down, even the white kerchief might have remained unnoticed. The woman, however, appeared to have no apprehension upon this head. Her gaze was expectant and full of confidence: as if the signal had been a preconcerted one, and she was conscious that the individual for whom it was intended would be on the look-out.

Forewarned or not, she was not disappointed. Scarce five minutes had transpired from the hanging out of the handkerchief, when a canoe was seen shooting out from under the moss-garnished trees that fringed the upper edge of the lagoon, and making for the bottom of the cliff beneath the spot where she stood.

A single individual occupied the canoe; who, even under the sombre shadow of the twilight, appeared to be a man of dread aspect.

He was a negro of gigantic size; though that might not have appeared as he sat squatted in the canoe but for the extreme breadth of his shoulders, between which was set a huge head, almost neckless. His back was bent like a bow, presenting an enormous hunch – partly the effect of advanced age, and partly from natural malformation. His attitude in the canoe gave him a double stoop: so that, as he leant forward to the paddle, his face was turned downward, as if he was regarding some object in the bottom of the craft. His long, ape-like arms enabled him to reach over the gunwale without bending much to either side; and only with these did he appear to make any exertion – his body remaining perfectly immobile.

The dress of this individual was at the same time grotesque and savage. The only part of it which belonged to civilised fashion was a pair of wide trousers or drawers, of coarse Osnaburgh linen – such as are worn by the field hands on a sugar plantation. Their dirty yellowish hue told that they had long been strangers to the laundry: while several crimson-coloured blotches upon them proclaimed that their last wetting had been with blood, not water.

A sort of kaross, or cloak, made out of the skins of the utia, and hung over his shoulders, was the only other garment he wore. This, fastened round his thick, short neck by a piece of leathern thong, covered the whole of his body down to the hams – the Osnaburgh drawers continuing the costume thence to his ankles.

His feet were bare. Nor needed they any protection from shoes – the soles being thickly covered with a horn-like callosity, which extended from the ball of the great toe to the broad heel, far protruding backward.

The head-dress was equally bizarre. It was a sort of cap, constructed out of the skin of some wild animal; and fitting closely, exhibited, in all its phrenological fulness, the huge negro cranium which it covered. There was no brim; but, in its place, the dried and stuffed skin of the great yellow snake was wreathed around the temples – with the head of the reptile in front, and two sparkling pebbles set in the sockets of its eyes to give it the appearance of life!

The countenance of the negro did not need this terrific adornment to inspire those who beheld it with fear. The sullen glare of his deep-set eye balls; the broad, gaping nostrils; the teeth, filed to a point, and gleaming, sharklike, behind his purple lips; the red tattooing upon his cheeks and broad breast – the latter exposed by the action of his arms – all combined in making a picture that needed no reptiliform addition to render it hideous enough for the most horrid of purposes. It seemed to terrify even the wild denizens of the Duppy’s Hole. The heron, couching in the sedge, flapped up with an affrighted cry; and the flamingo, spreading her scarlet wings, rose screaming over the cliffs, and flew far away.

Even the woman who awaited him – hold as she may have been, and voluntary as her rendezvous appeared to be – could not help shuddering as the canoe drew near; and for a moment she appeared irresolute, as to whether she should trust herself in such uncanny company.

Her resolution, however, stimulated by some strong passion, soon returned; and as the canoe swept in among the bushes at the bottom of the cliff, and she heard the voice of its occupant summoning her to descend, she plucked the signal from the tree, fixed the basket firmly over her arm, and commenced letting herself down through the tangle of branches.

The canoe re-appeared upon the open water, returning across the lagoon. The mulatta woman was seated in the stern, the man, as before, plying the paddle, but now exerting all his strength to prevent the light craft from being carried down by the current, that could be heard hissing and groaning through the gorge below.

On getting back under the tree from which he had started, the negro corded the canoe to one of the branches; and then, scrambling upon shore, followed by the woman, he walked on towards the temple of Obi – of which he was himself both oracle and priest.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty One

The Resurrection

Arrived at the cotton-tree hut, the myal-man – for such was the negro – dived at once into the open door, his broad and hunched shoulders scarce clearing the aperture.

In a tone rather of command than request he directed the woman to enter.

The mulatta appeared to hesitate. Inside, the place was dark as Erebus: though without it was not very different. The shadow of the ceiba, with its dense shrouding of moss, interrupted every ray of the moonlight now glistening among the tops of the trees.

The negro noticed her hesitation.

“Come in!” cried he, repeating his command in the same gruff voice. “You me sabbey – what fo’ you fear?”

“I’se not afraid, Chakra,” replied the woman, though the trembling of her voice contradicted the assertion; “only,” she added, still hesitating, “it’s so dark in there.”

“Well, den – you ’tay outside,” said the other, relenting; “you ’tay dar wha you is; a soon ’trike a light.”

A fumbling was heard, and then the chink of steel against flint, followed by fiery sparks.

A piece of punk was set a-blaze, and from this the flame was communicated to a sort of lamp, composed of the carapace of a turtle, filled with wild-hog’s lard, and having a wick twisted out of the down of the cotton-tree.

“Now you come in, Cynthy,” resumed the negro, placing the lamp upon the floor. “Wha! you ’till afeard! You de dauter ob Juno Vagh’n – you modder no fear ole Chakra. Whugh! she no fear de Debbil!”

Cynthia, thus addressed, might have thought that between the dread of these two personages there was not much to choose: for the Devil himself could hardly have appeared in more hideous guise than the human being who stood before her.

“O Chakra!” said she, as she stepped inside the door, and caught sight of the weird-looking garniture of the walls; “woman may well be ’fraid. Dis am a fearful place!”

“Not so fearful as de Jumbé Rock,” was the reply of the myal-man, accompanied by a significant glance, and something between a smile and a grin.

“True!” said the mulatta, gradually recovering her self-possession; “true: you hab cause say so, Chakra.”

“Das a fac’, Cynthy.”

“But tell me, good Chakra,” continued the mulatta, giving way to a woman’s feeling – curiosity, “how did you ebber ’scape from the Jumbé Rock? The folks said it was your skeleton dat was up there – chain to de palm-tree!”

“De folk ’peek da troof. My ’keleton it was, jess as dey say.”

The woman turned upon the speaker a glance in which astonishment was mingled with fear, the latter predominating.

“Your skeleton?” she muttered, interrogatively.

“Dem same old bones – de ’kull, de ribs, de jeints, drumticks, an’ all. Golly, gal Cynthy! dat ere ’pears ’stonish you. Wha fo’? Nuffin in daat. You sabbey ole Chakra? You know he myal-man? Doan care who know now– so long dey b’lieve um dead. Wha for myal-man, ef he no bring de dead to life ’gain? Be shoo Chakra no die hisseff, so long he knows how bring dead body to de life. Ole Chakra know all dat. Dey no kill him, nebber! Neider de white folk nor de brack folk. Dey may shoot ’im wid gun – dey may hang ’im by de neck – dey may cut off ’im head – he come to life ’gain, like de blue lizard and de glass snake. Dey did try kill ’im, you know. Dey ’tarve him till he die ob hunger and thuss. De John Crow pick out him eyes, and tear de flesh from de old nigga’s body – leab nuffin but de bare bones! Ha! Chakra ’lib yet – he hab new bones, new flesh! Golly! you him see? he ’trong – he fat as ebber he wa’! Ha! ha! ha!”

And as the hideous negro uttered his exulting laugh, he threw up his arms and turned his eyes towards his own person, as if appealing to it for proof of the resurrection he professed to have accomplished!

The woman looked as if petrified by the recital; every word of which she appeared implicitly to believe. She was too much terrified to speak, and remained silent, apparently cowering under the influence of a supernatural awe.

The myal-man perceived the advantage he had gained; and seeing that the curiosity of his listener was satisfied – for she had not the slightest desire to hear more about that matter – he adroitly changed the subject to one of a more natural character.

“You’ve brought de basket ob wittle, Cynthy?”

“Yes, Chakra – there.”

“Golly! um’s berry good – guinea-hen an’ plenty ob vegable fo’ de pepperpot. Anything fo’ drink, gal? Habent forgot daat, a hope? De drink am da mose partickla ob all.”

“I have not forgotten it, Chakra. There’s a bottle of rum. You’ll find it in the bottom of the basket. I had a deal trouble steal it.”

“Who you ’teal ’im from?”

“Why, master: who else? He have grown berry partickler of late – carries all de keys himself; and won’t let us coloured folk go near de storeroom, as if we were all teevin’ cats!”

“Nebba mind – nebba you mind, Cynthy – maybe Chakra watch him by’m-bye. Wa, now!” added he, drawing the bottle of rum out of the basket, and holding it up to the light. “De buckra preacher he say dat ’tolen water am sweet. A ’pose dat ’tolen rum folla de same excepshun. A see ef um do.”

So saying, the negro drew out the stopper; raised the bottle to his lips; and buried the neck up to the swell between his capacious jaws.

A series of “clucks” proclaimed the passage of the liquor over his palate; and not until he had swallowed half a pint of the fiery fluid, did he withdraw the neck of the bottle from between his teeth.

“Whugh!” he exclaimed, with an aspirate that resembled the snort of a startled hog. “Whugh!” he repeated, stroking his abdomen with his huge paw. “De buckra preacher may talk ’bout him ’tolen water, but gib me de ’tolen rum. You good gal, Cynthy – you berry good gal, fo’ fetch ole Chakra dis nice basket o’ wittle – he sometime berry hungry – he need um all.”

“I promise to bring more – whenebber I can get away from the Buff.”

“Das right, my piccaninny! An’ now, gal,” continued he, changing his tone, and regarding the mulatta with a look of interrogation, “wha fo’ you want see me dis night? You hab some puppos partickla? Dat so – eh, gal?”

The mulatta stood hesitating. There are certain secrets which woman avows with reluctance – often with repugnance. Her love is one; and of this she cares to make confession only to him who has the right to hear it. Hence Cynthia’s silent and hesitating attitude.

“Wha fo’ you no ’peak?” asked the grim confessor. “Shoo’ you no hah fear ob ole Chakra? You no need fo’ tell ’im – he know you secret a’ready – you lub Cubina, de capen ob Maroon? Dat troof, eh?”

“It is true, Chakra. I shall conceal nothing from you.”

“Better not, ’cause you can’t ’ceal nuffin from ole Chakra – he know ebbery ting – little bird tell um. Wa now, wha nex’? You tink Cubina no lub you?”

“Ah! I am sure of it,” replied the mulatta, her bold countenance relaxing into an anguished expression. “I once thought he love me. Now I no think so.”

“You tink him lub some odder gal?”

“I am sure of it – Oh, I have reason!”

“Who am dis odder?”

“Yola.”

“Yola? Dat ere name sound new to me. Whar d’s she ’long to?”

“She belongs to Mount Welcome – she Missa Kate’s maid.”

“Lilly Quasheba, I call dat young lady,” muttered the myal-man, with a knowing grin. “But dis Yola?” he added; “whar she come from? A nebber hear de name afo’.”

“Oh, true, Chakra! I did not think of tellin’ you. She was bought from the Jew, and fetched home since you – that is, after you left the plantation.”

“Arter I lef’ de plantation to die on de Jumbé Rock; ha! ha! ha! Dat’s wha you mean, Cynthy?”

“Yes – she came soon after.”

“So you tink Cubina lub her?”

“I do.”

“An’ she ’ciprocate de fekshun?”

“Ah, surely! How could she help do that?”

The interrogatory betrayed the speaker’s belief that the Maroon captain was irresistible.

“Wa, then – wha you want me do, gal? You want rebbenge on Cubina, ’cause he hab ’trayed you? You want me put de death-pell on him?”

“Oh! no – no! not that, Chakra, for the love of Heaven! – not that!”

“Den you want de lub-spell?”

“Ah! if he could be make love me ’gain – he did once. That is – I thought he did. Is it possible, good Chakra, to make him love me again?”

“All ting possble to old Chakra; an’ to prove dat,” continued he, with a determined air, “he promise put de lub-spell on Cubina.”

“Oh, thanks! thanks!” cried the woman, stretching out her hands, and speaking in a tone of fervent gratitude. “What can I do for you, Chakra? I bring you everything you ask. I steal rum – I steal wine – I come every night with something you like eat.”

“Wa, Cynthy – dat berry kind ob you; but you muss do more dan all dat.”

“Anything you ask me – what more?”

“You must yourseff help in de spell. It take bof you an’ me to bring dat ’bout.”

“Only me tell what to do; and trust me, Chakra, I shall follow your advice.”

“Wa, den – lissen – I tell you all ’bout it. But sit down on da bedsed dar. It take some time.”

The woman, thus directed, took her seat upon the bamboo couch, and remained silent and attentive – watching every movement of her hideous companion, and not without some misgivings as to the compact which was about to be entered into between them.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Two

The Love-Spell

The countenance of the myal-man had assumed an air of solemnity that betokened serious determination; and the mulatta felt a presentiment that, in return for his services, something was about to be demanded of her – something more than a payment in meat and drink.

His mysterious behaviour as he passed around the hut; now stopping before one of the grotesque objects that adorned the wall, – now fumbling among the little bags and baskets, as if in search of some particular charm – his movements made in solemn silence only broken by the melancholy sighing of the cataract without; all this was producing on the mind of the mulatta an unpleasant impression; and, despite her natural courage, sustained as it was by the burning passion that devoured her, she was fast giving way to an indefinable fear.

The priest of Obi, after appearing to have worshipped each fetish in turn, at length transferred his devotions to the rum-bottle – perhaps the most potent god in his whole Pantheon. Taking another long-protracted potation, followed by the customary “Whugh!” he restored the bottle to its place; and then, seating himself upon a huge turtle-shell, that formed part of the plenishing of his temple, he commenced giving his devotee her lesson of instructions.

“Fuss, den,” said he, “to put de lub-spell on anybody – eider a man or a woman – it am nessary, at de same time, to hab de obeah-spell go ’long wi’ it.”

“What!” exclaimed his listener, exhibiting a degree of alarm; “the obeah-spell? – on Cubina, do you mean?”

“No, not on him– dat’s not a nessary consarquence. But ’fore Cubina be made lub you, someb’dy else muss be made sick.”

“Who?” quickly inquired the mulatta, her mind at the moment reverting to one whom she might have wished to be the invalid.

“Who you tink fo’? who you greatest enemy you wish make sick?”

“Yola,” answered the woman, in a low muttered voice, and with only a moment of hesitation.

“Woan do – woman woan do – muss he man; an’ more dan dat, muss be free man. Nigga slave woan do. Obi god tell me so jess now. Buckra man, too, it muss be. If buckra man hab de obeah-’pell, Cubina he take de lub-spell ’trong – he lub you hard as a ole mule can kick.”

“Oh! if he would!” exclaimed the passionate mulatta, in an ecstasy of delightful expectation; “I shall do anything for that – anything!”

“Den you muss help put de obeah-spell on some ob de white folk. You hab buckra enemy? – Chakra hab de same.”

“Who?” inquired the woman, reflectingly.

“Who! No need tell who Chakra enemy – you enemy too. Who fooled you long time ’go? who ’bused you when you wa young gal? No need tell you dat, Cynthy Vagh’n?”

The mulatta turned her eyes upon the speaker with a significant expression. Some old memory seemed resuscitated by his words, – evidently anything but a pleasant one.

“Massa Loftus?” she said, in a half-whisper.

“Sartin shoo, Massa Loftus – dat ere buckra you enemy an’ mine boaf.”

“And you would – ?”

“Set de obeah fo’ him,” said the negro, finishing the interrogatory, which the other had hesitated to pronounce.

The woman remained without making answer, and as if buried in reflection. The expression upon her features was not one of repentance.

“Muss be him!” continued the tempter, as if to win her more completely to his dark project; “no odder do so well. Obi god say so – muss be de planter ob Moun’ Welc’m.”

“If Cubina will but love me, I care not who,” rejoined the mulatta, with an air of reckless determination.

“’Nuff sed,” resumed the myal-man. “De obeah-spell sha’ be set on de proud buckra, Loftus Vagh’n; an’ you, Cynthy, muss ’sist in de workin’ ob de charm.”

“How can I assist?” inquired the woman, in a voice whose trembling told of a slight irresolution. “How, Chakra?”

“Dat you be tole by’m-bye – not dis night. De ’pell take time. God Obi he no act all at once, not eben fo’ ole Chakra. You come ’gain when I leab de signal fo’ yon on de trumpet-tree. Till den you keep dark ’bout all dese ting. You one ob de few dat know ole Chakra still ’live. Odders know ob de ole myal-man in de mask, but berry few ebber see um face, an’ nebba suspeck who um be. Das all right. You tell who de myal-man am, den – ”

“Oh, never, Chakra,” interrupted his listener, “never!”

“No, berra not. You tell dat, Cynthy, you soon feel de obeah-spell on youseff.

“Now, gal,” continued the negro, rising from his seat, and motioning the mulatta to do the same, “time fo’ you go. I specks one odder soon: no do fo’ you to be cotch hya when dat odder come. Take you basket, an’ folla me.”

So saying, he emptied the basket of its heterogeneous contents; and, handing it to its owner, conducted her out of the hut.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Three

Chakra Redivivus

The scene that had thus transpired in the depths of the Duppy’s Hole requires some explanation. The dialogue which Cynthia had held with the hideous Coromantee, though couched in ambiguous phrase, clearly indicated an intention to assassinate the Custos Vaughan; and by a mode which these arch-conspirators figuratively – almost facetiously – termed the obeah-spell!

In the diabolical design, the woman appeared to be acting rather as coadjutor than conspirator; and her motive for taking part in the plot, though wicked enough, presents, in the language of French law, one or two “extenuating circumstances.”

A word or two of the mulatta’s history will make her motive understood, though her conversation may have already declared it with sufficient distinctness.

Cynthia was a slave on the plantation of Mount Welcome – one of the house-wenches, or domestics belonging to the mansion; and of which, in a large establishment like that of Custos Vaughan, there is usually a numerous troop.

The girl, in earlier life, had been gifted with good looks. Nor could it be said that they were yet gone; though hers was a beauty that no longer presented the charm of innocent girlhood, but rather the sensualistic attractions of a bold and abandoned woman.

Had Cynthia been other than a slave – that is, had she lived in other lands – her story might have been different. But in that, her native country – and under conditions of bondage that extended alike to body and soul – her fair looks had proved only a fatal gift.

With no motive to tread the paths of virtue – with a thousand temptations to stray from it – Cynthia, like, it is sad to think, too many of her race, had wandered into ways of wantonness. It might be, as Chakra had obscurely hinted, that the slave had been abused. Wherever lay the blame, she had, at all events, become abandoned.