Читать книгу The Gold Brick - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 7

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Paul saw that questions wounded his black friend, and fell into silence, thinking of his parents with mournful yearning, but not mentioning them again.

It was a long, dreary day; but the sunset came at last, flooding the harbor with crimson, which made the water look ensanguined like the land. One by one the lights of the town began to flame out again, and hoarse sounds mingled with the surf of the tide. Now the boy became restless, and his eyes began to gleam impatiently.

"Jube, dear Jube, let us go ashore with a big boat, and bring them away! don't you hear the noise—don't you see how the fire flashes. They'll be hurt, Jube, and we shan't be there to help them."

Thrasher, the mate, was passing as the boy said this; he paused, and patted the little fellow's head.

"Who is it you want to help, my little man?" he said.

The child shrunk against his black guardian, and looked up with such gentle earnestness that Thrasher's eyes fell under the glance.

"We want to go after them, monsieur. My papa and mamma; she couldn't wait for me, because papa wanted her, and so rowed away after him. But she sent dear old Jube to stay with me, didn't she Jube?"

He lifted both hands, and pressed the palms lovingly against the black cheeks of the slave, with a childishness which was the more touching because of its mournful trust.

"So you think your mother has gone back to the shore again?" said Thrasher, whose attention to this child was singular, for he was in no way a man of fine sensibilities, and had received the boy, and, afterward, the slave, rather grudgingly.

"Yes," answered Paul; "after papa lay down to rest, you know, mamma wanted to go back there, and struggled, and cried; but they wouldn't let her. You might know she'd be off the minute she woke up and found the captain had left her with a boat all to herself; but she's a long time. Don't you think it's a long time. I'm so tired of waiting."

"And who was your mamma, my little man?"

"My mamma! she was a beautiful lady, oh! so beautiful! I know that's true, because papa told her so every day, when she put the red roses in her hair that Jube brought. You remember, Jube?"

"Yes, little master, I remember; but turn your eyes away, I can't bear 'em just now."

"And where did your father live?" persisted the mate, feeling his way adroitly, as a pointer scents his game.

The child pointed toward the town.

"In a large house?" said Thrasher.

"The biggest house on the island," answered Jube, true to the instincts of his class.

"And they drove your master away like the rest?"

"Like the meanest of them all. It was his own slaves began. They knew of his gold, and that he wanted to send it off to some other country."

"He was rich, then?"

"Rich—no man like him in all Domingo! It was a great family—six brothers; they all gathered up their gold and brought it to my master's, ready to be put on board some ship—this one it may be. I had care of the gold, but the boxes were heavy, and the other slaves guessed what was in them, and told about it. But they did not know where it was hid, for my master and his brothers only went with me to the cellar. It was a heavy lift for gentlemen like them, but we got it all into the vault, and heaped stones and rubbish against the door. They meant to move it that very night. A boat was ready to carry it to White's Island. The day before, masters and I went there, and dug a pit to bury it in."

"And did you take it there?" asked the mate, with suppressed eagerness.

"No, surely—no!" answered the slave, with a sudden gleam of caution. "The patriots fell upon us—they began to burn and kill without warning. My master sent me to the boat, and told me to wait till he came with the mistress; but they fired the wharves, which made the water one blaze of light; and I could not come near the shore, try as I would. So at last I went to the island, and waited; but instead of my master—oh! you know what came there!"

"But the gold—did any one find the gold?"

"How do I know?"

"And the house—was it burned?"

"No; little master says they were dancing, and shouting, and drinking wine from the cellars when the family was driven out."

"And your master, where is he—his brothers, what became of them?" questioned the mate, so excited that his voice grew hoarse.

"Hush," said Jube, glancing at the boy.

"All?" whispered Thrasher.

"All, master."

"Where did you say the house stood?"

"Yonder, on the edge of the town; you can see its white walls in the sunset behind the mango trees."

"What, that house? I know it, I have passed its gardens a hundred times."

"Oh, I shall never pass them again," said Jube, with tears in his eyes.

"Oh yes; papa will come after us, don't say that, Jube," whispered the boy.

The mate, who had taken so much interest in them both, now turned abruptly away, and began to pace the deck, with the quick, heavy tread of a man who thinks excitedly. At last he paused, stood looking over the bulwarks awhile, and then went below.

The captain was in his cabin when the mate entered rather abruptly.

"Captain Mason," he said, "you had the luck to do some good on shore last night, what if I take a turn with three or four of the men? The black rascals will be at their work again, no doubt."

The captain looked up surprised. It was the first instance of humanity he had ever known in his mate.

"Go by all means," he said; "pick your men and God speed you!"

Thrasher did not start so promptly as his eagerness seemed to promise. He was a long time lowering the boat, and paused more than once to cross-question the slave and the little boy, always managing to gain some fresh knowledge with every innocent answer he received.

At last, after the night had set fairly in, he descended to the boat, followed by four stout men, selected from the crew. The boy watched his movements with anxious eyes, and Jube seemed troubled as the boat glided off into the twilight.

They reached the shore, Thrasher and his crew, without molestation; a broken attempt at riot had been made early in the evening, but the blacks were besotted with a carousal of blood which had now lasted forty-eight hours, and fell into sluggish inactivity; so the band of sailors, always popular men with the blacks, made their way safely enough up to the walls of the white villa, which Jube had pointed out from the ship. It was a vast pile, built low on the ground, but covering a spacious area, and enclosing a court, overrun with flowers, that filled the air with fragrance, trampled and torn as they had been.

It was one vast scene of desolation. The broad gates were flung open, the trees that overhung them were broken, and their branches trailed on the ground; while a host of rude feet had trampled the luscious fruit upon the pavement of the court. Among the roses, and passion-flowers, and cape-jessamines that trailed along the court, a fountain flung up jets of pure water; but its basin of white marble was clouded with broad crimson stains, that all the crystal springs on earth would never wash out. Over the arched entrances that led to the separate apartments of the house, lamps of colored glass were swinging exactly as they had been lighted when the family were surprised by the murderers, fleeing from them only to meet a more terrible fate outside the walls. No one had cared to put the lamps out, so they burned on through the daytime, and into this second gloomy night.

The mate and his men stood a moment in the court, not to breathe its delicious atmosphere, but to take their bearings, as he said, with unseemly spirit. Lights burned in a few of the windows, and he saw by the gossamer draperies, and silken gleam within—for the latter shone richly through a lattice-work of flowers which filled the verandas—that he was near that wing of the vast building usually occupied by the family, now utterly dispersed, save one little child and a single slave.

"From these rooms there should be some passage leading to the cellars," reasoned the mate, as he mounted a flight of marble stairs that led to the first gallery, and was followed by his men, whose heavy footsteps broke the bell-like fall of the fountain with their coarse noise.

The work of desolation was complete in those vast saloons. The broad silken divans were trampled over by the tracks of naked feet, left on the delicate fabric in long trails of soot. Chandeliers of frosted silver, and lamps of delicate alabaster, were torn down and overturned, with their wax candles, broken and trampled upon the floor, and perfumed oil dripping along the pure marble. Many of the lace window-curtains were torn to shreds; others were gathered up and twisted in soiled wisps over the cornices; some still floated in gossamer softness over the windows, through which orange branches, heavy with bloom and golden with fruit, looked in, rustling to the night wind with sweet, lulling sounds.

The men passed through these saloons, trampling many a precious thing under their feet, which a delicate feminine taste had gathered to beautify the dwelling. They rushed through the broad saloons, and into the more private apartments—apartments in themselves so pure and spotless, that the insurgents had turned from them, as fiends might be supposed to shrink away from the resting-place of angels. The couches were untouched, and white as snow; flowers stood, but half withered, on the marble consoles; a few ornaments, dropped on the floor, bespoke some haste, but no violence. One of the sailors crushed a string of pearls under his foot, and ground it to powder upon the marble floor. Another tangled his boot in a web of costly lace, that had been hastily taken from a drawer and dropped in the terror of a sudden assault. The man tore it away from his boot with a smothered growl, and the party went on, looking cautiously back to be sure that no one followed.

The mate had guessed well. He found a passage leading from one of the lower galleries into the cellar, which was now half flooded with wine that had been left to flow from the reeking casks without check. Here the blacks had held a grand carouse after the massacre under the palm trees. Bottles had been dashed against the walls, and the fragments were trodden into the earth, which sent up mingled fumes of wines and liquors, with a strength that almost stifled even those tough sailors.

Plashing across the moist floor till his boots were red with wine, the mate found a pile of rubbish heaped against the wall. He held up a little silver lamp, which had burned its perfumed oil long after the fair hand was cold that filled it, and bade the men go to work. He spoke in a hoarse whisper, that almost startled himself.

The bricks and loose stones flew right and left, revealing a low iron door. The foremost man swung the crowbar over his head to dash the door in, but that instant Thrasher seized him by the arm. The man turned angrily around. Then, struck by the dead whiteness of Thrasher's face, glanced over his shoulder, and the iron fell heavily from his grasp.