Volume 1 Chapter 27 - The Maroon by Mayne Reid
The Maroons
As soon as they were gone out of sight, the hunter turned towards Herbert, his eyes sparkling with gratitude.
“Master!” said he, making a low obeisance as he spoke, “after that, words are but a poor way of offering thanks. If the brave white gentleman who has risked his life for a coloured outcast will let me know his name, it will not be forgotten by Cubina, the Maroon.”
“Cubina, the Maroon!” Struck by the oddness of the name and title—as he had already been by the appearance and behaviour of him who bore them—Herbert repeated the phrase mechanically, rather than otherwise.
“Yes, that is my name, master.” The young Englishman, though not yet enlightened as to the odd appellation, was too well-bred to press for an explanation.
“Pardon me,” said he, “for not directly replying to your request. I am an Englishman; my name Vaughan—Herbert Vaughan.”
“By that name, master, I take it you have relatives in the island. The owner of Mount Welcome estate—”
“Is my uncle.”
“Ah! then, sir, anything a poor Maroon hunter could do for you would not be much. All the same, you have my thanks; and if—; but, master,” continued the speaker, suddenly changing his tone, as if in obedience to some instinct of curiosity, “may I make bold to ask why you are afoot so early? The sun is not yet ten minutes above the trees, and Mount Welcome is three miles distant. You must have tracked it here in the dark—no easy matter, through these tangled woods?”
“I passed the night here,” replied the Englishman, smiling; “that was my bed, where the boar is now sleeping.”
“Then the gun is yours, not his?”
The hunter nodded interrogatively towards the runaway, who, standing some paces off, was regarding both the speakers with glances of gratitude, not, however, unmingled with some signs of uneasiness.
“Yes, it is my gun. I am very glad the piece was not empty: since it enabled him to destroy the fierce brute that would otherwise have had him by the throat. Wretched as the poor fellow appears, he handled his weapon well. What is he, and what have they been doing to him?”
“Ah, Master Vaughan; by those two questions, it is easy to tell you are a stranger to the island. I think I can answer both—though I never saw the young man before. Poor wretch! The answers are written out upon his skin, in letters that don’t require much scholarship to read. Those upon his breast tell that he’s a slave—the slave of J.J.: Jacob Jessuron. You’ll excuse me from giving my opinion of him.”
“What have they done to you, my poor fellow?” asked Herbert of the runaway—his compassion hindering him from waiting for the more roundabout explanation of the Maroon.
The blood-bedaubed creature, perceiving that the speech was addressed to him, made a long rejoinder; but in a tongue unknown both to the hunter and Herbert. The latter could distinguish two words that he had heard before—“Foolah” and “Allah”—both of which occurred repeatedly in the speech.
“It’s no use asking him, Master Vaughan. Like yourself, he’s a stranger to the island; though, as you see, they’ve already initiated him into some of its ways. Those brands upon his breast are nearly fresh—as you may tell by the red skin around the letters. He’s just been landed from Africa, it appears. As for the marks upon his back—those have been made by a plaything, the white planters and their overseers in these parts are rather too fond of using—the cart-whip! They’ve been flogging the poor devil; and, Crambo! they’ve given it to him thick and sharp.”
As the Maroon made this remark, he raised the blood-stained shirt, exposing to view that back so terribly reticulated. The sight was sickening. Herbert could not bear to gaze upon it; but averted his eyes on the instant.
“From Africa, you say? He has not got negro features!”
“As to his features, that don’t signify. There are many African tribes who are not negro-featured. I can tell from his that he is a Foolah. I hear him use the word as he talks.”
“Yoy—Foolah! Foolah!” cried the runaway on hearing pronounced the name of his people; and then he continued in a strain of the same language, accompanied by much gesticulation.
“I wish I knew his lingo,” said the hunter. “I know he’s a Foolah. It is some reason why I should take an interest in him; and may be, if only for that, I might—”
The speaker paused, as if he had been talking to himself; and then continued the soliloquy only in thought. After a pause he resumed speech.
“Crambo! very little would tempt me not to restore him to his master.”
“And must you?”
“I must. We Maroons are bound by a treaty to deliver up all runaways we may take; and if we fail to do so—that is, when it is known; but these villains of old Jessuron know I have him—”
“You will receive a bounty, you say?”
“Yes. They will try to deprive me of that; but it isn’t the bounty would tempt me in this case. There is something about this young fellow.—My word! he is like her!—ay, as if he were her brother.”
This last speech was delivered in soliloquy.
“Like her! Like whom?” demanded Herbert with a puzzled look.
“Your pardon,” replied the hunter. “I was struck with a resemblance between this poor fellow and one whom I know; but, Master Vaughan,” he continued, as if wishing to change the subject, “you have not said how you came to be all night in the woods? You were hunting yesterday and lost your way?”
“True, I lost my way, but not exactly while hunting.”
“Perhaps that is all the sort of breakfast you have had?” and the Maroon pointed to some pieces of the palm-cabbage that still lay on the turf.
“I have both supped and breakfasted upon it,” replied Herbert. “I had climbed the tree for water, when the boar came up to break his fast upon what remained of it.”
The Maroon smiled at this explanation of some circumstances by which even he had been mystified.
“Well,” said he, “if you are not anxious to return at once to Mount Welcome, and will give me five minutes’ time, I think I can provide you something better than raw cabbage.”
“I am not particularly in a hurry about getting back to Mount Welcome. Perhaps I may never go back!”
These words, combined with the air of the young Englishman as he uttered them, did not escape the notice of the intelligent Maroon.
“Something strange in this young man’s history!” said he to himself, though he had the delicacy not to demand an explanation of the ambiguous speech just made. “Well, it’s not my affair, I suppose!”
Then, addressing himself to Herbert, he said aloud—
“Do you agree, Master Vaughan, to eat a forest breakfast of my providing?”
“Indeed, with pleasure,” answered Herbert. “Then I must ring for my servants.” As he said this, the hunter raised his curved horn to his lips and blew a long, tremulous blast.
“That should procure us company and something to eat, master,” said he, allowing the horn to drop back to its place.
“Hark!” he continued, the instant after, “there are some of my fellows. I thought they could not be far off.”
As he spoke the sound of a horn was heard reverberating through the woods; and then another, and another—until nearly a dozen could be distinguished, yet all in different directions. They were evidently answers to the signal he had sounded.
“So, Master Vaughan,” he resumed, with an air expressive of triumph, though in a restrained and modest way, “you see these vultures would not have had it all their own way? My hawks were too near for that. Not the less am I beholden to you, Master Vaughan. I did not think it worth while to call my people. I knew the poltroons would not venture beyond a little swaggering talk. See! they come!”
“Who?”
“The Maroons!”
Herbert heard a rustling among the bushes on the opposite side of the glade; and, at the same time, about a dozen armed men emerged from the underwood, and advanced rapidly towards the ceiba.