Volume 3 Chapter 17 - The Maroon by Mayne Reid
The Sick Traveller
After passing beyond the precincts of his own plantation, and traversing for some distance a by-road known as the Carrion Crow, Mr Vaughan at length reached the main highway, which runs between Montego Bay on the north and Savanna-la-Mer on the southern side of the Island.
Here, facing southward, he continued his route—Savanna-la-Mer being the place where he intended to terminate his journey on horseback. Thence he could proceed by sea to the harbour of Kingston, or the Old Harbour, or some other of the ports having easy communication with the capital.
The more common route of travel from the neighbourhood of Montego Bay to Spanish Town, when it is desired to make the journey by land, is by the northern road to Falmouth Harbour, and thence by Saint Ann’s, and across the Island. The southern road is also travelled at times, without the necessity of going to the port of Savanna, by Lacovia, and the parish of Saint Elizabeth. But Mr Vaughan preferred the easier mode of transit—on board ship; and knowing that coasting vessels were at all times trading from Savanna to the ports on the southern side, he anticipated no difficulty in obtaining a passage to Kingston. This was one reason why he directed his course to the seaport of Savanna.
He had another motive for visiting this place, and one that influenced him to an equal or greater extent. Savanna-la-Mer, as already stated, was the assize town of the western district of the Island—otherwise the county of Cornwall—including under its jurisdiction the five great parishes of Saint James, Hanover, Westmoreland, Trelawney, and Saint Elizabeth, and consequently the town of Montego Bay. Thus constituted, Savanna was the seat of justice, where all plaints of importance must be preferred. The process which Mr Vaughan was about to institute against the Jew was one for the consideration of a full court of assize. A surreptitious seizure of twenty-four slaves was no small matter; and the charge would amount to something more than that of mere malversation.
Loftus Vaughan had not yet decided on the exact terms in which the accusation was to be made; but the assize town being not only the seat of justice, but the head-quarters of the legal knowledge of the county, he anticipated finding there the counsel he required.
This, then, was his chief reason for travelling to Spanish Town via Savanna-la-Mer.
For such a short distance—a journey that might be done in a day—a single attendant sufficed. Had he designed taking the land route to the capital, then it would have been different. Following the fashion of the Island, a troop of horses, with a numerous escort of servants, would have accompanied the great Custos.
The day turned out to be one of the hottest, especially after the hour of noon; and the concentrated rays of the sun, glaring down upon the white chalky road, over which the traveller was compelled to pass, rendered the journey not only disagreeable, but irksome.
Added to this, the Custos, not very well on leaving home, had been getting worse every hour. Notwithstanding the heat, he was twice attacked by a severe chill—each time succeeded by its opposite extreme of burning fever, accompanied by thirst that knew no quenching. These attacks had also for their concomitants bitter nausea, vomiting, and a tendency towards cramp, or tetanus.
Long before night, the traveller would have stopped—had he found a hospitable roof to shelter him. In the early part of the day he had passed through the more settled districts of the country, where plantations were numerous; but then, not being so ill, he had declined making halt—having called only at one or two places to obtain drink, and replenish the water canteen carried by his attendant.
It was only late in the afternoon that the symptoms of his disease became specially alarming; and then he was passing through an uninhabited portion of the country—a wild corner of Westmoreland parish, where not a house was to be met with for miles alone: the highway.
Beyond this tract, and a few miles further on the road, he would reach the grand sugar estate of Content. There he might anticipate a distinguished reception; since the proprietor of the plantation, besides being noted for his profuse hospitality, was his own personal friend.
It had been the design of the traveller, before starting out, to make Content the halfway house of his journey, by stopping there for the night. Still desirous of carrying out this design, he pushed on, notwithstanding the extreme debility that had seized upon his frame, and which rendered riding upon horseback an exceedingly painful operation. So painful did it become, that every now and then he was compelled to bring his horse to a halt, and remain at rest, till his nerves acquired strength for a fresh spell of exertion.
Thus delayed, it was sunset when he came in sight of Content. He did get sight of it from a hill, on the top of which he had arrived just as the sun was sinking into the Caribbean Sea, over the far headland of Point Negriee. In a broad valley below, filled with the purple haze of twilight, he could see the planter’s dwelling, surrounded by its extensive sugar-works, and picturesque rows of negro cabins, so near that he could distinguish the din of industry and the hum of cheerful voices, borne upward on the buoyant air; and could see the forms of men and women, clad in their light-coloured costumes, flitting in mazy movement about the precincts of the place.
The Custos gazed upon the sight with dizzy glance. The sounds fell confusedly on his ear. As the shipwrecked sailor who sees land without the hope of ever reaching it, so looked Loftus Vaughan upon the valley of Content. For any chance of his reaching it that night, without being carried thither, there was none: no more than if it had been a hundred miles distant—at the extreme end of the Island. He could ride no further. He could no longer keep the saddle; and, slipping out of it, he tottered into the arms of his attendant!
Close by the road-side, and half hidden by the trees, appeared a hut—surrounded by a kind of rude inclosure, that had once been the garden or “provision ground” of a negro. Both hut and garden were ruinate—the former deserted, the latter overgrown with that luxuriant vegetation which, in tropic soil, a single season suffices to bring forth.
Into this hovel the Custos was conducted; or rather carried: for he was now unable even to walk.
A sort of platform, or banquette, of bamboos—the usual couch of the negro cabin—stood in one corner: a fixture seldom or never removed on the abandonment of such a dwelling. Upon this the Custos was laid, with a horse-blanket spread beneath, and his camlet cloak thrown over him.
More drink was administered; and then the attendant, by command of the invalid himself, mounted one of the horses, and galloped off to Content.
Loftus Vaughan was alone!