The admiral’s face was naturally vigorous and cheerful, but, as he looked at Dyck Calhoun, a steely hardness came into it, and gave a cynical twist to the lips. He was a short man, and spare, but his bearing had dignity and every motion significance.
He had had his high moment with the French admiral, had given his commands to the fleet and had arranged the disposition of the captured French ships. He was in good spirits, and the wreckage in the fleet seemed not to shake his nerve, for he had lost in men far less than the enemy, and had captured many ships—a good day’s work, due finally to the man in sailor’s clothes standing there with Captain Ivy. The admiral took in the dress of Calhoun at a glance—the trousers of blue cloth, the sheath-knife belt, the stockings of white silk, the white shirt with the horizontal stripes, the loose, unstarched, collar, the fine black silk handkerchief at the throat, the waistcoat of red kerseymere, the shoes like dancing-pumps, and the short, round blue jacket, with the flat gold buttons—a seaman complete. He smiled broadly; he liked this mutineer and ex-convict.
“Captain Calhoun, eh!” he remarked mockingly, and bowed satirically. “Well, you’ve played a strong game, and you’ve plunged us into great difficulty.”
Dyck did not lose his opportunity. “Happily, I’ve done what I planned to do when we left the Thames, admiral,” he said. “We came to get the chance of doing what, by favour of fate, we have accomplished. Now, sir, as I’m under arrest, and the ship which I controlled has done good service, may I beg that the Ariadne’s personnel shall have amnesty, and that I alone be made to pay—if that must be—for the mutiny at the Nore.”
The admiral nodded. “We know of your breaking away from the mutinous fleet, and of their firing on you as you passed, and that is in your favour. I can also say this: that bringing the ship here was masterly work, for I understand there were no officers on the Ariadne. She always had the reputation of being one of the best-trained ships in the navy, and she has splendidly upheld that reputation. How did you manage it, Mr. Calhoun?”
Dyck briefly told how the lieutenants were made, and how he himself had been enormously indebted to Greenock, the master of the ship, and all the subordinate officers.
The admiral smiled sourly. “I have little power until I get instructions from the Admiralty, and that will take some time. Meanwhile, the Ariadne shall go on as she is, and as if she were—and had been from the first, a member of my own squadron.”
Dyck bowed, explained what reforms he had created in the food and provisions of the Ariadne, and expressed a hope that nothing should be altered. He said the ship had proved herself, chiefly because of his reforms.
“Besides, she’s been badly hammered. She’s got great numbers of wounded and dead, and for many a day the men will be busy with repairs.”
“For a man without naval experience, for a mutineer, an ex-convict and a usurper, you’ve done quite well, Mr. Calhoun; but my instructions were, if I captured your ship, and you fell into my hands, to try you, and hang you.”
At this point Captain Ivy intervened.
“Sir,” he said, “the instructions you received were general. They could not anticipate the special service which the Ariadne has rendered to the king’s fleet. I have known Mr. Calhoun; I have visited at his father’s house; I was with him on his journey to Dublin, which was the beginning of his bad luck. I would beg of you, sir, to give Mr. Calhoun his parole on sea and land until word comes from the Admiralty as to what, in the circumstances, his fate shall be.”
“To be kept on the Beatitude on parole!” exclaimed the admiral.
“Land or sea, Captain Ivy said. I’m as well-born as any man in the king’s fleet,” declared Dyck. “I’ve as clean a record as any officer in his majesty’s navy, save for the dark fact that I was put in prison for killing a man; and I will say here, in the secrecy of an admiral’s cabin, that the man I killed—or was supposed to kill—was a traitor. If I did kill him, he deserved death by whatever hand it came. I care not what you do with me”—his hands clenched, his shoulders drew up, his eyes blackened with the dark fire of his soul—“whether you put me on parole, or try me by court-martial, or hang me from the yard-arm. I’ve done a piece of work of which I’m not ashamed. I’ve brought a mutinous ship out of mutiny, sailed her down the seas for many weeks, disciplined her, drilled her, trained her, fought her; helped to give the admiral of the West Indian squadron his victory. I enlisted; I was a quota man. I became a common sailor—I and my servant and friend, Michael Clones. I shared the feelings of the sailors who mutinied. I wrote petitions and appeals for them. I mutinied with them. Then at last, having been made leader of the ship, with the captain and the lieutenants sent safely ashore, and disagreeing with the policy of the Delegates in not accepting the terms offered, I brought the ship out, commanding it from the captain’s cabin, and have so continued until to-day. If I’m put ashore at Jamaica, I’ll keep my parole; if I stay a prisoner here, I’ll keep my parole. If I’ve done you service, admiral, be sure of this, it was done with clear intent. My object was to save the men who, having mutinied and fled from Admiralty control, are subject to capital punishment.”
“Your thinking came late. You should have thought before you mutinied,” was the sharp reply.
“As a common sailor I acted on my conscience, and what we asked for the Admiralty has granted. Only by mutiny did the Admiralty yield to our demands. What I did I would do again! We took our risks in the Thames against the guns that were levelled at us; we’ve taken our risks down here against the French to help save your squadron, and we’ve done it. The men have done it, because they’ve been loyal to the flag, and from first to last set to make the Admiralty and the people know they have rights which must be cherished. If all your men were as faithful to the Crown as are the men on the Ariadne, then they deserve well of the King. But will you put for me on paper the written word that every man now aboard the Ariadne shall be held guiltless in the eyes of the admiral of this fleet; that the present officers shall remain officers, that the reforms I have made shall become permanent? For myself, I care not; but for the men who have fought under me, I want their amnesty. And I want Michael Clones to be kept with me, and Greenock, the master, and Ferens, the purser, to be kept where they are. Admiral, I think you know my demands are just. Over there on the Ariadne are a hundred and fifty wounded at least, and fifty have been killed. Let the living not suffer.”
“You want it all on the nail, don’t you?”
“I want it at this moment when the men who have fought under me have helped to win your battle, sir.” There was something so set in Dyck’s voice that the admiral had a sudden revulsion against him, yet, after a moment of thought, he made a sign to Captain Ivy. Then he dictated the terms which Dyck had asked, except as to the reforms he had made, which was not in his power to do, save for the present.
When the document had been signed by the admiral, Dyck read the contents aloud. It embodied nearly all he had asked.
“Now I ask permission for one more thing only, sir—for the new captain of the Ariadne to go with me to her, and there I will read this paper to the crew. I will give a copy of it to the new captain, whoever he may be.”
The admiral stood for a moment in thought. Then he said:
“Ivy, I transfer you to the Ariadne. It’s better that some one who understands, as you do, should be in control after Calhoun has gone. Go with him now, and have your belongings sent to you. I appoint you temporary captain of the Ariadne, because I think no one could deal with the situation there so wisely. Ivy, every ship in the squadron must treat the Ariadne respectfully. Within two days, Mr. Calhoun, you shall be landed at Jamaica, there to await the Admiralty decree. I will say this: that as the sure victory of our fleet has come through you, you shall not suffer in my report. Fighting is not an easy trade, and to fight according to the rules is a very hard trade. Let me ask you to conduct yourself as a prisoner of war on parole.”
With a deep sigh, the planter raised his head from the table where he was writing, and looked out upon the lands he had made his own. They lay on the Thomas River, a few hours’ horseback travelling from Spanish Town, the capital, and they had the advantage of a plateau formation, with mountains in the far distance and ravines everywhere.
It was Christmas Day, and he had done his duty to his slaves and the folk on his plantation. He had given presents, had attended a seven o’clock breakfast of his people, had seen festivities of his negroes, and the feast given by his manager in Creole style to all who came—planting attorneys, buccras, overseers, bookkeepers, the subordinates of the local provost-marshal, small planters, and a few junior officers of the army and navy.
He had turned away with cynicism from the overladen table, with its shoulder of stewed wild boar in the centre; with its chocolate, coffee, tea, spruce-beer, cassava-cakes, pigeon-pies, tongues, round of beef, barbecued hog, fried conchs, black crab pepper-pod, mountain mullet, and acid fruits. It was so unlike what his past had known, so “damnable luxurious!” Now his eyes wandered over the space where were the grandilla, with its blossom like a passion-flower, the black Tahiti plum, with its bright pink tassel-blossom, and the fine mango trees, loaded half with fruit and half with bud. In the distance were the guinea cornfields of brownish hue, the cotton-fields, the long ranges of negro houses like thatched cottages, the penguin hedges, with their beautiful red, blue, and white convolvuluses; the lime, logwood, and breadfruit trees, the avocado-pear, the feathery bamboo, and the jack-fruit tree; and between the mountains and his own sugar-estates, negro settlements and pens. He heard the flight of parrots chattering, he watched the floating humming-bird, and at last he fixed his eyes upon the cabbage tree down in the garden, and he had an instant desire for it. It was a natural and human taste—the cabbage from the tree-top boiled for a simple yet sumptuous meal.
He liked simplicity. He did not, as so many did in Jamaica, drink claret or punch at breakfast soon after sunrise. In a land where all were bon-vivants, where the lowest tradesmen drank wine after dinner, and rum, brandy and water, or sangaree in the forenoon, a somewhat lightsome view of table-virtues might have been expected of the young unmarried planter. For such was he who, from the windows of his “castle,” saw his domain shimmering in the sun of a hot December day.
It was Dyck Calhoun.
With an impatient air he took up the sheets that he had been reading. Christmas Day was on his nerves. The whole town of Kingston, with its twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants, had but one church. If he entered it, even to-day, he would have seen no more than a hundred and fifty to two hundred people; mostly mulattoes—“bronze ornaments”—and peasants in shag trousers, jackets of coarse blue cloth, and no waistcoats, with one or two magistrates, a dozen gentlemen or so, and probably twice that number of ladies. It was not an island given over to piety, or to religious habits.
Not that this troubled Dyck Calhoun; nor, indeed, was he shocked by the fact that nearly every unmarried white man in the island, and many married white men, had black mistresses and families born to the black women, and that the girls had no married future. They would become the temporary wives of white men, to whom they were on the whole faithful and devoted. It did not even vex him that a wretched mulatto might be whipped in the market-square for laying his hands upon a white man, and that if he was a negro-slave he could be shot for the same liberty.
It all belonged to the abnormal conditions of an island where black and white were in relations impossible in the countries from which the white man had come. It did not even startle Dyck that all the planters, and the people generally in the island, from the chief justice and custos rotulorum down to the deckswabber, cultivated amplitude of living.
But let Dyck tell his own story. The papers he held were sheets of a letter he was writing to one from whom he had heard nothing since the night he enlisted in the navy, and that was nearly three years before. This was the letter:
MY DEAR FRIEND:You will see I address you as you have done me in the two letters Ihave had from you in the past. You will never read this letter, butI write it as if you would. For you must know I may never hope forpersonal intercourse with you. I was imprisoned for killing yourfather, Erris Boyne, and that separates us like an abysss. Itmatters little whether I killed him or not; the law says I did, andthe law has taken its toll of me. I was in prison for four years,and when freed I enlisted in the king’s navy, a quota man, with myservant-friend, Michael Clones. That was the beginning of painfuland wonderful days for me. I was one of the mutineers of the Nore,and—
Here followed a description of the days he had spent on the Ariadne and before, and of all that happened down to the time when he was arrested by the admiral in the West Indian Sea. He told how he was sent over to the Ariadne with Captain Ivy to read the admiral’s letter to the seamen, and then, by consent of the admiral, to leave again with Michael Clones for Jamaica, where he was set ashore with twenty pounds in his pocket—and not on parole, by the admiral’s command. Here the letter shall again take up the story, and be a narrative of Dyck Calhoun’s life from that time until this Christmas Day.
What to do was the question. I knew no one in Jamaica—no one atall except the governor, Lord Mallow, and him I had fought withswords in Phoenix Park five years before. I had not known he wasgovernor here. I came to know it when I first saw him riding overthe unpaved street into Kingston from Spanish Town with his suite,ornate with his governorship. He was a startling figure in scarlet,with huge epaulets on his lieutenant-general’s uniform, as big a potas ever boiled on any fire-chancellor, head of the government and ofthe army, master of the legislature, judging like one o’clock in thecourt of chancery, controller of the affairs of civil life, andmaker of a policy of which he alone can judge who knows whatinterests clash in the West Indies.English, French, Spanish, and Dutch are all hereabout. All strugglefor place above the other in the world of commerce and society,though chiefly it is the English versus the French in these days;and the policy of the governor is the policy of the country. Henever knows whether there will be a French naval descent or whetherthe blacks in his own island will do as the blacks in St. Domingodid—massacre the white people in thousands. Or whether the freeblacks, the Maroons, who got their freedom by treaty with GovernorTrelawney, when the British commander changed hats with Cudjoe, theMaroon chief, as the sealing of the bargain—whether they will riseagain, as they before have risen, and bring terror into the whitesettlement; and whether, in that case, all negro-slaves will jointhem, and Jamaica become a land of revolution.Of what good, then, will be the laws lately passed regulating thecontrol of slaves, securing them rights never given before, evenforbidding lashes beyond forty-nine! Of what use, then, thepunishment of owners who have ill-used the slaves? The localcouncils who have power to punish never proceed against white menwith rigour; and to preserve a fair balance between the white man upabove and the black down below is the responsibility of the fair-minded governor. If, like Mallow, he is not fair-minded, then isthe lash the heavier, and the governor has burdens greater thancould easily be borne in lands where the climate is more friendly.Lord Mallow did not see me when I passed him in the street, but hesoon came to know of me from the admiral and Captain Ivy, who toldhim all my story since I was freed from jail. Then he said I shouldbe confined in a narrow space near to Kingston, and should have nofreedom; but the admiral had his way, and I was given freedom of thewhole island till word should come from the Admiralty what should bedone with me. To the governor’s mind it was dangerous allowing mefreedom, a man convicted of crime, who had been imprisoned, had beena mutineer, had stolen one of his majesty’s ships, and had fled tothe Caribbean Sea. He thought I should well be at the bottom of theocean, where he would soon have put me, I make no doubt, if it hadnot been for the admiral, and Captain Ivy—you do not know him, Ithink—who played a good part to me, when men once close friendshave deserted me.Well, we had, Michael and I, but twenty pounds between us; and ifthere was not plenty of free food in the island, God knows whatwould have become of us! But there it was, fresh in every field, byevery wayside, at every doorway. We could not starve, or die ofthirst, or faint for lack of sleep, since every bush was a bed inspite of the garapatos or wood-ticks, the snore of the tree-toad,the hoarse shriek of the macaw, and the shrill gird of the guinea-fowl. Every bed was thus free, and there was land to be got for asong, enough to grow what would suffice for two men’s daily wants.But we did not rest long upon the land—I have it still, land whichcost me five pounds out of the twenty, and for the rest there was anold but on the little place—five acres it was, and good land too,where you could grow anything at all. Heaven knows what we mighthave become in that tiny plantation, for I was sick of life, and themosquitos and flying ants, and the chattering parroquets, the grimgallinazo, and the quatre, or native bed—a wooden frame and canvas;but one day at Kingston I met a man, one Cassandro Biatt, who had anobsession for adventure, and he spoke to me privately. He said heknew me from people’s talk, and would I listen to him? What wasthere to do? He was a clean-cut rogue, if ever there was one, buta rogue of parts, as he proved; and I lent an ear.Now, what think you was his story? Well, but this—that off thecoast of Haiti, there was a ship which had been sunk with every manon board, and with the ship was treasure without counting-jewelsbelonging once to a Spaniard of high place, who was taking them toParis. His box had been kept in the captain’s cabin, and it couldbe found, no doubt, and brought to the surface. Even if that werenot possible, there was plenty of gold on the ship, and every pieceof it was good money. There had been searching for the ship, butnone had found it; but he, Cassandro Biatt, had sure knowledge, gotfrom an obi-man, of the place where it lay. It would not be anexpensive business, but, cheap as it was, he had no means of raisingcash for the purpose; while I could, no doubt, raise the neededmoney if I set about it. That was how he put it to me. Would I doit? It was not with me a case of “no shots left in the locker, nocopper to tinkle on a tombstone.” I was not down to my lastmacaroni, or quarter-dollar; but I drank some sangaree and set aboutto do it. I got my courage from a look towards Rodney’s statue inits temple—Rodney did a great work for Jamaica against Admiral deGrasse.Why should I tell Biatt the truth about myself? He knew it.Cassandro was an accomplished liar, and a man of merit of his kind.This obi-man’s story I have never believed; yet how Biatt came toknow where that treasure-ship was I do not know now.Yes, out we went through the harbour of Kingston, beyond thesplendid defences of Port Royal and the men-of-war there, past thePalisadoes and Rock Fort, and away to the place of treasure-trove.We found it—that lost galleon; and we found the treasure-box of thecaptain’s cabin. We found gold too; but the treasure-box was thechief thing; and we made it ours after many a hard day. Threemonths it was from the day Biatt first spoke to me to the day when,with an expert diver, we brought the box to the surface and openedit.How I induced one of the big men of Jamaica to be banker and skipperfor us need not be told; but he is one of whom men have darksayings—chiefly, I take it, because he does bold, incomprehensiblethings. That business paid him well, for when the rent of the shipwas met, and the few men on it paid—slaves they were chiefly—hepocketed ten thousand pounds, while Biatt and I each pouched fortythousand, and Michael two thousand. Aye, to be sure, Michael was init! He is in all I do, and is as good as men of ten times his birthand history. Michael will be a rich man one day. In two years histwo thousand have grown to four, and he misses no chance.But those days when Biatt and I went treasure-ship hunting were notwithout their trials. If we had failed, then no more could thisland have been home or resting-place for us. We should only havebeen sojourners with no name, in debt, in disgrace, a pair ofbraggart adventurers, who had worked a master-man of the island fora ship, and money and men, and had lost all except the ship! Thoughto be sure, the money was not a big thing—a few hundred pounds;but the ship was no flea-bite. It was a biggish thing, for it couldbe rented to carry sugar—it was, in truth, a sugar-ship of fourhundred tons—but it never carried so big a cargo of sugar as it didon the day when that treasure-box was brought to the surface of thesea.I’m bound to say this—one of the straightest men I ever met, liarwithal, was Cassandro Biatt. He took his jewels and vanished up theseas in a flourish. He would not even have another try at the goldin the bowels of the ship.“I’ve got plenty to fill my paunch, and I’ll go while I’ve enough.It’s the men not going in time that get left in the end”—that’swhat he said.And he was right; for other men went after the gold and got some ofit, and were caught by French and South American pirates and lostall they had gained. Still another group went and brought away tenthousand pounds, and lost it in fighting with Spanish buccaneers.So Biatt was right, and went away content, while I stayed here—because I must—and bought the land and house where I have my greatsugar-plantation. It is an enterprise of volume, and all would bewell if I were normal in mind and body; but I am not. I have a pastthat stinks to heaven, as Shakespeare says, and I am an outlaw ofthe one land which has all my soul and name and heritage. Yes, thatis what they have done to me—made a convict, an outlaw of me. Imay live—but not in the British Isles; and if any man kills me, heis not liable to the law.Men do not treat me badly here, for I have property and money, andthis is a land where these two things mean more than anywhere else,even more than in a republic like that where you live. Here menlive according to the law of the knife, fork, and bottle, yetnowhere in the world is there deeper national morality or widerfaith or endurance. It is a land where the sea is master, wherenaval might is the chief factor, and weighs down all else.Here the navies of the great powers meet and settle their disputes,and every being in the island knows that life is only worth what ahundred-ton brig-of-war permits. I have seen here in Jamaica theoff-scourings of the French and Spanish fleets on parole; have seenthem entering King’s House like loyal citizens; have even known ofFrench prisoners being used as guards at the entrance of King’sHouse, and I have informed the chief justice of dismal facts whichought to have moved him. But what can you expect of a chief justicewho need not be a lawyer, as this one is not, and has other means ofearning income which, though not disloyal, are lowering to thestatus of a chief justice? And not the chief justice alone. I haveseen French officers entertained at Government House who were guiltyof shocking inhumanities and cruelties. The governor, Lord Mallow,is much to blame. On him lies the responsibility; to him must gothe discredit. For myself, I feel his enmity on every hand. Isuffer from his suggestions; I am the victim of his dark moods.If I want a concession from a local council, his hand is at workagainst me; if I see him in the street, I get a courtesy tossed, asyou would toss a bone to a dog. If I appear at the king’s ball,which is open to all on the island who are respectable, I am treatedwith such disdain by the viceroy of the king that all the island isagog. I went one day to the king’s ball the same as the rest of theworld, and I went purposely in dress contrary to the regulations.Here was the announcement of the affair in the Royal Gazette, whichwas reproduced in the Chronicle, the one important newspaper in theisland:KING’S HOUSE,October 27th, 1797.KING’S BALL.There will be a Ball given by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, on Tuesday evening, the 6th day of December next,in honour ofHIS MAJESTY’S BIRTHDAY.To prevent confusion, Ladies and Gentlemen are requested toorder their carriages to come by the Old Court House, and gooff by the Long Room.N.B.—No gentlemen can possibly be admitted in boots, orotherwise improperly dressed.Well, in a spirit of mutiny—in which I am, in a sense, an expert—I went in boots and otherwise “improperly dressed,” for I wore myhair in a queue, like a peasant. What is more, I danced with anegress in the great quadrille, and thereby offended the governorand his lady aunt, who presides at his palace. It matters naught tome. On my own estate it was popular enough, and that meant more tome than this goodwill of Lord Mallow.He does not spare me in his recitals to his friends, who carry hisspeech abroad. His rancour against me is the greater, I know,because of the wealth I got in the treasure-ship, to prevent whichhe tried to prohibit my leaving the island, through the withholdingof a leave-ticket to me. His argument to the local authorities wasthat I had no rights, that I am a murderer and a mutineer, andconfined to the island, though not on parole. He almost succeeded;but the man to whom I went, the big rich man intervened,successfully—how I know not—and I was let go with my permit-ticket.What big things hang on small issues! If my Lord Mallow hadprevented me leaving the island, I shouldn’t now own a greatplantation and three hundred negroes. I shouldn’t be able to paymy creditors in good gold Portuguese half-johannes and Spanishdoubloons, and be free of Spanish silver, and give no heed to thebitt, which, as you perhaps know, is equal to fivepence in Britishmoney, such as you and I used to spend when you were Queen ofIreland and I was your slave.Then I worshipped you as few women have been worshipped in all thedays of the world—oh, cursed spite of life and time that I shouldhave been jailed for killing your bad father! Aye, he was a badman, and he is better in his grave than out of it, but it puts agulf between you and me which nothing will ever bridge—unless itshould some day be known I did not kill him, and then, no doubt, itwill be too late.On my soul, I don’t believe I put my sword into him; but if I did,he well deserved it, for he was worse than faithless to your mother,he was faithless to his country—he was a traitor! I did not tellthat story of his treachery in court—I did not tell it because ofyou. You did not deserve such infamy, and the truth came not out atthe trial. I, in my view, dared not, lest it might injure you, andyou had suffered enough—nay, more than enough—through him.I wonder how you are, and if you have changed—I mean in appearance.I am sure you are not married; I should have felt it in my bones,if you were. No, no, my sweet lass, you are not married. Butthink—it is more than seven long years since we met on the hillsabove Playmore, and you put your hand in mine and said we should befriends for all time. It is near three years since a letter came tome from you, and in the time I have made progress.I did not go to the United States, as you asked me to do. Is it notplain I could not? My only course was to avoid you. You see, yourmother knows the truth—knows that I was jailed for killing yourfather and her divorced husband. Therefore, the only way to do wasas I did. I could not go where you were. There should be hid fromyou the fact that Erris Boyne was a traitor. This is your right, inmy mind. Looking back, I feel sure I could have escaped jail if Ihad told what I knew of Erris Boyne; and perhaps it would have beenbetter, for I should, no doubt, have been acquitted. Yet I couldnot have gone to you, for I am not sure I did not kill him.So it is best as it is. We are as we are, and nothing can make alldifferent for us. I am a dissolute planter of Jamaica who hassnatched from destiny a living and some riches. I have a bad namein the world. Yet by saving the king’s navy from defeat out here Idid a good turn for my country and the empire.So much to the good. It brought me freedom from the rope and pardonfor my chief offence. Then, in company with a rogue, I got wealthfrom the depths of the sea, and here I am in the bottom of myluxury, drunken and obscene—yes, obscene, for I permit my overseersand my manager to keep black women and have children by them. ThatI do not do so myself is no virtue on my part, but the virtue of agirl whom I knew in Connemara. I fill myself with drink. I have abottle of madeira or port every night, and pints of beer or claret.I am a creature of low habits, a man sodden with self-indulgence.And when I am in drink, no slaver can be more cruel and ruthless.Yet I am moderate in eating. The meals that people devour herealmost revolt me. They eat like cormorants and drink like dryground; but at my table I am careful, save with the bottle. Thisis a land of wonderful fruits, and I eat in quantities pineapple,tamarind, papaw, guava, sweet-sop, star-apple, granadilla, hog-plum,Spanish-gooseberry, and pindal-nut. These are native, but there arealso the orange, lemon, lime, shaddock, melon, fig, pomegranate,cinnamon, and mango, brought chiefly from the Spanish lands of SouthAmerica. The fruit-market here is good, Heaven knows, and I have myrun of it. Perhaps that is why my drink does not fatten me greatly.Yes, I am thin—thinner even than when you saw me last. Howwonderful a day it was! You remember it, I’m sure.We stood on the high hills, you and I, looking to the west. It wasa true Irish day. A little in front of us, in the sky, were greatclusters of clouds, and beyond them, as far as eye could see, werehills so delicately green, so spotted with settlements, so misty andfull of glamour, and so cheerful with the western light. And thestorm broke—do you remember it? It broke, but not on us. It fellon the middle of the prospect before us, and we saw beyond it thebright area of sunny country where men work and prophesy and slave,and pray to the ancient gods and acclaim the saints, and die andfructify the mould; where such as Christopher Dogan live, and men athousand times lower than he. Christopher came to the jail the dayI was released—with Michael Clones he came. He read me my bill oflife’s health—what was to become of me—the black and the white ofit, the good and the bad, the fair and the foul. Even the goodfortune of the treasure from the sea he foresaw, and much else thathas not come to me, and, as I think, will never come; for it is toofull a cup for me so little worthy of it.It seems strange to me that I am as near to the United States herein Jamaica, or almost as near, as one in London is to one in Dublin;and yet one might as well be ten thousand leagues distant for all itmeans to her one loves in the United States. Yes, dear Sheila, Ilove you, and I would tear out the heart of the world for you. Ibathe my whole being in your beauty and your charm. I hunger foryou—to stand beside you, to listen to your voice, to dip my prisonfingers into the pure cauldron of your soul and feel my own soulexpand. I wonder why it is that to-day I feel more than I ever feltbefore the rare splendour of your person.I have always admired you and loved you, always heard you callingme, as if from some sacred corner of a perfect world. Is it thatyesterday’s dissipation—yes, I was drunk yesternight, drunk in anew way. I was drunk with the thought of you, the longing for you.I picked a big handful of roses, and in my mind gave them into yourhands. And I thought you smiled and said:“Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter Paradise.” So Ifollowed you to your home there in the Virginian country. It was adream, all except the roses, and those I laid in front of the boxwhere I keep your letters and a sketch I made of you when we wereyoung and glad—when I was young and glad. For I am an old man,Sheila, in all that makes men old. My step is quick still, my eyeis sharp, and my brain beats fast, but my heart is ancient. I am anancient of days, without hope or pleasure, save what pleasure comesin thinking of one whom I worship, yet must ever worship from afar.I wonder why I seem to feel you very near to-day! Perhaps it’sbecause ‘tis Christmas Day. I am not a religious man but Christmasis a day of memories.Is it because of the past in Ireland? Am I only—God, am I only tobe what I am for the rest of my days, a planter denied the pleasureof home by his own acts! Am I only a helpless fragment of a worldof lost things?I have no friends—but yes, I have. I have Michael Clones andCaptain Ivy, though he’s far away-aye, he’s a friend of friends, isCaptain Ivy. These naval folk have had so much of the world, havegot the bearings of so many seas, that they lose all littleness, andform their own minds. They are not like the people who knew me inIreland—the governor here is one of them—and who believe the worstof me. The governor—faugh, he was made for bigger and betterthings! He is one of the best swordsmen in the world, and he isout against me here as if I was a man of importance, and not acommonplace planter on an obscure river. I have no social homelife, and yet I live in what is called a castle. A Jamaica castlehas none of the marks of antiquity, chivalry, and distinction whichcastles that you and I know in the old land possess.What is my castle like? Well, it is a squarish building, ofbungalow type, set on a hill. It has stories and an attic, with ajutting dormer-window in the front of the roof; and above the loweststory there is a great verandah, on which the livingrooms andbedrooms open. It is commodious, and yet from a broad standpoint itis without style or distinction. It has none of those Corinthianpillars which your homesteads in America have. Yet there is in it asimple elegance. It has no carpets, but a shining mahogany floor,for there are few carpets in this land of heat. It is a place wheremusic and mirth and family voices would be fitting; but there are nofamily voices here, save such as speak with a negro lisp andoracularly.I can hear music at this moment, and inside my castle. It comesfrom the irrepressible throats of my cook and my housemaid, who havemore joy in the language of the plantation than you could have inthe songs of St. Angelus. The only person in this castle out ofspirits is its owner.My castle is embowered in a loose grove of palms and acacias,pimento shrubs, splendid star-apples, and bully-trees, with wildlemon, mahogany, dogwood, Jerusalem-thorn, and the waving plumes ofbamboo canes. There is nothing British in it—nothing at all. Itstands on brick pillars, is reached by a stair of marble slabs, andhas a great piazza on the front. You enter a fine, big hall, dark-you will understand that, though it is not so hot in Virginia, forthe darkness makes for coolness. From the hall the bedrooms openall round. We are not so barbaric here as you might think, for mydining-room, which lies beyond the hall, with jalousies or movableblinds, exposed to all the winds, is comfortable, even ornate.There you shall see waxlights on the table, and finger-glasses withgreen leaves, and fine linen and napkins, and plenty of silver—evensilver wine-coolers, and beakers of fame and beauty, and flowers,flowers everywhere, and fruit of exquisite charm. I have to livein outward seeming as do my neighbours, even to keeping a blackfootman, gorgeously dressed, with bare legs.Here at my window grows a wild aloe, and it is in flower. Once onlyin fifty years does this aloe flower, and I pick its sweet verdurenow and offer it to you. There it lies, beside this letter that Iam writing. It is typical of myself, for only once has my heartflowered, and it will be only once in fifty years. The perfume ofthe flower is like an everlasting bud from the last tree of Time.See, my Sheila, your drunken, reckless lover pulls this sweetoffering from his garden and offers it to you. He has no virtues;and yet he would have been a thousand times worse, if you had notcome into his life. He had in him the seeds of trouble, thesproutings of shame, for even in the first days of his love there inDublin he would not restrain himself. He drank, he played cards, hefought and went with bad company—not women, never that; but he keptthe company of those through whom he came at last to punishment formanslaughter.Yet, without you, who can tell what he might have been? He mighthave fallen so low that not the wealth of ten thousand treasure-boxes could give him even the appearance of honesty. And now heoffers you what you cannot accept—can never accept—a love as deepas the life from which he came; a love that would throttle the worldfor you, that would force the doors of hell to bring you what youwant.What do you want? I know not. Perhaps you have inherited the vastproperty to which you were the heir. If you have, what can you wantthat you have not means to procure? Ah, I have learned one thing,my friend ‘one can get nearly everything with money. It is thehidden machinery which makes the world of success go round. Withbrains, you say? Yes, money and brains, but without the moneybrains seldom win alone. Do not I know? When I was in prison, withestate vanished and home gone and my father in his grave, who wasconcerned about me?Only the humblest of all God’s Irish people; but with them I havesomehow managed to win back lost ground. I am a stronger man than Iwas in all that men count of value in the world. I have an estatewhere I work like any youth who has everything before him. I havenothing before me, yet I shall go on working to the end. Why?Because I have some faculties which are more than bread and butter,and I must give them opportunity.Yet I am not always sane. Sometimes I feel I could march out andsweep into the sea one of the towns that dot the coast of thisisland. I have the bloody thirst, as said the great Spanishconquistador. I would like—yes, sometimes I would like to sweepto a watery grave one of the towns that are a glory to this island,as Savanna la Mar was swept to oblivion in the year 1780 by ahurricane. You can still see the ruins of the town at the bottom ofthe sea—I have sailed over it in what is now the harbour, and therebeneath, on the deep sands, lost to time and trouble, is the slainand tortured town of Savanna la Mar. Was the Master of the Worldangry that day when, with a besom of wind and a tidal wave, He sweptthe place into the sea? Or was it some devil’s work while the Lordof All slept? As the Spanish say, Quien sabe?Then there was that other enormous incident which made a man to beswallowed by an earthquake, then belched out again into the sea andpicked up and restored to life again, and to live for many years.Indeed, yes, it is so. His tombstone may be seen even at this dayat Green Bay, Kingston. His name was Lewis Galdy, and he is held inhigh repute in this land.I feel sometimes as Beelzebub may feel, and I long to do whatBeelzebub might do as part of his mission. Sometimes a madnessof revolt comes over me, and I long to ravage all the places I see,all the people I know—or nearly all. Why I do not have negroesthrashed and mutilated, as some do, I know not. Over against thesouthern shore in the parish of St. Elizabeth is an estate calledSalem, owned, it is said, by an American, where the manager doessuch things. I am told that savageries are found there. Thereare too many absentee owners of land in this island, and the wrongsdone by agents who have no personal honour at stake are all tooplentiful. If I could, I would have no slavery, would set all theblacks free, making full compensation to the owners, and less to theabsentee owners.I look out on a world of summer beauty and of heat. I see the sheepin hundreds on the far hills of pasturage—sheep with short hair,small and sweet as any that ever came from the South Downs. I seethe natives in their Madras handkerchiefs. I see upon the road someplanter in his ketureen—a sort of sedan chair; I see a negrofuneral, with its strange ceremony and its gumbies of African drums.I see yam-fed planters, on their horses, making for the burning,sandy streets of the capital. I see the Scots grass growing fiveand six feet high, food unsurpassed for horses—all the foliage too—beautiful tropical trees and shrubs, and here and there a hugebreeding-farm. Yet I know that out beyond my sight there is theregion known as Trelawney, and Trelawney Town, the headquarters ofthe Maroons, the free negroes—they who fled after the Spanish hadbeen conquered and the British came, and who were later freed andsecured by the Trelawney Treaty. I know that now they are ready torise, that they are working among the slaves; and if they rise thedanger is great to the white population of the island, who areoutnumbered ten to one.The governor has been warned, but he gives no heed, or treats it alllightly, pointing out how few the Maroons are. He forgets that afew determined men can demoralize a whole state, can fight andmurder and fly to dark coverts in the tropical woods, where theycannot be tracked down and destroyed; and, if they have madesupporters of the slaves, what consequences may not follow!What do the Maroons look like? They are ferocious and isolated,they are proud and overbearing, they are horribly cruel, but theyare potent, and are difficult to reach. They are not small andmeagre, but are big, brawny fellows, clothed in wide duck trousersand shirts, and they are well-armed—cutlass, powder-horn,haversack, sling, shot-gun, and pouch for ball. They dress as thecountry requires, and they are strong fighters against our soldierswho are burdened with heavy muskets, and who defy the climate, withtheir stuffed coats, their weighty caps, and their tight cross-belts. The Maroons are not to be despised. They have brains, theinsolence of freedom among natives who are not free, and vastcruelty. They can be mastered and kept in subjection, can be madeallies, if properly handled; but Lord Mallow goes the wrong wayabout it all. He permits things that inflame the Maroons.One thing is clear to me—only by hounds can these people bedefeated. So sure am I upon this point, that I have sent to Cubafor sixty hounds, with which, when the trouble comes—and it is notfar off—we shall be able to hunt the Maroons with the only weaponthey really fear—the dog’s sharp tooth. It may be the governor mayintervene on the arrival of the dogs; but I have made friends withthe provost-marshal-general and some members of the Jamaicalegislature; also I have a friend in the deputy of the provost-marshal-general in my parish of Clarendon here, and I will make agood bet that the dogs will be let come into the island, governoror no governor.When one sets oneself against the Crown one must be sure of one’sground, and fear no foe, however great and high. Well, I have wonso far, and I shall win in the end. Mallow should have some respectfor one that beat him at Phoenix Park with the sword; that beat himwhen he would have me imprisoned here; that beat him in the matterof the ship for Haiti, and that will beat him on every hazard hesets, unless he stoops to underhand acts, which he will not do.That much must be said for him. He plays his part in no small way,and he is more a bigot and a fanatic loyalist than a rogue.Suppose—but no, I will not suppose. I will lay my plans, I willkeep faith with people here who trust me, and who know that if I amstern I am also just, and I will play according to the rules made bybetter men than myself.
But what is this I see? Michael Clones—in his white jean waistcoat, white neckcloth and trousers, and blue coat—is coming up the drive in hot haste, bearing a letter. He rides too hard. He has never carried himself easily in this climate. He treats it as if it was Ireland. He will not protect himself, and, if penalty followed folly, should now be in his grave. I like you, Michael. You are a boon, but—