At an hour after midnight a black man came quietly to my bedside. “It is time, Captain. You will have coffee?”
It was waiting for me in a small, pleasant room, a slice of melon, a thick piece of bread, and some cold meat. I ate, drank the coffee, and the black man led me down a narrow passage. “The slaves’ quarters,” he said apologetically. “We will not be noticed this way.”
“You have spoken to Henry?”
He glanced at me. He was a tall man, quite thin, with graying hair. “I have not,” he said quietly. “You have helped the mistress. It is enough.”
He paused a moment. “She is very good to us,” he added simply.
In the shadow of a stable a black horse waited, restive, eager to be off and away. He was saddled and bridled, and two horse pistols were in scabbards on either side of the saddle.
The black man pointed the road for me. “There is no safety anywhere,” he said quietly, “but you do not seem a man who is used to safety. Ride well.”
He turned away and walked to the house, not looking back. For a moment I waited, shadowed by the black bulk of the stable. There was no sound in the night Inside the stable a horse stamped restlessly; I turned the black and rode past the corral and at the roadside paused, listening to the night
It was very hot and still. Frogs talked in a pond somewhere not far away, and there were countless small noises, made by creatures unknown to me.
Walking the black into the trail, I started for Santiago de la Vega, some distance away. My right hand touched a pistol, loosening it in the holster. Before we reached town, I should have need of it. This was not simply something I supposed. I knew it.
CHAPTER XV
The narrow road was a dim path through dark jungle broken here and there by open country turned from jungle to planting or grazing. The moon was rising, still unseen. The rail fences at some places took on a skeletonlike appearance.
A night hawk or some such creature flitted by overhead. Aside from the vague night noises there was no sound but the clop-clop of my horse’s hoofs. Uneasily I kept turning in my saddle to look back, and my eyes searched ahead for a warning of any attack.
The jungle walled in the road on either side, no tree distinguishable from another. At last we cleared the jungle, and open fields lay on each side, all white and gray in the moonlight, yet I could not relax. Long ago I had learned the most innocent-seeming places were often the worst. My horse’s ears pricked, and he broke stride a bit, then continued on. I drew both pistols and hoped my mount was familiar with shooting from the saddle.
At least he had warned me. They came suddenly from a bend in the road, one that scarcely seemed to be there, and some low-lying brush. But my horse had warned me in tune, and as the first man came off the ground, I shot him.
He loomed up just at the right place for me, and I shot into his chest at no more than twenty feet. The heavy slug knocked him back, and I dropped the gun into the scabbard, swinging my horse sharply away and clapping my heels to his flanks. He was a good horse, and he leaped away in fine style. From behind me a gun bellowed, and something whisked past my skull. Turning in the saddle, I held the other pistol for a moment, looking down the barrel at a looming figure in the trail behind me.
When I actually squeezed off the shot, I knew not, but the big pistol leaped in my hands with an angry bellow, and the man missed a step and fell. Then I was away and holstering that gun.
How many there had been, I could not guess, but I surmised at least four. They had expected a complete surprise, but I was too much the wilderness man not to trust to my horse, and a good one he was, so I had been warned in time.
He seemed eager to run, so I let him have his head, and we went down the road at a good pace, the wind in my face and with the comforting knowledge that my two pistols were still loaded and ready if trouble came again.
After a bit I slowed to a canter, then a walk, then a canter again to let my horse have his tune in cooling down. There was no sign of pursuit, so they were not mounted men. When light was gray in the eastern sky, I saw the first of the outlying huts that preceded Santiago de la Vega.
Riding by the King’s House and turning into an open, paved court, I stepped down before a small inn whose sign invited travelers. A black boy took my horse, and I tipped him a shilling and suggested he feed and water the black.
” ‘Tis the horse of Master Legare,” he said. “I know him well, and he knows me.”
It was spacious and cool inside, evidently an older house, and there were several bare tables about, and a man came along to the table where I sat and brought a tankard of rum.
“Very well,” I said, “but it is food I want, and the best. But not,” I added, “too heavy.” For I had seen that these Spanish men and what Frenchmen there were around ate too heavily for the climate. My father had learned this from Sakim, that to remain cool it is better not to eat too much meat and food of richness.
He brought me some slices of cold meat then and some boiled eggs as well as slices of melon and plantain. I only tasted the rum, and it was not bad, but strong for my taste and too heady for a man in my position. From here on I must have my head about me, for whatever had been done until now showed little evidence of the fine hand of either Pittingel or Bauer. They had been clumsy efforts at assassination and ambush, but now they would know better, and their efforts would be more devious.
Nonetheless, all I wished for now was to have the business completed and be on my way back to Carolina and my own mountains. The air was heavy, hot and still, with a suggestion of storm. Mopping the perspiration from my face, I looked out the window.
Had I visited here at any other time, I was sure I would have enjoyed this island of Jamaica, but there was no time to see more than the lush beauty of the place and some of the people. There was only time to think of keeping alive while I tried to end the trade that was ruining the lives of innocent girls. Slavery itself must end, although it was worldwide. At this time many Europeans were enslaved in North Africa and elsewhere. Africans were enslaved here, and slavery of one kind or another existed over much of the world. Even the poor of Europe lived lives but little different from those of slaves, and in many cases they were worse off. Slaves were at least fed and clothed by their masters, and the poor of Europe had no such care.
Finishing my meal and still alone in the room, I took time to recharge the saddle pistols that I had carried into the room in their scabbards, no unusual thing for travelers in that day and time.
The proprietor came in, glanced at the pistols. “You are a friend to Master Legare?”
“I am.”
His manner warmed visibly. He was a stout man with a round, pinkish face and a fringe of red hair. “A good man,” he said, “and a shrewd one, although his quiet manner leads some to misunderstand him.”
“You know the pistols?”
He smiled. “And the horse. I saw you ride up.” He glanced meaningly at the pistols. “There has been trouble?”
“The roads are unsafe everywhere,” I commented. “It was nothing.”
“There have been strangers about,” he advised, “some of that scum from Port Royal, I think. You had best be on your guard.”
“Aye,” I got to my feet. “I shall be ready.”
It was but six miles from Santiago de la Vega to the little cluster of huts and a fort that stood at the mouth of the Rio Cobre. “Leave the horse and the pistols with Senor Sandoval if you wish to ride there,” the innkeeper advised. “I shall see them returned.”
Dropping the guns into their scabbards, I mounted and turned the black horse down the trail toward Rio Cobre. Black people passed me, great bundles or baskets on their heads; most of them gave me greeting in their quiet voices. Several obviously knew the horse, and they looked from him to me, knowing I was a friend of Legare.