Mayne Reid - The Maroon

“ Crambo !” exclaimed the hunter, bending forward, and gazing for a moment at the breast of the runaway – on which the letters “J.J.” were conspicuously branded – “with that tattoo on your skin, I don’t wonder you’ve given leg-bail to your master. Poor devil! they’ve tattooed you still more brutally upon the back.”

As he said this – speaking rather to himself than to the wretched creature that knelt before him – the hunter stretched forth his hand, raised the shirt from the shoulders of the runaway, and gazed for a while upon his naked back. The skin was covered with purple wales, crossing each other like the arteries in an anatomic plate!

“God of the Christian!” exclaimed the yellow hunter, with evident indignation at the sight, “if this be your decree, then give me the fetish of my African ancestors. But no,” added he, after a pause, “J.J. is not a Christian – he cares for no God.”

The soliloquy of the hunter was here interrupted by a second speech from the suppliant, spoken in the same unknown tongue.

This time the gesture signified that it was an appeal for protection against some enemy in the rear: for the sympathetic looks of his captor had evidently won the confidence of the fugitive.

“They are after you – no doubt of it,” said the hunter. “Well, let them come – whoever are your pursuers. This time they have lost their chance; and the bounty is mine, not theirs. Poor devil! it goes against my grain to deliver you up; and were it not for the law that binds me, I should scorn their paltry reward. Hark! yonder they come! Dogs, as I’m a man! Yes, it’s the bay of a bloodhound! Those villainous man-hunters of Batabano – I knew old Jessuron had them in his pay. Here, my poor fellow, in here!” and the hunter half-led, half-dragged the fugitive over the carcass of the wild boar, placing him between the buttresses of the ceiba . “Stand close in to the angle,” he continued. “Leave me to guard the front. Here’s your gun; I see it’s loaded. I hope you know how to use it? Don’t fire till you’re sure of hitting! We’ll need both blade and shot to save ourselves from these Spanish dogs, that will make no distinction between you and me. Not they! Crambo ! there they come!”

The words had scarce issued from the speaker’s lips, when two large dogs broke, with a swishing noise, out of the bushes on the opposite side of the glade – evidently running on the trail of the fugitive.

The crimson colour of their muzzles showed that they had been baited with blood – which, darkening as it dried, rendered more conspicuous the white fang-like teeth within their jaws.

They were half-hound, half-mastiff; but ran as true-bred hounds on a fresh trail.

No trail could have been fresher than that of the flogged fugitive; and, in a few seconds after entering the glade, the hounds had got up to the ceiba , in front of the triangular chamber in which stood the runaway and his protector.

These dogs have no instinct of self-preservation – only an instinct to discover and destroy. Without stopping to bark or bay – without even slackening their pace – both dashed onward, bounding into the air as they launched themselves upon the supposed objects of their pursuit.

The first only impaled himself upon the outstretched macheté of the yellow hunter; and as the animal came down to the earth, it was to utter the last howl of his existence.

The other, springing towards the naked fugitive, received the contents of the fowling-piece, and, like the first, rolled lifeless upon the earth.

The spectator in the tree began to fancy that he was dreaming. Within the short space of twenty minutes he had been the witness of a greater number of exciting events than he might have seen, in his own land, during the same number of years!

And yet he had not witnessed the finale of the drama. The gestures of the runaway, and the speeches of his captor, had already warned him that there was another act to come; and, from the attitudes of both, it was evident that this act would be performed on the same stage, without any change of scene.

As yet the young Englishman saw no particular reason why he should cease to be a spectator, and become an actor, in this West Indian drama. That the yellow hunter should kill a wild boar, capture a runaway slave, and afterwards shield both his captive and himself from a brace of bloodhounds, by killing the fierce brutes, was no affair of his. The only thine: that concerned him was the unceremonious use that had been made of his fowling-piece; but it is scarce necessary to say that Herbert Vaughan, had he been asked, would have freely lent the piece for such a purpose.

Nothing, however, had yet transpired to tempt him from a strict neutrality; and, until something should, he determined to preserve the passive attitude he had hitherto held.

Scarce had he come to this determination, when three new actors appeared upon the scene.

One, the foremost, and apparently the leader, was a tall, black-bearded man in a red plush waistcoat, and high-topped horse-skin boots. The other two were lean, lithe-looking fellows in striped shirt and trousers, each wearing broad-brimmed palm-leaf hats that shadowed their sharp Spanish physiognomies.

The bearded man was armed with gun and pistols. The others appeared to be without firearms of any kind; but each carried in his hand a long rapier-like blade, the sheath of which hung dangling from his hip. It was the macheté – the same kind of weapon as that which the yellow hunter had but the moment before so skilfully wielded.

On perceiving the tableau under the tree, the three new comers halted – and with no slight surprise depicted in their looks. The men of Spanish face appeared more especially astonished – indignation mingling with their surprise – when they beheld in that grouping of figures the bodies of their own bloodhounds stretched dead upon the sward!

The bearded man, who, as we have said, appeared to be the leader, was the first to give speech to the sentiment that animated all three.

“What game’s this?” he cried, his face turning purple with rage. “Who are you that has dared to interfere with our pursuit?”

“ Carajo ! he’s killed our dogs?” vociferated one of the Spaniards.

“ Demonios ! you’ll pay for this with your lives!” added the other, raising his macheté in menace.

“And what if I have killed your dogs?” rejoined the yellow hunter, with an air of sang froid , which won the silent applause of the spectator. “What if I have? If I had not killed them , they would have killed me !”

“No,” said one of the Spaniards; “they would not have touched you. Carrambo ! they were too well trained for that – they were after him . Why did you put yourself in the way to protect him? It’s no business of yours.”

“There, my worthy friend, you are mistaken,” replied he in the toque , with a significant sneer. “It is my business to protect him – my interest too: since he is my captive.”

“ Your captive!” exclaimed one of the men, with a glance of concern.

“Certainly, he is my captive; and it was my interest not to let the dogs destroy him. Dead, I should only have got two pounds currency for his head. Living, he is worth twice that, and mileage money to boot; though I’m sorry to see by the ‘J.J.’ on his breast that the mileage money won’t amount to much. Now, what more have you to say, my worthy gentlemen?”

“Only this,” cried the man with the black beard; “that we listen to no such nonsense as that there. Whoever you may be, I don’t care. I suspect who you are; but that don’t hinder me from telling you, you’ve no business to meddle in this affair. This runaway slave belongs to Jacob Jessuron. I’m his overseer. He’s been taken on Jessuron’s own ground: therefore you can’t claim the captive, nor yet the bounty. So you’ll have to give him up to us .”