Chapter VII: The Devil's Gully (2)

Twig shouted, "There--that's your share of the joke, Felix--there goes your patent portmanteau with the Bramah lock--see if the very brimstones in which you gloried be not streaming like a commodore's broad pennant from the top of the orange tree. The green silk night-cap on the prickly pear--and the shirts and the vests, and the real bandanas--ha, ha, ha!"

"Ay, ay," shouted Flamingo, who had dismounted and was endeavouring to catch the mule as she careered through the wood towards the sea, kicking and flinging in a vain attempt to disentangle herself from the other portmanteau, which had now turned under her belly, and the sumpter-saddle that hung at her side; "and there goes your kit, Jacob, an offering to Neptune bodily, mule and all"--as the poor beast dashed into the surf, after having threaded through the stems of the trees without farther damage.

The cause of all this was no longer a mystery, for I had made my guess already; but presently I was enlightened, if need had been, by friend Quacco. He had, it appeared, with Mr Twig's sanction, charged certain of the pieces of patent tobacco in the _spleuchan_ with several small quantities of detonating powder, enclosed in the glass-brittle seeds of the sand-box, as a trap for Master Twister, who was suspected of making free with it--the issue, so far as he was concerned, has been seen; but in the hurry of coming away and packing up, instead of placing the bottle containing the powder in Mr Flamingo's gun-case, where it should have been, he hurriedly dropped it into his portmanteau, as Twister was packing it; so that when the sumpter mule jambed between the trunks of the trees after it took fright it exploded and blew up.

"I say, Massa Twister, you never make free with my patent tobacco?"

"Oh, oh, oh!" roared poor Twister, holding his jaws with both hands--"Oh, massa, my tongue blow out--my palate blow down--de roof of my mouse blow up--and all my teets blow clean gan--Oh no, massa, never, never will touch him no more, massa--never, never no more."

"I'll answer for it you don't, my boy," quoth Jacob.

After picking up the fugitive and clambered garments as well as we could, we travelled onwards for about two miles, when we struck inland, and as the night fell entered a dark tree-shaded ravine, with a brawling brook rushing through the bottom, up which we threaded our way by a narrow road scarped out of the red earth of the hill side.

"Now, Mr Brail, give your horse the rein--let him pick his own steps, if you please; for the road is cruelly cut up by the weather and waggons hereabouts, and none of the widest either, as you may _feel_, for you can't see it."

I took his advice, and soon found the advantage of it, as we came to several groups of negroes sitting invariably on the inner side of the road, which I would certainly have been tempted to avoid at my own peril; but my horse was not so scrupulous, for he always poked his nose between them and the bank, and snorted and nuzzled until they rose and shuffled out of our way, either by creeping to the side next the ravine, or up on the bank; presently the road widened, and we got along more comfortably.

I could not but admire the thousands and tens of thousands of fire-flies that spangled the gulf below us, in a tiny galaxy; they did not twinkle promiscuously, but seemed to emit their small green lights by signal, beginning at the head of the ravine, and glancing all the way down in a wavy continuous lambent flash, every individual fly, as it were, taking the time from his neighbour ahead. Then for a moment all would be dark again, until the stream of sparkles flowed down once more from the head of the valley, and again disappeared astern of us; while the usual West India concert of lizards, beetles, crickets, and tree toads, filled the dull ear of night with their sleepy monotony.

The night soon began to be heavily overcast, and as we entered below some high wood the darkness would have become palpable, had it not been for the fire-flies,--even darkness which might have been felt.

"I must heave to until I get my bat's eyes shipped, Mr Twig," said I--"I can't see an inch before my nose."

"Then send Flamingo ahead, my dear fellow, for if he sees the _length_ of _his_ we shall do--his proboscis is long enough to give us warning of any impediment."

"What a clear glowworm-coloured light some of these insects do give," quoth I: "See that one creeping up the handle of my whip--it comes along with its two tiny burners, like the lights in a distant carriage rolling towards you."

"Come, you must get on, though, since we have not room to pass--no time to study natural philosophy," said Twig; and I once more fanned my horse into a gentle trot, with very much the sensation of one running through an unknown sound in the night, without either chart or pilot.

After a little, I saw a cluster of _red_ fire-flies, as I thought, before us. "Oh, come along, I see now famously."

"Oh massa, massa!"--Crack!--I had got entangled with a string of mules going to fetch a last turn of canes from the field; the red sparks that I had seen ahead having proceeded from the pipes in the mouths of the drivers. However there was no great damage done.

The rain now began to descend in torrents, with a roar like a cataract.--"What uncommonly pleasant weather," thought I. "Why, Mr Twig, you see I am a bad pilot--so, do you think you have room to pass me now? for, to say the truth, I don't think I can see a yard of the road, and you know I am an utter stranger here."

He could not pass, however, and at length I had to set Master Teemoty to lead the horse. Presently I heard a splash.

"Hilloa, cousin Teemoty! where have you got to?"

"De Fairywell no tell lie, massa--De Devil's Golly,[1] dat has been dry like one bone for tree mont, hab _come down_, massa--dat all."

[1] Gully--ravine or river course.

"Come _down_," said I; "I wish it had stayed _up_!"

"Ah!" said Twig,--"and we are to sleep here in the cold and damp, I suppose--the fellow's a fool, and must have got off the path into some puddle. We are a mile from the gully--let me see"--and before you could have turned, Massa Jacob was splashing up to the knees alongside of Massa Teemoty. However, he was right--it was only a streamlet--and we got across without much difficulty; but in ten minutes the roar of a large torrent, heard hoarse and loud above the sound of the rain, gave convincing proof that we were at length approaching the gully--moreover, that it was down, and that with a vengeance. We now found ourselves amongst a group of negroes, who had also been stopped by the swollen stream. There was a loud thundering noise above us on the left hand, which (we had now all alighted) absolutely shook the solid earth under our feet, as if in that direction the waters had been pitched from the mountain side headlong over a precipice. From the same quarter, although quite calm otherwise, a strong cold wind gushed in eddies and sudden gusts, as if from a nook or valley in the hill-side, charged with a thick, wetting spray, that we could feel curling and boiling about us, sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker, like the undulations of a London fog. Close to our feet we could hear the river tearing past us, with a great rushing and gurgling, occasionally intermingled with the rasping and crashing of trees and floating spars, as they were dashed along on the gushes and swirls of the stream; while every now and then the _warm_ water (for so it felt in contrast with the cold damp night-breeze) surged a foot or two beyond its usual level, so as to cover us to the ankle, and make us start back; and immediately ebb again. It was some time, amidst this "groan of rock and roar of stream" before we could make out any thing that the negroes about us said.

"Hillo," cried Twig--to be heard by each other we had to shout as loud as we could--"hillo, friend Felix, here's a coil--what shall we do--sleep here, eh?"

"We shall sleep soft, then," roared his friend in reply.

"As how, my lord?"

"Why, you may have mud of all consistencies, and of any depth."

"True, _water_ beds are all the fashion now, and possibly _mud_ ones might be an improvement; but had we not better try back," I continued, as I really began to think it no joke remaining where we were all night.

"A good idea," said Twig.

"About ship, then," quoth Flamingo.

"Wery good plan, wery good plan," shouted Cousin Teemoty; "but"----

"But, but, but--oh, confound your _buts_," roared Twig; "_but what_, sir?"

"Oh," said Tim, whose dignity was a little hurt, "noting, noting--no reason why massa should not return--only Carrion-crow gully dat we lef behind, will, by dis time, be twenty time more _down_ as dis, _dat all_."

"And so it will--the boy is right," rejoined Jacob; "What is to be done? Stop--I see, I see."

"The deuce you do! then you have good eyes," quoth Felix.

"I say, Flamingo, pick me up a stone that I can sling, and hold your tongue; do, that's a good fellow."

"Sling? where is the Goliah you mean to attack?"

"Never you mind, Flam, but pick me up a stone that I can tie a string to, will ye?--There, you absurd creature, you have given me one as round and smooth as a cricket ball; how can I fasten a string round _it_?--give me a longish one, man--one shaped like a kidney-potato or your own nose, you blundering good-for-nothing--ah, that will do. Now, some string, boys--string."

Every negro carries a string of one kind or another with him in the crown of his hat, and three or four black paws were in an instant groping for Jacob Twig's hand in the dark with pieces of twine.

"Hillo, what is that?" as an auxiliary-current, more than ankle deep, began to flow down the road with a loud ripple from behind us, thus threatening to cut off our retreat--"Mind we are not in a scrape here!" cried I.

"If we be, we can't better it," shouted Twig--"Here, gentlemen, give me your cards, will ye?'

"Cards--cards!" ejaculated Flamingo and I in a breath.

"Yes--your calling-cards; do grope for them--make haste."

He got the cards, and all was silent except the turmoil of the elements for a few seconds. At length, in a temporary lull of the rain, I thought I heard the shout of a human voice from the opposite bank, blending with the roar of the stream.

"Ay, ay," cried Jacob--"there, don't you hear people on the other side?--so here goes."

"Hillo, who the deuce has knocked off my hat?" cried Flamingo.

"Why don't you stand on one side then, or get yourself shortened by the knees? such a steeple is always in the way," bawled Twig. "Leave me scope to make my cast now, will ye--don't you _see_ I want to throw the stone with the cards across amongst the people on the opposite bank--There," and he made another cast--"ah, I have caught a fish this time--more string, Teemoty--more string--or they will drag it out of my hand. Now some one has got a precious pelt on the skull with the kidney potato, Felix, as I am a gentleman; but he understands us, whoever he may be that has got hold of it--feel here--how he jerks the string without hauling on it--wait--wait!"

Presently the line was let go at the opposite side, and our friend hauled it in--it had been cut short off, and instead of the stone and cards, a negro clasp knife was now attached to it.

"There--didn't I tell you--there's a barbarian telegraph for you--there's a new invented code of signals--now you shall see how my scheme will work," cried Jacob. However, near a quarter of an hour elapsed without any thing particular occurring, during which time, we distinctly heard shouting on the other side, as if to attract our attention, but we could not make out what was said.

At length we observed a red spark, glancing and disappearing like a will-o'-the-wisp as it zigzagged amongst the dark bushes, down the hill side above. Presently we lost sight of it and all was dark again. However, just as I began to lose all hope of the success of Massa Twig's device, the light again appeared coming steadily down the road opposite us. It approached the impassable ford, and we now saw that it was a lantern carried by a negro, who was lighting the steps of a short squat figure of a man, dressed in a fustian coatee and nankeen trowsers, with an umbrella over his head. "I've caught my fish--I've caught my fish--Rory Macgregor himself, or I am a baboon," shouted Twig, as the party he spoke of came down to the water's edge, and, holding up the lantern above his head, peered across the gully with outstretched neck, apparently in a vain attempt to make us out.

By the light we saw a whole crowd of poor, drenched, stormstaid devils, in their blue pennistone greatcoats, shivering on the opposite bank. The white man appeared to be giving them instructions, as two of them immediately disappeared up the hill-side, whence he had descended; while several of the others entered a watchman's hut that we could observe close to the waterside, and fetched some wood and dry branches from it, with which they began to kindle a fire under a projecting cliff, which soon burned up brightly, and showed us whereabouts we were.

The scene was striking enough. A quantity of dry splinters of some kind of resinous wood being heaped on the fire, it now blazed up brilliantly in massive tongues of flame, that glanced as they twined up the fissures, scorching the lichens into sudden blackness, and licking, like fiery serpents, the tortuous fretwork of naked roots depending from the trees that grew on the verge of the bank above, which spread like a net over the face of the bald grey rock; and lighting up the fringe of dry fibres depending from the narrow eave of red earth that projected over the brink of the precipice, under which the bank appeared white and dusty, but lower down, where wet by the beating of the rain, it was red, and glittering with pebbles, as if it had been the wall of a salt mine in Cheshire.

The bright glare, and luminous smoke of the fire, in which a number of birds, frightened from their perches, glanced about like sparks, blasted the figures of such of the negroes as stood beyond it into the appearance of demons--little Rory Macgregor looking, to use his own phrase, like _the deil himsell_, while those of them who intervened between us and the fire seemed magnified into giants--their dark bodies edged with red flame; while every tree, and stock, and stone appeared as if half bronze and half red-hot iron--a shadock growing close by, looked as if hung with clusters of red-hot cannon balls.

Our own party was very noticeable. I was leaning on the neck of my gig-horse, with his eyes glancing, and the brazen ornaments of his harness flashing like burnished gold. Abreast of me were Massas Twig, Flamingo, and Cosin Teemoty, wet as _muck_, and quite as steamy, to use a genteel phrase, with our cold drenched physiognomies thrust into the light, and the sparkling rain-drops hanging at our noses; Jacob's glazed hat glancing as if his caput had been covered with a glass porringer; while the group of mounted negroes and led horses in the background, with the animals pawing and splashing in the red stream that ran rippling and twinkling down the road, and the steam of our rapid travelling rising up like smoke above them, gave one a very lively idea of a cavalry picquet on the _qui vive_.

On our larboard hand the mountain ascended precipitously, in all the glory of magnificent trees, sparkling with diamond water-drops, stupendous rocks, and all that sort of thing; with the swollen waters thundering and chafing, and foaming down a dark deep cleft over a ledge of stone about thirty feet high, in a solid mass, which in the descent took a spiral turn, as if it had been ejected from a tortuous channel above, and then sending up a thick mist, that rose boiling amongst the dark trees. From the foot of this fall the torrent roared along its overflowing channel in whirling eddies that sparkled in the firelight, towards where we stood; the red stream appearing, by some deception of the sight, to be convex, or higher in the middle than the sides, and semifluid, as if composed of earth and water; while trees, and branches, and rolling stones were launched and trundled along as if borne on a lava stream.

As we looked, the bodies of two bullocks and a mule came past, rolling over and over, legs, tails, and heads, in much admired confusion.

On the starboard hand the ravine sunk down as dark as Erebus; and now the weather clearing, disclosed in that direction, through storm-rents of the heavy clouds, shreds of translucent blue sky, sparkling with bright stars; and lo! the fair moon once more!--her cold, pale-green light struggling with the hot red glare of the fire, as she reposed on the fleecy edge of that dark----

"Confound it, what's that--what's that, Mr Twig?"

"An owl, Master Brail--an owl which the light has dazzled, and that has flown against your head by mistake--but catch, man--catch"--as he sprang into the water up to the knees to secure my hat, that the bird of Minerva had knocked off--and be hanged to it. "An owl may be a wise bird, but it is a deuced blind one to bounce against your head as unceremoniously as if it had been a pumpkin or a calabash."

Little Rory Macgregor had all this time remained at the edge of the stream, squatted on his hams like a large bull-frog, and apparently, if we could judge from his action, shouting at the top of his voice; but it was all dumb show to us, or very nearly so, as we could not make out one word that he said.

Flamingo confronted him, assuming the same attitude. "See how he has doubled up his long legs--there, now--said the grasshopper to the frog," quoth Twig to me. Here friend Felix made most energetic signs, a-la Grimaldi, that he wanted some food and drink.

Rory nodded promptly, as much as to say, "I understand you;" indeed it appeared that he had taken the hint before, for the two men that we had seen ascend the mountain-road, now returned; one carrying a joint of roast meat and a roast fowl, and the other with a bottle in each hand.

The puzzle now was, "how were the good things to be had across?" but my friends seemed up to every emergency. In a moment Flamingo had ascended a scathed stump that projected a good way over the gully, with Twig's string and stone in his hand; the latter enabling him to pitch the line at Rory's feet, who immediately made the joint of meat fast, which Don Felix swung across, and untying it, chucked it down to us who stood below; the fowl, and the rum, and the bottle of lemonade, or beverage, as it is called in Jamaica, were secured in like manner.

"So," said our ally, "we shan't starve for want of food, anyhow, whatever we may do of cold." But we were nearer being released than we thought; for suddenly, as if from the giving way of some obstruction below that had dammed up the water in the gully, it ebbed nearly two feet, of which we promptly availed ourselves to pass over to the other side of the Devil's Gully. But, notwithstanding, this was a work of no small difficulty, and even considerable danger. Being safely landed, and having thanked Mr Macgregor, who owned a very fine coffee property in the neighbourhood, for his kindness, we mounted our vehicles once more, and drove rapidly out of the defile, now lit by the moon, and in a quarter of an hour found ourselves amongst the _Works_; that is, in the very centre of the mill-yard of Ballywindle.