nd the dancers rattled or tinkled the woody
seed-cases of the sand-box tree set on long handles and with each of
their lobes painted a separate vivid color; rattles of basketwork; and
calabashes filled with pebbles and shells. All instruments were gay
with floating ribbons. So the lines approached each other by two
steps, receded, advanced, and receded, always in wild cadence to the
signals of voice and instrument; then bowed so low that they
touched--twice--thrice; then pirouetted and resumed the first movement,
and now and then, with two or three turns or bows, clashed their
rattles together in time. As night darkened, the rude lights flared
yellow and red upon the dusky forms bedizened with beads, bangles, and
grotesquer trumpery. Faces, necks, arms reeked and shone in the heat,
ribbons streamed, gross odors arose, the goombay dominated all, and
children of the master race--for even I was permitted to witness these
orgies--without comprehending, stood aghast. Close outside, the
matchless night lay on land and sea; a relieved sense caught ethereal
perfumes and was soothed by the exquisite refinement into whose space
and silence the faint deep voice of the savage drum sobbed one grief
and one prayer alike for slave and master.

The revel always ended with New Year's Day. The next morning broke
silently, and with the rising of the sun the plantation bell or the
conch called the bondman and bondwoman into the cane-fields. Then,
alike in broadest noon or deepest night, a spectral fear hovered
wherever the master sat among his loved ones or rode from place to
place. Not often did the hand of oppression fall upon any slave with
illegal violence, or he or she turn to slaughter or poison the
oppressor; but the slaves were in thousands, the masters were but
hundreds, the laws were cruel; the whipping-post stood among the town's
best houses of commerce, justice, and worship, with the thumbscrews
hard by. As to armed defense, the well-drilled and finely caparisoned
volunteer "troopers" were but a handful, the Danish garrison a mere
squad; the governor was mild and aged, and the two towns were the width
of the island apart.

XXX

(THE RISING CURTAIN)

In that year, 1848, this unrest was much increased. King Christian had
lately proclaimed a gradual emancipation of all slaves in his West
Indian colonies. A squad of soldiers had marched through the streets,
halting at corners and beating a drum--"beating the p