and by the famous callalou
and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red
groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the
juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating
islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas
crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before
each draft the men lifted their glasses high to right and left and
cried: "Skoal! Skoal!" As the company finally rose, our host and
hostess shook hands with all, these again saluting each other, each two
saying: "Vel be komme"--"May this feast do you good."

There was strange contrast in store for us. Late in the afternoon we
started home. On the way two friends, a lady and her daughter,
persuaded us to turn and take a walk on the north-side road, at the
town's western border. It drew us southward toward "the lagoon," near
to where this water formed a kind of moat behind the fort, and was
spanned by a slight wooden bridge. While we went the sun slowly sank
through a golden light toward the purple sea, among temples, towers,
and altars of cloud.

As we neared this bridge two black men crossing it from opposite ways
stopped and spoke low:

"Yes, me yerry it; dem say sich t'ing' as nebber bin known befo' goin'
be done in West-En' town to-night."

"Well, you look sharp, me frien'----"

Seeing us, they parted abruptly, one troubled, the other pleased and
brisk. Our friends drew back: "What does he mean, mother?"

"Oh, some meeting to make Christmas songs, I suppose."

"I think not," said Aunt Marion. "Let's go back; my mother's alone."

Just then Gilbert, young son of an intimate neighbor, appeared, saying
to the four of us: "I've come to find you and see you home. The
thing's on us. The slaves rise to-night. Some free negroes have
betrayed them. At eight o'clock they, the slaves, are to attack the
town."

Our home was reached first. Grandmamma heard the news calmly. "We're
in God's hands," she said. "Gilbert, will you stop at Mr. Kenyon's"
[another neighbor] "and send Anna and Marcia home?"

Mr. Kenyon came bringing them and begging that we all go and pass the
night with him. But grandmamma thought we had better stay home, and he
went away to propose to the neighborhood that all the women and
children be put into the fort, that the men might be the freer to
defend them.

"Marion," said grandmamma, "let us have supper and prayers."