ames were now bursting forth from every part of the planter's house,
and lighted up the surrounding landscape,--the tall plantains and cotton
and fig-trees, the tangled mass of creepers and their delicate tracery
as they hung from their lofty boughs, the fields of sugar-cane, the
cactus-bushes, and numberless other shrubs, and the grey sombre
mountain-tops beyond. From the way the blacks were running here and
there in dense masses, and the excited shouts I heard, I discovered that
they were in pursuit of some of the late defenders of the house, who,
when too late, were endeavouring to make their escape. Had they closely
followed the captain, they might all, perhaps, have cut their way
through the enemy.

The blacks seemed to consider the captain a perfect Samson, for they
lashed his arms and legs in every way they could think of; and then
making a sort of litter, they put him on it, and carried him along
towards the mountains. They treated me with less ceremony. My first
captors handed me over to four of them, who contented themselves with
merely binding my arms, and driving me before them at the points of
their weapons. Now and then one of them, more vicious than the rest,
would dig the point of his spear into me, to expedite my movement. I
could not help turning round each time with a face expressive, I
daresay, of no little anger or pain, at which his companions all
laughed, as if it were a very good joke. They seemed to do this to
recompense themselves for the loss of the booty they might have supposed
the rest were collecting from the burning house.

We had not proceeded far before we were joined by a large band, carrying
along, bound hand and foot, the survivors among the defenders of the
house. The planter himself, and four or five of his guests, were there,
and seven or eight slaves. From the disappearance of the rest of the
Maroons, I concluded that they had gone off to attack some other
residences.

On we went hour after hour, and when the sun rose, exposed to its
broiling heat, without stopping. The negroes ate as they went along,
but gave us nothing. It would have been a painful journey, at all
events; but when we expected to be tortured and put to death at the end
of it, I found it doubly grievous to be endured. I longed for a dagger,
and that I might find my arms free, to fight my way out from among them.
At last I thought that it would be the best way to appear totally
unconcerned when they