The Maroon Part 50

"Ah, papa!" replied the young Creole, evidently unmoved by these promises of pomp and grandeur, "I should not like it at all. I am sure I should not. I never cared for such things--you know I do not. They cannot give happiness--at least, not to me. I should never be happy away from our own home. What pleasure should I have in a great city?

None, I am sure; but quite the contrary. I should miss our grand mountains and woods--our beautiful trees with their gay, perfumed blossoms--our bright-winged birds with their sweet songs! Operas and b.a.l.l.s! I dislike b.a.l.l.s; and to be the belle of one--papa, I detest the word!"

Kate, at that moment, was thinking of the Smythje ball, and its disagreeable souvenirs--perhaps the more disagreeable that, oftener than once, during the night she had heard the phrase "belle of the ball"

applied to one who had aided in the desolation of her heart.

"Oh! you will get over that dislike," returned Mr Vaughan, "once you go into fas.h.i.+onable society. Most young ladies do. There is no harm in b.a.l.l.s--after a girl gets married, and her husband goes with her, to take care of her--no harm whatever. But now, Kate," continued the Custos, betraying a certain degree of nervous impatience, "we must come to an understanding. Mr Smythje is waiting."

"For what is he waiting, papa?"

"Tut! tut! child," said Mr Vaughan, slightly irritated by his daughter's apparent incapacity to comprehend him. "Surely you know!

Have I not as good as told you? Mr Smythje is going to--to offer you his heart and hand; and--and to ask yours in return. That is what he is waiting to do. You will not refuse him?--you cannot: you _must_ not!"

Loftus Vaughan would have spoken more gracefully had he omitted the last phrase. It had the sound of a command, with an implied threat; and, jarring upon the ear of her to whom it was addressed, might have roused a spirit of rebellion. It is just possible that such would have been its effect, had it been spoken on the evening before the Smythje ball, instead of the morning after.

The incidents occurring there had extinguished all hope in the breast of the young Creole that she should ever share happiness with Herbert Vaughan--had, at the same time, destroyed any thought of resistance to the will of her father; and, with a sort of apathetic despair, she submitted herself to the sacrifice which her father had determined she should make.

"I have told you the truth," said she, gazing fixedly in his face, as if to impress him with the idleness of the arguments he had been using. "I cannot give Mr Smythje my heart; I shall tell _him_ the same."

"No--no!" hastily rejoined the importunate parent; "you must do nothing of the kind. Give him your hand; and say nothing about your heart.

That you can bestow afterwards--when you are safe married."

"Never, never!" said the young girl, sighing sadly as she spoke. "I cannot practise that deception. No, father, not even for you. Mr Smythje shall know all; and, if he choose to accept my hand without my heart--"

"Then you promise to give him your hand?" interrupted the Custos, overjoyed at this hypothetical consent.

"It is _you_ who give it; not _I_, father."

"Enough!" cried Mr Vaughan, hastily turning his eyes to the garden, as if to search for the insect-hunter. "I _shall_ give it," continued he, "and this very minute. Mr Smythje!"

Smythje, standing close by the kiosk, on the _qui vive_ of expectation, promptly responded to the summons; and in two seconds of time appeared in the open doorway.

"Mr Smythje--sir!" said the Custos, putting on an air of pompous solemnity befitting the occasion; "you have asked for my daughter's hand in marriage; and, sir, I am happy to inform you that she has consented to your becoming my son-in-law. I am proud of the honour, sir."

Here Mr Vaughan paused to get breath.

"Aw, aw!" stammered Smythje. "This is a gweat happiness--veway gweat, indeed! Quite unexpected!--aw, aw!--I am shure, Miss Vawn, I never dweamt such happiness was in store faw me."

"Now, my children," playfully interrupted the Custos--covering Smythje's embarra.s.sment by the interruption--"I have bestowed you upon one another; and, with my blessing, I leave you to yourselves."

So saying, the gratified father stepped forth from the kiosk; and, wending his way along the walk, disappeared around an angle of the house.

We shall not intrude upon the lovers thus left alone, nor repeat a single word of what pa.s.sed between them.

Suffice it to say, that when Smythje came out of that same kiosk, his air was rather tranquil than triumphant. A portion of the shadow that had been observed upon Kate's countenance seemed to have been transmitted to his.

"Well?" anxiously inquired the intended father-in-law.

"Aw! all wight; betwothed. Yewy stw.a.n.ge, thaw--inexpwicably stw.a.n.ge!"

"How, strange?" demanded Mr Vaughan.

"Aw, vewy mild. I expected haw to go into hystewics. Ba Jawve! naw: she weceived ma declawation as cool as a cuc.u.mbaw!"

She had done more than that; she had given him a hand without a heart.

And Smythje knew it: for Kate Vaughan had kept her promise.

Volume Two, Chapter XIX.

THE DUPPY'S HOLE.

On the flank of the "Mountain" that frowned towards the Happy Valley, and not far from the Jumbe Rock, a spring gushed forth. So copious was it as to merit the name of fountain. In its descent down the slope it was joined by others, and soon became a torrent--leaping from ledge to ledge, and foaming as it followed its onward course.

About half-way between the summit and base of the mountain, a deep longitudinal hollow lay in its track--into which the stream was precipitated, in a clear, curving cascade.

This singular hollow resembled the crater of an extinct volcano--in the circ.u.mstance that on all sides it was surrounded by a precipice facing inward, and rising two hundred feet sheer from the level below. It was not of circular shape, however--as craters generally are--but of the form of a s.h.i.+p, the stream falling in over the p.o.o.p, and afterwards escaping through a narrow cleft at the bow.

Preserving the simile of a s.h.i.+p, it may be stated that the channel ran directly fore and aft, bisecting the bottom of the valley, an area of several acres, into two equal parts--but in consequence of an obstruction at its exit, the stream formed a lagoon, or dam, flooding the whole of the fore-deck, while the main and quarter-decks were covered with a growth of indigenous timber-trees, of appearance primeval.

The water, on leaving the lagoon, made its escape below, through a gorge black and narrow, bounded on each side by the same beetling cliffs that surrounded the valley. At the lower end of this gorge was a second waterfall, where the stream again pitched over a precipice of several hundred feet in height; and thence traversing the slope of the mountain, ended in becoming a tributary of the Montego River.

The upper cascade precipitated itself upon a bed of grim black boulders; through the midst of which the froth-crested water seethed swiftly onward to the lagoon below.

Above these boulders hung continuously a cloud of white vapour, like steam ascending out of some gigantic cauldron.

When the sun was upon that side of the mountain, an iris might be seen s.h.i.+ning amidst the fleece-like vapour. But rare was the eye that beheld this beautiful phenomenon: for the Duppy's Hole--in negro parlance, the appellation of the place--shared the reputation of the Jumbe Rock; and few were the negroes who would have ventured to approach, even to the edge of this cavernous abysm: fewer those who would have dared to descend into it.

Indeed, something more than superst.i.tious terror might have hindered the execution of this last project: since a descent into the Duppy's Hole appeared an impossibility. Down the beetling cliffs that encompa.s.sed it, there was neither path nor pa.s.s--not a ledge on which the foot might have rested with safety. Only at one point--and that where the precipice rose over the lagoon--might a descent have been made: by means of some stunted trees that, rooting in the clefts of the rock, formed a straggling screen up the face of the cliff. At this point an agile individual might possibly have scrambled down; but the dammed water-- dark and deep--would have hindered him from reaching the quarter-deck of this s.h.i.+p-shaped ravine, unless by swimming; and this, the suck of the current towards the gorge below would have rendered a most perilous performance.

It was evident that some one had tempted this peril: for on scrutinising the straggling trees upon the cliff, a sort of stairway could be distinguished--the outstanding stems serving as steps, with the parasitical creepers connecting them together.

Moreover, at certain times, a tiny string of smoke might have been seen ascending out of the Duppy's Hole; which, after curling diffusely over the tops of the tall trees, would dissolve itself, and become invisible.

Only one standing upon the cliff above, and parting the foliage that screened it to its very brink, could have seen this smoke; and, if only superficially observed, it might easily have been mistaken for a stray waif of the fog that floated above the waterfall near which it rose.

Closely scrutinised, however, its blue colour and soft filmy haze rendered it recognisable as the smoke of a wood fire, and one that must have been made by human hands.

Any day might it have been seen, and three times a-day--at morning, noon, and evening--as if the fire had been kindled for the purposes of cooking the three regular meals of breakfast, dinner, and supper.

The diurnal appearance of this smoke proved the presence of a human being within the Duppy's Hole. One, at least, disregarding the superst.i.tious terror attached to the place, had made it his home.

By exploring the valley, other evidences of human presence might have been found. Under the branches of a large tree, standing by the edge of the lagoon, and from which the silvery tillandsia fell in festoons to the surface of the water, a small canoe of rude construction could be seen, a foot or two of its stem protruding from the moss. A piece of twisted withe, attaching it to the tree, told that it had not drifted there by accident, but was moored by some one who meant to return to it.

From the edge of the lagoon to the upper end of the valley, the ground, as already stated, was covered with a thick growth of forest timber-- where the eye of the botanical observer might distinguish, by their forms and foliage, many of those magnificent indigenous trees for which the _sylva_ of Jamaica has long been celebrated.

There stood the gigantic cedrela, and its kindred the b.a.s.t.a.r.d cedar, with elm-like leaves; the mountain mahoe; the "tropic birch;" and the world-known mahogany.

Here and there, the lance-like culms of bamboos might be seen shooting up over the tops of the dicotyledons, or forming a fringe along the cliffs above, intermingled with trumpet-trees, with their singular peltate leaves, and tall tree-ferns, whose delicate lace-like fronds formed a netted tracery against the blue background of the sky. In the rich soil of the valley flourished luxuriantly the n.o.ble cabbage-palm-- the _prince_ of the Jamaica forest--while, by its side, claiming admiration for the ma.s.sive grandeur of its form, stood the _patriarch_ of West-Indian trees--the grand _ceiba_; the h.o.a.ry Spanish moss that drooped from its spreading branches forming an appropriate beard for this venerable giant.

Every tree had its parasites--not a single species, but in hundreds, and of as many grotesque shapes; some twining around the trunks and boughs like huge snakes or cables--some seated upon the limbs or in the forking of the branches; and others hanging suspended from the topmost twigs, like streamers from the rigging of a s.h.i.+p. Many of these, trailing from tree to tree, were loaded with cl.u.s.ters of the most brilliant flowers, thus uniting the forest into one continuous arbour.