The Good Intent, upon which Harry
Furness with thirty-five other Royalist prisoners
were embarked, was a bark of two hundred tons.
She carried, in addition to the prisoners, sixty soldiers,
who were going out to strengthen the garrison of Barbadoes.
The prisoners were crowded below, and were only allowed
to come on deck in batches of five or six for an hour
at a time. Four of them had died on the way, and
the others were greatly reduced in strength when they
landed. As soon as they reached Bermuda the prisoners
were assigned as slaves to some of the planters most
in favor of the Commonwealth. Four or five were
allotted to each, and Harry having placed Mike next
to him at the end of the line, when they were drawn
up on landing, they were, together with two others
of the soldiers who had defended the tower of Drogheda
with him, assigned to the same master.
“He is an evil-looking scoundrel,”
Harry said to the Irish boy. “He looks
even more sour and hypocritical than do the Puritans
at home. We have had a lesson of what their idea
of mercy and Christianity is when they get the upper
hand. I fear we have a hard time before us, my
lad.”
The four prisoners were marched to
the center of the island, which seemed to Harry to
be, as near as he could tell, about the size of the
Isle of Wight. Their new master rode in front
of them, while behind rode his overseer, with pistols
at his holsters, and a long whip in his hand.
Upon their way they passed several negroes working
in the fields, a sight which mightily astonished Mike,
who had never before seen these black creatures.
At that time the number of negroes in the island was
comparatively small, as the slave trade was then in
its infancy. It was the want of labor which made
the planters so glad to obtain the services of the
white prisoners from England. Many of the slaves
in the island had been kidnaped as boys at the various
ports in England and Scotland, the infamous traffic
being especially carried on in Scotland.
When they reached the plantation the
horsemen alighted in the courtyard of the residence,
and the planter, whose name was Zachariah Stebbings,
told the overseer to take them to the slave quarters.
“You will have,” he said
harshly, “to subdue your pride here, and to
work honestly and hard, or the lash will become acquainted
with your backs.”
“Look you here, Master Stebbings,
if such be your name,” Harry said, “a
word with you at the beginning. We are exiled
to this place, and given into servitude to you through
no crime but that of having fought bravely for his
majesty King Charles. We are men who care not
greatly for our lives, and we four, with seven others,
did, as you may learn, defend the tower of Drogheda
for two days against the whole army of Cromwell, and
did only yield to thirst, and not to force. You
may judge then, of our mettle from that fact.
Now, hark you; having fallen into this strait, we
are willing to conform to our condition, and to give
you fair and honest work to the best of our powers;
but mind you, if one finger be laid on us in anger,
if so much as the end of a whip touch one of us, we
have sworn that we will slay him so ventures, and
you also, should you countenance is, even though afterward
we be burned at the stake for doing it. That
is our bargain; see you that you keep to it.”
So stern and determined were Harry’s
words, so fierce and haughty his tone, that the planter
and his overseer both turned pale and shrank back.
They saw at once the manner of men with whom they had
to deal, and felt that the threat would be carried
out to the fullest. Muttering some inarticulate
reply, the planter turned and entered the house, and
the overseer, with a dogged, crestfallen look, led
the way to the slave quarters. The place assigned
to them was a long hut, the sides lightly constructed
of woven boughs, with a thick thatch overhead.
Along one side extended a long sloping bench, six
feet wide. This was the bed of the slaves.
An hour afterward the other inmates
of the hut entered. They consisted of four white
men who had been kidnaped as boys, and two who had
been apprentices, sent out, as Harry soon learned,
for their share in the rising in the city, which he
had headed. The negroes on the estate, some twenty
in number, were confined in another hut. There
were, besides, four guards, one of whom kept sentry
at night over the hut, while another with a loaded
firearm stood over them while they worked. The
garrison of the island consisted, as Harry had learned
before landing, of two hundred and fifty soldiers,
besides the militia, consisting of the planters, their
overseers and guards, who would number altogether
about five hundred men.
The next day the work in the fields
began. It consisted of hoeing the ground between
the rows of young sugar canes and tobacco plants.
The sun was extremely powerful, and the perspiration
soon flowed in streams from the newcomers. They
worked, however, steadily and well, and in a manner
which gave satisfaction even to their master and his
overseer. Harry had impressed upon his two men
and Mike the importance of doing nothing which could
afford their employer a fair opportunity for complaint.
He would not, Harry felt sure, venture to touch them
after the warning he had given, but he might send
one or all of them back to the town, where they would
be put to work as refractory slaves on the fortifications,
and where their lot would be far harder than it would
be on the plantation. He urged upon them above
all things to have patience; sooner or later the people
of England would, he felt sure, recall the young king,
and then they would be restored to their country.
But even before that some mode of escape, either by
ship, or by raising an insurrection in concert with
the white slaves scattered through the island, might
present itself.
The white slaves and negroes were
kept as far as possible apart during their work in
all the plantations in the island. The whites
were deemed dangerous, and were watched with the greatest
care. The blacks were a light-hearted and merry
race, not altogether discontented with their position,
and the planters did their utmost to prevent the white
slaves having communication with them, and stirring
them up to discontent and rebellion. At the same
time they were not absolutely forbidden to speak.
Each slave had a small plot of ground assigned to him
near the huts, and on these, after the day’s
work was over, they raised vegetables for their own
consumption.
Mike, who, as a lad, was much less
closely watched than the men, soon made friends with
the negroes. He was full of fun and mischief,
and became a prime favorite with them. He learned
that at night, as no watch was kept over them, they
would often steal away and chat with the negroes on
other plantations, and that so long as there were no
signs of discontent, and they did their work cheerfully,
the masters placed no hindrance upon such meetings.
Often at night, indeed, the sound of the negro singing
and music could be heard by the prisoners, the overseers
troubling themselves in no way with the proceedings
of their slaves after nightfall, so long as their
amusements did not interfere with their power of work
next morning. Mike heard also that the treatment
of the slaves, both white and black, varied greatly
on different plantations, according to the nature
of their masters. In some the use of the lash
was almost unknown, the slaves were permitted many
indulgences, and were happy and contented; while in
others they were harshly and cruelly treated.
Mr. Stebbings was considered one of the worst masters
in the island, and, indeed, it was everywhere noticed
that the masters who most conformed to the usages
and talk of the Puritans at home were the most cruel
taskmasters to their slaves. Many times Harry
Furness’ blood boiled when he saw the lash applied
to the bare shoulders of the slaves, often, as it
seemed to him, from pure wantonness on the part of
the overseer. But the latter never once ventured
to touch Harry or his three companions.
Through the negroes Mike learned that
to each of the four plantations adjoining their own
four white prisoners had been assigned, and among
these, Harry found, on obtaining their names, were
the other five soldiers who had fought with him at
Drogheda.
Mike soon took to going out at night
with the negroes, making his way through a small opening
in the light wall of the hut. This was easily
closed up on his return, and by choosing a time when
the sentry was on the other side of the house, he
had no difficulty in leaving or entering unseen.
By means of the negroes he opened up a communication
with the other soldiers, and informed them that Colonel
Furness bade them hold themselves in readiness when
an opportunity for escape should arise. It might
be weeks or even months before this would come, but
the signal would be given by a fire burning at daybreak
upon a hill at no great distance from the plantation.
He bade them use their discretion as to taking any
white slaves with them into their confidence.
At nightfall, after seeing the column of smoke, they
were, as best they could, to make their way from the
huts, and meet in a clump of trees near the house of
Mr. Stebbings.
Harry had, indeed formed no distinct
plan for escape; but he wished, should an opportunity
offer, to have such a body of men at hand as might
stand him in good stead.
One day, about a month after their
arrival on the plantation, the overseer brutally beat
an old negro who was working next to Mike. The
old man resumed his work, but was so feeble that he
in vain endeavored to use his hoe, and the overseer
struck him to the ground with the butt end of his
whip. Mike instinctively dropped his hoe and sprang
to lift the old man to his feet. The infuriated
overseer, enraged at this interference, brought down
his whip on Mike’s head and felled him by the
side of the negro. In an instant Harry sprang
forward, armed with his hoe; the overseer seeing him
coming, retreated a step or two, drew his pistol from
his belt and fired the ball flew close to
Harry’s ear, and the latter, whirling his hoe
round his head, brought it down with his full strength
upon that of the overseer; the man fell in his tracks
as if smitten with lightning. The guard ran up
with his musket pointed, but Harry’s two companions
also advanced, armed with their hoes, and the guard,
seeing that even if he shot one, he should assuredly
be killed by the others, took to his heels and ran
off to the house. A minute later Zachariah Stebbings
with the four guards was seen running up to the spot.
“What is this?” he exclaimed furiously.
“Mutiny?”
“No, Master Stebbings,”
Harry said calmly. “We have, as you know,
worked honestly and well, but your brutal overseer
has broken the agreement we made, and struck this
lad to the ground without any cause. I, of course,
carried out my part of the compact, though I doubt
me the fellow is not killed. His hat is a thick
one, and may have saved his skull. You had best
leave matters alone. I and my three men are a
match for you and your guards, even though they have
guns, and you best know if our services are worth
anything to you.”
The planter hesitated. He was
unwilling indeed to lose four of his best slaves,
and he knew that whether he attacked them now, or whether
he reported the case to the commandant of the island,
he would assuredly do this. After a moment’s
hesitation, he said:
“The fool has brought it on
himself. Do you,” turning to the guards,
“lift him up and carry him to the house, and
let old Dinah see to his head. It is an ugly
cut,” he said, leaning over him, “but will
do him no harm, though it will not add to his beauty.”
The blow had indeed been a tremendous
one, and had it alighted fairly on the top of his
head, would assuredly Lave cleft the skull, in spite
of the protection afforded by the hat. It had,
however, fallen somewhat on one side, and had shorn
off the scalp, ear, and part of the cheek. It
was three weeks before the overseer again resumed his
duty, and he cast such a deadly look at Harry as assured
him that he would have his life when the occasion
offered.
Two days later, when the planter happened
to be in the field with the overseer, two gentlemen
rode from the house, where they had been to inquire
for him. The sobriety of their garments showed
that they belonged to the strictest sect of the Puritans.
“I have ridden hither,”
one said, with a strong nasal twang, “Zachariah
Stebbings, having letters of introduction to you from
the governor. These will tell that I am minded
to purchase an estate in the island. The governor
tells me that maybe you would be disposed to sell,
and that if not, I might see the methods of work and
culture here, and learn from you the name of one disposed
to part with his property.”
At the first words of the speaker
Harry Furness had started, and dropped his hoe; without,
however, looking round, he picked it up and applied
himself to his work.
“I should not be unwilling to
sell,” the planter answered, “for a fair
price, but the profits are good, and are likely to
be better, for I hear that large numbers of malignants,
taken by the sword of the Lord Cromwell at Dundalk
and Waterford in Ireland, will be sent here, and with
more labor to till the fields, our profits will increase.”
“I have heard,” the newcomer
said, “that some of the ungodly followers of
the man Charles have already been sent here.”
“That is so,” the planter
agreed. “I myself, standing well in the
favor of the governor, have received four of them;
that boy, the two men next to him, and that big man
working there. He is a noted malignant, and was
known as Colonel Purness.”
“Truly he is a stalwart knave,” the other
remarked.
“Ay is he,” the planter
said; “but his evil fortune has not as yet altogether
driven out the evil spirit within him. He is a
man of wrath, and the other day he smote nigh to death
my overseer, whose head is, as you see, still bandaged
up.”
“Truly he is a son of Belial,”
the other argued, but in a tone in which a close observer
might have perceived a struggle to keep down laughter.
“I warrant me, you punished him heartily for
such an outbreak.”
“To tell you the truth,”
the planter said, “the man is a good workman,
and like to an ox in his strength. The three others
were by his side, and also withstood me. Had
I laid a complaint before the governor they would
all have been shot, or put on the roads to work, and
I should have lost their labor. My overseer was
in the wrong, and struck one of them first, so ’twas
better to say naught about the matter. And now
will you walk me to the house, where I can open the
letter of the governor, and talk more of the business
you have in hand.”
The instant the man had spoken Harry
had recognized the voice of his old friend Jacob,
and doubted not, though he had not ventured to look
round, that he who accompanied him was William Long;
and he guessed that hearing he had been sent with
the other captives spared at the massacre of Drogheda
to the Bermudas, they had come out to try and
rescue him. So excited was he at the thought
that it was with difficulty he could continue steadily
at his work through the rest of the day. When
at nightfall he was shut up in the hut with his companions,
he told them that the Puritan they had seen was a
friend of his own, a captain in his troop, and that
he doubted not that deliverance was at hand. He
charged Mike at once to creep forth to join the negroes,
and to bid them tell one of their color who served
in the house to take an opportunity to whisper to
one of his master’s guests for he
learned that they were biding there for the night,
“Be in the grove near the house when all are
asleep.” The negroes willingly undertook
the commission, and Mike rejoined the party in the
hut. Two hours later Harry himself crept out
through the hole, which they had silently and at great
pains enlarged for the purpose, and made his way round
to the grove. There were still lights in the
house, and the negroes in their hut were talking and
singing. An hour later the lights were extinguished,
and soon afterward he saw a figure stealthily approaching.
“Jacob,” he whispered,
as the man entered the shelter of the trees, and in
another moment he was clasped in the arms of his faithful
friend. For some time their hearts were too full
to speak, and then Harry leading his companion to
the side of the wood furthest from the house, they
sat down and began to talk. After the first questions
as to the health of Harry’s father had been
answered, Jacob went on:
“We saw by the dispatch of Cromwell
to Parliament that the sole survivors of the sack
of Drogheda, being one officer, Colonel Furness, a
noted malignant, and thirty-five soldiers, had been
sent in slavery to the Bermudas. So, of
course, we made up our minds to come and look after
you. Through Master Fleming I obtained letters,
introducing to the governor the worshipful Grace-be-to-the-Lord
Hobson and Jeremiah Perkins, who desired to buy an
estate in the Bermudas. So hither we came,
William Long and I; and now, Harry, what do you advise
to be done? I find that the ships which leave
the port are searched before they leave, and that
guards are placed over them while they load, to see
that none conceal themselves there, and I see not,
therefore, how you can well escape in that way.
There seem to be no coasting craft here, or we might
seize one of these and make for sea.”
“No,” Harry replied.
“They allow none such in the port, for fear that
they might be so taken. There are large rowing
boats, pulled by twelve slaves, that come to take
produce from the plantations farthest from the port
round to ships there. But it would be madness
to trust ourselves to sea in one of these. We
should either die of hunger and thirst, or be picked
up again by their cruisers. The only way would
be to seize a ship.”
“That is what William Long and
I have been thinking of,” Jacob said. “But
there is a shrewd watch kept up, and the ships are
moored under the guns of the battery. We passed,
on our way hither, a bark bringing a number of prisoners
taken at Waterford. She is a slow sailer, and,
by the calculations of our captain, will not arrive
here for some days yet.”
“If we could intercept her,”
Harry said thoughtfully, “we might, with the
aid of the prisoners, overcome the guard, and then
turning her head, sail for Holland.”
“That might be done,”
Jacob assented, “if you have force enough.”
“I can bring forty men,”
Harry answered. “There are eight here, and
we have communication with those in the neighboring
plantations, who are ready to join me in any enterprise.
That should be enough.”
“It is worth trying,”
Jacob said. “I will hire a rowboat, as if
to bring round a cargo of sugar from this plantation
to the port. I will station a man on the highest
point of the hills to give me notice when a sail is
in sight. He may see it thence forty miles away.
The winds are light and baffling, and she will make
slow progress, and may bring up outside the port that
night, but assuredly will not enter until next morning.
The instant I know it is in sight I will ride over
here, and William Long will start with the barge from
the port. When you see me come, do you send round
word to the others to meet at midnight on the beach,
where you will see the boat drawn up. Can you
let your friends know speedily?”
“Yes,” Harry replied.
“My signal was to have been given at daybreak,
but I will send round word of the change of hour,
and that if, when they are locked up for the night,
they see a fire burning on the point agreed, they
are to meet on the shore at midnight. Tell William
Long to haul the boat up, and let the rowers go to
deep on the shore. We will seize them noiselessly.
Then we will row along the shore till off the port,
and at first daybreak out to the ship if she be at
anchor, or away to meet her if she be not yet come.
They will think that we bear a message from the port.”
After some further discussion of details
the friends separated, and the next day Mike sent
round by the negroes the news of the change of plans.
Two days later Jacob rode up to the plantation.
He had upon the first occasion told Stebbings that
the sum he asked for the estate seemed to him too
high, but that he would return to talk it over with
him, after he had seen other properties. Immediately
upon his arrival, which happened just as the slaves
returned from work, Mike sent off one of the negro
boys, who had already collected a pile of brushwood
on the beacon hill. Half an hour later a bright
flame shone out on its summit.
“I wonder what that means?”
the planter, who was sitting at dinner in his veranda
with Jacob, said angrily.
“It looks like a signal fire,”
Jacob remarked calmly. “I have heard that
they are sometimes lit on the seacoast of England as
a signal to smugglers.”
“There are no smugglers here,”
the planter said, “nor any cause for such a
signal.”
He clapped his hands, and ordered
the black slave who answered to tell the overseer
to take two of the guards, and at once proceed to the
fire, and examine its cause. After dinner was
over the planter went out to the slave huts.
All the white men were sitting or lying in the open
air, enjoying the rest after their labor. The
negroes were singing or working in their garden plots,
The list was called over, and all found to be present.
“I expect,” the planter
said, “that it is only a silly freak of some
of these black fellows to cause uneasiness. It
can mean nothing, for the garrison and militia could
put down any rising without difficulty and there is
no hope of escape. In a week we could search every
possible hiding-place in the island.”
“Yes, that is an advantage which
you have over the planters in Virginia, to which place
I hear our Scottish brethren have sent large numbers
of the malignants. There are great woods stretching
no man knoweth how far inland, and inhabited by fierce
tribes of Indians, among whom those who escape find
refuge.”
That night when all was still Harry
Furness and his seven comrades crept through the opening
in the hut. In the grove they were joined by Jacob.
They then made their way to the seashore, where they
saw lying a large shallop, drawn partly up on the
beach. A man was sitting in her, while many other
dark figures lay stretched on the sand near. Harry
and his party moved in that direction, and found that
the men from two of the other plantations had already
arrived. A few minutes later the other two parties
arrived. The whole body advanced noiselessly along
the shore, and seized and gagged the sleepers without
the least difficulty or noise. These were bound
with ropes from the boat, and laid down one by one
on the sand, at a distance from each other.