At their head rode "Gin'ral Buddoe," large, powerful, black, in a c.o.c.ked hat with a long white plume. A rusty sword rattled at his horse's flank. As he came opposite my window I saw a white man, alone, step out from the house across the way and silently lift his arms to the mult.i.tude to halt.

They halted. It was the Roman Catholic priest. For a moment they gave attention, then howled, brandished their weapons, and pressed on. Aunt Marcia dropped to her knees and in tears began to pray aloud; but we cried to her that Rachel, a slave woman, was coming, who must not see our alarm. Indeed, both Rachel and Tom had already entered.

"La! Miss Mary Ann, wha' fur you cryin'? Who's goin' tech you?"

Rachel held by its four corners a Madras kerchief full of sugar. "Da what we done come fur, to tell Miss Paula" [grandmamma] "not be frightened."

Tom was off again while grandmamma said: "Rachel, you've been stealing."

"Well, Miss Paula! ain't I gwine hab my sheah w'en dem knock de head'

out dem hogsitt' an' tramp de sugah under dah feet an' mix a whole cisron o' punch?"

Rachel told the events of the night. But as she talked a roar without rose higher and higher, and I, running with Jack to the gate, beheld two smaller mobs coming round a near corner. The foremost was dragging along the ground by ropes a huge object, howling, striking, and hacking at it. The other was doing the same to something smaller tied to a stick of wood, and the air was full of their cries:

"To de sea! Frow it in de sea! You'll nebber hole obbe" [us] "no mo'!

You'll be drownded in de sea-watah!" Their victims were the whipping-post and the thumbscrews.

Tom returned to say: "Dem done to'e up de cote-house and de Jedge's house, an' now dem goin' Bay Street too tear up de sto'es."

Gilbert came up from the fort telling what he had seen. The blacks had tried to scale the ramparts, on one another's shoulders, howling for freedom and defying the garrison to fire. But the commander had not dared without orders from the governor, and his courier had not returned. A leading merchant standing on the fort wall was less discreet: "Take the responsibility! Fire! Every white man on the island will sustain you, and you'll end the whole thing here!"

Upon that word off again up-town had gone the whole black swarm, had sacked the bold merchant's store, and seemed now, by the noises they made, to be sacking others. "I come," Gilbert said, "with an offer of the ship-captains to take the white people aboard the ships."

As he turned away groups of negroes began to dash by laden with all sorts of "prog" [booty] from the wrecked stores. Grandmamma had lain down, my aunts were trying to make up some sort of midday meal, and I was standing alone behind the jalousies, when a ferocious-looking negro rattled them with his bill.

"Lidde gal, gi' me some watah."

"Wait a minute," I said, and left the room. If I hid he might burst in and murder us. So I brought a bowl of water.

"Tankee, lidde missee," he said, returned the bowl, and went away. Tom was thereupon set to guard the gate, which he did poorly. Another negro slipped in and sat down on our steps. He looked around the pretty enclosure, gave a tired grunt, and said:

"Please, missee, lemme res'; I done bruk up." He held in his hands the works of a clock, fell to studying them, and became wholly absorbed.

Rachel asked him who had broken it. He replied:

"Obbe" [our] "Ca'lina. She no like de way it talkin'. She say: 'W'at mek you say, night und day, night und day?' Un' she tuk her bill un'

bruk it up. Un' Georgina chop' up de pianneh, 'caze it wouldn' talk foo her like it talk too buckra. Da shame!"

But now came yells and cheers in the street, the rush and trample of hundreds, and the cry:

"De gub'nor! de gub'nor a-comin'!"

x.x.xII

(FREEDOM AND CONFLAGRATION)

We ran to the windows. In an open carriage, with two official attendants, surrounded by a mounted guard and clad in the uniform of a Danish general, the aged governor came. On his breast were the insignia of the order of Dannebrog. His cavalcade could hardly make its way, and when one of the crowd made bold to seize the horses' reins the equipage, just before our house, stopped. The governor sat still, very pale.

Suddenly he rose, uncovered, and with graceful dignity bowed. Then he unfolded a paper with large seals attached, and in a trembling but clear voice began to read. In the name and by the authority of his Majesty Christian VIII, King of Denmark, he proclaimed freedom to every slave in the Danish West Indies.

Our cries of dismay were drowned in the huzzas of the black mob: "Free!

Free! G.o.d bless de gub'nor! Obbe is free!"

The retinue moved again; but the crowd, ignoring the command to disperse to their homes, surged after it in transports of rejoicing.

At the fort the proclamation, with the order to disperse, was read again. But the mob, suddenly granted all its demands, could not instantly return to quiet toils made odious by slavery. Mad with joy and drink, it broke into small companies, some content to stay in town carousing, others roaming out among the island estates to pillage and burn. Here the governor, in failing to employ prompt measures of police, proved himself weak.

At evening, leaving our house in care of Jack and Tom, we went to spend the night at Mr. Kenyon's, where several neighbors were gathered, under arms. Our way led us by the ruined court-house, where for several squares the ground was completely covered with torn records, books, and other doc.u.ments.

The night wore by in fitful sleep or anxious vigils. Near us all was quiet; but the distant sky was in many places red with incendiary fires. At dawn Mr. Kenyon, Gilbert, and others ventured out, and returned with sad tidings brought by courier from Christiansted. At the signal on Sunday night the negroes had swarmed there by thousands.

Next day, when the governor had just departed for our town, leaving word to do nothing in his absence, they had attacked the fort as they had ours. But its commander, of a st.u.r.dy temper, had opened fire, killing and wounding many. This had only defended the town at the expense of the country, into which thousands scattered to break, pillage, and burn. Yet even so no whites had been killed except two or three men who had opposed the blacks single-handed, although the whole island, outside the two towns, was at the mercy of the insurgents.

However, there was better news. A Danish man-of-war was near by. A schooner was gone to look her up, and another to ask aid in the island of Porto Rico, only seventy miles away and heavily garrisoned with Spaniards. Still it was deemed wise to accept for Fredericksted the offer from the ships and send the women and children on board, so that the military might be free to hold the uprising in check until a stronger force could extinguish it.

"Tom," Mr. Kenyon said, "is to have a boat at the beach to take us off to an American schooner. Pack no trunks. Gather your lightest valuables in small bundles. Be quick; if a crowd gets there before you you may be refused."

We hurried home over a carpet of archives and t.i.tle-deeds, swallowed a sort of breakfast, and began the hard task of choosing the little we could take from the much we must leave, in a dear home that might soon be in ashes.

On the schooner we found a kind welcome, amid a throng of friends and strangers, and a chaos of boxes, bundles, and _trunks_. Children were crying to go home, or viewing with babbling delight the wide roadstead dotted with boats still bringing the fugitives to every anch.o.r.ed vessel. Women were calling farewells and cautions to the men in the returning boats, and meeting friends were telling in many tongues the droll or sad distresses of the hour.

A friend, with his wife and little daughter, gave us a thrilling story.

Except their house-keeper, a young English girl, they three were the only white persons on their beautiful "North End" estate when on Sunday night their slaves came to them in force demanding "freedom papers."

"Not under compulsion, never!"

"Den obbe set eb'ryt'ing on fiah! Wen yo' house bu'n up we try t'ink w'at too do wid you and de missie!" They rushed away to the sugar-works, yelling: "Git baga.s.se foo bu'n him out!"

The household loaded all the firearms in the house, filled all vessels with water, and piled blankets here and there to fight fire. Then they made merry. The wife played her piano till after midnight. Whether moved by this show or not, the blacks failed to return, and next day the family escaped to the schooner.

To grandmamma and the wife of the American consul, the oldest ladies on the vessel, was given, at nightfall, the only sofa on board. The rest dropped asleep on boxes and bundles anywhere. For my couch the boatswain lent me his locker, and for a pillow a bag of something that felt like rope ends, and for three successive mornings I was wakened with:

"Sorry to disturb you, little miss, but I must get to my locker."

x.x.xIII

(AUTHORITY, ORDER, PEACE)

Three days of heat, glare, hubbub, and anxious suspense dragged away, and Thursday's gorgeous sunset brought a change. The Danish frigate, bright with flags and swarming with sailors, swept in, dropped anchor, and wrapped herself in thunder and white smoke. Soon she lowered a boat, a glittering officer took its tiller-ropes, its long oars flashed, and it bore away to the fort. But evening fell, a starry silence reigned, and when a late moon rose we slept.

Next morning we knew that Captain Erminger, of the frigate, had a.s.sumed command over the whole island, declared martial law, landed his marines, and begun operations. Soon the harbor was populous again, with refugees returning home. Tom came with his boat. Just as we started landward a schooner came round the bluffs bringing the Spaniards. At early twilight these landed and marched with much clatter through the vacant streets to the town's various points of entrance, there to mount guard, the Danes having gone to scatter the insurgents.

The pursuing forces, in two bodies, were to move toward each other from opposite ends of the island, spanning it from sea to sea and meeting in the centre, thus entirely breaking up the bands of aimless pillagers into which the insurrection had already dispersed. This took but a few days. Buddoe was almost at once trapped by the baldest flatteries of two leading Danish residents and, finding himself without even the honor of armed capture, betrayed his confederates and disappeared.

Only one small band of blacks made any marked resistance. Under a certain "Moses" they occupied a hill, hurling down stones upon their a.s.sailants, but were soon captured. Many leaders of the revolt were condemned and shot, displaying in most cases a total absence of fort.i.tude.