Part 2

The men were now thoroughly inflamed with the hot new rum, and more than one of them began to cry aloud: ‘It time to get to de reg’lar business.’ But a few still lingered lovingly around the dripping hogshead, catching double handfuls of the fresh spirit in their capacious palms. Presently, one of the women, mad with drink, drew out a short pipe from her filthy pocket and began to fill it to the top with raw tobacco. As she did so, she turned tipsily to a man by her side and asked him for a light. The fellow took a match in his unsteady fingers and struck it on a wooden post, flinging it away when done with among a few small scraps of dry trash that lay by accident upon the ground close by. Trash is the desiccated refuse of cane from which the juice has been already extracted, and it is ordinarily used as a convenient fuel to feed the crushing-mills and boil the molasses. Dry as tinder, it lighted up with a flare instantaneously, and raised a crackling blaze, whose ruddy glow pleased and delighted the childish minds of the half-drunken negroes. ‘How him burn!’ the woman with the pipe cried excitedly. ‘Sposin’ we set fire to de trash-house! My heart, how him blaze den! Him light up all de mountains! Burn de trash-house! Burn de trash-house! Dat pretty for true! Burn de trash-house!’

Quick as lightning, the tipsiest rioters had idly kicked the burning ends of loose trash among the great stacked heaps of dry cane under the big sheds; and in one second, before Delgado could even strive in vain to exert his feeble authority, the whole mass had flashed into a single huge sheet of flame, rising fiercely into the evening sky, and reddening with its glow the peaks around, like the lurid glare of a huge volcano. As the flames darted higher and ever higher, licking up the leaves and stalks as they went, the negroes, now fairly loosed from all restraint, leaped and shrieked wildly around them—some of them half-drunk, others absolutely reeling, and all laughing loud with hideous, wild, unearthly laughter, in their murderous merriment. Delgado alone saw with horror that his great scheme of liberation was being fast rendered ultimately hopeless, and could only now concentrate his attention upon his minor plan of personal vengeance against the Dupuy family. Port-of-Spain would be fairly roused by the blaze in half an hour, but at least there was time to murder outright the one offending Orange Grove household.

For a few minutes, helpless and resourceless, he allowed the half-tipsy excited creatures to dance madly around the flaring fire, and to leap and gesticulate with African ferocity in the red glare of the rapidly burning trash-house. ‘Let dem wear out de rum,’ he cried bitterly to Pourtalès. ‘But in a minute, de Dupuys gwine to be down upon us wit de constables an’ de soldiers, if dem doan’t make haste to kill dem beforehand.’

Soon the drunken rioters themselves began to remember that burning trash-houses and stealing rum were not the only form of amusement they had proposed to themselves for that evening’s entertainment. ‘Kill de buckra!—kill de buckra!’ more than one of them now yelled out fiercely at the top of his voice, brandishing his cutlass. ‘Buckra country for us! Colour for colour! Kill dem all! Kill de buckra!’

Delgado seized at once upon the slender opportunity. ‘Me fren’s,’ he shrieked aloud, raising his palms once more imploringly to heaven, ‘kill dem, kill dem! Follow me! Hallelujah! I gwine to lead you to kill de buckra!’

Most of the negroes, recalled to duty by the old African’s angry voice, now fell once more into their rude marching order; but one or two of them, and those the tipsiest, began to turn back wistfully in the direction of the little pool of new rum that lay sparkling in the glare like molten gold in front of the still running hogshead. Louis Delgado looked at them with the fierce contempt of a strong mind for such incomprehensible vacillating weakness. Wrenching his pistol once more from the tipsy grasp of the man who had first seized it, he pointed it in a threatening attitude at the head of the foremost negro among the recalcitrant drunkards. ‘Dis time I tellin’ you true,’ he cried fiercely, in a tone of unmistakable wrath and firmness. ‘De first man dat take a single step nearer dat liquor, I blow his brains out!’

Reckless with drink, and unable to believe in his leader’s firmness, the foremost man took a step or two, laughing a drunken laugh meanwhile, in the forbidden direction, and then turned round again, grinning like a baboon, toward Louis Delgado.

He had better have trifled with an angry tiger. The fierce old African did not hesitate or falter for a single second; pulling the trigger, he fired straight at the grinning face of the drunken renegade, killing him instantaneously. He fell like a log in the pool of new rum, and reddened the stream even as they looked with the quick crimson flow.

Delgado himself hardly paused a second to glance contemptuously at the fallen recalcitrant. ‘Now, me fren’s,’ he cried firmly, kicking the corpse in his wrath, and with his eye twitching in a terrible fashion, ‘whoebber else disobeys orders, I gwine to shoot him dead dat very minute, same as I shoot dat good-for-nuffin disobedient naygur dar! We has got to kill de buckra to-night, an’ ebbery man ob you must follow me now to kill dem ’mediately. De Lard delibber dem into our hand! Follow me, an’ colour for colour!’

At the word, the last recalcitrants, awed into sobriety for the moment by the sudden and ghastly death of their companion, turned trembling to their place in the rude ranks, and began once more to march on in serried order after Louis Delgado. And with one voice, the tumultuous rabble, putting itself again in rapid motion towards Orange Grove, shrieked aloud once more the terrible watchwords: ‘Colour for colour! Kill de buckra!’

VISITS TO THE ZOO.

THE LION-HOUSE.

We are glad to observe that in spite of the general depression in trade and agriculture, and the many counter-attractions for pleasure-seekers which have sprung up in and around London in recent years, the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park, still maintain their popularity with the British public. On Easter-Monday, no fewer than thirty-one thousand visitors paid at the gates; thus clearly proving that the love of natural history is not dying out among us. An expedition to the Zoo is always the more pleasant when we are accompanied by the young, eager to compare the Jumbos and tigers of their Noah’s Ark and picture-book with the living realities to be seen in the Society’s collection. But there are others besides our children who may gain a useful knowledge in natural history by a stroll through the Zoological Gardens; and one hopes for a still more profitable effect in the ideas of many; for when studying the structure, the form, and the habits of even the meanest of creatures, it is hardly possible for the reflective mind to resist feeling a sense of the power and wisdom of the Creator.

Before speaking individually of the many interesting animals to be seen in the Zoological Gardens, it is right to point out, for the benefit of the uninitiated, or to those who have never visited a foreign land, and consequently have not had the opportunity of seeing wild creatures in a state of nature, that though the great majority of the prisoners we see there doubtless give a true idea of their habits when roaming in their native jungles, yet many of the quadrupeds, more especially those bred in the Gardens, cannot altogether be relied upon in this respect; for instance, many of the bears from the Himalaya Mountains, or other cold climes, which, we know, hibernate during the depth of winter, are unable to indulge in their lengthened sleep from force of circumstances. There are no hollow trees or snug caves wherein to curl up comfortably and pass the winter in a state of somnolence. Again, it is often most difficult, if not impossible, to provide the natural food for some of the creatures from tropical countries, and these animals have of necessity to subsist upon whatever their keeper places before them, and that sometimes of a kind which they would hesitate or even refuse to devour in a state of freedom.

Perhaps the most interesting spot in the Zoo to the general visitor is the well-known Lion-house, though children almost invariably show a predilection for the monkeys. The Lion-house was erected some few years ago, and is a great improvement upon the former structure, now used for the bears, wolves, and hyenas; but though fairly roomy and comfortable for the larger felidæ inhabiting it, yet, considering their ever increasing number, and the importance which these carnivora hold in the animal kingdom, it is unfortunate that a still larger space and more commodious building could not have been spared for the purpose. The Lion-house contains not only several fine specimens of African lions, but also almost every known species of the larger Cat tribe, the snow leopard of the Himalayas (_Felis uncia_) alone excepted.

In our changeable climate, more especially during the long dreary winter-months, when the ground is often covered with snow and hard frosts prevail, animals like the lion, the tiger, and the leopard, accustomed to tropical climates and a more equable temperature than ours, necessarily require their dens to be artificially heated, and great care taken to guard against their suffering from the extreme cold. In spite of every precaution having been taken, several valuable animals succumbed to the rigours of our late almost arctic winter. But ample space and outdoor exercise are also great desiderata, and in this respect it must be confessed that the Lion-house of our own Zoological Gardens does not compare favourably with buildings intended for a like purpose to be seen at Berlin and other continental collections. At the Thiergarten, Berlin—where may be seen a magnificent troop of seven or eight lions all in one large inclosure—there is a rocky hill—made secure, so far as the public are concerned, by a circle of high iron railings, and connected by doorways with the ordinary winter dens. So soon as summer appears and the weather becomes warm, the lions are permitted to roam about at will over this hill; and it is a pleasing sight to observe the creatures really enjoying themselves, and for a time forgetful of their present captivity. Here may be seen a shaggy veteran with his wife and cubs lying together in a group upon some slabs of rock, and basking in the rays of the mid-day sun; there, an old lioness asleep under the shade of an overhanging boulder; while her two half-grown sons, full of health and spirits, are busily engaged in a romp of hide-and-seek.

But to return. The row of elevated seats provided for visitors to the Lion-house, and facing the long line of fourteen cages, affords an excellent view of the inhabitants of the different dens. On the left we see two fine male lions in separate cages; and close to them several lionesses, one with a pair of handsome cubs. To the extreme right are three tigers—two from continental India; and a third, a young, very quiet, and peculiarly dark fulvous-marked animal, recently obtained from Turkestan. It must be confessed, however, as every old Indian shikary will testify, that no one of the three before us conveys a true idea of the enormous size, strength, and muscular power which the royal tiger attains to in a wild state. It would be no exaggeration to say, that a well-fed specimen from the Bengal Sunderbunds or Central India would reach nearly twice the weight, and measure twice the thickness round the shoulders, of any one of the three narrow-chested, hollow-flanked creatures before us. Next in importance and size comes the jaguar from America—a single specimen, but a remarkably fine, powerful animal, and, to all appearance, quite a match for any one of the three undersized tigers from the Old World. The puma or cougar of South America—a pair of beautiful grayish-red cats, but wanting in the brawny limbs and muscular neck and chest of the jaguar. Three beautiful leopards in one den. Many good naturalists would pronounce one of them to be a panther, and a distinct variety from the remaining two; but this is an undecided point among zoologists, so we will not touch upon it, merely remarking upon the extraordinary dissimilarity in the colour and marking of the skins of the three specimens before us, and which fully accounts for the difficulty so many naturalists have found in classifying these felidæ. Lastly, we notice the cheetah, or Indian hunting leopard, said to be the ‘pard’ of the ancients, common to various countries in Asia, and also throughout Africa, but not found in Ceylon, where the common leopard has erroneously gained the title of cheetah. This interesting animal has been rightly placed as a separate subgenus from the true cats, on account of the claws being only partially retractile, with the tips always visible. It is a high-standing, slender creature, thin across the loins like a greyhound, and carrying the tail more after the manner of the dog than the true cat.

As being the largest of the group before us, the lion and the tiger naturally attract our chief attention. These champions of the Old World have many a time in the days of ancient Rome been pitted the one against the other in mortal combat; but there is still a difference of opinion which of the two is the more formidable animal. Probably the tiger, on account of his more muscular hind-quarters, would have most friends; but many experienced travellers and sportsmen who have witnessed the extraordinary strength and ferocity of the lion, hold the contrary opinion. In parts of Central India, as also in Kutch and Guzerat in the Bombay Presidency, the Asiatic lion and tiger are still found in the same jungles; but we never hear of the two animals quarrelling and coming to blows. Formerly, the lion of India, on account of the male having a shorter mane, was considered to be of a different species from his African brother; but more recently, our scientific naturalists have rightly come to the conclusion that the two are identical. It must be allowed, however, that the Asiatic lion is altogether a less courageous and dangerous beast than the animal inhabiting the African continent; and our experienced Indian hunters assert that the former, even when fired at, wounded, and driven to bay, seldom turns on his pursuers and fights to the death after the manner of the royal tiger.

It is somewhat extraordinary that neither lion nor tiger has the power of climbing trees. They can make prodigious springs and bounds, but cannot clamber up a tree ‘hand over hand,’ so to speak, like the bear; and this is the more surprising when we remember that the jaguar, the puma, and the leopard, like all the smaller cats, are active, expert climbers. True, both lion and tiger are far larger and heavier than any other of the felidæ; and undoubtedly their great strength lies in the massive proportions of the shoulder and forepart of the body, as compared with the hind-quarters; yet, when we consider the general symmetry and graceful movements of these two gigantic wild cats, we cannot help feeling disappointed that they are wanting in one of the chief characteristics of the tribe.

Most of us probably who are in the habit of constantly visiting the Zoological Gardens have heard the roar of the lion—that grand, deep-toned, terrible voice, which seems to make the very air in close proximity to the king of beasts vibrate and quiver. We also frequently read and hear tales of the roar of the tiger; but the writer ventures to say that this impression is erroneous. The Bengal tiger, when going his nightly rounds, often makes a low yawning kind of whine or sigh, ending with a subdued grunt sounding like distant thunder; and a highly unpleasant cry it is to the belated traveller on foot as he hurries along the jungle path. But this night-moan of a prowling tiger has no resemblance whatever to the deep, grand, resounding roar of the lion. Again, every tiger-shooter who has witnessed the scene can readily recall to mind that never-to-be-forgotten moment when a royal tiger worthy of the name—perhaps wounded and goaded to fury and desperation by his eager pursuers—at length turns to try conclusions with them, and with open jaws, ears laid back, flashing eye, and tail on end, a truly terrible object, bounds towards his enemies. At such times he makes the jungle resound with a succession of deep-drawn coughing growls, evidently delivered with the intention of striking terror into the hearts of his foes. But again we say, these murderous snarls of an enraged tiger are altogether dissimilar in character to the roar of the king of beasts.

The wild tribes of Central India have often told the writer that at certain seasons of the year they are made aware of tigers being in the neighbourhood by horrible ‘caterwauling’ sounds emanating from the jungle; and doubtless this is correct, for we all know the agony of mind we often labour under when a conclave of our domestic cats are holding a palaver on the garden wall.

There is an almost universal belief that the lion roars when _he is hungry_, and in a wild state when in _search of prey_; but the writer ventures to say that, like the bear’s _hug_ and other almost proverbial expressions of the kind, the idea is altogether erroneous. Probably certain verses in the Bible, more especially in the Psalms, such as ‘The lions roaring after their prey, &c.,’ and passages of a similar nature, have given rise to this impression. But, let it be asked, would so cunning an animal as the lion, when hungry and in search of his dinner, betray his approach and put every living creature within miles of the spot thoroughly on the _qui vive_, by making the forest echo again with his roaring? Assuredly not; for a more certain method of scaring his prey he could not possibly adopt. All quadrupeds, more especially the deer tribe, well know and dread the voice of their natural enemy. Even domestic animals instinctively recognise and show fear on hearing the cry of a wild beast.

In India, the sportsman when out in camp during the hot-weather months, often finds himself far away from towns and villages, in some wild spot in the depths of the jungle. Here, the stillness of the night is constantly broken by the calls of various creatures inhabiting the neighbouring forest—the deep solemn hoot of the horned owl, the sharp call of the spotted deer, or the louder bell of the sambur. But these familiar sounds attract no notice from the domestic animals included in the camp circle. But should a panther on the opposite hill call his mate, or a prowling tiger passing along the river-bank mutter his complaining night-moan, they one and all immediately show by their demeanour that they recognise the cry of a beast of prey. The old elephant chained up beneath the tamarind tree stays for a moment swaying his great body backwards and forwards, and listens attentively. His neighbour, a gray Arab horse, with pricked-up ears, gazes uneasily in the direction the sound appeared to come from; while the dogs, just before lying panting and motionless in the moonlight, spring to their feet with bristling back and lowered tail, and with growls of fear disappear under the tent fly.

Some few years ago, one of the dens allotted to the tigers was tenanted by a fine specimen named ‘Plassey.’ The writer first made the acquaintance of this animal many years ago when quartered with his regiment at Lucknow; and there is a story connected with Plassey’s history, the account of which should read a good lesson, and yet another warning, to too eager sportsmen when tiger-shooting on foot. Two officers of the Irish Lancers, then stationed at Lucknow, were out shooting in the Oude jungles. Captain T—— fired at and mortally wounded a tigress with two cubs. She dropped apparently dead, but with just sufficient life left in her to strike a last blow; and becoming aware of the near approach of her enemy, she suddenly recovered her legs, and in a moment sprang upon him and inflicted the most terrible injuries on the unfortunate sportsman. The tigress was speedily despatched, and the wounded man carried into the nearest station, where everything that could be done for him was done, but in vain, for after lingering several weeks, he succumbed.

Plassey and his brother-cub were taken to Lucknow and reared in the lancer messhouse, where they became great favourites. But time passed; the small harmless cubs grew into large powerful animals—and, as is usually the case, on attaining to a full size they speedily became troublesome and dangerous, so were first chained up, and later on confined in cages. Eventually, Plassey was brought home and presented to the Regent’s Park Gardens, where he died somewhat suddenly in the prime of life. Many valuable and rare animals brought from foreign countries, at great expense and trouble, to our shores, though at first, to all appearance, in the best of health, yet before even reaching middle age, gradually pine away and die. Nor is this to be wondered at when we remember how unnatural it is for them to be cooped up in cages, in place of a wild, unrestrained life, with liberty to wander where they will.

J. H. B.

WHERE THE TRACKS LED TO.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.

It was indeed as Winny had said. I was as stunned by her words as though a heavy blow had actually fallen upon me, and for a few seconds could scarcely think, much less speak; but recovering a little from this confusion, I asked her for some explanation. I called it ‘explanation,’ when I spoke to her, but I felt her statement was true; their manner, their looks at parting, were sufficient to tell me all.

Godfrey Harleston had seen Winny going to and from business, and had contrived an introduction to her—this preliminary acquaintance was but slightly glanced at in her story—then, to show that his views were honourable, he had early proposed marriage, but had explained that he wished it kept a secret until some unpleasant matters which were troubling him were settled. This referred at first to the quarrels between his mother and himself, with Mr Thurles, and afterwards, to the affair of the forged bills, respecting which, to my surprise, he had spoken freely to Winny and given a tolerably correct account. Of the burglary he had said nothing, and until my speech, Winny knew nothing of it. She was startled at finding I was sent for by Mr Thurles; but when she learned it was not for the forgery—the messenger saying nothing about that—she was reassured. On that very evening Godfrey had told her that his difficulty was now settled, and, as naturally following upon this, he proposed now making their marriage known. They were talking on this subject when they met me.

All this Winny told—every word going to my heart—in a rapid, excited manner, which increased in force as she went on, until she finished with a wild declaration that she would go to Godfrey and warn him of the traps which were being set for him, of the danger which awaited him on the morrow. He was her husband—her honourable, guiltless, noble husband! she almost shrieked. It was her duty to warn him, and, if needful, to be with him.

I had a dreadful job to pacify her; and I was obliged to hold out hopes which I knew to be false, and to explain away all that I had said. That all I told her now would be proved false the very next day, I well knew, and perhaps it was cruel to deceive her; but what was I to do? I was nearly mad. I did not show it so much as Winny, but I believe I was as bad.