Читать «Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid» онлайн - страница 711
Н. А. Самуэльян
Favoured by an occasional flash from the smouldering fires – seen at intervals through the trees – he had no difficulty in guiding himself in the right direction; and in due time he arrived at the rearward of the garden.
Crouching behind the wall, and looking cautiously over its top, he could command a full view of the grounds – no longer containing a grand house, but only a smouldering mass of half-consumed timbers.
There was still sufficient flame springing up amidst the smoke to reveal to the eyes of Jessuron a terrible
Under the light could be seen a number of human figures grouped around an object resembling a rude bier. On this lay the body of a white man, whose ghastly visage – ghastlier under the glare of the unnatural light – betokened it to be a corpse.
A white man stood beside it, bent over the body, and looking thoughtfully on the face. Jessuron recognised in this individual the overseer of the estate. The others were blacks – both men and women – easily known as the domestics and field slaves of the plantation.
At a short distance from these was another group – smaller in individual numbers, but equally conspicuous.
Two men lay along the grass in attitudes that showed them to be fast bound. They were white men, in colonial phraseology, though their complexions of dark olive were but a shade or two lighter than those of the negroes who surrounded them. Jessuron easily identified them as his own
Some three or four black men stood around them, apparently acting as guards. The costume, arms, and accoutrements of these last – but quite as much their bold, upright bearing – proclaimed them to be men of a different caste from the negroes who encompassed the corpse. They were the Maroons whom Quaco had left in charge of the prisoners.
As soon as Jessuron had finished making these observations, he returned to the place of rendezvous, where he was soon joined by Chakra and the robbers. The latter, on their homeward route, having halted for a rest not far beyond the Jumbé Rock, were there overtaken by the myal-man, and brought instantaneously back.
The report of Jessuron was delivered to Chakra, who, along with Adam and his followers, advanced to the garden wall, and became himself a spectator of the scene already described.
The circumstances suggested the necessity of immediate action. It was evident that Cubina and the main body of the Maroons had gone off in pursuit of the incendiaries at once. No account was made of the presence of the plantation negroes, and the weak guard of the Maroons that had been left could be easily overpowered.
Such were the reflections of Chakra and Adam, acted upon almost as soon as conceived; and, leaving Jessuron to await their return, they and their followers crept forward through the shrubbery of the garden.
A volley from their guns, fired from an ambush, was heard shortly after. It caused most of the Maroon guard to fall dead by the side of their prisoners, at the same time putting to flight the people of the plantation, with their overseer at their head.
