r his under-jaw dropped, his arms hung dangling by his side like empty sleeves; still he walked on, mechanically keeping time, like an automaton, to the measured tread of the soldiery. His fellowsufferer followed him. His eye was bright, his complexion healthy, his step firm, and he immediately recognised us in the throng, made a bow to captain Transom, and held out his hand to Mr Bang, who was nearest to him, and shook it cordially. The procession moved on. The troops formed into three sides of a square, the remaining one being the earthen mound, that constituted the rampart of the place. A halt was called. The two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, and having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the counterscarp, they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, would have been termed the covered way. The prisoners, perfectly unfettered, advanced between them, stepped down with a firm step into the ditch, led each by a grenadier. In the centre of it they turned and kneeled, neither of their eyes being bound. A priest advanced, and seemed to pray with the brown man fervently; another offered spiritual consolation to the Englishman, who seemed now to have rallied his torpid faculties, but he waved him away impatiently, and taking a book from his bosom, seemed to repeat a prayer from it with great fervour. At this very instant of time, Mr Bang caught his eye. He dropped the book on the ground, placed one hand on his heart, while he pointed upwards towards heaven with the other, calling out in a loud clear voice, Remember!" Aaron bowed. A mounted officer now rode quickly up to the brink of the ditch, and called out, "Dépêchez." The priests left the miserable men, and all was still as death for a minute. A low solitary tap of the drum-the firing parties came to the recover, and presently taking the time from the sword of the staff-officer who had spoken, came down to the present, and fired a rattling, straggling volley. The brown man sprang up into the air three or four feet, and fell dead; he had been shot through the heart; but the white man was only wounded, and had fallen, writhing, and struggling, and shrieking, to the ground. I heard him distinctly call out, as the reserve of six men stepped into the ditch, "Dans la tête, dans la tête." One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his face, fired. The ball splashed into his skull, through the left eye, setting fire to his hair and clothes, and the handkerchief bound round his head, and making the brains and blood flash up all over his face, and the person of the soldier who had given him the coup de grace. A strong murmuring noise, like the rushing of many waters, growled amongst the ranks and the surrounding spectators, while a short sharp exclamation of horror every now and then gushed out shrill and clear, and fearfully distinct above the appalling monotony. The miserable man stretched out his legs and arms straight and rigidly, a strong shiver pervaded his whole frame, his jaw fell, his muscles relaxed, and he and his brother in calamity became a portion of the bloody clay on which they were stretched. CHAPTER XVII. THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown." Childe Harold. I HAD been invited to breakfast on board the corvette, on the morning after this; and captain Transom, Mr Bang, and myself, were comfortably seated at our meal on the quarterdeck, under the awning, skreened off by flags from the view of the men. The ship was riding to a small westerly breeze, that was rippling up the bight. The ports on each quarter, as well as the two in the stern, were open, through which we had an extensive view of Port-auPrince, and the surrounding country. "Now, Transom," said our amigo Massa Aaron, "I am quite persuaded that the town astern of us there must always have been, and is now, exceedingly unhealthy. Only reflect on its situation; it fronts the west, with the hot sickening afternoon's sun blazing on it every evening, along the glowing mirror of the calm bight, under whose influence the fat black mud that composes the beach must send up most pestilent effluvia; while in the forenoon it is shut out from the influence of the regular easterly sea-breeze, or trade-wind, by the high land behind. However, as I don't mean to stay here longer than I can help, it is not my affair; and as Mr S--will be waiting for us, pray order your carriage, my dear fellow, and let us go on shore.' The carriage our friend spoke of, was the captain's gig, by this time alongside, ready manned,-each of the six seamen who composed her crew, with his oar resting between his knees, the blade pointed upwards towards the sky. We all got in-" Shove off" -dip fell the oars into the water-" Give way, men"—the good ash staves groaned, and cheeped, and the water buzzed, and away we shot towards the wharf. We landed, and having proceeded to Mr S-'s, we found horses ready for us, to take our promised ride into the beautiful plain of the Cul-de-Sac, lying to the northward and eastward of the town; the cavalcade being led by Massa Aaron and myself, while Mr S-- rode beside captain Transom. Aforetime, from the estates situated on this most magnificent plain, (which extends about fifteen miles into the interior, while its width varies from ten to five miles, being surrounded by hills on three sides,) there used to be produced no less than thirty thousand hogsheads of sugar. This was during the ancien régime; whereas, now, I believe, the only articles it yields beyond plantains, yams, and pot herbs for the supply of the town, are a few gallons of syrup, and a few puncheons of tafia, a very inferior kind of rum. The whole extent of the sealike plain, for there is throughout scarcely any inequality higher than my staff, was once covered with well-cultivated fields and happy homes; but now, alas! with brushwood from six to ten feet high,-in truth, by one sea of jungle, through which you have to thread your difficult way along narrow, hot, sandy bridle-paths, (with the sand flies and musquittoes flaying you alive,) which every now and then lead you to some old ruinous court-yard, with the ground strewed with broken boilers and millrollers, and decaying hard-wood timbers, and crumbling bricks; while, a little further on, you shall find the blackened roofless walls of what was most probably an unfortunate planter's once happy home, where the midnight brigand came and found peace and comfort, and all the elegancies of life, and left-blood and ashes; with the wild-flowers growing on the window sills, and the prickly pear on the tops of the walls, while marble steps, and old shutters, and window hinges, and pieces of china, are strewn all about; the only tenant now being most likely an old miserable negro who has sheltered himself in a coarsely thatched hut, in a corner of what had once been a gay and well-furnished saloon. After having extended our ride, under a hot broiling sun, until two o'clock in the afternoon, we hove about, and returned towards the town. We had not ridden on our homeward journey above three miles, when we overtook a tall good-looking negro, dressed in white Osnaburg trowsers, rolled up to his knees, and a check shirt. He wore neither shoes nor stockings, but his head was bound round with the usual handkerchief, over which he wore a large glazed cocked hat, with a most conspicuous Haytian blueand-red cockade. He was goading on a jackass before him, loaded with a goodly burden apparently; but what it was we could not tell, as the whole was covered by a large sheepskin, with the wool outermust. I was pricking past the man, when Mr S-- sung out to me to shorten sail, and the next moment he startled me by addressing the pedestrian as colonel Gabaroche. The colonel returned the salute, and seemed in no way put out from being detected in this rather unmilitary predicament. He was going up to Port-au-Prince to take his turn of duty with his regiment. Presently up came another half-naked black fellow, with the same kind of glazed hat and handkerchief under it; but he was mounted, and his nag was not a bad one by any means. It was colonel Gabaroche's captain of grenadiers, Papotiere by name. He was introduced to us, and we all moved jabbering along. At the time I write of, the military force of the Haytian Republic was composed of one-third of the whole male population capable of bearing arms, which third was obliged to be on permanent duty for four months every year; but the individuals of the quota were allowed to follow their callings as merchants, planters, or agriculturists, during the remaining eight months; they were, I believe, fed by Government during their four months of permanent duty. The weather, by the time we had ridden a couple of miles farther, began to lower, and presently, large heavy drops of rain fell, and preserving their globular shape, rolled like peas, or rather like bullets, amidst the small finely pulverized dust of the sandy path. "Umbrella" was the word—but this was a luxury unknown to our military friends. However, the colonel immediately unfurled a blanket from beneath the sheepskin, and sticking his head through a hole in the centre of it, there he stalked like a herald in his tabard, with the blanket hanging down before and behind him. As for the captain he dismounted, disencumbered himself of his trowsers, which he crammed under the mat that served him for a saddle, and taking off his shirt, he stowed it away in the capacious crown of his cocked hat, while he once more bestrid his Buce phalus in puris naturalibus, but conversing with all the ease in the world, and the most perfect sang froid, while the thunder shower came down in bucketfuls. In about half an hour, we arrived at the skirt of the brushwood or jungle, and found on our left hand some rice fields, which from appearance we could not have distinguished from young wheat; but on a nearer approach, we perceived that the soil, if soil it could be called on which there was no walking, was a soft mud, the only passages through the fields, and along the ridges, being by planks, on which several of the labourers were standing as we passed, one of whom turning to look at us, slipped off, and instantly sunk amidst the rotten slime up to his waist. The neighbourhood of these rice swamps is generally extremely unhealthy. At length we got on board the Firebrand, drenched to the skin, to a late dinner, after which it was determined by captain Transom-of which intention, by the by, with all his familiarity, I had not the smallest previous notice that I should cross the island to Jacmel, in order to communicate with the merchant-ships loading there; and by the time I returned, it was supposed the Firebrand would be ready for sea, when I was to be detached in the Wave, to whip in the craft at the different outports, after which we were all to sail in a fleet to Port Royal. "I say, Skipper," quoth Mr Bang, "I have a great mind to ride with Tom-what say you?" “Why, Aaron, you are using me ill; that shaver is seducing you altogether; but come, you won't be a week away, and if you want to go, I see no objection." It was fixed accordingly, and on the morrow Mr Bang and I completed our arrangements, hired horses, and a guide, and all being in order, clothes packed, and every thing else made ready for the cruise, we rode out along with Mr S- - (we were to dine and sleep at his house) to view the fortifications on the hill above the town, the site of Christophe's operations when he besieged the place; and pretty hot work they must have had of it, for in two different places the trenches of the besiegers had been pushed on to the very crest of the glacis, and in one the counterscarp had been fairly blown into the ditch, disclosing the gallery of the mine behind, as if it had been a cavern, the crest of the glacis having remained entire. We walked into it, and Mr S―― pointed out where the president's troops, in Fort Républicain, had counter |