The White Squall | Page 5

the hues of death, in the same way that a dolphin alters its colour when taken from its native element.
"Guess um well kill' now, nohow," said Pompey grimly, taking up the animal by the tail; but it was such a big one that he couldn't lift it, so he had to drag it along the ground towards the quarters of himself and the other negroes. Here it would, I knew, ere long be skinned and dressed in a very savoury way, known only to African cooks, when a portion of the banquet would be sent in anon to "the big house," for the kindly acceptance of the white folks there--my mother, and sisters, and myself--elegantly dished up in plantain leaves with red peppers for dressing.
While I stood for a second watching old Pompey making off with his prey in high good-humour, looking in the distance, as he climbed the slope of the hill up to the huts, uncommonly like a lean monkey dragging away a centipede, the intense glare of the tropical noontide, of which I was for the moment oblivious, changed in an instant to a deep gloom resembling the blackness of night. It seemed as if some interposing body had suddenly been placed between the sun and the earth.
Then came a tremendous crash of thunder, like the sound of heaven's dome breaking in, it was so fearfully loud and awesome; and the reverberating roar was accompanied by a vivid flash of forked lightning, whose zigzag stream struck a tall tamarind-tree standing in front of me, splintering the trunk from top to bottom with a scrunching noise like that made in rending timber!
I turned and ran back to the house for shelter as fast as I could, anticipating what was coming, such storms being of frequent occurrence in the tropics after exceptional heat and when there is no wind to agitate the pent-up air; but, ere I could ascend the half dozen steps leading up to the terrace, the rain-cloud overhead burst and a sheet of water came down as if poured over the side of some giant reservoir in the sky, wetting me to the skin by the time I had gained the shelter of the verandah.
My mother was just coming out of the drawing-room to see where I was, when Jake came up racing behind me, shouting out at the pitch of his voice, above the sound of the sluicing rain, "De packet am in, Mass' Tom! De packet am in!"
CHAPTER TWO.
"MORE HASTE, WORSE SPEED."
"Hurrah!" I shouted out.
I was so overjoyed at hearing Jake's announcement that the long-expected mail steamer had at last arrived that I was utterly oblivious of my soaking condition, although I had been so completely drenched in the brief space of time that had elapsed before I could get under shelter from the shower, that the water was now trickling down my dripping garments and running out of my boots. "Look alive, old fellow," I added to the willing darkey, who was in an equally moist state, his black skin glistening as if it had received a fresh coating of Japan varnish. "Saddle my pony at once, for I must go into town, as I told you!"
"But, Tom," interposed my mother at this juncture, "you cannot start in all this rain. See how wet you are already, dear, and it is still pouring down, worse than ever!"
"Oh, never mind that, mother, it will stop soon," I rejoined hastily, mortally afraid of her putting an embargo on my contemplated expedition to Saint George's. "I will go in and change my things, and long before I'm ready it'll be fine again, you'll see! Besides, you know, dad may have come by the steamer, and he'll be expecting me to meet him and want Dandy to ride home on. Jake can take him down along with me, so as to be on the safe side, eh?"
"Well, well, my dear, I suppose you must have your way," said my mother, whom this last argument of mine, in respect of my father's possible arrival, seemed to convince against her will, for she made no further demur to my setting out, in spite of the weather.
This very material point being satisfactorily arranged in my favour, as Jake could see with half an eye, he having waited to learn whether my orders were to be carried out or not, the darkey now hurried off to the stables to execute them with a cheerful grin on his ebony face, fearing the rain as little as he did the burning rays of the mid-day sun; while I scurried off to my room upstairs to shift my wringing clothes and put on another suit of white flannel, which is the ordinary wear of all sensible people in tropical countries--just as it is becoming