University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
The Tower Rock.

When the African monster had satisfied himself, by
tearing off pieces with his long fingers, that the huge
piece of salt beef in the kettle was sufficiently cooked
for his palate, he stuck a short fish-knife, that he wore
in his belt, deep into it, and drew it reeking forth.
Holding it up on the end of this knife, the savage
began to rend it with his teeth and devour it in enormous
masses. The piece of meat was two thirds the
size of his own head, and yet, in ten minutes, he had
left nothing of it but the bone. At every few mouth-fulls
he would stop and chuckle and growl, with his
jaws crammed, and seem to regret that he could not
devour the whole at once.

Every now and then, as he ate, he would cast a
look, between apprehension and defiance, at the dog,
who had risen from his couch and padded his way
towards him almost with the heavy tread of a lion.
The dog, however, made no other demonstrations than
to snarl and display his fangs at every fresh pull the
negro took at the meat.

`There, Jover, dar bone for you,' said the African,
casting it on the ground before him.

Jover paid no other attention than by a deep guttural
note of resentment. The negro then went to the chest
and threw him a piece of meat, which the dog caught

ere it reached the floor, and paced off to a corner of
the cave to eat his meal without interruption. The
African then lighted his pipe and went out of the cavern
by leaping forward, with his ape-like hands placed on
each side of him upon the ground, and which he used
with such skill as scarcely to miss the other limbs
which nature had denied him.

On getting into the shaft, he saw that the night had
fairly set in, and that the stars sparkled brightly in that
small space of the heavens visible from the depth at
which he was from the top of the promontory.

`Hark! de wind risin, and dat bring master home
to-night,' said the negro, listening to the low murmur
of the sea around the base of the cliff. `I hope dere
be storm to-night, coz time we catch anodder big ship;
coz de beef mos gone. Me go up and look at de
wedder.'

Thus saying, the negro began to draw his body up
the broken sides of the perpendicular descent, by fastening
his strong fingers into the crevices, and in this
way, in about three minutes, reached the top; though
the least slip of his grasp would have sent him back
to the shelf from which he started, like a heavy stone,
and perhaps rebounding from the shelf, which led into
the cavern, he would have plunged down the fathomless
darkness of the depths far below. But habit had
rendered him insensible to the danger, as well as the
young girl, whom we have seen descend the same
perilous path, with a light and fearless step.

On looking around him, the Ethiopian saw quite a
different aspect of the sky and ocean, from that which
the young female had beheld. The golden clouds,

that hung about the sun, as he went down, were now
of an inky blackness, and were rapidly rising from the
southwest, and expanding over the sky, though over
his head all was yet clear and sparkling. The sea was
moaning, and restlessly throwing itself against the
shores, and a wind was already agitating its dark
bosom.

Far to the east a single light, like a star on the horizon,
told him a vessel was in that direction. It was
the ship seen by the young girl in the northeastern
bound, and now steering southwardly to take the great
channel between the ranges of islands. To the south,
a bright light, three leagues distant, gleamed across
the water, flinging its beams cheerfully abroad, as a
beacon to the trustful mariner, who, with full confidence
in its guiding and warning ray, steers fearlessly
onward in the darkest night his adventurous bark.

The African, after looking all round the horizon,
with a slow and observing gaze, settled his eyes upon
this beacon with an air of surprise.

`Ah, dere you show you lantern agen! Now, if
massa Paul do n't put you out, if he here, den I know
notin! You know massa Paul 'way, and so you light
up widout him leave! coz I know he nebber tell you
light up when storm comin'; coz den am my time!
You see he no kill you when he know dis!' added the
negro, clenching his hand and speaking the menace
with a savage vindictiveness, that would have been
ludicrous, had it not been so devilish. `Dar a cloud
comin up flyin like a black gull, and dere a ship comin
on de bank for pass de channel. Now dat light
dere, how I catch him, and if catch ship, when massa

Paul gone, I get good deal gold and red cloth, and
beads and long knife, and beef, and hide it way, and
nebber massa Paul know what Lobo do! Ah, dere
dey put em out, and guess dey better. I guess dey
see dat cloud comin now, and know dat time to put
em out!'

The light had, indeed, suddenly vanished, and the
African, after waiting a few moments, to see if it would
reappear, said,

`Now I mus have my business done, afore dis storm
come on; coz I see by de way de waves begin to
chafe on de rocks, it blow a reglar white gale, and de
sea moanin, coz it no like to be wake up! Dory! ho!
Dory!' he shouted down the shaft, in a shrill voice,
that sounded more like the shriek of a cormorin than
human. `Come, hurry you up with your lantern, for
there is a storm risin!'

`O, shall I never, never escape from this fearful
bondage,' said the young girl, rising hastily from her
rude bed and descending to the floor of the cave. `I
was dreaming of my happy, happy home, and it sometimes
seems that what I think I remember of the past
is all a dream, and that I have never been otherwise
than I am! Yet I do feel within me the spirit of
another, and O, what a different state, that once in
childhood was mine, and this it is that sustains and
elevates me above the degradation to which I am
doomed!'

`Dory, you lazy wretch, come up!' shouted the
Ethiopian down the cave, in an angry tone.

`Yes, Lobo, yes! I am lighting the dark lantern,
she answered, taking a small lantern with slides to

conceal and protect the light — for there was no glass
in it — and lighting it at the stove.

`Oh, that I could find some way of escape from this
monster, and from the no less horrible guardianship of
this fierce dog, who, faithful to the trust his cruel master
has imposed on him, has already left his food to
follow me, to see that I escape not! Poor chance
has one so desolate as I am to escape; with no boat to
convey me; no place to fly to, where I should not be
pursued! Even the passengers and crews of the vessels
that were wrecked by him, lest they should have
discovered this cavern, were hurried from the Island
by him and his wreckers in their luggers to Nassau!
and here I remained a prisoner closely watched by
Jover, while, doubtless, no one thought this lofty rock
was accessible, or contained a living being! for, save
those who know the path up its sides, it seems a sheer
wall down to the sea! Coming, Lobo, coming! I cannot
long remain here! Each month, each hour, my
slavery is becoming more intolerable,' she said, with a
kindling eye and in a spirited tone.

Taking the lantern, she took her way out of the
cave, and in a few minutes stood upon the top of the
cliff.

`You are a long while coming; take care, or I'll
give you blows with my stick!' said the monster, savagely,
and brandishing a short cudgel, that had once
been a belaying-pin of some hapless vessel. `Oh, ho,
Jover! you had to be done you supper quick! Good
for you, coz you no satisfy wid de bone. Spose I
want brute dog lib of de same meat me eat? Me
man! me eat beef! You no man! you no bus'ness

eat what Lobo eat! Ah, I know you come, soon I
call Dory bring de lantern; coz you know if you let
Dory get way, you hab take it when massa Paul
come, wors an you did when she teal boat and get off
a mile afore you swim out and catch de boat in you
teeth and tow um shore. If you no swim out and
tow um shore, when she get way dat time, massa Paul
hab cot you brack head orf, Jover, and you knows dat
wery well! So you bes keep sharp eye on her; coz
Lobo no foller bout and go widout debble leg where
Dory go, when she take it in her head to run! Come,
now, down the cliff to the water,' he said to the young
girl, `for we must have our work done afore it too
dark, and dis storm come on and catch us!'

She obeyed him, by going to the verge of the cliff,
on the western side, and opening her lantern to throw
light upon the spot, stooped down, and, taking hold of
a projection of the rock, began to descend the face of
the cliff by a path that had been formed by a portion
of the upper part splitting off perpendicularly and falling
over into the sea. The zigzag course of the break,
which extended from the top to the bottom, was generally
about a foot broad, but in some parts not three
inches, and very steep.

Opposite this cliff was another of less height, and
between the two was a basin, into which this perilous
descent led. The basin was dark in shadow, and the
gloomy dash of the unseen surges echoing among the
cavernous sides of the base came fearfully to the ear.
Having found the first step of her path the young girl
closed her lantern and hung it by a hook in her girdle,
which was a seaman's rude leathern belt, and went

down with a step so free that it was truly appalling to
witness; for it seemed that the least error in placing
her foot would precipitate her into the gulf below. But
she had been too familiar with the path as well as
with that down the shaft, to hesitate. The whole descent
was about ninety feet by the path, the cliff being
about seventy.

After she had got about twelve feet down, the dog
followed, creeping cautiously close to the wall of the
rock, but stepping surely. Then the African committed
himself to the path by his hands, by swinging his
body over the verge and hanging on the edge of the
descending path; and in this way, by passing one
hand over the other, he followed them with astonishing
celerity.

At the foot of this dangerous passage was a large
fragment of the rock which had fallen from above, ten
feet broad and four or five out of the water, which all
around it was of great depth; for it stood full a hundred
yards from the main shore of the island. Upon
this rock the young girl stepped, and opening her lantern
looked on the inner side of it, where lay a small
boat completely hidden by an overhanging part of the
cliff-side.

The dog and Lobo landed by her side, and the latter
taking hold of a chain that secured the boat to a bolt
in the rock, drew it towards them. He then took a
key from a long pouch which he wore tied round his
neck, and which held a little of every thing, and unlocked
a massive padlock that secured the chain to the
rock. He then threw himself into the boat, which was
a small old skiff, and taking up two oars that lay in

the bottom, placed them in the row-locks. The young
girl got in and stood up in the stern, for there was no
seat, and the dog leaped in and crouched silently in
the bows.

The African then bent to his oars, rowing without a
thwart to set upon, for he needed none, being just the
height of a person seated, by reason of his strange deformity.
The little boat shot rapidly out of the basin,
the surface of which already swelled with a heavy
moaning noise, which in that region often betokens a
gale. The scene around them, with the tall black cliffs
on either hand, the high `back' of the island astern and
near, before them the murky expanse of ocean, broken
here and there in the foreground by the faint outline of
a large rock, or the stronger defined range of a reef;
while overhead swept past broken masses of bluish
clouds, which had been detached by the upper currents
of wind from the vast columns that were marching
from the west across the field of the zenith.

The boat kept along under the cliff, which, as we
have said, extended nearly half a mile seaward, and as
they glided along past that portion of it within which
the cave was excavated, the momentary glimmer
through a crevice of the light of the battle-lantern
within the cavern was detected by the African, who
had his eyes, as he pulled, elevated to a sufficient
height to catch it. It was, however, but an instant
glimpse he obtained of it, and to the eye of a stranger
it would have been taken for an electric gleam flitting
across his own vision, rather than for a light shining
out of what seemed a solid wall of rock.

The boat kept along the cliff until it came to the

opening so well known as `The-Hole-in-the-Wall,' and
which we have already described as an arched fissure
shaped by the sea working into the cliff till it forced a
deep passage through it, capable of admitting small
vessels. Here it changed its course and shot through
the passage, the overhanging fragments of the broken
arch seventy feet above their heads threatening to
come thundering down upon them each instant. Lobo
pulled with a strong stroke through the fearful passage,
for `the tide-current' had begun to set through it with
considerable force against him. Having got through
and on the northern and eastern face of the cliff he
pulled seaward again parallel with it; rowing fast,
for the storm was coming up with great rapidity, and
he was fearful he should be unable to get back to his
cavern and his beef before it would burst upon them.

As he got farther out from the island, though still
with the cliff close at hand on his left, there was visible
a dark line extending quite across the field of view
as seen from the low position in which they were.
This was a reef; one of those long lines or chains
of rocks, off against the promontory already described,
and which, commencing near the cliff, at a
quarter of a mile distant, stretched away for a league
in a southerly direction, and towards the ship
channel. At high water the reef was covered for the
outermost two miles of it, the other shoreward mile
showing only here and there above water a sharp
point. At low tide, the whole reef was visible from
one extremity to the other. Ships steering southwardly
after making Abaco usually passed, at the time we
write of, within a mile or two of the end of this reef;

though now since new surveys have been made, and
other and better channels discovered, their course, after
making Abaco and across the banks, is altered. South
of Abaco nine or ten miles, a beacon had been placed
by the British, for the express object of defining this
reef, so that a ship could lay her course safely by night
and it was understood by mariners that vessels making
Abaco at dark and bringing this light to bear W. S. W.
half W. could run safely through the intricacies of the
channel entrance and so render it unnecessary to come
to anchor, as many vessels formerly did when the
nights were dark; for there was a current that always
set steadily towards the reef. The portions of this reef
which lay near the cliff were composed of high insulated
rocks, some of them fifty feet in altitude, rearing
themselves like a ruined tower from the sea. To one
of these large tower-like rocks, the negro directed his
boat, leaving the cliff directly behind him, and pulling
with great strength until the boat struck its side. It
was not more than a quarter of a mile from the head
of the cliff they had left, and stood, so to speak, on the
extreme right of the league-long reef that extended its
rocky line far away to the verge of the channel. The
description is made thus particular that the subsequent
details of the scenes enacted here may be clearly comprehended.

Having made a landing upon this rock, the African
began to ascend it with wonderful celerity, followed
by the girl, the mastiff remaining in the bows of the
boat, for he seemed to understand that his vigilance
was on such a spot quite as effective if he remained in
the boat; besides, the face of the rock was not furnished

by nature with such means of ascent and descent as
were the cliff and shaft; and it is doubtful if he had
reached the top if he had made the trial.

On getting near the summit of this columnar rock,
Lobo reached, on the seaward side, a small cavity
with the top of the rock overhanging it, not unlike the
top of a chaise. It was an irregular, but perfectly
sheltered opening, looking towards the east; and six
men could have found shelter in it from a storm driving
from the west. The floor of this shelter had been
smoothed evidently by labor, and some projections, that
extended too far over it from the top had been broken
off. In the shape of this cavity there was nothing remarkable,
as a hundred other similar excavations
yawned in the cliffs and hollowed the rocks of that region.
The use to which it had been and was now to
be put, was the most wonderful.

Lobo, on gaining this spot, removed a canvass covering
which had once lain over a vessel's hatchway,
and exposed in the back of the cavity a large iron
hoop, suspended against the rear of this hollow place
in the side of the top of the tower-rock. Upon the
hoop were hung on wire hooks thirty-six small glass
lamps, filled with the purest oil, and all neatly trimmed.
This hoop of lamps was the size of the largest
hogshead hoop. Behind it, made visible by the light
of the lantern which the young girl opened, was a reflector
composed of more than a thousand fragments
of mirror irregularly put together, but covering a surface
of the diameter of the hoop of lamps. In a word,
it was a simple but most efficiently constructed light-house
beacon! In a box underneath it were scissors,

wicks, and a bottle of turpentine, to make them ignite
easily, and with which Lobo began to touch each wick
by means of a feather; and in the crevice of the rock
were large demijohns of oil.

`We must be speedy and return, Dory,' said Lobo,
as he touched the last wick; `now light up and let us
go, for the sea is growing dark, and we shall be caught
in the storm.'

The young girl with a sigh, and covering her face
with her hand as if doing that, which made her tremble,
but which fear compelled her to do, touched
the light to the circle of lamps, and as they were all
connected by a thread dipped in turpentine passing
from one to the other, the whole circlet was instantly
in a blaze, and a light dazzling as the sun caused them
to turn away their faces and descend; while far over
the sea eastward this false `Light of the Reef' sent its
infernal glare, to lure the trustful and confiding mariner
to shipwreck and death.