At length the storm burst—the torrent descended. “How dare you tell me such a story this morning, sirrah? How dare you, sir? answer me!” “War ’tory, massa,” inquired the self-convicted, but waggish negro, the left foot at the same time performing countless evolutions, and the flannel cap twirled round the thumb with increased velocity. “What story? you arrant rogue! why, the story you told me this morning about having fine rains in the country.” “Me no tell no ’tory, massa,” retorted the negro, determined to stand his master’s ire undaunted, and, like many other guilty ones, striving to have the last word. “Me no tell no ’tory; war for me go tell ’tory? me no ’peak de trute.” “You speak the truth, indeed! Here’s the manager, who tells me there has been no rain at all, but, on the contrary, that my stock are all dying from want of water; and yet you dared to tell me you had fine rains last night.” “Yes, massa, and so we _hab fine rain_; me tell de trute. An more den dat, de rain _fine so_ till— t-i-ll (prolonging the word) me hardly able to see him, he so fine!” Both owner and manager found it difficult to maintain their gravity at this definition of _fine rains_; while Cato, with a grin of self-congratulation at having so adroitly got himself out of a bad scrape; and grasping more firmly his quarter-dollar, which he imagined to be in some danger, set off for his own residence. “Hope deferred, maketh the heart sick;” and so indeed it was with us, when day after day passed, and still no appearance of rain. But One, who does not “willingly grieve the children of men,” remembered us in our great affliction, and when we least thought of it, sent us the needful blessing. I never saw such a fall of rain before; and many of the oldest inhabitants said the same thing. In about an hour from the time it first commenced, the streets were streaming with water; indeed, the one in which we reside looked more like a small river than anything else, for not a vestige of dry ground appeared. Report said two or three children were carried into the sea by the violence of the stream which rushed through the streets; but upon further inquiry, I found, as is generally the case, report did not speak truth. It originated from an old woman, seeing some chickens (which had been brought to market for sail, with their legs tied together) floating down the stream, when she exclaimed, “Eh! eh! look de fowl pic’nee;[67] he sure he go get drowned!” This travelled, and lost nothing by its peregrinations, until at length it became magnified into the loss of several children. In a very short time, all the ponds and cisterns in the island, which for so long a time had been perfectly dry, were filled to overflowing, and care and distress gave way to joy and thankfulness.