At the foot of the little knoll under whose base the trash-houses lay, they came suddenly upon one of the faithful field-hands, Napoleon Floreal, whose fidelity Delgado had already in vain attempted with his rude persuasions. The negroes singled him out at once for their first vengeance. Before the man could raise so much as a sharp shout, Isaac Pourtalès had seized him from behind and gagged his mouth with a loose bandana. Two of the other men, quick as lightning, snatched his arms, and held them bent back in a very painful attitude behind his shoulders. ‘If you is wit us,’ Delgado said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘lift your right foot, fellah.’ Floreal kept both feet pressed doggedly down with negro courage upon the ground. ‘Him is traitor, traitor!’ Pourtalès muttered, between his clenched teeth. ‘Him hab black skin, but white heart. Kill him, kill him!’ In a second, a dozen angry negroes had darted forward, with their savage cutlasses brandished aloft in the air, ready to hack their offending fellow-countryman into a thousand pieces. But Delgado, his black hands held up with a warning air before them, thundered out in a tone of bitter indignation: ‘Doan’t kill him!—doan’t kill him! My children, kill in good order. Dar is plenty buckra for you to kill, witout want to kill your own brudder. Tie de han’kercher around him mout’, bind rope around him arm an’ leg, an’ trow him down de gully yonder among de cactus jungle!’ As he spoke, one of the men produced a piece of stout rope from his pocket, brought for the very purpose of tying the ‘prisoners,’ and proceeded to wind it tightly around Floreal’s body. They fastened it well round arms and legs; stuffed the bandana firmly in his mouth so as to check all his futile attempts at shouting, and rolled him over the slight bank of earth, down among the thick scrub of prickly cactus. Then, as the blood spurted out of the small wounds made by the sharp thorns, they gave a sudden low yell, and burst in a body upon the guardians of the trash-houses. Before the two black policemen had time to know what was actually happening, they found themselves similarly gagged and bound, and tossed down beside Napoleon Floreal on the prickly cactus bed. In a minute, the insurgents had surrounded the trash-houses, cut down and captured the few faithful negroes, and marched them along unwillingly in their own body, as hostages for the better behaviour of the Orange Grove house-servants. ‘Now, me fren’s,’ Delgado shouted, with fierce energy, ‘down wit de Dupuys! We gwine to humble de proud white man! We must hab blood! De Lard is wit us! He hat’ put down de mighty from deir seats, an’ hat’ exalted de lowly an’ meek!’ But as he spoke, one or two of the heaviest-looking among the rioters began to cast their longing eyes upon the unbroached hogsheads. ‘De rum, de rum!’ one of them cried hoarsely. ‘We want suffin for keep our courage up. Little drop o’ rum help naygur man well to humble de buckra.’