“Sick with many fears we watched for the setting of the sun. It had been a hot, suffocating day, and every hour of it had indicated a fierce, and still more fierce, gathering of the combatants. Hellish cries, and shouts to the beating of drums, and the wild chanting of the Obeah priests had filled the daylight with unspeakable terrors. But when the sun sank, suddenly a preternatural calm followed. Mysterious lights were seen in the thick woods, howlings and cries, horrible and inhuman, came out of its dense darkness. Abominable sacrifices were being offered to the demon they worshipped, and we knew that as soon as these rites were over indiscriminate slaughter and devilish cruelties would begin. My mother had my little sister in her arms, and I went with her through the forest to the seaside. She reached our meeting place by one exit, I by another; for we were suspiciously watched, and durst not leave the house in a body. My father and my two eldest brothers were to join us by different routes. “That awful walk! That enchanted walk through the hot, thick forest! I shall never forget it in this life or the next--I shall never forget it! Even the insects were voiceless, and the huge serpents lay prone in spellbound stillness. We had not reached the sea before a terrific thunder storm broke over us. Then the glare and gloom made each other more awful; the black sky was torn by such lightning as you have no conception of; and in the midst of natural terrors no one can describe the blacks held a carnival of outrage and death in every conceivable form of hellish cruelty that Obeah could devise. “Nearly dead with fatigue and fright my mother reached the little cove where the ship was to meet us, and there we waited in an agony of terror for the arrival of my father and brothers. They came not. And if the ship was noticed lying near we should be discovered. I walked back as far as I durst, looking for any trace of them. My mother lay upon the sand praying. My little sister slept at her side. In that hour childhood left me forever. In that hour I learned how much one may suffer, and yet not die. Daylight began to appear, and the ship was about half a mile from the land. Then I called,--not with the voice I am now using,--but with some far mightier force, ‘_Father! Father!_’ And at that moment he appeared, pushing his way through the green tangle. And his face was whiter than death, because it was full of horror and agony, which the face of death very rarely is.