"Heyday," said Felix, "what's the matter? I see no clouds, yet the sun is overcast. It increases;"--the oxen on the hill sides turned and looked over their shoulders with a puzzled look, as if they did not know what to make of it, no more than ourselves--"Can't be time to go home to take our night spell in that weary mill yet, surely?" The large carrion crows rapidly declined in their flight, narrowing their sweeping circles gradually, until they pirouetted down, and settled, with outstretched wings, on the crags above us; startling forth half a dozen bats, and a slow sailing owl, the latter fluttering about as if scarcely awake, and then floating away steadily amongst the bushes, as if he had said--"Come, it must be the _gloaming_ after all--so here goes for mousey." The negroes suddenly intermitted the chipping and tinkling of their hoes, and the gabbling of their tongues, as they leant on the shanks of the former, and looked up. "Heigh, wurra can be come over de daylight, and no shell blow yet?"[1] [1] The gangs are turned in at dinner-time by the sounding of a conch shell. We now perceived the chirping of insects and reptiles that usually prevails, during the hours of night in the West Indies, begin to breeze up. First a lizard would send forth a solitary whistle, as much as to say, "It can't be night yet surely?" Then, from the opposite side of the way, another would respond, with a low startled "_wheetle wheetle_," which might be interpreted, "Indeed but it is though;" and on this, as if there had been no longer any doubt about the matter, the usual concert of crickets, beetles, lizards, and tree toads, buzzed away as regularly as if it had indeed been evening in very truth. "An eclipse of the sun," said I, and sure enough so it was; for in half an hour it gradually lightened again, and every thing became once more as bright and cheery, and everyday-like as before. We arrived at Bogwalk tavern to dinner, where we found a grand party of the officers of the regiment of foot militia, and also of the troop. The general commanding the district had reviewed them that morning, and was to have dined with them, but for some reason or another he had to return to Spanish Town immediately after the review. It was a formidable thing meeting so many red coats and gay laced blue jackets; and, of course, I was much gratified to learn, that the brown company fired remarkably well--how steadily the grenadiers passed in review--and how soldier-like Captain M'----, who commanded the light horse, had given the word of command. "How thoroughly your horse is broke now, Mac.," said a tall man, with a nose like a powder-horn--"steady as a rock, and such courage!" "Courage!" rejoined Captain Mac., "he would charge up to the mouth of a cannon." "Ay," whispered Flamingo to me, "if a bag of corn were hung on the muzzle."