So Colonel Guthrie advanced towards this redoubtable hill stronghold, seeing nothing but dense greenery and outcrops of rock, and hearing all round him the sound of negro horns, now soft and low, welcoming, beseeching, now loud and threatening, daring him to come farther, now with a shrill wild clangour, warning those behind that the white man was come in force. But he advanced very slowly, making all the signs he could that he came in peace. On he came, on and on, and there must have been some amongst his followers who feared lest he risked too much, and some who, seeing he had got so far unmolested, would gladly have risked all and made a dash for the huts, whose grey smoke they could see streaming up in the clear morning air above the dense greenery. But Colonel Guthrie held them all, and, stretching out his hand, he called out that he came in peace, that he had come by the Governor's orders to make them an offer of peace, and that the white people eagerly desired it. If the Maroons had only known it, it was a great confession of failure on the part of the arrogant whites. Back came the answer in negro jargon that the Maroons too desired peace, and they begged that the troops might be kept back. They had reverted to savagedom, these people; the men were warriors and hunters, having from two to six wives, who tilled the ground as well as bore the children. I can imagine what a danger they must have been, set in the midst of a slave population; for one thing, they were always ready to carry off the black women. And now Colonel Guthrie had come to put an end to it all. He shouted that he would send someone to them to show the confidence he had in their sincerity, and to explain the terms of peace. To this they agreed, and Dr Russell was elected for the purpose, and a brave man he must have been. “He advanced very confidently towards their huts,” says the historian, “near which he was met by two Maroons, whom he informed of the purport of his message and asked if either of them were Cudjoe.” They were not Cudjoe, but they promised him if no one followed him he should see the negro leader. The horns had ceased. All on that mountainside were awaiting the great event. The two men called out in the Koromantyn language, and upon all the surrounding rocks and ledges and fallen trees appeared the warriors. Very like the Ashanti of to-day they probably were with fierce dark faces, their wool brushed back above the sloping forehead and gleaming white teeth, with necklaces of seeds or bones or beads about their necks and machetes, and sometimes long muskets in their hands. And the white messenger stood there and addressed them, they were supposed to understand English and probably did understand the gist of his speech. He said that Cudjoe was a brave and a good man, and he was sure he would come down and show a disposition to live in peace and friendliness with the white people.