The negro chief had driven them to woo him with soft words, and he did not understand the greatness of his victory, or perhaps he would have driven a harder bargain. Several Maroons came forward, amongst them one whom it was easy to see was their leader. And behold the great negro chief who had kept the country at bay, for whose reduction regiments had been sent from England, was a monstrous misshaped dwarf, humpbacked, with strongly marked African features, “and a peculiar wildness in his manner.” He was clad in rags. He had on the tattered remains of an old blue coat, of which the skirts and the sleeves below the elbows were missing, round his head was a dirty white cloth, so dirty it was difficult to realise its original colour, a pair of loose drawers that did not reach the knees covered his substantial short legs, and he wore a hat that was only a crown, for the rim had long since gone. A bag of large slugs and a cow's horn full of powder was slung on his right side, and on his left, hung by a narrow leather strap under his arm, a sharp knife, or as they called it then, a “mushet” or “couteau.” A miserable savage after all was the great negro chief, and all his person was smeared with the red earth of the cockpits. Neither he nor his followers had a shirt to their names, though all had guns and cutlasses. And the squat, dwarf-like chieftain who had held up the island was nervous. Facing the white man, who looked down upon him, he shifted uneasily as a negro would, and at last Russell offered to change hats with him--a brave man indeed, but the island was in straits! Upon this the Maroons came down armed, and Colonel Guthrie and the other white men came forward unarmed, and Colonel Guthrie held out his hand. The emotional African seized it and kissed it--he must have been a slave once, he knew so well what the white men expected--and threw himself on the ground, embracing Colonel Guthrie's knees, kissing his feet, and asking his pardon. He was humble, penitent, abject, clearly he did not understand the situation. And the rest of the Maroons, following the example of their chieftain, prostrated themselves, and the long dreaded black freebooters were won over to the side of the white people. Then and there upon that mountain-side it was decreed that henceforward all hostilities between the Maroons and the whites should cease “for ever,” they said grandiloquently, that all the Maroons except those who had joined during the past two years should live in a state of freedom and liberty, that even the exceptions should have full pardon if they were willing to return to their former masters, and even if they did not wish to return, “they shall remain in subjection to Captain Cudjoe, and in friendship with us.” Oh, it was a glorious victory--for the Maroons!