d this had given them
confidence, filling them with defiance. They had one advantage not
possessed by the government troops and militia--they were masters of
every square rod of land in the middle and west of the island. Their
plan was to raid, to ambush, to kill and to excite the slaves to rebel.

The first assault and repulse took place not far from Enniskillen,
Dyck Calhoun's plantation, and Michael Clones captured a Maroon who was
slightly wounded.

Michael challenged him thus: "Come now, my blitherin' friend, tell
us your trouble--why are you risin'? You don't do this without
cause--what's the cause?"

The black man, naked except for a cloth about his loins, and with a
small bag at his hip, slung from a cord over his shoulder, showed his
teeth in a stark grimace.

"You're a newcomer here, massa, or you'd know we're treated bad," he
answered. "We're robbed and trod on and there's no word kept with us.
We asked the governor for more land and he moved us off. We warned
him against having one of our head young men flogged by a slave in the
presence of slaves--for we are free men, and he laughs. So, knowing a
few strong men can bring many weak men to their knees, we rose. I say
this--there's plenty weak men in Jamaica, men who don't know right when
they see it. So we rose, massa, and we'll make Jamaica sick before we've
done. They can't beat us, for we can ambush here, and shoot those that
come after us. We hide, one behind this rock and one behind that, two or
three together, and we're safe. But the white soldiers come all together
and beat drums and blow horns, and we know where they are, and so we
catch 'em and kill 'em. You'll see, we'll capture captains and generals,
and we'll cut their heads off and bury them in their own guts."

He made an ugly grimace, and a loathsome gesture, and Michael Clones
felt the man ought to die. He half drew his sword, but, thinking better
of it, he took the Maroon to the Castle and locked him up in a slave's
hut, having first bound him and put him in the charge of one he could
trust. But as he put the man away, he said:

"You talk of your people hiding, and men not being able to find you; but
did you never hear of bloodhounds, that can hunt you down, and chew you
up? Did you never hear of them?"

The man's face wrinkled like a rag, for there is one thing the native
fears more than all else, and that is the tooth of the hound. But he
gathered courage, and said: "The governor ha