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Then we volanted back to Matanzas. The sugar-mill stood in front of the master's house, so that the master could watch from his broad balcony the bringing in of the sugar-cane, which was hauled by huge cart- loads drawn by oxen. The sugar-cane, on its arrival, was put between great crushing wheels before it was thrown into the vats.
But neither would Bates nor the German express absolute suspicion of any man. That Medlicot's "hands" at the sugar-mill were stealing his sheep Harry thought that he knew; but that was comparatively a small affair, and he would not have pressed it, as he was without absolute evidence.
Miles upon miles of the bright, golden-green sugar-cane lie in all directions, among which, here and there, is seen the little cluster of low buildings constituting the negroes' quarters attached to each plantation, and near by is the tall white chimney of the sugar-mill, emitting its thick volume of wreathing smoke, like the funnel of a steamboat.
He had often looked at the canes from over his own fence, as he had done on the night of the rain; but he had stood always on his own land. Now he was in the sugar-mill, never before having seen such a building. "You've a deal of machinery here, Mr. Medlicot," he said. "It's a small affair, after all," said the other. "I hope to get a good plant before I've done." "Can I speak a word with you?"
This place, with its leaf-thatch-covered houses and sheds, its creeper-invaded sugar-mill, its little jetty of timber and canes, was very still in the morning heat, and showed never a sign of living men. Whatever ants there were at that distance were too small to see. "All the people have gone," said Gerilleau, "but we will do one thing anyhow. We will 'oot and vissel."
The scent of the flower is very sweet, but you want distance on it, because it is so powerful. They are not good bedroom blossoms they might suffocate one in his sleep. We were certainly in the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and the plantations vast green levels, with sugar-mill and negro quarters clustered together in the middle distance were in view.
His Makololo friends, indeed, listened respectfully when he discoursed of the Saviour, but were all earnestness when he spoke of cotton cloths and muskets. Sekeletu favored the missionary, not as the man who could give him Bibles and tracts, but as the one by whose help he hoped to sell his ivory for a rifle, a sugar-mill, and brass wire.
He fired it twice with great sternness and ceremony. All the crew had wadding in their ears, and there was an effect of going into action about the whole affair, and first they hit and wrecked the old sugar-mill, and then they smashed the abandoned store behind the jetty. And then Gerilleau experienced the inevitable reaction. "It is no good," he said to Holroyd; "no good at all.
Southward it was more open, and a score of miles away merged into the llanos. "We are in good time; the moon is only just rising, and I don't think there is anybody before us," said Guzman, as we neared the old sugar-mill, a dilapidated wooden building, shaded by cebia-trees and sombrero palms. "But there is somebody behind us," I said, looking back. "A squadron of cavalry at the least."
There is a little saccharine matter in the roots of the grass-tree, and a hopeful man from Corio once built a sugar-mill near the stream, and took possession of the plain as a sugar plantation. There was much labour, but very little sugar.
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