Dyck rode the unpaved streets on his
horse with its high demipicque Spanish saddle, with its silver stirrups
and heavy bit, and made his way towards Charlotte Bedford's lodgings.
Dyck looked round upon the town with new eyes. He saw it like one for
the first time visiting it. He saw the people passing through the wide
verandahs of the houses, like a vast colonnade, down the street, to be
happily sheltered from the fierce sun. As he had come down from the
hills he thought he had never seen the houses look more beautiful in
their gardens of wild tamarinds, kennips, cocoa-nuts, pimentos, and
palms, backed by negro huts. He had seen all sorts of people at the
draw-wells of the houses-British, Spanish, French, South American,
Creoles, and here and there a Maroon, and the everlasting negro who sang
as he worked:
"Come along o' me, my buccra brave,
You see de shild de Lord he gave:
You drink de sangaree,
I make de frichassee--"
Here a face peeped out from the glazed sash of the jalousies of the
balconies above--a face that could never be said to be white, though it
had only a tinge of black in its coaxing beauty.
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