Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

The planter is not himself a native of this State – in other words a Creole[28 - a Creole – in the old French or Spanish states in the south of the USA, a person of pure European or mixed European origin; descendants of the French and Spanish settlers]; but the type is exhibited in the countenance of his son – still more in that fair face, seen occasionally through the curtains of the carriole, and whose delicate features declare descent from one of those endorsed damsels – filles à la casette – who, more than a hundred years ago, came across the Atlantic provided with proofs of their virtue – in the casket!

A grand sugar planter of the South is Woodley Poindexter; one of the highest and haughtiest of his class; one of the most profuse in aristocratic hospitalities: hence the necessity of forsaking his Mississippian home, and transferring himself and his “penates[29 - penates – home, household; in Roman mythology, Penates were household gods who protected the house],” – with only a remnant of his “niggers,” – to the wilds of south-western Texas.

The sun is upon the meridian line, and almost in the zenith. The travellers tread upon their own shadows. Enervated by the excessive heat, the white horsemen sit silently in their saddles. Even the dusky pedestrians, less sensible to its influence, have ceased their garrulous “gumbo;” and, in straggling groups, shamble listlessly along in the rear of the waggons.

The silence – solemn as that of a funereal procession – is interrupted only at intervals by the pistol-like crack of a whip, or the loud “wo-ha,” delivered in deep baritone from the thick lips of some sable teamster.

Slowly the train moves on, as if groping its way. There is no regular road. The route is indicated by the wheel-marks of some vehicles that have passed before – barely conspicuous, by having crushed the culms of the shot grass.

Notwithstanding the slow progress, the teams are doing their best. The planter believes himself within less than twenty miles of the end of his journey.

Unexpectedly the drivers are directed to pull up, by a sign from the overseer; who has been riding a hundred yards in the advance, and who is seen to make a sudden stop – as if some obstruction had presented itself.

He comes trotting back towards the train. His gestures tell of something amiss.