Page:Famous Negro robber, and terror of Jamaica, or, The history and adventures of Jack Mansong.pdf/10

 It was now five o'clock, and the sun had risen; the streaks of darkness were all dispelled, and morning beheld the havoc which shameless night had aided. Jack, now aware that the colony would proceed against him, called off his troops, and prepared for the fight.

The Governor sent 500 choice Maroons in pursuit of those rebels. They met and fought. The negroes, as before, rushed upon their guns, but the Maroons firing as they retreated, kept them at bay and made great slaughter. Jack in vain encouraged his men, he could not rouse them to the combat, and they fled in every direction.

Next day the Governor published a proclamation, offering a free pardon to such of the insurgents as would return to their duty. This had the desired effect; for they all returned except Jack, who still determined to harass the Europeans. He again repaired to the cave of Amalkir, who hung an obi horn about his neck, rare for its supposed virtues.

Dr. Mosley, in his Treatise on Sugar, says—"I saw the obi of the famous negro robber, Three-Finger'd Jack, the terror of Jamaica, in 1780. The Maroon who slew him brought it me. It consisted of a goat's horn, filled with a compound of grave dirt, ashes, the blood of a black cat, and human fat, all mixed into a kind of paste: a cat's foot, a dried toad, a pig's tail, a slip of virginal parchment of kid-skin, with characters marked with blood on it, were also in his obian bag. These, with a keen sabre, and two guns, were all his obi; with which, and his courage in descending into the plains, and plundering to supply his wants, and his skill in retreating into difficult fastnesses among the mountains, commanding the only access to them, where none dared to follow him, he terrified the inhabit-