Rainbows End

Esteban explained, briefly, "He dared to raise his hand in anger against one of my guests."

Sebastian's face was working as he turned upon his master to say: "I would be lying if I told you that I am sorry for what I did. It is you have done wrong. Your soul is black with this crime. Where is my girl?"

"The devil! To hear you talk one would think you were a free man." The planter's eyes were bleared and he brandished his riding-whip threateningly. "I do as I please with my slaves. I tolerate no insolence. Your girl? Well, she's in the house of Salvador, Don Pablo's cochero, where she belongs. I've warned him that he will have to tame her unruly spirit, as I have tamed yours."

Sebastian had hung sick and limp against the grating, but at these words he suddenly roused. It was as if a current of electricity had galvanized him. He strained at his manacles and the bars groaned under his weight. His eyes began to roll, his lips drew back over his blue gums. Noting his expression of ferocity, Esteban cut at his naked back with the riding-whip, crying: "Ho! Not subdued yet, eh? You need another flogging."

"Curse you and all that is yours," roared the maddened slave. "May you know the misery you have put upon me. May you rot for a million years in hell." The whip was rising and falling now, for Esteban had lost what little self-control the liquor had left to him. "May your children's bodies grow filthy with disease; may they starve; may they--"

Sebastian was yelling, though his voice was hoarse with pain. The lash drew blood with every blow. Meanwhile, he wrenched and tugged at his bonds with the fury of a maniac.

"Pablo! Your machete, quick!" panted the slave-owner. "God's blood! I'll make an end of this black fiend, once for all."

Esteban Varona's guests had looked on at the scene with the same mild interest they would display at the whipping of a balky horse: and, now that the animal threatened to become dangerous, it was in their view quite the proper thing to put it out of the way. Don Pablo Peza stepped toward his mare to draw the machete from its scabbard. But he did not hand it to his friend. He heard a shout, and turned in time to see a wonderful and a terrible thing.

Sebastian had braced his naked feet against the wall; he had bowed his back and bent his massive shoulders--a back and a pair of shoulders that looked as bony and muscular as those of an ox--and he was heaving with every ounce of strength in his enormous body. As Pablo stared he saw the heavy grating come away from its anchorage in the solid masonry, as a shrub is uprooted from soft ground. The rods bent and twisted; there was a clank and rattle and clash of metal upon the flags; and then--Sebastian turned upon his tormentor, a free man, save only for the wide iron bracelets and their connecting chain. He was quite insane. His face was frightful to behold; it was apelike in its animal rage, and he towered above his master like some fabled creature out of the African jungle of his forefathers.